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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Eleventh Lesson
02 Jun 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Eleventh Lesson
02 Jun 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends, concerning the inner nature of esoteric striving, a person must gaze at least a little at what works on him and guides his way. Out of this comes true insight of spiritual things. Of course, how far someone progresses along this path depends entirely on karma, on one’s personal karma, on the baggage brought along from earlier lives on earth. But not just on this, but rather, as noted in exoteric lectures that have been held here previously, it also depends on what heartfelt matters and what world situations a person finds himself in by happenstance on this life on earth. There are various old karmic relics to be carried about, hindrances in the pursuit and achievement of what could be within one’s grasp, except for these attachments. And there is quite a lot that could be accomplished in a short time without this karmic baggage, that otherwise can only be accomplished after quite an extended period of time. We should never, my dear brothers and sisters, give up hope for any reason whatsoever, losing patience or energy, but should continue on our way. When the right time arrives, we will find, we will certainly find what has been pre-determined for us, for each person has his own path in life. In spite of everything, perhaps even in spite of freedom, certain avenues of life have been pre-determined. Each and every person is called to a mission in the world, and will consummate it, if he or she has the good will to do it. Here in this college of spiritual insight all should reappear and be enacted, enacted in the form proper to our time, and to future times, all that once lived in the mysteries, living when the mysteries were in full bloom in the past. After the height of the flowering of the mysteries, which in fact already had passed when the greatest mystery occurred – which I would like to say was mostly concealed in what was recorded as world history, namely the Mystery of Golgotha – after the height of the flowering of the mysteries, which had already faded away, following this came a time in which there was a return to the mysteries, a return that happened in the developmental history of mankind. People at that time, specifically because of the return to the mysteries, were more and more able to take part in world-progression streams that lead to freedom. But now is not the time for the mysteries to take the form that they must yet take, in which they again come alive in the fullest sense of the word. Sometime in the future, when these things become understood properly, the structure and work of the Goetheanum will be appreciated properly, so that a person will recognize that the Goetheanum by obligation is here to renew the mysteries. And only then, my dear brothers and sisters, when we are motivated with a force of will to regard this school in this manner, that through us a renewal of the mysteries can be established in this school, only then will we stand properly within these mysteries, and also within this school. Now straightaway I would like to remind you what was brought forth here during the last Class lesson, so that what has already been said will live, fully be alive in your hearts and minds. In that which has already been presented is the avenue by which meditation really is placed directly into one’s experiencing, so that the person meditating is cast loose from the narrow confines of personality. In the three-part construction of the last meditative verse, we have seen quite notably in what manner a person may insinuate himself into world progression, so that within the meditation one places oneself in relationship, not only to what resounds within his soul, but rather to what sounds forth from his soul, to what in a certain way is enmeshed in a sort of universal world speech, yes, universal world speech. Only so, gradually setting in place a dissociation from one’s personality, finding a way to meditate inwardly in an ever more and more objective manner, only so will one then also be able to walk the intimate subtle path which is the true path of human understanding. But doing this requires that a person becomes distinctly objective while coursing along the path of human truth. You all know, of course, my dear brothers and sisters, what has often been described as the three members of a human being’s nature. First there is the person of sense and nerves, primarily represented in the human head. Then there is the person of rhythm, primarily represented in the thorax, concentrated in the organs of breathing and circulation. All of these organs are everywhere in one’s organism, although they are somewhat more distinctly placed at the forefront in one place or another. And then we have the organization of the metabolism and the arms and legs, localized and centralized both below and to the outside. All this can become so well known that to a certain extent it may remain theoretical, but it can become objective through meditation. And when it becomes objective through meditation, then it enters the arena of the esoteric. To this end we must continue to meditate both intensively and intimately as we place the three-membered human being before our eyes. First, we have the head organization, a true representation of the entire cosmos. Then we have the chest organization, the rhythmic organization, which does not show a picture of the cosmos so immediately in its form. And showing the picture of the cosmos least of all is the organization of limbs and metabolism. A person must become intimately aware of how he incorporates the cosmos in each of these organizations. He must be quite clear about it, about what specifically works and moves about in his head, at the head of his organism. As in catching an aroma, we immediately know that when we think, our head is in activity. And we sense and immediately know that when the head is passive, the activity of thinking has stopped. We sense in normal (and abnormal) settings the unity of the head with the clearest, brightest human activities on earth. This does not mean that the head is actually the bearer of the brightest human activities on earth, but we sense the connection, it appears to be so. But what exactly is being presented here? When do we really observe ourselves in our heads in the proper manner? Only, my dear brothers and sisters, if we ourselves become aware that the human head would simply not be there if the starry heavens were not arching over us. What astronomy has to say about this we momentarily shall set aside and forego such a challenge. For now, we shall simply consider what presents itself shining before our eyes, the starry heavens, the exalted starry heavens. In the last lesson much was already spoken about this. The stars are present overhead. Their brilliant rays come down and shine upon us, if we gaze out upon them. And they don’t just come to us, for we gather them in. And the specific things that we gather into our heads from the brilliant radiance of the stars, these things we seal up within the head. Out of this germinates and shoots up what specifically constitutes our most human activity upon the earth, our thinking. And we must imagine it, that out there are the stars, and our head takes in the effect of the streaming brilliance of the stars. It appears as if the stars out there have sent their radiance down here. The head takes up this radiation, and then what has been taken up dwells in our heads. In our heads it is taken up quite differently than it exists out there, but it is the same, in a way. In our heads is the gathered-together condition of the entire starry heavens. But only the starry heavens? No, not only the starry heavens. For what are the stars? What are they, that individually as resting stars in the depths of space stream down upon us? They are the dwelling places of gods. They are the sites where the gods dwell. There the gods were sought in all times, always when instinctive clairvoyance knew where the gods were dwelling, and which dwelling sites were worthy of the gods. In the times in which such clairvoyance was prevalent, a person gazing out into space was presented not with what seemed to be burning points in the cosmos, but rather a person was presented with the god’s dwelling places. Back then, a person had a truer conception than one has today of just what was in the vast depths of space, whereas today by means of astronomy a person gazes out and evaluates the points of light according to their position and their angular distance from one another. Although a person is a three-membered being, he speaks and works out of his “I am” nature, his ego, which holds all together, all three members of his being, the nerve-sensory head system, the rhythmic chest system, and the metabolic-limb system. All this is held together only due to the physical body being a unity. Actually, however, a person always sends himself, his ego into the three individual members, and today, we will learn to identify just how he sends this ego into the individual members. A person presently says “I” out of the innermost part of his nature, initially through his thoughts in his head. In reality, it is this way: [it was drawn] that which is displayed out there in the element of the brilliance of the stars [blue arch, yellow stars] is what is working in the human head [yellow arch and rays from the stars]. It is out there but also within [red points]. A person says his “I” out of the center of his being in this convoluted open space, which is the inner nature of his head, from within out [an arrow accompanied by the word “I” in gold]. And he should become aware, when he says his “I” inwardly in the central part of his human nature, which is an image of the god’s dwelling places, then working in him are the gods, they who dwell in the dwelling places of the gods, they themselves. Then we are meditating properly, when we ourselves become aware, that when we say “I” through the force of our head, speaking in us are the gods of universal space and universal time.  And this is no lesson that will be given to us on earth. This is a lesson, my dear brothers and sisters, that is given to us by the principalities of the higher hierarchies themselves, initially from the high spiritual beings that are with us men and women of earth, the angelic beings and the directing archangels in the background. This part of the human being, standing in this relationship to the homes and dwellings of the gods that are in the radiant stars, this part of the human being, speaking out of the divine beings themselves, this “I” should allow itself to be instructed as to its own essential nature by those high spiritual beings, who in our designating the hierarchies we have always addressed as angels. So, to consummate the meditation properly, we consummate it in this way: we gaze out, allowing ourselves to be struck within by the brilliance of the stars, and sense that the depths of space itself sounds forth the words to us. And these words shall be:
This resounds in the periphery. We envision it so that we hear it from the depths of space:
For us, this becomes an echo within us. We handle it as a clarion call, but a clarion call that comes into motion within us, for all the heavens resound within these words. So, we start with the meditation. And then we become aware of what we ourselves have to say in return, where from out of the most intimate part our souls we calmly answer the universal trumpeted tone:
That is what we say. And in our meditative envisioning, the angel who belongs to us then answers, when the ego speaks just so, when the ego says “I am”:
meaning the gods,
That is the sense of this meditation. We hear it surrounding us, trumpeting forth in the world, coming from all sides and resounding within.
We answer, reciting out of our inner stillness:
The angel answers, gazing out to the out-flowing source of the trumpeted tone:
And we take up these last two lines, spoken by the angel, into our meditative envisioning, as an instruction. [Now the first section was written on the board.]
The gathered-up radiance of the stars, the human radiance: The “I am”: The spirited angel instructor:
the “World’s-starry-places”, the “Gods’-home-dwellings”,
That is the first dialogue with the cosmos and with the third hierarchy. Taken into consideration in this manner, it is a prodigiously engaging meditation deep within the human spirit, the human soul, the human body. Now we shall proceed to the human rhythmic organization. As we think about the lungs and the heart, about the wonderful pulsations, about the rhythm of breathing, which reveal an expression of deepest universal rhythms in a person’s own organization, we catch a sense of movement. As we sink down in meditation in our head, we embrace calmness. As we sink down in meditation into our chest, we embrace movement. And this movement is an image of the coursing of the wandering stars, of the movement of the wandering stars, of the movement of Moon, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. The Sun is also a representative of this movement. It is certainly closest to us. It journeys once a day around our earth, seemingly. So it can remain as a representative. But in the same direct manner within which we unite with World’s-starry-places, with Gods’-home-dwellings, just so do we gather together the movement of the whole planetary system in our breathing, in our blood circulation, in all that is in movement in our organism. Therefore, we must envision, that just as the dominion of the stately home of the gods is heralded in the trumpeting forth from all sides, just so, drawn through us, drawn through our bodies as melodious tones, is what the movements of the wandering stars have to say to us, represented by the Sun.
That is the second, calmly in relationship next to the loud trumpeting forth all over the world of:
So it sounds majestically from all sides. We must hold it in meditation. But while cheering and pervading our inner life, it is following the journeying of the Sun and the journeying of the other wandering stars in our breathing, in our blood circulation.
Now once again we ourselves speak intimately, motivated by what resounds melodically within our own body out of the starry circling. We now intimately speak forth out of ourselves:
Then the angel answers, speaking to the gods wandering in planetary pathways.
As human essential being itself lives upon the earth by means of what radiates in, coming from the dwelling places of the gods, so human creativity, changeability, what is in flux in people on earth lives by means of the active, effective streaming of the gods in the movements of the planets, is taken up by the whole of a person’s rhythmic system. And so again we have the three-legged verse: objectivity whispering through our body in the sense of the changing transformative force of the planets, our own intimate inner declaration, and the answer of the angel.
[At this point the second verse was written on the board.]
Above we see “said”, here “intoned”, above “in head’s heights”, here “in heart’s middle.” [Said, intoned, heights, center were underlined.]
Above we see “I am”, here “I live.” [“am” and “live” were underlined.]
Each one of us must come into familiarity with this verse in three parts. We must work by engaging our thinking in the formation of the verse: first the objective sounding, then our own intimate declaration as an echo within ourselves, and finally the speaking of the angel. Then it works correctly in us. Although then, in progressing to the third human member, to exactly what lives in the arms and legs and continues inwardly in the metabolism, then we hear not the breadth of space in trumpeted tones, then we hear not the melodic reverberation of planetary coursing, but now we hear the muffled roar of the world foundation itself. And the muffled roar of the world-foundation is that which lives in whatever it is that makes us into actual men and women of earth. The extremities are not involved in our spirit-humanity. They are formed fully in accordance with forces of earth, excepting the hands and arms which are somewhat patterned after aeriform forces, but all are also formed in accordance with forces of earth, formed in accordance with the forces that stream forth from world foundations below upward and through a person. We must become aware of this. Just as we hear in the first stanza, majestically sounding with intention out of what surrounds our world, the speech of the cosmos itself, just as we bear witness to the speech of circling in the second stanza, just so do we bear witness to the murmuring rumbling speech of the world’s foundation coming from the depths of the earth in the third stanza.
It is a glistening resplendence not of light, it is a glistening resplendence of love. For in the very places, where just that, which otherwise is in our surrounding, collects itself in the center, there also lie the wellsprings of the power of love. Here our echoing answer is not brought forth as “said” or “intoned”, here we must answer with deeds flowing out of our force of will. Here we must not “say” something, nor “intone” something, here we must “forge” something. To this end we answer, out of our inner self, pouring force of will into our words.
Then, eyes sinking down and under to what rumbles forth from world foundations, rumbling not in the sense of antipathy, but rather in the sense of dullness of tone, then the angel answers the powers sounding in dominion deep in the world’s foundation.
Once again, the verse is three-legged.
[The third verse was written on the board at this point.]
“Said”, “Intoned”, “Forged”. [“Forged” was underlined.] in the body’s limbs “heights”, “center”, “limbs”, specifically, what strives outwards, out of the center. [Limbs was underlined.]
“I am”, “I live”, “I will” [“Will” was underlined.].
[earthly-bodies, earthly-changes, earthly-works. were underlined.]
“Being’s-essence”, “creative-strength”, “sensible-deeds”, which means deeds that can be sensed and seen. [The three words cited on the board were underlined.] Properly meditating, properly exercising the soul, lies not in theorizing or in intellectualizing about the content of a meditative verse. It lies in the mantric character. The mantric character will be engendered when the sense of self dissipates when situated in the act, when a person dissociates himself from theoretical intellectual content and emerges out of himself, when he has not simply something or other in his thoughts, but rather when he has the notion that the heavens, that the encircling-coursing, that the depths of earth are sounding, then that he answers out upon this sounding out of his own intimate inner nature, and then that the angel in teaching interprets. Place yourself properly into such an enactment, ideally making the meditation into something that you don’t simply think about, feel, or will, but rather into something that enwraps, enfolds, enthralls, engulfs, and irradiates you. Due to this enthrallment, enfoldment, engulfment, and radiance it enters again and again back into the life of the heart, where in the heart it streams, weaves, strives, radiates, and vibrates so that we feel ourselves interwoven into the fabric and life of the world, so that our meditation is something that we take to heart as something not simply living in us, but rather as something living in us and in the world, released from the world, released from us, making a unity of us and the world in this release, and so that we can say, “the world speaks” equally well with saying “we speak within.” This gradually enhances the character of meditating. Meditating practiced in this way gradually gives a person the possibility of actually releasing what has always appeared to him as his customary self; it gives the possibility of becoming spirit for his own perception. In doing this, however, entering such a path of knowing by approaching the path of knowing in honesty, learning to know that in meditating we are not alone in the world, but rather that we are in dialogue with the spiritual world, through this we approach ever more and more closely in actuality to a renewal of the mysteries. For in actuality, external temples once stood, here and there, perhaps at the very locations on earth of which a person of today might say that are in the most uncivilized areas. External temples stood there, and in the past men and women needed external temples. But these external temples were certainly not the only ones, they were certainly not the most important ones. The most important, the ones with the greatest degree of intrinsic being, have no place, have no time. But one comes to them nonetheless, with the effort of sixty leagues. A person comes to them if and when the soul is exerted in the manner here described, and as has been described in every age in the mysteries. In doing this, we will become clear, my dear brothers and sisters, about the manner of living within such a mantric formulation, for it will be as follows: Here I stand, and each of us says this about himself quite correctly, here I strand surrounded daily by the conventional world. Philistine walls, philistine chairs surround me, or perhaps a wild natural forest, some visible trees, or houses. It all surrounds me. It is actually there. I myself am well aware of all this, for it surrounds me, it is there, I see it, I grasp it. The meditation, however, arises in my soul, while I am present in the external dry sensory world. The meditation arises within me.
