{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 202/1920-12-14/p015","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"But what did a student acquire by going through these exercises in ancient India? He made the breathing process into something conscious, that is, he inhaled consciously. Through these exercises he gradually acquired the possibility of following the process that takes place when the pressure of inhalation causes the brain fluid to oscillate toward the brain through the spinal canal, and to strike, as it were, against the brain. It is this impact of the brain fluid against the solid parts of the brain (this brain fluid, which rushes upward during inhalation, falling again during exhalation), it is this impact that causes mental pictures to arise. The production of mental pictures is something much more complicated than is imagined today, when everything is thought out materialistically. Today it is thought—or at least it was until recently, for today people are no longer interested in thinking in clear concepts—it is thought that some kind of evolution, some nerves underlie the forming of mental pictures. This is nonsense. The real fact is that there is actually a constant striking of the brain fluid against the nerve system taking place which starts off those processes underlying the forces of the nervous system. The ancient Indian student of wisdom raised this activity to consciousness. What did he learn by following this whole process consciously? He learned from it how the underlying processes which had formed his brain really point back to former earth lives. Through his present rhythmic system he experienced, so to speak, his former earth life; this past earth life became a certainty to him. For such a student of wisdom it was simply self-evident that he had had a previous earth life. He could perceive it, you understand, by raising his breathing process to consciousness. Today this must be accomplished in another way. It cannot be brought about today by meditation that arises from a special way of shaping the breathing process; for this method must not be used by the modern human being. Quite the contrary, meditation today should proceed from a quiet dwelling on mental pictures: thus it starts out from the opposite side, and thereby takes into consideration the fact that modern man is much more closely united with his physical body. But by dwelling quietly on a mental picture, we learn to know this nuance of the rhythmic system from the other side, from the spirit-soul side. We come to know the process from the other side; in such a way, however, that we do not penetrate deeper into our body, as did the ancient Indian,—indeed we must not do so, because we have already penetrated into it deeply enough; but by freeing ourselves from the corporeal nature, we trace out the whole cosmos in the realm of spirit and soul, and the cosmos teaches us how the former earth life is connected with this life.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"The Souls Progress through Repeated Earth Lives","site_heading":null,"date":"1920-12-14","location":null,"word_count":479,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/202/1920-12-14/p015","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:embedding","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Elly Havas","identified_edition":"Singles","book_title":null,"publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA202/English/Singles/19201214p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/202/1920-12-14/p015"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/202/1920-12-14/p015","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1920-12-14","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 202/1920-12-14/p012","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/202/1920-12-14/p012"},{"locus":"GA 202/1920-12-14/p013","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/202/1920-12-14/p013"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":620,"en_words":670,"ratio":1.08,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.86,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":7560,"original_word_count":8791,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Elly Havas","identified_edition":"Singles","book_title":null,"publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA202/English/Singles/19201214p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 202/1920-12-14/p012","GA 202/1920-12-14/p013"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}