20. How Does the Soul Find Its True Essence?

Those who wish to penetrate the spiritual world must proceed quite differently. I will therefore begin by describing the attitude that must be characteristic of the spiritual researcher. The natural scientist approaches external things and human beings themselves directly with his senses, his power of judgment, and his ordinary powers of cognition, but the spiritual researcher does not initially apply these directly. Everything that is so characteristic of him, with which he otherwise directly confronts the world, the spiritual researcher initially uses to prepare for the actual research. He applies all the thinking he can muster in this soul work, the sharpness of his thinking, the strength of his feelings and sensations, to bring his soul into a state of development, to gradually transform it inwardly into a different being, to make it ripe for what he wants to undertake. And by approaching the development of one's soul in the manner to be described later, one feels quite differently than one feels toward outer life. One feels that when one honestly engages in spiritual research, a shy reverence for the truth arises in the soul; one feels something like the truth hovering in the distance above one, and that one must first approach it. Yes, this mood intensifies more and more, so that the further one progresses in spiritual research, the more one develops the feeling: You must wait. As your soul is now, it is better for you not to approach the exploration of certain questions of spiritual life. Continue to work on your soul, and you will reach a point where you will be more mature, where the questions you want to answer today will be answered.