What is in motion here? What am I catching a scent of? What arches over me that I sense as a sort of aroma? It seems to be something. Is it nothing? I seem to sense, to catch a sense of walls, but I see them not. The meditation goes on.
What I have sensed as a sort of aroma are the interwoven arches of a temple, the overhead arched temple roof, and the temple walls around me. It begins to be visible for the soul’s sensing, hovering, appearing, as the customary world begins to fade, the world of the visible trees, the clouds, and everything that is visible. A new visibility presents itself. The temple, which I previously merely caught the scent of, comes along with the second verse into reality. And I listen to and hear the murmuring and quivering and rumbling from below.
The temple has been consummated. It has acquired its floor. And in it are the ones with whom we would walk, as allied spiritual beings. The temple is there. It is visible for the sensing of the soul. It has been found. Our meditation proceeds, not as if we were having a vision. It carries us over into the spiritual world. The spiritual world is attained. I am describing, my dear brothers and sisters, how the meditation can proceed. We catch a scent of the interwoven arches of the temple in the first verse, and with soul-sensing we gaze at the temple around us. The temple is ready, and the beings are there with whom we should walk and be allied as instructors of humanity, as instructor-gods. Being inside the temple is accomplished through the first, second, and third verses of the effective mantric meditation. It is the path to the temple. It is a true spiritual path. 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Twelfth Lesson
11 May 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Twelfth Lesson
11 May 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! First, we will speak the verse that comes to us as an adjuration out of the world-all itself, summoning us to self-awareness.
It is most certainly insight into oneself, my dear brothers and sisters, that can lead us in a spiritual sense to insight into the world. And it has often been said, how appreciation must be there for the streaming forth of a true spiritual knowledge out of the spiritual world itself, how a person must have an appreciation of this, that of those who can impart such knowledge of the spiritual world, that they will certainly have approached the Threshold, at the Threshold where the Guardian of the Threshold stands, the Guardian that there protects a person in ordinary consciousness from entering the spiritual world unprepared. But as soon as one gets to know this Guardian, initially through a healthy human mental appreciation, and later by really getting to know, after one’s healthy human mental appreciation leads the way to an appreciation of the true constitution, the reality in being of the Guardian, then this Guardian places there what we confront as an admonition, when we first seek to enter the spiritual world in the proper manner, and then in the proper manner when we seek to remain within the experience of the spiritual world. Now as it has also often been said, remaining in the spiritual world for the most part proceeds improperly, due to one’s wanting something else to take place instead of the reality of being in the spiritual world. Such a person wants it to be similar to the sensory world. But this is not being in the spiritual world. It is suddenly supersensory, and it cannot simply lead to the sort of gazing about that is like gazing about with the senses. This sort of imagination of supersensory gazing is only a picture. It must lead to real experiencing of the spiritual world. And quite a few of you have this experience of the spiritual world, my dear brothers and sisters, many more than you might think. They just don’t quite notice it, they pay it no attention, how it actually maintains dominion within their soul experiencing. It actually rules, and part of its action there is to bring into intimate presence of mind the true realization of this ruling actuality. Toward this end knowledge should flow ever and again, immediately out of the spiritual world into these Class lessons knowledge should be flowing to you, my brothers and sisters, and it should become ever more and more your actual point of departure in making tangible your human soul in the spiritual world. And the following can be such a declamation of wisdom. Take any one of the mantras, or any other meditative verse, and recite all that lies within such a mantra. It certainly does not come down to which one it is, but rather to one specific mantra, one specific mantra, however, that is quite well known by you. For your meditation take the mantra and say it to yourself in the most beautiful manner in which you can say it, bringing it forth for yourself, into your presence. Make it, say it to yourself, not right away in a loud tone, but rather in a soft peaceful tone, and so bring forth the specific mantra.
And then, when you yourself have brought forth such a mantra, try to sense how it works in you, how it is. In this manner try to reach it, so that you sense the speech, you sense what sort of difference there is in your body between the condition of your being at peace, and the condition of your speaking. And so try to sense the speech in your organs, in its coursing. You ought to feel it in its forceful coursing and reverberating entrainment even in the organ of speech. And when you have caught the aroma of its sense and feeling, then each of you must ask the following of yourself. “If I am thinking about something so as to bring my attention to bear on it, perhaps something someone said to me and I am thinking about, an otherwise external experience that has made an impression on me, in order to make it clear, when I think about something in this way, as it were, can I also sense its aroma, its feeling? Well, when you have learned to sense speech, then it will be easy for you in addition to become able to sense thinking, made immediate when presented in this way. So in this way you can also sense thinking. It is lighter and quieter in sensing than is speech, but it may be sensed. By sensing speech, you can learn to sense the aroma of thinking, to perceive thinking. It is good to undertake such an exercise, for such an exercise generally eases the way to intimate self-observation. And then you proceed, my dear brothers and sisters, so that you now make a thought active in yourself, a memory-thought, perhaps something that you thought about a few days ago, or weeks, or months, some thought, however, that you can make really active within yourself. Then try to sense this memory-thought, try to perceive it, and you will have the feeling that in perceiving it you localize it underneath speech, you perceive it therefore below, below the localization of speech [yellow]. And you will say to yourself something like, “When I speak, I experience it in the region of my organ of speech, when I think, I experience it over this in my head, but when I remember, I experience it underneath the thinking.”  For this to be intimate experiential knowledge for you, if you really feel it to be so, then you will have already engaged in the spirit to some extent, which can generally be the beginning of a further progressive spiritual engagement. A great disconnectedness from the other experiences of the day is necessary, however, in order to sense it inwardly in this way. And it is not good to say to yourself, “Well of course, to attain such disconnectedness, I must take a couple of weeks off sometime to go where there are no other people, where nothing will disturb me, where I will have absolute peace and quiet, away all by myself, possibly to a cottage on Mont Blanc, in order to bring it about.” It is not good to think like this, for what is best is rather to remain in the middle of all the strife of life, to be exposed to all that life brings from morning until evening, and through all this, through one’s own power of soul, to find a certain time, be it ever so brief, to be totally outside the strife of the world, remaining within yet totally outside, purely through the power of one’s inner nature totally outside. That is best. In the solitude of going away by oneself, in order to find peace and quiet, that is certainly not the thing that is most effective, but rather through one’s own power to engender the solitude, that is the very thing that absolutely and certainly can lead to the goal. And in this manner a good foundation will be established, concerning specifically the ability to practice meditating, which most certainly is needed. You have become acquainted with mantras, my dear brothers and sisters, to be effectively spoken out of stillness of soul. The first mantras in the Class lessons have certainly been of this sort. But we have forged ahead by means of such mantras, which in part ring forth from the soul, and which also in part must be envisioned as intonations coming to us from the breadth of the world, so that in meditating we not only speak them inwardly, but also in meditating we hear them inwardly, so that we shift our position in thinking, and so hear them coming to us, being spoken to us, out of the depths of space, out of spirit-being. And directly out of this reorientation of ourselves into other entities speaking to us, directly out of this reorientation of ourselves in such a way, we may become able to really consummate this soul-reorientation inwardly, thereby feeling ourselves within the spiritual world. Please note that today’s mantra ought to be given over to this goal. The human soul must now imagine itself to be entirely silent, utterly silent. But it should imagine that it is already on the other side of the Threshold, already in the spiritual world before which the Guardian stands, and there the soul hears three different intonations. While it remains entirely silent itself, it hears three different intonations. The first intonation resounds out of the breadth of the world-all. The second comes from the Guardian. And the third comes from the various beings that become identified by the mantra. So should it be thought, that which comes forth to your souls today as the mantra. So, out of the breadth of the world sounding forth and arriving from all sides,
Just so we take up, we focus our attention on becoming clear about the true nature of thinking by means of a spiritual, soulful experience of the world. Then the Guardian speaks. And as the sounding forth unto us out of the breadth of the world fades away, the spirit of which we must dwell within, then the Guardian speaks.
That is the Guardian’s speech. Then the Angelic being speaks, who accompanies us from earth-existence to earth-existence.
That is also the being, that as an Angelic being, as an Angel, conducts us from incarnation to incarnation. So is this line spoken. We hear it living, inwardly in contemplation. The Guardian speaks again.
Then the next line sounds, spoken by a caring being watching over us from the hierarchy of the Archangels.
That comes down from where the Archangels are. First it was “Look to your senses’ radiant nature.” In reality, it really is this way, similar to the sun’s glowing in sensory life. In sensory life, our senses do not seem to glow, but in actuality, they also really glow. Nevertheless, even though our senses are actually glowing, we do not take note of it. So the being admonishes us, the being belonging to us from the ranks of the Angels, “Look to your senses’ radiant nature.” As we go about thinking in customary awareness, we generally don’t really examine the thinking, we don’t really sense it as such. We don’t actually perceive it. The being that belongs to us from the realm of the Archangels admonishes, “Look to your thinking’s forceful impact.” Now it progresses to where the Archai are. The Guardian admonishes in three lines, and we ought to hear this being’s admonition as coming from the ranks of the Archai. The next three lines are the lines of the Guardian.
I could also say “the throne of existence-awareness,” but “the grounds of existence-awareness” is better, for it will give you a sort of spiritual floor, much as here in the sensory world you have a physical floor. After the Guardian of the Threshold has spoken this, then the being from the ranks of the Archai speaks.
That is the third. First, we are to look to the radiant nature of our senses, then to thinking’s forceful affect working in us, then to that which lies deep underneath, to what lies underneath speech, to what lies in the constituting of memory, “Look to memory’s picture-forming.” And so we ourselves have managed in this disparate fashion to bring the three-part speech to our ears, first the speech from the cosmos in the very first line, “Examine the field of thinking,” then the Guardian’s respective three lines lying between directives from the cosmos and the specific hierarchies, and finally the lines of the being belonging to us out of the actual realms of the hierarchies, always speaking the specific paradigm-line, in certainty to the most profound part of our being. It is all brought together in the following manner, which I will then write down.
[The mantra was now written on the board and at the same time in the first line “thinking was underlined, and in each case the last lines of parts 1,2, and 3 were underlined.]
With this we have it, which as an admonition for our self-awareness sounds forth out of the three lower hierarchies, experienced inwardly in soul: the first from the hierarchy of the angels, the second from the hierarchy of the archangels, the third from the hierarchy of the Archai. [“Angels” was written next to the first part, “Archangels” next to the second part, and “Archai” next to the third part.] Before the exercise is utilized, soul-concentration can be engendered by means of a person’s bringing up before the soul a certain well-defined picture: picture an eye gazing overhead [an eye was drawn] beholding the sphere of the higher hierarchies [a curving arc] which the forces of the world allow to stream down upon the eye [upper rays], and that then beholds the sphere of the lower hierarchies [a wavy line] that intertwines itself with the higher hierarchies and sends the rays further on to human beings [lower rays].  This picture may be called up before the soul and held there in mind, the outward-looking eye, the two lines, one curved and one wavy, and the rays that come down. And you imagine yourself actually there while practicing the exercise, but without thinking further about the picture, so that while practicing the exercise, the picture remains before the soul, the picture of this outward-looking eye. Then a person again takes up, attends to, hearkens to the sounding forth from all sides of the cosmos:
Spoken then by the Guardian, the next three lines are:
It is already a higher speech, a speech that rings forth from higher hierarchies. Here [in the first mantra], we are always merely made to take note of what is already in us, whereas we are spoken to here in this mantra, by the Guardian, so that we are not merely called to observe our senses, our thinking, and our remembering, but rather so that we are called to taking note of how we ourselves are called out into the world, into world existence-awareness. That sounds forth from the hierarchy of the Exusiai.4 Spoken forth then by the being who belongs to us from the hierarchy of the Exusiai:
Spoken again by the Guardian, the next three lines are:
Then the being speaks from the hierarchy of the Dynamis:5
Here we must think steadfastly on the interwoven fabric of the world, feeling it actually, within the vibrant activity of our blood. And the Guardian speaks again, now admonishing us, that we should hearken unto what is spoken by the being from the ranks of the Kyriotetes:6
Then the being from the ranks of the Kyriotetes speaks:
Only when a person feels this mighty counter striving of earth-forces can a person properly remain within the purely spiritual world. So now experience this mantra sounding as a unity:
In ascending into the ranks of the second hierarchy, self-awareness will be quickened in us, as an entity belonging to us from the ranks of the Exusiai admonishes us. At first the Guardian will direct us, then such a being will speak to us. Now, my dear brothers and sisters, we think in life on earth, but our thoughts are quite in vain. When, however, a being from the ranks of the Exusiai thinks, it thinks us as such. Our ego is being thought. And it is brought into being as the thought of a being from the ranks of the Exusiai. If on the earth we say “I” to ourselves, just what are we gazing upon? Yes, this ego, when we say “I” [it was drawn, a circle with the word “I” in gold], we look back on this ego [red arrows], in articulating the word “I”. But for a being from the ranks of the Exusiai [green line], for such a being this ego is a thought, but a thought with more reality, with more actuality. We exist in that we are thought by a being from the ranks of the Exusiai. And when we say “I” to ourselves, we are certainly stating in this way, that we have been thought into being by a heavenly being. And in this thought-becoming by a heavenly entity is contained our higher being.  Then, an entity from the ranks of the Dynamis admonishes us, that we are endowed by him with spirit-presence-in-being, which he abstracts out of life-forces from the stars and bestows on us. And a being out of the ranks of the Kyriotetes admonishes us, that what lives in us specifically as will upon the earth, will be drawn out into the heights of heaven, and in the transmutation that takes place there, our will of earth again will be given to us, so that we can then utilize it in spirit-willing. Earth-willing is merely a transmutation of spirit-willing. Earth-willing of course will be trundled out down below and also above. On high it is heavenly-willing; below it is earth-willing. Of this we are admonished in closing, first by the Guardian, then by the being from the ranks of the Kyriotetes, who says, “Feel earth’s mighty counter striving.” [Mantra II was now written on the board and at the same time in the first line “feeling” and correspondingly the last lines of parts 1,2, and 3 were underlined.]
