135. On the Observing Consciousness

The observing consciousness is able to make observations with the successive mental states in life:

For 2-3 days one stands in the tyranny of one's ideas, one must follow them with one's soul life.

After 2-3 days this is no longer the case - one can then confront the recorded ideas in such a way that one can direct them as they used to direct one - one can get one to relate to the ideas in the same way as one otherwise relates to the bodily limbs through the ideas - ordinary consciousness does this unconsciously; one can get it to do it consciously. Then one feels oneself in an image-forming body - and this is capable, for example, of perceiving the image-forming body of a plant.

The powers of observation should not come 'by themselves', for then they cannot be directed. They do not serve spiritual activity, they remain unconscious organic or, at most, soul forces. Abnormal soul forces rooted in the body are diseased; and soul forces that are rooted neither in the body nor in the mind are illusions, autosuggestions.