Addenda to “Spiritual Exercises II” GA 268

The organism cannot be explained without
the prerequisite of a world soul, just as
the world plan cannot be explained without the prerequisite of a
world rational being. —

October 6, 1905

Through me, powerfully flowing,
Flowing vigorously,
Flowing from below to above,
Strengthening itself above in the spirit,
Strengthening me, the source of life,
The source of life that descended,
Descended from the sun through me.

Undatable

Evening:

Love thinks my head
Love feels my heart
Love wants my limbs.

Morning:

You, my heart, find strength
In you
To release
To act
From you
That flows
Into the world.

January 11, undated

That you may recognize the strength within you:
Be still and recognize,
That I am the power within you.
There is no power in circumstances
There is no power in the personal
There is only power in Me, who I am
Your primordial being.

1913 or later

In the morning:

Imagine the setting sun, the sun should speak:

Your heart
be strong
and receive
strength
from light air
Earth.

Evening:

Imagine the rising moon, speak to the moon:

I want to
live
in the strength
of my heart
every day
every hour
always.

September 5, 1922

Lie still, letting your body surrender to its own weight

Listen to undefined sounds
TAO
Imagine stepping outside yourself
Imagine hearing IA O from within yourself
then observe.

undatable

In the beginning was the Word 4
And the Word was with God 3
And God was the Word 2
And the Word: let it sound in your soul 1

The universe sounds in you: in the evening for the rising sun

You sound in the universe: in the morning for the setting sun.

Waking, waiting
Waiting, waking.

For Julius Breitenstein,
June 7–27, 1918

I am I in God
God is I in me
In hoc signo vinces

undatable

[downwards]

l. Steadfast, I stand in existence
r. Confidently, I cry out the path of life.

Chr.

Wisdom as light
Kindness as warmth
Beauty as strength
Shine into your soul
Carry you
Guide you
Lift you up
you —

[upwards]

Into your light
Into your warmth
Into your beauty
Into your rays
Let
Go
Lift me up
I

For H.L. Schetelig,
undatable

You, who descend from the brightness of the spirit
Into the darkness of the earth
To unfold the light of the spirit
In the resistance of existence
To ignite the warmth of the spirit
To bring about the powers of the spirit
May my love warm you
Bright thinking
Restful feeling
Healing will,
That rooted in spiritual heights
Working in the foundations of the earth
You become servants of the word
Enlightening the spirit
Working love
Empowering being.

undatable

Meditation for a mentally ill Russian, Paris 1906

When Rudolf Steiner held the cycle for Russian friends in Paris in May/June 1906, which is printed in the volume “Kosmogonie,” GA 94, many people came to ask for advice and help with personal problems, including a Russian philosopher whose name is unknown and about whom Marie Steiner reports the following:

"In addition to literary figures such as Balmont, Minskij, Mereschkowskij, Hippius, Schur... came here, as everywhere, those who, broken by fate, sought help in their distress from Rudolf Steiner. There, for the first time, I experienced what I later encountered so often: the depths of that madness that can remain completely hidden from people because it appears so clever. A Russian philosopher came, an expert on Fichte. He spoke gently, calmly, and modestly. I had to interpret. At first, it went quite well. He had realized that the world rests in the self, that the self has created everything, including the world and itself. Then came the problem. "The world is bad, it is evil, but I created it, so it is my duty to destroy it. So I began to kill. First I killed >. He described a region on the Amur River where he claimed to have committed his first murder, then he continued. "I must confess, I faltered and looked questioningly at Rudolf Steiner. He nodded to us kindly and encouragingly. I continued to translate, but also to watch to see if the gentleman would pull out a revolver to finish us off as the next ones. But Rudolf Steiner gave him friendly advice, led him back from his lofty heights of thought to the world of everyday objects, which, from a certain point of view, he had not all made himself and therefore did not need to destroy, and thus gave him some pointers to relieve his conscience of the pressure of world responsibility and the duty of world destruction. “How is it possible that he is walking around freely?” I asked when he had left. “It's all imagination,” said Rudolf Steiner, “he hasn't killed anyone, he's just imagining it.”

Rudolf Steiner even gave the Russian philosopher this advice, together with instructions for meditative practice, in written form. The four-page manuscript (as a template for translation) reads as follows:

You have stopped halfway in your insights. You must also cover the second half of the path. There are philosophers in the world who, like you, have interrupted their development. Kant, for example, is one such philosopher. But Kant was a purely theoretical nature. That is why the philosophical question did not become a question of life for him. If he had not been a philistine but a “human being,” he would have had to suffer greatly because of his views. But he was not strong enough by nature to endure this suffering. His thinking did not permeate his ‘feelings’ or his “wills.”

Your nature, however, demands that you bring your thinking into harmony with your feeling and willing. You have many correct views. But you must complete the second half of your journey. It is quite true that you yourself have created everything around you. You have created all mountains, all plants, all animals, and also all human beings, because your essence is identical with the essence of the whole world. But what matters for your life is not that you have created all things, but that you not only know: I have created this or that, but that you remember exactly when you created this or that. For example, you created your own mother; but just ask yourself: "Can I remember exactly when I created my mother? Are all the details of this creation clear to me?“ Give yourself an honest answer, and you will have to say to yourself: ”No, I cannot remember." There is a German philosopher named Jakob Böhme. He also said: I myself created the world; but he was so advanced in his knowledge that he could say: I remember every detail. You cannot do that yet. And if you claim that you can, then you are not telling yourself the truth. You created everything, that is true. But you are not creating anything now. You are only enjoying, and because you do not want to create anything, but only enjoy, all your creations have no value for you. If you are honest with yourself, you do not even remember how and when you created your boots; your shoemaker has an advantage over you in that he remembers. And that is what matters.

To cover the second half of the journey, you must now do a very specific exercise.

You have also created your own body. But you don't remember that either. You must learn to remember it. You can do that if you want to. Your own body has an advantage over you in that it remembers everything. But every other part of your body can do this better than your head. You make the big mistake of only following your head. But it deceives you about your own creation. You must descend into your body. This is how you do it!

Early in the morning, sit quietly on a chair for a quarter of an hour and think of nothing but your own feet. With all the intensity of your thinking, you must shift your entire consciousness to your feet and keep the thought in your feet for the entire quarter of an hour:

I want to be in you.

You must manage to think of nothing else for the entire quarter of an hour and feel all the power of your entire being only in your feet. —

At noon, between 12:00 and 1:00, you must sit down again and think about your lower abdomen (belly) for a quarter of an hour, specifically the navel area, and transfer your entire consciousness there, just as you did in the morning with your feet, and think:

I feel myself within you.

In the evening, before you fall asleep, you must think about the inside of your head in the same way and have the following idea:

I am.

If you do this patiently for a long time—perhaps half a year—then you will recognize the goal of your life and of all life. You will certainly do so. No one else can tell you this goal. I know this goal, but it would be of no value to tell you, because you would not understand my words today. but if you do the exercise long enough, it will be child's play for you to understand yourself and thus the world.

It will be so; and if you find the courage to do what I have told you here, you will have something that you will later call the “philosopher's stone.”

But you must not do nothing in the meantime; instead, fill this time with work that is useful to you and your fellow human beings. Even if you do not believe today that this is useful, it does not matter. Do not ask yourself whether you find your work useful, but whether others find what you do useful.

You do not need to change your lifestyle in terms of food and drink, but you must avoid anything that contains alcohol and anything that numbs the senses.

All of this is right for you.