And so therefore the second mantra runs as follows:
The first is intoned from the ranks of the Exusiai, [Exusiai was written next to part 1, and correspondingly Dynamis and Kyriotetes next to parts 2 and 3.] Once again in ending, so that we may remember what we have fashioned before ourselves as a picture, after all of it has run through us, so that we may have a clear experience of it all, let us place before ourselves once again the picture, which we were to have envisioned as ever standing before our souls during the entire exercise, let us pointedly place it once again before our souls. [This picture, already drawn on the board before the writing of the mantra “Examine the field of thinking”, was now again drawn on the board, the eye, the curving arc, the upper rays, the curvy line, and the lower rays.]  The further ascent into the ranks of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones will properly become appended to all this in the next Class lesson. However just now it may be possible to make somewhat more comprehensible and intelligible what the sense of the whole is. My dear brothers and sisters, coming to us at the beginning of today’s Class lesson was the formulation, coming out of universal existence-awareness, coming forth out of the essential true nature of the world, admonishing us to self-awareness. Self-experience, it was alleged, leads to true knowledge of the world, although only if and when we can place the self in unity with the world. But the self does not stand in fanciful relationship to any external entity or process of nature, but rather solely to what is in the spiritual world. That is where the beings of the hierarchies are. If we really wish to penetrate into our self, into the part of our being from which we can say “I”, then we must not coexist with external nature, but rather we must coexist with the beings of the hierarchies. For whatever emerges from external nature that can be spoken of as our inner nature, all that is certainly merely the empty external reflection of our true inner nature. What we truly refer to when we say “I” stands in the same realm within which also stand the higher hierarchies. As soon as a person enters into true self-awareness, he must enter into the ranks of the higher hierarchies. He must then take into account the language of the higher hierarchies. So that one might do this with full force, not merely making it into a theory drained of blood, but rather doing it with full force, for this reason the admonitions of the Guardian of the Threshold are forever emplaced right there. So that the whole meditation approaches us with due greatness and majesty, for this reason placed there are the two powerful admonitions from the cosmos, “Examine the field of thinking,” and “Examine the field of feeling,” and subsequently the third, which we will hear next time. If and only if we hold this three-part declamation within our hearts and minds full of life and force, if and when we experience ourselves in this mantric manner in the spiritual world, then we can really bring things forward. For only then have we grasped things in the appropriately correct spirited mood. We must seek this spirited mood in all things. For the actual inner sanctity which must be present, and meditation ought to be conducive, ought to lead to sanctity, this actual inner sanctity comes to one most certainly only through a spirited demeanor, through a specific spirited mood, one in which we are enraptured by the external world for a while, but one in which alone and solely within oneself the content and matter of the meditation is lived. When we entirely full of life attune our inner demeanor in this manner, then self-awareness is not just a sort of brooding within our inner nature, but it is rather a seed-awakening conversation with the world in the widest sense, with the Guardian, and with the Hierarchies. And then we find ourselves in the depths of true self-awareness. This ought to be taken up by us quite broadly, so that we take it as a ground-rule, to avoid thinking on such things, unless at the same time we can bring this spirited mood to bear on it. And so we should henceforth only think about such things, such as were brought forward today, if and when we can really bring forth within the soul this demeanor, this fundamental accompaniment to our perception, as the majesty of world-wide cosmic distances presses in upon us with a universal thunderclap, as within this in a soft, admonishing voice is intoned all that comes from the Guardian of the Threshold, and as then in compelling fashion a certain being of the Hierarchies itself speaks to our souls. And only then, when we keep this in memory, and when we bring up the feeling accompanying this memory, specifically only then should we think on this mantra, only then setting ourselves inwardly in relationship with this mantra, so that in this way we should not inwardly desecrate it, thereby desecrating its power, that we may well do by thinking about it with the type of customary, dry, philistine thinking with which we usually think, rather than placing ourselves first in the appropriate mood and demeanor of soul. And in this regard, we should also make sure that we obtain this mood of soul in order to feel that human self-awareness is something special, serious, and holy, and that in fact, these things should only be spoken inwardly by the soul, silently then externally, so that they come into perception as serious, special, and sacred. A great hindrance in progressing along an esoteric path is just this, that these things are spoken about so frequently in cliques, in which this serious, special, sacred, spirited nature is not developed at the same time, but rather, even in flights of fancy, these things are gossiped about. In doing this one forgets that in esoteric life all depends on the dominion of truth, proper full truth. Progress cannot be made in esoteric life by one who does not have this knowledge, that in esoteric life truth, full truth, must have dominion, that a person therefore cannot simply speak about the truth and then nevertheless approach such things merely in the way external profane things are approached, in the manner of making these things the subject matter of customary chitter-chatter. And this, which happens so frequently, this customary chitter-chatter, this is what so very often places hindrances and constraints along the esoteric path. And so we must absolutely bring a serious, special, sacred, spirited tenor of soul along in focusing on all that belongs to self-awareness. Then we will also be able to allow the word to work on our soul in the proper manner, the word which in conclusion shall now be spoken again, just as it was spoken at the beginning of today’s Class lesson:
Yes indeed, that is a directive to self-awareness.
Fundamentally, it is a question. The answer is given in such as this. [The mantras on the board were indicated.]  
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Thirteenth Lesson
17 May 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Thirteenth Lesson
17 May 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! First once again will be spoken the word emerging from the spiritual font of the universe, penetrating our souls, admonishing us to self-observing knowledge of our own being:
Now, my dear brothers and sisters, here in the last lesson we attempted to find inner soul-words, those which can bring human beings into a connection with what emerges as a revelation from the hierarchies, which most certainly the human spiritual-soul being stands in connection with. In doing this we have placed before our souls, by means of a special deepening, what can then become of the field of thinking, and by means of this special deepening in this field of thinking we can attain a presence for ourselves in this realm, where in a certain manner live the beings of the third hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and the Archai. This was certainly not meant to be the thinking that we employ in everyday affairs, but rather the thinking that proceeds behind the thinking of everyday affairs. Such thinking we certainly are only able to bring into being by means of our entire organization, if and when we ourselves in meditating expand into the depths of certain words, such as have come to the fore here as the words that begin, “Examine the field of thinking.” And as I certainly pointed out the last time, this thinking can also be perceived in the human organism itself over the organ of speech. While in the field of memory-thoughts it can be felt under the organ of speech. And when we say something to ourselves inwardly and full of life, either quietly or out loud, it can be sensed in the organ of speech itself. We feel the speech in us, and we can delineate the area in which we feel the speech in ourselves. We have this then as a jumping-off point, for to some extent it is the easiest way to experience this speech. And beyond the speech at the back of one’s mind we may find the innards of thinking, by means of which we can discover the Angels. In speaking there are the Archangels. And under the speech in remembering, the Archai can be felt. And just so the mantric saying parades before us. It most certainly courses along in this manner, as described the last time in the Class lesson. We envision, as we speak it, that at first the far-spread cosmos speaks to us, intoned in a certain manner by the world-all itself, that then, intoned within this world-all, is what the Guardian of the Threshold says to us, what we should take note of, that we should hearken unto what the appropriate being from the ranks of the third hierarchy, of the Angels, has to say to us. And then a second intonation presents itself, again in admonition by the Guardian of the Threshold to us, that we should attend to what belongs to us, or to the being belonging to us from the ranks of the Archangels. And then the Guardian admonishes us again with a third pronouncement, to listen and hear the being belonging to us from the ranks of the Archai. And so we should place this mantric verse before ourselves, so that in a certain way we hear the world-all from all around, intoned, then the Guardian speaking, and then the hierarchies answering responsively.
If and when, ever and again, we feel ourselves in this situation, the wide reaches of the world speaking to us, the Guardian of the Threshold speaking to us, the realms of the hierarchies speaking to us, if and when we envision this within ourselves in a fully alive fashion, as if it were actually around about us, then in conjunction with the schematic picture I drew the last time on the board, we get the feeling of the sort of thinking above the thinking in the back of our minds, through which we approach the interactions and life of the third hierarchy. Therefore, one can say, my dear brothers and sisters, that we place ourselves in conjunction with the beings of the third hierarchy by means of these mantric verses. In like manner, we place ourselves in conjunction with the beings of the second hierarchy by means of the second set of mantric verses, subsequently presented, and once again, similarly, we feel in a certain way that it may become perceived in spirit. We should completely refrain from the perception that we ourselves are saying it. We should totally realign ourselves situationally, as I have described.
In this way we come to the point of establishing our relationship with the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. We do this by means of inwardly relating the sphere of feelings, the breath, the circulation of blood, and that place from which the will springs forth, although felt merely as the will, by relating all this in our human state of being to the beings of the second hierarchy. By this means the relationship is established. It remains for us today, my dear brothers and sisters, to observe, to behold, to partake of the field of willing. This field of willing is certainly the one that holds dominion over human beings most powerfully, that works in human beings most powerfully, although at the same time the one that is really noticed least by human beings living through it. A human being, in fact, usually knows very little about the actual coursing of his will. Let us take up first of all just where in the human organism the will comes to expression in order that the human organism may be engaged in movement, may be set into motion. Of course, my dear brothers and sisters, you must make this intimate imagination your own, if you wish to really open yourself up to the one who will show you the ways to the spirit, to the one who speaks through this esoteric school. Now someone might imagine himself walking, and perhaps moving his arm. In this regard a person usually thinks that he moves his legs and that his legs carry him further along. This is certainly the most convenient imagination that a person might have. One thinks that some sort of unknown force, and of course it is an unknown force, for nobody can know anything about this force in customary awareness, that this unknown force is allowed to stream into the legs. One leg will be placed in front of the other. In such manner we carry ourselves through the world. It is not really so. Entirely without doubt the legs simply do not have the wherewithal initially to carry us through the world. This is simply not the way it is. And we come here to a point where customary awareness shows its illusory nature at once, for it is illusion when we live with the belief that we walk forward with legs, with physical legs, that the physical legs are there, therefore, in order to walk forward. Of course, this does not mean, my dear brothers and sisters, that you should now go out into the world of the philistines and cry out, that it is not true that a person has legs in order to walk about. For of course at first glance people would simply not understand it. People simply don’t know how deeply true it is, that in truth all that is around us, all that is dealt with in customary awareness, is maya, the grand illusion. The grand illusion encompasses not only what a person sees all around, but the grand illusion also encompasses all that a person experiences within himself concerning the world. What this means is the following. Just imagine yourself just now totally schematically. [It was drawn.] Here are the human legs, one striding forth after the other [white]. But in between these human physical legs the etheric body is most certainly embodied [red], the part of the human etheric body corresponding to the legs. Then there is the astral embodiment [yellow] corresponding to the legs, and finally the ego-organization [violet]. We stride forth not with physical legs, not with etheric legs, not at all with astral legs, but rather we stride forth with those forces corresponding to the ego-organization. We live with these forces that correspond to the ego-organization, within the powerful forces of the earth that are out of sight [new drawing, half a circle with arrows]. The powerful forces of the earth are experienced by us with the forces of our ego-organization [short lines on the arrows]. And just what corresponds to motivation of will, of movement, plays out between the unseen ego-organization and the unseen powerful forces of earth’s gravity.  The ego-organization, however, depends on feeling some sort of resistance when encountering the powerful forces of earth’s gravity. For this the astral body is there in the legs, and the ether body, and rather specifically the physical body also, simply so that the ego-organization can feel itself, can perceive itself. And without this perception it cannot really step into a relationship with the earth-organization. It must step into a relationship with the earth-organization consciously. The physical organization and the other organizations are there in order that the ego-organization might keep in step with itself in full consciousness, and thereby be able to encounter the forces of earth. Striding along, therefore, is a fully transcendental process. The sensory organization is only there for ambulation, in order that ambulation can become perceptible by human beings, for someone can only accomplish such a thing when it is apprehended. You walk just as little with physical legs, my dear brothers and sisters, as you do with your stockings that you put on your legs. You walk along with what in the legs corresponds to your ego-organization. And as you have stockings in order to keep your feet warm, just so you have the physical legs in order to provide awareness to you for your walking about. All this that I just related must also be felt. A person must learn to feel, in walking, that walking is a transcendental process, and that all the sensory apparatus is there merely in order to provide awareness. This awareness will not be engendered perfectly during waking life on earth, due to our physical legs also being heavy, so that we come into connection not merely with the heavy forces of earth’s gravity, but also with the heavy forces of gravity active in our physical legs. Therefore, when we do not have the physical legs, as in sleep, we while away our time there in the world-all, in our ego and astral bodies, in a manner much more free-moving than when we go about in physical life. We may be in motion during our sleep, but we normally have no awareness of it, for the physical legs provide for this awareness. What then gives us the possibility, during sleep and also during moments of clairvoyance, what give us the possibility of moving? As I said, we can move in physical existence insofar as we are aware of the movement through our physical legs. What, my dear friends, performs this function for us during sleep? It is the function of the various beings that walk along with us in sleep, for the purpose of movement. These are the Thrones, high beings of the first hierarchy. A person in a state of customary awareness, however, or even in the customary awareness of sleep, does not perceive the Thrones, and therefore cannot receive help. Quite to the contrary, when someone through intuition becomes able to perceive what is really taking place in sleep, then he will become aware that by means of the Thrones during sleep, he stands in relationship with a world known through higher awareness, just as by means of his physical legs during customary life on earth he stands in relationship with physical life. All this must be carried over into feelings. One must learn to sense all this inwardly, aromatically. Then one also inwardly senses the interwoven and undulating spiritual world, within which one certainly dwells from this point on. So once again, we may be properly placed in an inner feeling and experience, if we allow it to work on us while remaining in the moment, just as with the other mantras, those concerning the fields of thinking and feeling. We should remain in the moment in the following way: first the wide-open reaches press in upon us with thunderous voice, then the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us to take note, that we should hearken unto what the Thrones have to say to us. The Thrones speak to us about what springs forth when, as we say, we are really motivated about what passes over from motives of the soul into our force of will, about being engaged in something or other in the world with our force of will. To this end, we will allow the third part of the mantra to work on us, as we once again take up and hearken to what resounds from the wide-open reaches:
Then the Guardian of the Threshold:
Then the Thrones:
That is the first. The second leads us quite a bit more into the realm of soul. When we go further in pursuit of a person’s activity of will, well, in this inner meditative performance of the soul, we come upon a great discovery. And this great discovery must sooner or later flood into a person who wishes to stride forward on the field of his own self-development. Here I must point something out to you, my dear brothers and sisters, something that you all know, for customary awareness knows quite a bit about it, and it is this, what we call in ourselves the voice of conscience. The voice of conscience! But this voice of conscience emerges from a human being and sounds forth into awareness indistinctly. A person does not generally know with certainty what is there, what is connected to his moralistic-soulful disposition, what sounds forth from underpinnings laden with mystery, that which he refers to as his voice of conscience. A person generally does not penetrate anywhere nearly deep enough in his own being in customary awareness to reach the voice of conscience. It may show itself, but the person does not reach down to it. And so he does not observe it in soul face-to-face. But when a person then in meditating presses on to the wider world of the Cherubim, beings full of wisdom, who are interwoven with and live throughout the world, then he comes upon the great discovery, that from the world of the Cherubim a world activity presses in upon him, within which the voice of conscience lives. Oh, the voice of conscience is from high and ancient sources, from higher beings. It lives in actuality in the world of the Cherubim. From this world of the Cherubim, it weaves into human beings and sounds forth from the depths of these human beings, initially indistinctly. But it is a great and powerful encounter when a person is there, alive in intuition, there where he can place himself in relationship with the field of the Cherubim, which is a world well-met, an encounter with the world in which his conscience moves and has its being. It is the greatest personal discovery that a person can make. For this the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us with the words:
Then the Cherubim:
In reality it is the spirit coursing through the blood, emerging from the Cherubim’s field, that constitutes the voice of conscience. Blood, present in all parts of our physical human being, carries this voice of conscience into all parts of our human physical being, along with other things. And it weaves the undulations of Cherubic life into the soul-nature of our blood. We shall gain a greater foothold on this meditation if we envisage it in the following way: First is spoken that which comes from the far-off reaches of the world.
