Spirit, Self-Knowledge, and the Esoteric Path

GA 266III — 8 June 1913, Stockholm

Esoteric Lesson

Becoming and being an esoteric is not something comfortable, and it would not be possible if it were comfortable, strange as that may sound.

One of the things that esoterics need most is to follow the ancient Greek saying: Know thyself! It sounds strange, but it is nevertheless true that human beings basically know everything else on the physical plane better than they know themselves. They also know other people better than they know themselves. Self-knowledge is so difficult because those who begin to practice it soon make discoveries that are unpleasant to them; then they prefer to leave it alone and not pursue it further.

However, one should also practice self-knowledge of human beings in general. If one does so, one soon arrives at three discoveries. These consist in the fact that human beings, as they are in their physical incarnation, first of all do not want to acknowledge the spirit, they deny it; secondly, they want to run away from the spirit, they are actually afraid of it; thirdly, they do not love the spirit at the bottom of their souls, but actually hate it.

People do not want to acknowledge the spirit when it appears to them in its true form on the physical plane. For example, when someone sees a rose, they will say that they form a mental image of the rose, but they will believe that this image also originates from the external world. This is a failure to recognize the spirit, for in reality our mental images, our thoughts, do not come from the external world at all, but are given to us directly from the spiritual world. When people hear this, they say: No, I do not want the spirit in this form! But basically they do not want the spirit at all, but would prefer to run away from it as far as possible.

Let us assume that two lectures are announced on a notice board: one on a theosophical topic, so that one knows from the outset that one will have to think along with what is being said and work with one's mind; the other lecture is one with slides. Where do people go most? At the lecture with slides, they do not need to be attentive from within themselves, but their attention is forced to remain on the object.

attention is forced to remain on the subject. But it is precisely this compulsion that causes it to be not oneself who thinks, but Ahriman. At a theosophical lecture, everyone is asked to “be present”; at a lecture with slides, Ahriman is asked to think for the people.

The greatest necromancers are the materialists. Every materialistic gathering is nothing more than an invocation of Ahriman, because deep down in their souls they are afraid of the spirit. People run away from the spirit because they cannot love it. It is fortunate for us today that there are individuals who instinctively feel that they should engage with what theosophy has to offer and thus attain the spirit. None of the usual inclinations of human beings in physical existence would lead them to this. But people do not love the spirit either.

What is the actual state of love? When the clairvoyant investigates this, he may come to bitter experiences as long as he does not view these experiences in the light of a greater whole. Let us assume that two people are born who, through their karma, are destined to love each other in this life. Then the clairvoyant can often observe that before these people were born, they hated each other in the spiritual world. Or a mother has a child whom she raises with love, according to the wise order of the world. But before she was born, she may have hated the child. Here we come to an area where the wise guidance of the world has acted with particular wisdom. For in the vast majority of cases, what binds people together in “love” is selfishness. One loves another because one finds it pleasant to be near the beloved being. The good gods had to use egoism in order to educate people in love. Without resorting to this means of egoism – now that the Luciferic influence had come into being – no human beings could be brought to work out karmic bonds through love relationships; the mother would not want to give birth to the child who is karmically connected to her, and so on. Thus, in this world, everything is really reversed; love is given by Lucifer and Ahriman, egoism by the advancing gods, so that through the refinement of egoism, human beings can attain true love.

This is said here in order to point out the following. Beginning esotericists often come and complain about the thoughts that assail them during their meditation. It is actually a sign of progress that one feels these thoughts; it proves that we no longer have Lucifer and Ahriman only within ourselves, but that we are beginning to perceive them as powers outside ourselves, for such thoughts that arise are entirely from Lucifer and Ahriman. If everything had remained as it was originally intended, then after the Luciferic temptation, human beings would never have been able to forget their thoughts. They would always have had access to the Akashic Records, but it would have been Lucifer and Ahriman who wrote these records for them. Therefore, the good gods had to arrange things so that human beings could also forget their thoughts.

Everything that sinks down into the unconscious is dead, but Lucifer and Ahriman devour it all. They make it part of their being, and as Luciferic and Ahrimanic nature, it comes out again in people during meditation. As soon as someone sets out to meditate, Lucifer's hope rises: Perhaps I will yet prevail in the world! And then he assails the human being with his discarded thoughts. Human beings actually love this wandering from thought to thought, and they do not love contemplation, remaining filled with the content of a thought.

Observe how long a non-esoteric person (an esoteric person still has a certain [self-imposed] compulsion to do so) carries out a resolution, for example, like the Essene disciple, to give thanks every morning for the rising of the sun, if he has voluntarily undertaken to do so. How few will continue for more than a few days!

In reality, human beings do not love the spirit at all. They have to force themselves to keep certain thoughts in their souls for a long time. It is actually Lucifer and Ahriman whom human beings truly love. As a protest against this fact, we have our Rosicrucian motto:

Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.