Confronting Lower Nature: Esoteric Training and Spiritual Progress

GA 266III — 18 December 1913, Cologne

Esoteric Lesson

Those who embark on the esoteric path must always keep their eyes on the goal of entering the spiritual world, either through death or initiation. There, things are exactly the opposite of how they are in the physical world. As soon as we begin esoteric training, the soul also changes and progress begins. The astral body and the ego dissolve, and the connection with the two lowest members is only loose. The fact that thoughts of an exoteric, often even abominable nature rush upon us during meditation is a sign of progress, for the higher powers confront us with our own lower nature; these are reminiscences that we sometimes even hear as voices and whispers around us. It is the lower nature permeated by Ahriman and Lucifer, which Lucifer and Ahriman loved so much: that is why they are within us.

The high degree of sensitivity to the environment is also a sign of the loose connection between the four limbs. The etheric body unconsciously absorbs the thoughts and feelings of the environment and then reproduces them (example: as a child before the age of seven, experiencing a dog or cat being run over; in esoteric training, the cries and lamentations of the animal could then be experienced from within us as a memory of the etheric body. Example: middle ear infection, pain associated with some kind of immorality; in the reminiscence of this, it comes out as voices that often shout horrors). We must courageously oppose all this and acquire the strength to overcome it, even if only in the next incarnation. The main thing is to always practice truthfulness, which has been completely lost in our time in the search for judgment. We are incarnated again and again in order to acquire truthfulness and morality in the physical world and take them with us into the spiritual world. Ahriman has taken possession of the world, and we must maintain the counterbalance through our esoteric life, keeping in mind the Bible verse: Christ came to take our weakness upon himself.