The Guardian of the Threshold then admonishes us:
Then we envisage moving clouds [drawn in blue], the moving clouds as a representation of the Thrones. And while we envisage these moving clouds, we hear the Thrones, sounding forth from the first hierarchy:
Then the Guardian of the Threshold speaks further:
Now we envisage, flashing through these clouds, lightning [red], for flashes of lightning are the implements of the Cherubim, the fiery swords of the Cherubim. While the lightning flashes through the clouds, we feel this flashing in the words:
Then the Guardian of the Threshold speaks:
That refers to one’s prior lives on earth.
In doing this we envisage the entirety of the heavens above the lightning with interwoven warmth [The drawing was broadened in yellow.], with interwoven heat sending down the lightning. And in this interwoven heat from far-off reaches we perceive the speech of the Seraphim:
—as the destiny of one earth-life to the next, extending here into this present life on earth. The mantra concerning willing is especially effective when it is perceived together with the picture in the following way. One prepares somewhat mysteriously in implementing the mantra, for certainly willing is the one most full of mystery. While starting to prepare by putting aside anything commonplace in the words, and feeling the beckoning, guiding, world-direction-giving nature of the picture, one uses instead of the word “Thrones” the good normal word “seat.” Even though it could easily be given too trifling a meaning, everything commonplace must be put away from it when saying here “seating” instead of “Thrones.” Also imagine, my dear brothers and sisters, that as you feel the word “seat,” [It was written on the board.] seat, cloud-seating, form the picture within yourself of clouds standing in front of you. Then you form the word “fleet,” [over “seat” was written:] fleet. Again, with the image of lightning within, fleeting flashing lightning within the clouds. Then you form the word “heating,” [over “fleet” was written:] heat, universal heating, and feel in these three words the ascent from the cloud-seating to the lightning and to the universal heating, from which the lightning comes. In this way you feel prepared for the mantra with seat, fleet, heat. And then feel with the picture standing before you the power of the mantra. [The mantra was now written on the board, and at the same time in the first line “willing” was underlined, and similarly the last line of each section 1, 2, and 3 was underlined.]
In such meditative verses there is nothing that is a simple phrase. What is indicated here concerning the “limb’s activity,” I have illustrated as a conjoint effort of the ego-organization and the forces of the earth, wholly a supersensory occurrence. We must be aware of this in the first part of the mantra. In the second part of the mantra, we must be aware of what moves through the entire organism in the circulation of blood, which in its pulsatile coursing contains the essence of conscience. Our basic fate, however, has been taken up by our breath, insofar as the highest part of the rhythmic system has streaming through it not only what enlivens the breath today, but rather by the breath having been formed in earlier earth-existence stop-overs.
In order for the mantra to have the necessary inner strength and spirit-condensing quality, we choose a symbol which allows the revelation of the first hierarchy to impact us in a very lovely way: clouds, Thrones. although at the same time, that out of which the Thrones, when we gaze up to the spiritual in the clouds, that out of which the Thrones take their substance, their own essential being, that their being is drawn forth from. [It was written on the board and “beings” was underlined.]
We gaze out upon the thunderbolts of lightning. Well, the Cherubim are definitely veiled. With the Thrones one can catch a sense of them as they interweave themselves in the clouds. The mounded-up clouds give away the substance of the Thrones. The Cherubim do not make it so easy for us to observe them. They conceal themselves more than the Thrones. They don’t show themselves in formations. They reveal themselves in their implements, in the fleeting flashes of lightning. They are behind their implements. They show us in the fleeting flashes of lightning not their essence, but only their implements. [It was written on the board, and “implements” was underlined.]
And if we mount clear up to universal heat, there the Seraphim conceal themselves deeper yet, much deeper than the Cherubim behind the implements, behind the fleeting flashing lightning. It is merely the radiant glory, this universal heat, merely the radiant glory of the Seraphim. The Thrones reveal themselves through their being, the Cherubim reveal themselves through their implements, but the Seraphim reveal themselves through the radiant glory streaming out from them. [It was written on the board, and “radiant glory” was underlined.]
And so do we establish a human being’s connection with the first hierarchy in the field of willing:
What it comes down to, what it depends on, is that we perceive ourselves within the process as if we ourselves were simply not speaking, feeling, or willing, but rather, what it all depends on, is that we forget ourselves, and in this process in a three-fold manner perceive ourselves as a recipient. Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, it is absolutely essential, that one engages in such mantric inner practices with complete sincerity. Then they work effectively, as they should. Then we are brought forward onto the field, onto the three-fold field of the spiritual world, onto the field of thinking, feeling, and willing. And that is of utmost importance, that we are able to penetrate into these things with complete sincerity. For this something else is most assuredly necessary, and must be included. Someone meditating will of course often fall back, again and again, into the routine ambling stroll of customary life. Indeed, he must, for between birth and death he is an earthly human being. Customary awareness must ever and again return to him. But he may certainly continue to exist this way, for example, and I mean it here in the negative sense, when encountering some sort of continuing difficulty that becomes chronic. A person can experience this all the time, and although sometimes overlooking it, can still experience it continuously to some extent. We should also have this sort of continuity if we once understand the force of meditation. We should certainly always feel this way, so that we can say to ourselves, our customary awareness has certainly, once meditated on, it has certainly once achieved an understanding of the penetrating power of meditation. We should feel that meditating actually occurred, that we were once within it. Through meditating, we ought to have become a different person, to the extent that we can feel that meditating has made us into something else. In this way, in that we have begun with it, during our life we can no longer just forget, not even for a moment forget, my dear brothers and sisters, that we are active in meditation. And then we have the right demeanor for active meditation. We must experience meditating thoroughly, keeping in mind of course that we should only engage in meditation for such brief periods of time that the rest of life is undisturbed. We should experience it in such reality, that the feeling of actively meditating is maintained, and that if we should once forget that we actively meditate, and later realize that we have forgotten, if we realize that there have been moments in life within which we have forgotten, well, we should then allow the feeling of shame to well up within us, just as we would be ashamed, for instance, if we should somehow find ourselves naked, without clothes, running through a street packed with people. We should adopt this approach. We should so well consider the transition from not meditating at all into being active in meditation, that at no single moment are we without the awareness that we actively meditate, and the discovery of our having lapsed in this awareness should become a moment of shame. Very much may be attained in this manner. And then we will really be able to progress in what will be said through the universal world word, with which we began:
But we must ever and again bring to the forefront in heart and mind, that cognition is a serious business, that the world is a great illusion, this world of maya, that cognition does not simply come to us, that we first must come to the Threshold, where the Guardian is standing, and that at the Threshold all that we carry constitutionally must first fall away, all that comprises customary sensory reality and customary thinking. We are able to take all this to heart, for out of the self-same far-off reaches, out of which the comprehensive universal word has come to us, that which even so has been spoken, additionally there sounds forth to us:
When we have heard such a thing, we can then speak out the devotional answer from depths of soul.
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fourteenth Lesson
31 May 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fourteenth Lesson
31 May 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! We have been studying the position of the human being in relation to the Guardian of the Threshold, and have led the soul in progressive steps into an understanding of the relationship a person has with the Guardian of the Threshold along the path of knowledge. Today we will initially focus our attention on the situation before Guardian of the Threshold, bringing it once again fully alive before our souls, in order to progress a bit forward by means of this esoteric consideration. A person must forsake, and here I repeat what is appropriate for today and has been covered in prior lessons, a person must forsake the physical world, in which his customary awareness is in force. He comes to know that the sensory-physical world can be grand and joyful, but also full of sorrow and pain, that it can in fact be majestic, and that he has every reason in the world to remain within it, in his awareness. But he also comes to know that he cannot ever get to know himself if he only directs his contemplative eye and sensitive soul out upon this physical world. And he must say to himself, that it is quite grand, arrayed color upon color and arranged form on form, but that just what he himself springs from and is patterned after cannot be found in the encircling wide reaches around. Yet even at this moment there rings forth from all sides unto a person, as the most noteworthy challenge in one’s life, the word of self-awareness: O man, know yourself! And in this way, a person will become clearly aware that in customary life he is certainly safeguarded from entering unprepared into what in certainty is the world of his own essential being. Moreover, the Guardian of the Threshold is the same high being who shelters a person as he enters the spiritual world every night in sleep, who shelters the person from consciously experiencing what in sleep is all around him, for otherwise he would be terribly upset in experiencing all this in sleep, if he experienced it unprepared, so much so that he would not be able to continue on in waking life as a human being with strength intact. But at the same time, the Guardian of the Threshold makes it clear to a person that he, the Guardian himself, is the only portal to true, to authentic knowledge. At this point, a person notices that he comes to an abyss, before entering the realm of knowledge, an abyss displayed as a bottomless chasm. The supporting pillars, that one stands on in the physical world, are gone. One cannot simply march over it. One can only carry himself across when freed of the physical, expressed symbolically, when one “grows wings”, so that one journeys over the abyss as a being of spirit and soul. But first the Guardian of the Threshold calls out for you to be mindful in regard to the abyss, particularly in regard to the beasts that emerge as spirit-formations from the abyss, for these beasts are the external reflections of impure willing, feeling, and thinking, and these beasts must first be overcome. And in vivid pictures displayed before one’s eyes, willing, feeling, and thinking are revealed in the three beasts, one shown as spectral, one ghoulish, and so forth. Then the Guardian of the Threshold shows us in greater depth how, in and of themselves, thinking, feeling, and willing can be strengthened, according to whether one has resolved in full awareness to overcome the beasts. And then, before someone actually enters the spiritual world, it is necessary to engage in situational meditations in perceiving the spiritual world, within which to discover how the cosmos speaks to a person, how the hierarchies speak to him, how at first all the things are proclaimed that await him there in the spiritual world. And we will become progressively more aware, through what is played out before our souls in the mantras, that a person must become something else, if he would stride over the abyss, if he would live within what is on the other side of the abyss. Ever more and more, we will become aware that here on the earth, we are in the company of the beings of the three realms of nature and in the company of people, but over there we are in the company of disembodied souls and in the company of the spirits of the higher hierarchies. A different sort of acquaintanceship is present there. Quite a different constitution of soul is required there for this quite different acquaintanceship. Once again, it is the business of the Guardian of the Threshold there to forcefully advise a person about how to comport himself, specifically about how to comport himself when striding across the Threshold and actually confronting the things of the spiritual world in their reality, about how in arriving there he must come to possess a wholly different soul-constitution. There, a person will be aware that within himself two conditions of soul can become a reality, the soul-condition of customary awareness on this side of the abyss, and the soul-condition outside of the physical and etheric bodies on the other side of the abyss, which is the soul-condition of the purely spiritual world. There, where the difference in these soul-conditions appear, great dangers await a person, dangers however, that initially present themselves in such a way that we have to characterize them as minor departures from normal conditions of soul, but that remain always within the soul when we characterize them properly, for they involve an extreme sickly soul-deformation. It must of course always be said, that when one’s path in the higher worlds is undertaken in the way so painstakingly delineated in the book How to Know Higher Worlds, in many smaller published anthroposophical works, and in the second part of my Outline of Occult Science, then straying from a normal soul-constitution should not happen, at least not easily. A person passing over into the spiritual world through healthy human understanding should be as fully aware of knowledge, initially, as one is through initiation. But a person must know that he may emerge in two different ways from the daily condition of soul-life that he is immersed in, if he does not pay attention to the proper sign-posts along the spiritual world’s pathway. Here on this side of the Threshold we stand upon the earth, upon the fixed elements of earth. The ground is under our feet. The ground supports us. The watery element is around us, that also takes part in the formation of our own body. This watery element cannot support us in normal life, but infuses throughout us, attaching itself to our blood. It is contained within our forces of growth, within our forces of nourishment. The air is what we breathe. The aeriform, the gaseous element is all around us. Warmth is also all around us, the warmth-ether, the fourth element. They are disconnected from one another in normal life. Where there is solid earth, there is no water. Where there is water, there is no air. Where there is air, there is no water. Only the fiery warmth presses into and throughout it all, for it is the only one that begins to press itself into everything. But the moment we take leave, even the first time, my dear friends, the moment we take leave of our physical body, these differentiations cease. The different elements cease to have individual borders. We ourselves enlarge, we extend ourselves out, and we are simultaneously in earth, water, fire, and air. We can no longer differentiate one from another. The attributes held individually by the four elements cease. The earth no longer supports us, for its fixed solidity ceases. Water no longer forms us, for its formative forces cease. In other words, when we plunge into water, it is not as in swimming, where we are separated from the water, but rather it is as if we dissolve into it, as ice dissolves into warm water, as if in becoming one with the water, then we no longer carry, when we pass over into the spiritual world, we no longer carry our blood as a separate element in our vascular circulation, but rather our blood becomes one with the ever-moving watery element of the universe. And just so, air ceases to be a formative breathing-force in us. And warmth ceases to engender our ego-force, ceases to inflame us in warmth to the feeling of individuality. It all ceases. This must be confronted, it must be confronted in the proper manner, this cessation of the differentiation of earth, water, air, and fire. To do this we may engage, in thought, in having already flown over the abyss. We have arrived on the other side, my dear brothers and sisters. There the Guardian of the Threshold calls out to us, that we should turn, lift our gaze, and face him. Now think, my dear brothers and sisters, have a lively imagination, imagine a person’s arrival there on the other side, where in certainty the knowledge of the spiritual world is revealed to him. He is there. The