V. The Two Main Streams of Post-Atlantean Civilisation

Therefore when we speak of this in terms of Spiritual Science, we rightly say that the moment a man wakes in the morning he passes through the portal of his own being. But at this portal stands a Watcher, the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold, who does not allow him to penetrate into his own being but diverts him immediately to the external world. Every morning a man meets this Lesser Guardian. Knowledge of him comes to anyone who, on waking, consciously passes into his astral, etheric and physical sheaths. And in the mystical life it is only a question of whether this Lesser Guardian benevolently dims our consciousness of our own inner being so that we cannot descend into it, diverting our ’I’ to the environment, or whether he allows us to enter through the portal into our own nature and being. The mystical life consists essentially in passing the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold and entering into our inmost self.