Guardian of the Threshold prompts him to look about, to take up the admonitions that he now needs, that in a certain fashion he has now become accustomed to, in the soul-condition that is present there, on the other side of the Threshold, within the spiritual world, there where he lives pressed into the four elements themselves, into earth, water, air, and fire. Just there a great danger appears, and please forgive the seeming triviality of the expression, my dear brothers and sisters, but if the person has possibly fallen in love with the illusion of disconnectedness of the solid earth, from the formative forces of water, from the creative forces of air, from the ego-awakening forces of warmth, then he may feel delighted merely in spiritual bliss, in giving himself over to the wonder of the spirit, and so he might remain within this spirit-bliss. A person may be overwhelmed, as the alluring power of Lucifer musters up against him. It depends on his karma, whether a person is more or less susceptible to the alluring power of Lucifer. If he is susceptible, so that he simply totally and completely falls in love with dissolving into earth, water, air, and fire, then the Luciferic attaches itself to him, and he will no longer be able to emerge from this demeanor of soul. He runs the risk, when he once again returns to daily life, of remaining within this soul-demeanor. And so the Guardian of the Threshold must and does call out to him, “You may not do it. You may not fall under the sway of Lucifer. In the dissolution in earth, water, fire, and air you may not simply feel the solitary wonder of bliss. You must take yourself firmly in hand, or else, when you again return to the physical world, as a person in the physical world, when you take up the soul-condition of customary awareness of the physical world, then from then on you will be a person quite confused.” That is the Luciferic danger, that on the return from the spiritual world, from the other side of the Threshold, a person may be bewildered and no longer have his senses about him, but would be an enthusiastic dreamer, an enthusiastic adherent of idealism, disdainful of customary awareness. That one may not do. And the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes, insistently, that one should be resolutely determined to live in the way corresponding to whatever world one is in, be it earthly or transcendental. But the Guardian of the Threshold sets down a second admonition. The second admonition is this, that one should take care, when one has arrived on the other side with his thinking, feeling, and willing split apart, one should take care of how much of his thinking, feeling, and willing at hand is still connected to the earthly, is still inclined to the earthly. There a person can once again be predisposed to remain in what has given him the experiences on this side in the fixed support of earth, to hold on tightly and cross over to the other side of the Threshold with a materialistic soul-constitution, to cross over with the formative forces of water frozen, solidified. Then he can become afflicted with an overweening earthly pride, and can say to himself, “In life on earth I have breathed in, have drawn into myself the very breath, out of which in times past the Father-God has formed human souls, human lives, which I can do also, when freed from earthly life’s confines.” But if a person carries over into the spiritual world what he perceives in his breath as the creative force of God, then he falls under the sway of the Ahrimanic alluring power. In this condition he cannot return, because before he would return, there in the spiritual world he is enfolded in powerlessness. He would be non-sentient, more or less. His awareness would be disabled, crippled. In this manner, his awareness having been stunted, he would more or less be a sort of tool or implement of the Ahrimanic powers there in the spiritual world. It is certainly so today since the beginning of the age of Michael, that the spiritual life of human beings, which today is crass and crude, frozen in materialism, is for the most part carried over as such into the spiritual world. And what this means, what it entails, is that the Ahrimanic powers enfold the human being in their grasp whenever his awareness has been stunted into something other than the condition of full wakefulness, and yes, my friends, this has been in evidence everywhere energetically ever since the outbreak of the great World War. As I have most certainly said many times since the outbreak of the World War, the history of this war cannot be written about from the physical plane’s standpoint alone. Documents by themselves do not reveal the truth, that of the thirty or forty people who were most certainly engaged in the production of the war, a great number at various times were in a state of clouded awareness, and were therefore implements of the Ahrimanic powers. In this way much of what transpired in the World War was a legacy of Ahrimanic powers. This World War can only be written about in an occult manner. Whatever one has seen after a fashion, in his wanderings on this side of the Threshold, of various leading personalities immediately before the outbreak of the World War, all that can be taken truly to be indicative of the habits of soul that are carried over to the other side of the Threshold, and over there then become stunted, become stunted in awareness, and become, therefore, a working force of the Ahrimanic powers. A person must be clear and fully self-possessed about this, that he may not carry back to this side, the soul-constitution of the other side of the Threshold. He may not carry the soul-constitution of this side of the Threshold to the other side, but rather, for every domain, this side and the other side of the abyss, a strongly stark human inner awareness must be developed. It arises in this manner for all four elements in the admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold. And again, we should delve into this admonition meditatively. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, imagine that you are standing there on the other side of the Threshold. The Guardian has beckoned. You look straight at him. First, he calls out to you, admonishing.
One no longer has it. But your heart moves, deep within, and would give an answer. But the heart can be moved inwardly in a three-fold manner, an answer emerging by means of and from the cosmos. It can be moved, this heart, by Christ and his force. Then it answers:
meaning, the earth’s firmness,
That is the right demeanor of soul. I relinquish the pillars of earth, as long as the spirit carries me within the spirit-domain, as long as I am outside of the body. But the heart can also be moved by Lucifer. Then it answers:
So speaks the person in his lofty pride, in his self-satisfaction, as if he also would not need the support, when he traverses back into the physical world. Or the heart can be moved by Ahriman. Then it answers:
The support is referred to here, and carrying the hammered support out and over. No one should shrink back in fear from meditative soul-consideration of all three answers again and again, in order in this way to be able to choose and align with the first answer in freedom. For one must feel the inherent inward vacillation, the alignment with Lucifer, then with Ahriman. One must place this in meditation firmly within one’s vision. The meditation in this manner must embody the earthen element. [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.] First the Guardian speaks:
The human heart must give answer. When moved by Christ, it answers:
If the soul has been moved by Lucifer, it answers in this way:
The phrase “as long as” [The words “as long as” were underlined.] emerges from the heart, draws the eternal into temporality, and so transforms the sentence. If the heart has been moved by Ahriman, it answers in this way:
And then, progressing further, so that the soul can fully devote itself to what stands there before it, the second admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold appears, pointing to the formative force of water. This formative force of water is what builds the fixed organs in us, drawing them out of the fluid elements. All that we take in as nourishment must first become fluid, and then the organs are formed out of it. All of a person’s sharply contoured organs have been cast out of fluid elements. This formative force ceases as soon as a person enters the domain on the other side of the Threshold. The Guardian warns, that this is the case. He calls out to us, when we stand there on the other side of the Threshold, our gaze directed onto his stern face. [The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
The person answers, if he has been moved in his heart by Christ, “My life extinguishes it, quenches it, as long as the spirit forms me.” The spirit begins to work on you over there, half out of your body.
in the sense of quenching it, putting it out, and by “it” is meant the forming force,
Again appears “as long as”, again unobtrusively. [The words “as long as” were underlined.] If the soul has been moved by Lucifer, however, then the phrase “as long as” is left out, and the sentence emerges with haughty arrogance:
Well, what has been extinguished can be rekindled, but what has been melted away, expunged, remains expunged. “My life expunges it”
If the soul has been moved by Ahriman, then it answers:
Please take note, my dear brothers and sisters, how everything in mantric verse is fashioned inwardly, meaningfully, and with confident certainty. Here [The first verse was indicated.] we see, “I leave”, “I feel”, “I will.” The ego speaks in the answer. In the second verse the ego speaks, but not so egocentrically, but rather says, “My life”, as in “My life extinguishes it”, “My life expunges it”, “My life affixes it.” Any entry into all reality is only spoken about properly, if it is spoken about accurately in every aspect. Lassitude in the formation of sentences, which is appropriate for people in the physical domain, may not be carried forward into the spirit-domain. In the spirit-domain speaking must be exact and accurate. You should also most certainly keep in mind, my dear friends, that it all corresponds to a reality, that this esoteric school has not been constituted out of human intentions, but rather out of those of the spiritual world, as was said at the outset, that all that comes to the fore here in the esoteric school of the Goetheanum, even though it is said through my mouth, is nevertheless a dictum of the spiritual world. This must be so in every rightfully constituted esoteric school, certainly in the present and in times to come, just as it was in the ancient holy mysteries. And this esoteric school is the true Michael School, the institution of those high spiritual beings partaking immediately of the inspiration of the cosmic will of Michael. Concerning the domain of air, the Guardian of the Threshold once again speaks in admonition,
waking you into existence. As Jehovah, by means of his infusion of the breath of life into humans, transformed simple living beings, by means of the stimulus inherent in his breath, into beings that can perceive, so a person, through sensing, through the stimulus that the external world brings to bear on the senses, becomes a being who perceives. But what exactly are the senses? My dear brothers and sisters, the senses are most certainly just refined organs of breathing. The breath broadens itself out into all the senses. As it lives in the lungs, so it lives in the eyes. Only that in the lungs it is bound up with carbon, but in the eyes with the more refined silica. In one’s organism carbonic acid is produced. [It was drawn in red and the word carbonic acid4 was written down.] In the senses silicic acid is produced in a much more refined state. [Drawn in yellow, silicic acid5 was written down.] A person lives in his lower pole where oxygen combines with carbonic acid, and in his upper pole, in the domain of his nerve-sense system, where oxygen combines with silicon, with silica, and forms refined silicic acid [green]. A human being lives in such a way, that when the breath forms up in the blood, he produces carbonic acid, and when the breath forms up in the senses, he produces silicic acid [yellow arrows], below and outwardly through the breath carbonic acid, in the senses and returning from the senses within the breathing-process silicic acid in a totally more refined dose. The Guardian of the Threshold calls out to us concerning what is in the air:
He who is moved by Christ in his heart answers:
no longer earth’s air, but heaven’s air,
The heart moved by Lucifer answers:
The heart moved by Ahriman answers:
As Jehovah once created with his breath, so those swayed by Ahriman absorb the air, in order to carry it along while crossing over into the spiritual world. The Guardian speaks to the man: [The third part of the mantra was now written on the board and at the same time in the Christ-line the words “as long as” were underlined.]
The heart moved by Christ speaks:
The heart moved by Lucifer speaks:
The air’s power to stimulate is not noticed at all. The heart moved by Ahriman speaks:
Concerning the fiery or warmth elements, the Guardian now speaks his last elementary word, admonishing that a person should not lose himself in the element of warmth, but also not carry over into the spiritual world the warmth-element as it is in physical existence, as displayed on earth. Just before I do this, however, my dear brothers and sisters, I would like to call your attention to this progression along the ascent:
Now the Guardian speaks in warning concerning the fiery elements: [The fourth part of the mantra was written on the board, and at the same time in the Christ-line “as long as” was underlined.]
Our ego lives in warmth, in what presses into and throughout us as warmth. I have often, my dear brothers and sisters, remarked on this in the esoteric school, that the fixed elements remain unconscious within, and also the fluid elements, even though in one’s feeling of satisfaction, one already feels the perfusion of the fluid elements. In satiety or in hunger one experiences the essential nature of the fluid element. The aeriform element is experienced soulfully. A person becomes breathless when not connecting properly with air, and fear comes with breathlessness. This already enters the realm of soul. Warmth is something in which one feels wholly at home. He participates in his condition of warmth or of cold with the whole of his ego. Fire inflames his ego. The heart moved by Christ answers:
A person does not need the material warmth of earth when the spirit supplies the spark and ignites his ego. For the ego blazes there not in earthly warmth, not in earthly fire, but within the fire of God. But the heart moved by Lucifer answers:
The heart moved by Ahriman answers, as if the fire begun upon the earth is taken as his own and carried over into the spiritual world, to master the spiritual world with the ego-fire of the physical world.
The ego will not blaze up except by deploying its own fire. Once again, the progression arising in the formulation first appears in the person speaking “I”.
It then becomes more objective, in that the person addresses the things pertaining to himself as “Mine”.
It then goes more inwardly, so inner nature becomes objective.
Now he climbs somewhat further into himself. And take note of the difference, my dear brothers and sisters. Early on is said merely “I”. Then “I” becomes objective, “my I”, as if it were another’s, as one would speak of another’s property. One is externalized even more, one is externalized out of the physical body, even to the extent initially of allowing one to speak fully egoistically of the ego, and one says:
as if it were an object. That is the proper way to render it here. One becomes acquainted with this rendering, my dear brothers and sisters, in all its depth and intensity, when one speaks with souls who have gone through the portal of death and have been in the spiritual world awhile. They do not say “I”, but rather they always say “my I”. I have not yet heard of one departed after death who has said “I”, except at most for a very brief time after death. So some time after death, the dead one says “my I”, because he gazes upon the ego with the eyes of the gods. It becomes objective for him, characteristically objective. Therefore, an account, from someone who has been dead for a somewhat longer time, cannot be accurate if the departed says “I”, if he does not say “my I”. So here in the fourth progressive section, before the Guardian of the Threshold, the soul says “my I”. And that, my dear friends, is the wonderful spoken exchange at the Threshold, between the Guardian of the Threshold and the human personality, that actually takes place when one stands there before the Guardian of the Threshold, as illustrated here, which must be attended to, in order to catch the feeling in its essential actuality when deploying and immersing oneself in this dialogue properly in meditation. So you form the words up in meditation properly, my dear brothers and sisters, the mantric words coming to you here today, when in a certain sense you hear the words that you yourself are speaking, but only in the course of the Guardian having been heard to be speaking before us first in a manner of soul. Therefore this is how one meditates, as if hearing four times over the Guardian of the Threshold at the start of each section, concerning earth, water, air, and fire, and then allowing one’s own true soul to answer, but in such a manner that one immediately hears the first answer as if inwardly ensouled by Christ, the second answer in the voice of the tempter, and the third answer in the voice of the pompous materialistic Ahriman-Spirit, who approaches a person with the desire to carry over into the spirit the manner of being of the mineralized human. Now, in closing today’s esoteric lesson, we will allow the characteristic way this is to be meditated to sound forth with firm effect.
 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fifteenth Lesson
21 Jun 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fifteenth Lesson
21 Jun 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! Once again, we will begin with the mantric verse of the world stage and the world’s beings, the mantric verse that confronts a person as it sounds forth from all sides, when one is able with true inner appreciation of heart and soul to perceive what the prime essential beings of the world, the prime producers of the world, are able to say.
My dear brothers and sisters, my dear friends, it is worth noting, that since various class members are making their appearance at this Class lesson today, who have not been here before, some things will be said for the sake of continuity, things which are necessary to know, if one wishes to take up and fully appreciate the subject-matter of today’s Class lesson. We have certainly experienced, my dear brothers and sisters, how the great pictures of life appear before the soul when a person approaches, through true, genuine experience, the abyss which emerges between the world in which we live here, and the world that we come to know as the one in which we have our own true being, our actual human existence. We are aware that when we take hold of the world around us here in the right way, that this world certainly claims our most intense interest. We look all around from the lowliest worm up to the shining, glittering stars of the heavens, looking all around throughout the realms of nature, out of which much has been taken that we ourselves carry within. And we have every reason, in what is revealed around us in streaming brilliant sunlight, to feel down to the bottom of our hearts and souls its grandeur, its world-shaking importance, and its majesty. And we should not become mislead by participating in any sort of esotericism, by any type of science of the spirit, however ascetically we happen to chance upon it, for it could be merely a false asceticism, that involves turning away from the world. We should turn neither from the lowly worm nor from the exalted starry heavens, simply because these belong to the visible world. We should not turn away from it all and fail to perceive its grandeur, its majesty, and its sublimity, and fail to perceive the significance that it has for each of us. We should take this to heart. If we truly embrace spiritual science, we should feel fully at home in what appears around us as the world. But we should also be aware, and we can become aware, as we interact with the things and beings and events of the world in the proper intrinsic manner of heart and soul, we can and should become aware that our true, genuine, highest human self is not to be found in all these realms of nature, in spite of the world being so grand and exalted, in its sun-drenched and sun-illuminated nature, but that in the pursuit of cognition, we must seek our highest nature in a world which is separated from us by an abyss, and that the things on the other side of the abyss, in the other world, from which we really stem, are portrayed to us initially as blackest night. The abyss looms before us as a wall, a black wall. But the first being that we meet stands right at the abyss. Ever more and more we must allow this to resound within every night when we sleep, and we may certainly find this out, that the realm we are actually in then is the one to which we belong with the innermost and most genuine part of our humanity. But we really take up residence in this realm only when fully ready. We should not enter undeveloped. The Guardian of the Threshold, the first spirit-being that we meet, has warned us about this, in regard to any serious, genuine wish to gaze into this world of our ancient origin, and to enter therein unprepared. Then it is the Guardian of the Threshold himself who speaks the first words to us, as we tread the path over the abyss, into the realm of spirit from which we come. The Guardian of the Threshold himself admonishes that we should look back at our own self, in order that in self-awareness we should seek the foundation for understanding the world. It is also the Guardian of the Threshold himself, however, who shows us that what is initially in our soul-nature as thinking, feeling, and willing, that this corresponds to a certain gestalt, an organization in the spiritual world, which can be portrayed in front of us, and with which we can become acquainted imaginatively. At the abyss he points this construction out to us, this gestalt of our thinking, feeling, and willing, in their initial forms appropriate for our present time and age, as the three beasts that emerge from the abyss. And all that follows then is an admonition from the side of the Guardian of the Threshold, that we should pay especially close attention to these three beasts, meaning of course, to ourselves, in order in this manner to really find, out of our primal state, the path toward world comprehension. All this has been brought in the form of mantric verses before the souls of all who have taken part in these lessons, and all of this has led up to what was brought forth in the last lesson. So here we stand, the situational meditation before us. We have been advised, have had it pointed out to us, that we are already standing on the other side of the abyss, although still under the warning guidance of the Guardian of the Threshold. He directs certain words to us, in order that they should lead us to an understanding of our situation when we have over-flown the abyss and have entered the realm which for us is initially quite dark. On this side, as long as we stay within our present realm, from which we have not originated and from which we have not emerged, here we have under us the firmness of earth, which carries and supports us, and which, as we have seen, may be touched and felt by our entire body, when we stand upon the first element, upon the element of earth. We also carry within us and may feel what one calls "water" in spiritual science. This is indicated overall by all fluidity, and we may feel the fluid element within us. Most certainly it has built us from within, has made us grow, out of its nature has guided all organs into being, merely out of its nature, out of the nature of this second element, the element of water. And entrained to this water element, that of course is also the blood element, is again an admonition of the Guardian. Entrained to what we take up through our breath, the air element, entrained to what we take up through warmth, the fire element working effectively in us, also entrained there and directed at us are meaningful words of the Guardian of the Threshold. And the powers of the world work in us in such a way that an answer forms in our souls, an answer concerning each admonishing question of the Guardian of the Threshold. This answer, brought into movement in us by world powers, this answer can come from Christ, and then it will be the right answer. It can come from Lucifer, but then it will be an incorrect answer. It can come from Ahriman, but then again it will be an incorrect answer. The admonition of Christ should always be formed, in regard to each individual element, so that the Christ in us speaks, so that over there in the spiritual world we feel full of spirit, totally full of spirit, fully in harmony with the spirit-element, but so that we know, that as long as we are men of earth, that we must ever and again journey back over the abyss into earthly existence, we must not languish in how we are over there in the spiritual world, we must tear ourselves away from the nature of the spiritual world. Christ will always speak to us in this way, warning us, that as long as we are in the spiritual world, that we should be at one with this spiritual world, but when we return again, that we should live upon the earth as proper men and women of earth, for we should be living in the spirit only in the spiritual world. Lucifer will always spur us on, seeking to have us wish to remain in the spiritual world, to become absorbed in lust with the spiritual world, to become absorbed in the pleasures of the spiritual world. Ahriman will always induce us into wanting to take on the task of pulling the spiritual world over into the physical world. This sort of thing must be allowed to work on one's soul, so that by its means a person can properly regard, can feel into the whole situation regarding the spiritual world. And so, feel that we ourselves are on the other side of the abyss, already standing within the spiritual world, but standing nonetheless in utter darkness, the Guardian of the Threshold at the abyss turning to us assertively, in warning, directing admonishing questions at us, questions that lance deeply into our souls. Sense how for each individual question a three-fold answer comes to us in the answers of Christ, of Lucifer, and of Ahriman.
There is no floor anywhere. We are in the spiritual world.
We will be probed by the admonishing questions of the Guardian, about how we have come to deport ourselves in regard to the supports of earth, in regard to the fluid forming force in us, in regard to the astral nurturing force of air in us, and in regard to the “I”-bearing force of fire in us. And in us Christ answers, if a proper humanity moves within us. In us the tempter Lucifer answers, as if we should bound over into the wonder of all forever, which we should really bring into movement within us only during the time we rightfully give ourselves over to the spirit. And in us Ahriman answers, as if we should carry over into the fields of earth, what we partake of in the land of the spirit. Whatever is possible for the soul, we must allow the soul to work on, to work within the soul. We must expose ourselves just as fully to the voice of Christ, as to the voice of Lucifer and to the voice of Ahriman. We must inwardly move ourselves in meditation into this situation. In depths of soul we then become, directly by this means, in having appealed to our deepest inner nature, my dear brothers and sisters, directly by this means we become so broadly liberated, that in liberated spirit-experience we can have the spiritual element most truly as our own. Today we must enter into this situation more fully. We must pointedly feel ourselves to be standing on the other side of the threshold of this abyss, the admonishing Guardian of the Threshold beside us, and within us voices dragging a human being toward the very different positions of Lucifer and Ahriman, and within us the voice of Christ showing us the proper course while Lucifer on one side and Ahriman on the other are seeking to mislead us. Then we will be in the right frame of heart and mind which makes it possible to start off into the spiritual world with feeling, with empathy, with empathic inner feeling. We can only do this, my dear brothers and sisters, by gradually acquiring the ability to sense, to feel, to regard higher spiritual beings, just as we sense, feel, and regard the beings of the three realms of nature here in the sensory world. When standing here in the sensory world, external to ourselves we may feel the nature of a stone, the mineral nature, and we may say to ourselves that this mineral nature also lives in us. For we have salinity in us. Mineral nature, living in us in salinity, is the principal thing that really makes it possible to be a human being upon the earth. We may gaze out upon the plant-world and know that we have taken plant-like nature into ourselves, having it in our earthly nature within what is bordered by our skin, carrying it in our power of growth, carrying it in what forms our organs for us, and carrying it also in all that we process while asleep. We feel plant-like nature carried in us, while we gaze at plant-like nature around us. We may gaze out upon the animals, and know that in our astral nature, in our breathing process, that we carry animal nature itself within us. As we gaze out on various animals, we say that we feel allied to, in sympathy with their animal nature, because we carry within ourselves this same animal nature, although within our human nature we reorganize it. We feel ourselves to be human here in the sensory world under the sway of the beings of the three realms of nature. We must learn to feel in this way when remaining within the spiritual world under the sway of those beings with whom we exist in our human soul and spirit nature, just as we exist here with our physical and etheric nature among the beings of the three realms of external nature. Just as we learn to know ourselves as physical human beings under the sway of other physical human beings, just so we must learn to know ourselves as humans of soul and spirit under the sway of higher beings of soul and spirit. We have become acquainted with what, for us as human beings, is the surrounding encompassing spiritual-soul world, composed of three hierarchies, in the same way we have learned to know what is around us here, and have become acquainted with the beings of the sensory world in the three realms of nature. With our physical-etheric nature we belong to the three realms of nature. With our soul-spiritual nature we belong to the three realms of the hierarchies. While remaining here in the physical world, it is only natural to belong to the three realms of nature, to let them flow through us and to remain amongst them. While remaining pressed into the soul-spiritual world, during our time there, our condition must be soul-spiritual, in belonging among the entities of the higher hierarchies of the spiritual world, feeling ourselves empathically, intuitively pressed in amongst them, and discerning these entities of the higher hierarchies just as we do otherwise in regard to the beings of the realms of nature. The Guardian in turn instructs us further about this. And to these mantric words, drawn forth from the spiritual world by the alluring voice of the Guardian, to these mantric words we must turn, ever and ever again allowing them to resound within our souls in meditation. Then they will have the power, directly by the simple manner in which they have been constructed, through the recapitulation within yourself, through their own quite capable intrinsic form, these mantric words will be properly able to call into wakefulness in our souls the feeling of standing within the spiritual world among the hierarchies. We have to envision the next mantra in this way, with the Guardian speaking. We are still standing on the other side of the Threshold of the spiritual world in darkness, having learned first to feel about within the spiritual world, before learning to gaze about. First the Guardian speaks, once again in reference to the elements of earth, water, and air. Building on fire will be the subject matter of the next Class lesson. First the Guardian speaks, in reference to the elements of earth, water, and air, and therefore to all that is fixed in us, to all that is fluid in us, primarily our blood and lymph, and in reference to all that is aeriform in us, the air taken in from outside that is encompassed in our breathing process. The Guardian speaks in reference to all this. And he calls forth what resounds in the world of the hierarchies. After the Guardian has directed his word at us, one hierarchy after the other speaks, the third hierarchy accompanying the first mantra, at first the Angels, then the Archangels, and finally the Archai. We should feel ourselves in this situation. The Guardian of the Threshold is speaking to us. It sounds forth from the darkness, as if emerging from the background all around, and at the same time it speaks within our souls, reverberating within us. The Guardian speaks: What becomes of earth’s firmness, that supported you? The Angels from the Third Hierarchy:
The Archangels from the Third Hierarchy:
The Archai from the Third Hierarchy:
We receive from the cosmos a momentous three-fold instruction in regard to the question of the Guardian of the Threshold. With magic power his words call forth the answer of the Angels, the Archangels, and the Archai. Just what do the Angels profess to us? As human beings we think. Initially we believe we only experience our thoughts. But while our thoughts are flowing through our souls, the Angels are actually living within our thoughts. And as we perceive with our senses, as we confront and engage something or other, so living within our thoughts are the Angels, for that is how they perceive, how they sense. They speak and make us aware of this. And just as the Angels sense within our thinking, just so the Archangels live in and experience in our feeling, and the Archai show themselves and take part in our willing. When some sort of thought, my dear brothers and sisters, zips through your soul, then you should feel, that in this thought a being of the hierarchy of Angels perceives something. In that you are thinking, an Angel is touching something, sensing, perceiving. While you are feeling, a being from the hierarchy of the Archangels is living into it, experiencing. While you are willing, in that you deploy your will, a being from the hierarchy of the Archai is taking hold and looking about, observing. Human thinking, human feeling, and human willing are not merely ongoing within human beings. When we think, the Angels sense. When we feel, the Archangels experience. When we employ our will, the Archai take part, looking about, observing. [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.] The Guardian speaks:
It is answered from the hierarchy of the Angels, from the third hierarchy: [3rd Hierarchy was written in front of this section and underlined.]
It sounds forth from the hierarchy of the Archangels:
It sounds forth from the hierarchy of the Archai:
That is what in the spiritual world takes the place of the element of earth. For the supporting force of earth is simply not there. The firm floor of earth is gone. Everything solid and fixed is gone. The Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai make a firm support, but not as the minerals shape up into firmness. We would not be thinking deeply, but would be bogged down on all sides in our thinking if the Angels were not working there, if they were not having their own sort of sensory perception there. If the Archangels were not living in our feeling, we would scatter ourselves about in amorphous formlessness. If the Archai were not able to gaze into our willing, we would fade away to nothing in our willing. The second is water, which gives us the formative force, the fluid element in us. Once more we may imagine that we are standing on the other side of the abyss in darkness before the spiritual world. First, we learn to feel our way around in it. The Guardian is speaking, admonishing, questioning. Now, however, entrained in answer to the questioning about the force of fluidity, to the element of fluidity, is the Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. The Guardian speaks:
Out of the second hierarchy the Exusiai answer:
The Dynamis of the second hierarchy:
The Kyriotetes of the second hierarchy:
In this manner we are brought into becoming aware, that as we stand face to face with everything around us, that we are not standing alone. We should learn to feel that in our bodily existence, in all that we carry around within the boundaries of our skin, there lives a part of universal world existence. The Second Hierarchy is in us, working in us, making us to some extent cosmic beings, beings linked to the cosmos as our limbs are linked to us. All this should wash over us so thoroughly in awareness, through this mantric verse, so that in standing within the events of the world, everything within us, from the smallest vibration of our cellular organs, to the grand exalted beating movements of our blood, to the rhythms of our breathing system, to the rhythms alternating between night and day, so that everything, so that all this is not merely happening within us, but as a linked limb of universal world process. [The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.] The Guardian speaks:
The Exusiai answer from the Second Hierarchy: [2nd Hierarchy was written in front of this section and underlined.]
The Dynamis answer from the second hierarchy:
The Kyriotetes answer from the second hierarchy:
In these mantric verses, as I have often said, all must be taken specifically as given. So the question may arise, why it is, that standing here next to “world spiritual process” is “human body existence”? We must take each exact word to heart if a mantric verse is to work properly in our souls. Externally world process has dominion, and we perceive it as happening. This world process is world-wide, all-embracing, and fills the universe. As it continues on in us, it actually is in us, although we feel it as self-contained in our existence, because our skin defines our outer borders and we feel ourselves to be fully self-contained. Within ourselves we do not feel everything moving, undulating, weaving, in the way we feel it externally. And so here “process” stands in contradistinction to “existence,” whereas earlier and quite rightly “construction” stands with “construction," and “life” with “life”. And in regard to the element of air, its admonishing question is also raised by the Guardian of the Threshold. It is answered by the beings of the First Hierarchy, the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. They admonish us that we should become aware of just how the cosmos works in us. We must progress from mere consciousness to self-consciousness, and here it is the beings of the First Hierarchy who guide us.
So now we are admonished to re-awaken self-awareness at a higher level, for by means of the magical words of the second hierarchy we have traversed out into the cosmos, we have felt our unification with the cosmos. [The third part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
From the First Hierarchy the cosmic answer sounds forth: [3rd Hierarchy was written before the section and underlined.]
Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, without having felt the effective working of this last mantra, as it sounds forth from the fiery flashing power of the Seraphim, “Wake inner light in yourself in your god’s-world-light,” without this flashing, flaming word intoned by the Seraphim flaming forth, we would not be able to catch the sense of how, out of our own soul, a force must be awakened, so that as we stand there in darkness, on the other side of the abyss, still just feeling about, gradually feeling the world approaching us, by this means, by and by, a mere glimmer begins to emanate from us, becoming more lucid, the glimmer progressively penetrating ever further in space, and broader and broader, and as the glimmer becomes more and more luminous, more and more brilliant, by means of our own force the night-bedecked darkness there in the spiritual world gradually becomes lucent. It must be so. In this manner we must try to attain the igniting power of the true self, the fiery igniting power of true humanity, for this is the light in the initially night-bedecked spiritual lands. So, we feel ourselves to be within the threefold spiritual world of the Angels, Exusiai, Thrones, and so forth, just as we feel ourselves to be within the sensory world here in the sensory existence in the three realms of nature. So we learn to feel ourselves as human beings in our true human manner of existing in the spiritual environment, just as we feel ourselves as sensing human beings in the sensory environment. We learn it, inasmuch as we ascend due to the third hierarchy, which unfurls the spirit in us, we ascend to the particular spirit within which this hierarchy lives, inasmuch as we then ascend from this to the second hierarchy, which develops the spirit in us of producing, living, existing, and finally, insofar as we come to the first hierarchy, where we once again have a support, although a support of spirit, which most certainly is at the top and not at the bottom, wherein we have the reign of wisdom in the Cherubim, which brings us, in the service of self-awareness, to what can in turn bring warmth into our inner nature in self-perception, in inner-self-feelings, in inner-self-warming, until we come thereby to this inwardly-warmed self which becomes the illuminating element, which will clarify, illuminate what was dark for us before. And so we stand, feeling such things at the side of the Guardian of the Threshold, feeling immersed in the admonition sounding forth, confronting us from all the beings of the world, from all the happenings of the world, so that from self-awareness we ascend to world-awareness, from world-awareness to human-awareness, and so that we remain standing extant in nature, but also extant in spirit, we ourselves held by both sides of reality, by the side of nature and by the side of spirit. But then resounding in a new form, in a new gestalt, the words not being different, but being felt differently, strengthened through the admonition of all the hierarchies of the spiritual world, in which we stand primarily as human beings, and so then again resounds the world word:
 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Sixteenth Lesson
28 Jun 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Sixteenth Lesson
28 Jun 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! Once again, we will begin by our allowing the word to sound forth, which may resound within the soul of each and every human being, given a proper understanding of the world, of the entirety of what is near and far in the cosmos. Before this word speaks to our souls, however, I really must say at least a few words, once again, to clarify the significance of this school, for once again gathered here today there are many new members of the esoteric school. I will make my remarks today quite brief, but what must absolutely be included in this clarification, is that this school must be seen to be such, that it conveys its information out of the spiritual world and down to human souls, so that what lives here in the school, what is brought here in the school to human souls, is seen intrinsically as a communication from the spiritual world itself. In this context, one can see that membership in the school must be seen, in the highest degree, as something to be taken seriously. Such gravity, which must be present throughout this school, has certainly only become possible through the constitution of the Anthroposophical Society since the Christmas Conference. Ever since the Christmas Conference, the Anthroposophical Society configured as such has been an entirely open institution, but at the same time an open institution through which flows an esoteric impulse. It is an esoteric impulse for the hearts of today, which is certainly more approachable and engaging than the more exoteric impulse that was present previously. From members of the Anthroposophical Society as such, no more is required than that they feel themselves to be listeners to anthroposophical wisdom. Beyond that no more is demanded than would ordinarily be expected of every decent human being. Membership in the School entails something more, however, for members of the school should accept the stipulations, the serious stipulations of the school. And the most basic stipulation is just this, that each member belonging to the school should comport himself or herself in life, so that on every side and in every circumstance he or she is a representative of anthroposophical matters before the world. In being a representative of anthroposophical matters before the world, it is of course also necessary, that in regard to all that one does or wishes to do that is somehow related to anthroposophical matters, be it ever so distantly related, that one engaged in these things seek an interrelationship with the leadership of the school, meaning the esoteric Executive Council at the Goetheanum. And this, for all intents and purposes, will allow the school to assume a real leadership role in the Anthroposophical Movement, represented as it is today by the Anthroposophical Society. And so even now, it is necessary that membership in the school should come to be so regarded, that those affiliated with the school will take up Anthroposophy with their whole human nature, with their whole being, and with the feeling that they themselves are linked limbs of the real stream that will flow forth from the Goetheanum. As this is fulfilled and put in place, my dear friends, it cannot be seen as a curtailment of one’s human freedom in any way, for membership in the school is based on reciprocity. Within the school the leadership must have the freedom to do what they are appointed to do, to do what they hold to be the right things to do. And just as one need not be a member of the school, or become a member of the school, without freedom, and must remain thoroughly free, just so must the leadership of the school be able to remain in place in freedom, without anyone being able to say anything to the contrary, so that their free will is not compromised in any way. It is a covenant of freedom between the leadership and those who will be members. In order, on the other hand, to be truly in earnest in maintaining the earnest nature of the school, and it simply and at least cannot be otherwise, the leadership of the school should take up and maintain their right to revoke someone’s membership, for whatever reason they hold to be necessary. And as testament to the strength with which the leadership has taken this on, my dear friends, is the fact that in the comparatively brief existence of the school sixteen members of the school as a whole have been suspended for some time, sometimes briefly and sometimes for a longer period of time. And I must emphasize once again, this measure must be, certainly as we in plunge ever deeper and deeper into esoterica, this measure must remain uncompromisingly strong in the future, regardless of whomever the personalities are who are so affected. And now let the word be spoken, the word that should always be spoken admonishingly at the outset of this our engaging esoteric discussion, the admonition that sounds forth to human beings from all the events and things of the world and from all the beings of the world, held in one’s heart, in order to understand it, the admonishing call to self-awareness, which is the true foundation of world-awareness:
My dear friends, we have been imbued with what should come to us from the spiritual world as mantric verses, up through to those mantric verses in which we feel about within the esoteric situation. This esoteric situation certainly involves representing to ourselves in meditating, how at first the being standing there at the abyss of existence speaks to us. Therefore, picture it once again, for we cannot call this up before our souls often enough. A person sees all around himself, immediately around about himself in earthly existence, the realms of nature. He looks about at the sublime stars. He sees the clouds in motion. He sees all that is around about him in wind, weather, lightning and thunder. He sees all from the lowliest worm up to the most sublime display of the twinkling starry heavens. Only a false asceticism, which is not a part of genuine esotericism, can somehow disdain what belongs to the sensory world. Any person who has the will to be a proper human being cannot do otherwise than take it all in, in the most intimate manner, all reality that is sensed and made sense of, from the lowliest worm to the majestic, awe-inspiring, twinkling stars. Then in solitude the moment comes, in which deep in his innermost soul a person can grasp, the moment in which he must say to himself, “All that you see around you is grand, vast, beautiful, sublime, and magnificent. You should not disdain it. You should appreciate it. Step by step you should march forward through the world, in order to be able to see ever more and more what your eyes alight upon, what your ears resound with, what the other senses discern, what you can grasp with your sense of reason. But while you look around near and far, and within the marching movement of time, in spite of all the grandeur, beauty, and sublimity in your surroundings, in this territory is not to be found just what the innermost nature of your own existence itself is.” And you will have to say to yourself, “The innermost source of your own existence is to be sought elsewhere.” That is the power that can be take hold of us in such a thought! That which then proceeds for the soul can only be portrayed in imaginative conceptions. These imaginative conceptions initially lead us as if to a broad field, in which is spread out all the things of earth, sensory-material things. We find it to be drenched in sun, we find it brightly illuminated, but as we look all around nowhere do we find the essence of our own being. Then we look around more carefully. And bordering on this sun-drenched field, in which for the senses all is beautiful and grand and sublime, in which we ourselves are not, but bordering on this is a dark, night-bedecked wall. We have a sense that within the darkness there is the possibility of light being shed on the source of our true being, but we cannot gaze within. And in that we are following the path this far, the abyss of existence appears before us. This is the threshold to the spiritual world. We still have to cross over this abyss. There stands the Guardian, who warns us that we must be prepared, in order to cross over the abyss. For with our customary habits, our customary ways of thinking, feeling, and willing in the physical-sensory world, we will not cross over this abyss of existence into the true spiritual world, in which our true essential being primarily stands. The very first spirit form that we encounter there is the Guardian of the Threshold. Every night when we sleep, we are within this spiritual world. But a sort of darkness surrounds us in our essential “I am” nature and in our astral body, for we can enter into this spiritual world only when ready. The Guardian of the Threshold warns us about entering unprepared. Now however, as we approach him, he sends us his great admonitions. And these admonitions confront us in the mantric verses that have formed the content of these esoteric lessons up to now. Those who do not yet have these mantric verses can most certainly obtain them from other members of the school. To obtain them with the proper decorum, however, it must be kept in mind that not the one receiving them, but rather the one giving them must ask if they can be given. These verses have not only shown us that we should involve our heart when we wish to cross over the abyss of existence, they have also already shown us, as we ourselves find out for ourselves in our condition of soul, once we have flown over the abyss and are gradually starting to sense about, not yet gazing, but just sensing about, that the darkness, that initially confronted us night-bedecked, that this darkness gradually clears. Initially one feels that it clears, and one feels that the elements, the earthen, the watery, the aeriform, and the fiery, become something else over there, that we are living in another world. And this world, in which we will come to know our own essential being, and thereby the true form of the elements, is quite another world. The last time, through the meditation parading before our souls, we formed the conception of the Guardian standing at the abyss of existence and of ourselves already across and on the other side of the abyss, just feeling, not yet seeing, and that the darkness was lightening. There the Guardian speaks to us, after he previously of course clarified for us just how we should comport ourselves in regard to the elements. The Guardian speaks to us about how the elements have now changed for us. He puts forth questions to us. Who answers? The hierarchies themselves answer these questions, from one aspect the Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai, from the next aspect the Second Hierarchy, and from the third aspect the First Hierarchy. The Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai, answers when the Guardian of the Threshold asks us, “What becomes of earth’s firmness?” The Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes, answers when the Guardian of the Threshold asks us, “What becomes of water’s forming force,” the formative force that works in us and really gives us our inner organization. And the First Hierarchy, the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, answers when the Guardian of the Threshold asks us what becomes of our breath, of the air’s quickening power, which really wakes us from dim plant-like existence-awareness into a consciousness of existence filled with feeling and empathy. And such mantric verses certainly possess the wherewithal to permeate our soul, our heart, so that we feel drawn into the whole situation. The Guardian of the Threshold puts each searching, admonishing question to us. The hierarchies answer.
That, my dear brothers and sisters, it the warning word emerging from the company of the Guardian of the Threshold with the Hierarchies, that brings our souls gradually further and ever further along, when we experience them in the right way ever and ever again. The manner of proceeding, which must be the case for people today and for people in the future, and has been described in the holy mysteries of old, is for the student to say he was guided into the essential nature of the elements of earth, water, and air. But all-pervasive warmth, which is also an element, is within the earth element, supporting us personally with its firmness, and within the water element, forming us personally, contouring our organs, bringing them into existence, into motion and into growth. Warmth lives within this water element. Warmth also lives within the air element, through which once upon a time the spirit of Yahweh blew into humanity its being of soul, and through which even today a person awakens his soul-being out of dull plant-like existence. Warmth lives within this aeriform element. Warmth lives all around and within all. We must become acquainted with it as the all-pervasive element. As the all-pervasive element, we must dive into it. We certainly feel ourselves to be very, very close to it. We feel remote from the fixed element in earth, even though we sense its support in the earth. Even from the watery element we feel remote. The aeriform element, however, presses into us in intimate coexistence. Sometimes the aeriform element is not quite in harmony with us, as when we have too much, or too little air, when this shows just how inwardly our life is connected with the aeriform element. Having too much air evokes fear and anxiety. Having too little air makes one faint. We are certainly deeply touched by the element of air. We feel, though, that our most intimate uniting is with the warmth element. Whether warmth or cold is in us, it is we ourselves who are warm or cold. In order to live, we must produce a certain degree of warmth within ourselves. We remain intimately close to the warmth element. In order to approach it even more closely, not just one hierarchy must speak, but the admonishing words of the different hierarchies must sound forth together. To this end the Guardian of the Threshold also addresses words of warning, a question, to warn us about the element of warmth. The answer emerges from the world-all, from the cosmos, but is now something quite different. The Guardian of the Threshold puts his question:
We are already familiar with the form of the question. Now the question concerns our being guided into the element of warmth, or fire. Not just one Hierarchy answers, or one group of beings within a Hierarchy, but rather what answers is a chorus of Angels, Exusiai, and Thrones. Seconding this, a chorus of Archangels, Dynamis, and Cherubim answer the question. Thirdly, the Archai, Kyriotetes, and Seraphim answer. In this way the three answers ring forth from choir-groups of the three hierarchies speaking together, concerning the generalities of the element of warmth. We must so form this as a conception, while we are pondering the admonishing question of the Guardian of the Threshold concerning the warmth element, so that at this moment sounding forth from our “I” answers emerge, but answers inspired by the hierarchies, and so the answers sound forth admonishingly. As if from all sides the Angels, Exusiai, and Thrones speak forth first. Secondly the Archangels, Dynamis, and Cherubim speak. Thirdly the Archai, Kyriotetes, and Seraphim speak. Always all three Hierarchies speak, always an ordered group from the three Hierarchies speaks. And this confronts us cosmically in conjunction with the question.
All three Hierarchies admonish us to think about how all that approaches us during life on earth is carried over in the world ether, and we see it carried over in the world ether when we have gone through the portal of death. Standing there in the spiritual world, after we have crossed over through the portal of death, we look back on our life on earth, but also look out on the wide etheric reaches, where is inscribed what we have accomplished by thinking, feeling, and doing during life on earth. It is a unity, the flaming script of your life.
Here we are made mindful of the second stage which we undergo when we have passed through the portal of death. There we experience backwardly, in mirror-images, that is to say, in its just atonement, in making amends, in becoming one with world-all again, all that we have accomplished here in life. If we behaved toward a person in some manner, we then experience backwards in the time-stream what the other experienced through us. And just so, as I have delineated, do the Archangels, Dynamis, and Cherubim inform us in warning about just what this second stage is that we experience between death and a new birth. But at just what happens in working out the details of our karma in the third stage, at just what happens as we are working together as souls with other human souls and with the beings of the higher Hierarchies, about this we are advised, in warning, by:
We must allow ourselves to be drawn into the situation so as to feel the Guardian of the Threshold speaking, his earnest bearing reaching out to us, admonishing us, and out of the far reaches of the world, ringing out and over us, our hearts embrace what unites us with the mysteries of life. [The fourth part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
What stands before us is a black, night-bedecked darkness, since for the eyes of soul it is not yet suffused with light. But we have the feeling, as we remain standing there in this black, night-bedecked darkness, that as we are feeling about, that everywhere we feel the beginnings of glimmerings of light. And we find that we are able to maintain an awareness of it, of this glimmering light that we can only feel. We feel our way toward the Guardian of the Threshold. Of course, we really only beheld him so long as we were over there in the sensory world. Then we stepped initially into darkness and heard his admonishing, questioning word. But this admonishing, questioning word has led us along, so that now we feel a bit of the moving, working light, the gentle, moving, working light. Seeking help in the moving, working light we turn to the Guardian of the Threshold. And it is a singular experience. Not yet light, although the illumination allows itself to be felt. In this felt illumination the Guardian of the Threshold reveals himself, as if now he would be more intimate with us, as if here he would approach us more closely, as if we would also approach closer to him. And what he says from this point on works extremely effectively, as it might work on you in life if someone were to whisper something in your ear in confidence. Continuing on, what initially resounded meaningfully as an admonishing earnest word from the Guardian of the Threshold, trumpeted, mighty, majestic, from all sides out of the cosmos, and impinging on our hearts, as it continues on it becomes an intimate conversation in moving-working light with the Guardian of the Threshold, for now it is no longer as if he were speaking to us, but rather as if he were whispering.
And our inner being is warmed by this confidential communication of the Guardian of the Threshold, by his saying, “Has your spirit understood?” Our inner being is warmed. It experiences itself in the warmth. And it feels itself driven, impelled, this inner being to answer. Devoutly it answers, and so we envision it in meditation, devoutly it answers, calm, unassuming:
Our “I” answers the question, “Has your spirit understood.” The answer is neither haughty nor expectant. The answer is not “I have understood,” but rather, the “I” feels that divine existence penetrates into the innermost aspect of human nature, divine breath in man it is, that peacefully abides and prepares the way for understanding. [The first stanza of the new mantra was now written on the board.]
And seconding this, the Guardian asks, confidentially:
The “I” answers:
Again, it is not some sort of haughty answer that the “I” feels building, when the Guardian asks, “Has your soul accepted,” but rather the soul is aware that there are divine souls speaking within, the souls of the beings of the higher Hierarchies, and that in what is said lives not merely an individual, but rather an entire council, an advisory assembly, such as when the coursing stars of a planetary system reciprocate in sending out their forces of illumination. In this manner the world souls send out the council’s conclusions. They are taken up by the soul innately. And out of the harmonies the soul hopes that the “I” will become sound, so that in a fashion appropriate for human beings the becoming I is an echo of world-harmonies. As in the wandering planets of the solar system, the world-souls in the world-spirit-forum deliberate together in harmony, and the harmony of this concurrence sounds on into the human soul.[The second stanza was now written on the board.]
And the third confidential question that the Guardian directs to human beings in this situation, is this:
The soul feels that world-forces live in this body, as everywhere else, concentrated in a point in space. But now these universal powers do not appear as physical powers. The soul has finally become aware that those powers that appear externally as functioning, physical powers, as gravity, electricity, magnetism, heat, and light, that these powers, when appearing in human bodies, are moral powers, transformed powers of the will. The soul perceives the world-forces as the eternal powers of world-justice, constituted throughout the happenstances of earthly life. The soul perceives them as rectifying powers, rectifying powers that in their words of truth weave the threads of karma, and thereby the true essential “I”.
then the person feels impelled to answer, full of humility, although fully in accord with world-justice:
In this manner the soul becomes, after having experienced, together with the Guardian of the Threshold and the Hierarchies, the transformation, the metamorphosis of the universal elements, in this manner the soul becomes inwardly devoted to these three questions of the Guardian, the soul becomes interwoven with the particular spiritual beings who have poured themselves out in response, and the soul in turn comes a little further along in response to the enigmatic word, “O Man, know yourself!” And now just today let us put side by side the opening word with what we come upon in feeling the warmth-element. The warmth element itself approaches us in a reverent voice concerning the spiritual content of the cosmos, and then we feel how much further we have progressed in following the great admonition, “O Man, know yourself!” We will see how we as human beings remain in the middle between this resounding call, from all events and all universal beings, between this call and the mantric verse parading directly in front of our souls by means of today’s lesson.
 
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Seventeenth Lesson
05 Jul 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Seventeenth Lesson
05 Jul 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! Once again, we begin today with what is spoken and confronts us, with a proper connection to the world by human hearts, sounding forth from all that exists and is coming into existence as the ever-present call to self-awareness, through which a person in certainty can begin to come into real world-awareness.
Once again, we let this move through our souls, this, which was joined together with the content of the last Class lesson. This had also emerged as a meditation of what a person can experience when he feels himself to be entirely in world cohesive inter-connection, above all in cohesive inter-connection with the spiritual world. Yes, we have allowed to parade before our souls the human path to the abyss of existence, at which stands the Guardian of the Threshold. We have heard the lessons given by the Guardian of the Threshold. We have heard how whoever now arrives at the other side of the Threshold, initially feeling himself in light, experiences the world in a new way, in that he at once takes up what is spoken by the Guardian of the Threshold on one side, but also what is said to him by the spiritual beings of the higher Hierarchies. And the last dialogue was of this sort, in which the Guardian posed a question concerning the element of warmth. Warmth presses into and through everything, and from the other side of the abyss displays itself as a moral element, a moral element that casts illuminating wisdom, as one after the other the three groups speak, the Angels-Exusiai-Thrones, then the Archangels-Dynamis-Cherubim, and finally Archai-Kyriotetes-Seraphim. Then again, the Guardian speaks to the “I” in three stages, in questions penetrating into human nature, and as clarified last time, the “I” humbly answers, although in this slower-paced dialogue with the Guardian, the words now inwardly change.
While the human being on the other side of the Threshold of Existence, where the Guardian stands, merely feels himself in the moving, living light, it will gradually, slowly, not just be felt-light, it will slowly be the sort of light of which one can say, that the person sees it. From a feeling of light that wafts and weaves, that one has, so to speak, in one’s spiritual grasp merely as an idea, it gradually becomes light that as such becomes visible to the eye of the spirit. But a person can come into seeing this light in no other way than by receiving in turn the deep and fundamental words of the Guardian. And these admonishing words call attention to a mighty world-imagination, pointing to something through which, even while standing here in the sensory world, a person can gain his own impression of something enormously majestic, if he has the heart for it. And so, when a person becomes inwardly translucent and pours his attention wrapped in wonder into the sky above, into the entrancing cloud formation, the majestic rainbow, then he can perceive something else, as if there were glowing spirits, spirits showing through the colorful shining of the rainbow, spirits from the other side of the physical sensory show. Yes, it stands there, it forms up out of the universal all, it vanishes again into the universal all, and it is emplaced within this universal all as a mighty imagination. At this moment the Guardian brings up that part of this impression of the rainbow which should also be clearly visible over there in the spiritual world. [A secondary rainbow was drawn.]1  And the Guardian calls attention to the following, that whoever has crossed over and arrived in the spirit-world, should bring such an image into motion within himself out of his sensory-world memory, just such an image that the rainbow, having dominion everywhere, has always made for him. And it is noteworthy, my dear brothers and sisters, that when a person crosses over out of the physical-sensory world into the spiritual world, the image of the rainbow is such that one remembers it very easily, and quite easily and appropriately calls up in this remembrance the connection between the spiritual world, in which it really becomes all light, and the physical-sensory world, which with one’s powers of insight one has just taken leave of. And then, for it is not the sight of the rainbow, it is the memory of the rainbow that is called forth by the Guardian of the Threshold, and then the Guardian continues his instruction. Now just try, we will hear the words with which the Guardian speaks, try now with the force with which you would otherwise be gazing outward with your eyes, to prepare for yourself the means of penetrating through the rainbow, the means of penetrating through, under, and beyond the rainbow to the other side. Therefore, let us imagine [The second drawing was developed.], that within cloud-formations [white], looking outward from the earth [small arrows], the rainbow would be here [red in the cloud-formations]. So far, we have imagined the Guardian Teaching us to press on through that rainbow and from the vantage point [struck through the cloud-formation up to a small circle, on which the word “vantage point” was written] of the other side to look back, there from the wide reaches of the world, from there to look back at the rainbow. So, the Guardian instructs us about it, and also to be contemplative, to be mindful in our imagination, to deepen ourselves in meditation, so that in a way we may stride beyond the point reached in the last lesson. Then, when from over there we look back, when you therefore envision, my dear brothers and sisters, that you have gone beyond the drawing on the board [a white arrow pointing left overhead in the first drawing], and are looking backward at the rainbow [a red arrow to the right underneath in the first drawing], as it re-emerges in memory and is gazed at backward, then the rainbow becomes a mighty basin, a sort of world chalice. And one no longer sees a bow. It is as if one were looking at an immense and mighty basin in the heavens, at a chalice within which colors are flooding one into another. That is the imagination initially put by the Guardian.
These are mighty words spoken here by the Guardian. And you must properly place yourselves in the situation, my dear brothers and sisters, in the situation of the whole force of formation within which the pupil of the Guardian of the Threshold finds himself, when summoned to behold the world-chalice with its content, the color-flooded light.
One must thoroughly penetrate into, must be immersed by such imagery. And if the image works inwardly and quite deeply within the “I”, then a person sees that within this color-flooding that fills the chalice, that within this color-flooding the high beings of the Third Hierarchy appear, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai. And they breathe in the colors, after their own angelic fashion. They assimilate the colors. One gains an appreciation of the world-creativity lying behind the sensory world, displaying itself in the deeds of the higher hierarchies, one gains an appreciation of this in the dominion of the spiritual beings on the other side of the rainbow, initially in their breathing in the colors of the world-chalice, inhaling them in their own way. One sees that in passing over from the world into the rainbow, infusing into the rainbow, thoughts appear behind the rainbow, thoughts that have been absorbed, have been breathed in by angelic beings. In this way a person becomes acquainted with the nature of the rainbow. All that has been thought, the various thoughts coming from people everywhere, in every region, will time and again, ever and again, be gathered up and channeled through the arc of the rainbow into the spiritual realm, there to be breathed in by the high beings of the Third Hierarchy. What shines so enchantingly within the reaches of the world-all has not just physical significance, but also inner spiritual significance. And one does not get to know anything of the magic of the ethereal arc by remaining within the physical-sensory world, but rather in order to really get to know it, a person must have assimilated the various admonitions of the Guardian of the Threshold, those that we have become acquainted with. Then, however, directly through the impression one acquires from the vantage point of the other side, the impression of the rainbow there as world-chalice, it will be clear how for us the light gradually spreads out within it, although at the beginning it stood before us as a dark, night-bedecked sphere. We are no longer in darkness. It brightens and clarifies. It is sunlight. Seen from the other side of the rainbow, it is the color-flooded world-chalice. Then the Angels, Archangels, and Archai internally begin to mirror their consciousness of human souls, as they breath in the color-flooding, so that what lives sense-perceptibly here upon the earth, insofar as it is suitable for the spirit-realm, will be carried into the spirit-realm. And then, when one has witnessed how these high beings of the Third Hierarchy have breathed in what they have taken up from the sensory world, as what has penetrated through to them through the rainbow that they have transformed, so that it can be taken up into the spiritual world, then it is seen that they go with it, with what they have taken up into themselves in this way, and carry it on in service to the higher spirits, to the spirits of the Second Hierarchy. For the spirits of the Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai, are the serving spirits of the spirit-world. From them we hear now, yes we hear what we saw when we turned our soul's vision on the color-flooded world-chalice on the other side of the rainbow.
[This second stanza was now written on the board.]
My dear brothers and sisters, let us once more firmly place the image before our souls of the vast world-chalice taking up half the heavens, and the flooding of the colors within it, which we otherwise see plainly in the rainbow, but here moving and living in one-another, and the approaching high beings of the Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai. They breathe these colors in. But to us the thoughts of the high beings of the higher Hierarchies in this color-inbreathing become visible in soul. Really, we watch, as inspired with these world-thoughts, these present beings of the Third Hierarchy wend their way to the present beings of the Second Hierarchy, whom they serve; they wend their way to the Exusiai, the Dynamis, the Kyriotetes. And before us we have the mighty image of the appearance of the pure spirit-being, the sun-dweller, that simply appears there, when the physical image vanishes, that sun-designed, that small, in spite of all its vastness in relation to the earth, that small image, for it is only an image, when that small image by the sun vanishes. And majestically the sun will encompass the entirety of all, endlessly far larger than the vast world-image. Appearing then are the present beings of the Second Hierarchy, weaving, living in the pure realm of spirit, now really receiving what the Angels, Archangels, Archai bring to them. These are not dead thoughts, such as we have; there the dead thoughts have been taken in from the sensory-semblance and in the in-breathing by the Angels, Archangels, Archai have become enlivened. As in a mighty opera the Angels, Archangels, Archai carry these enlivened thoughts forth to the present beings of the Second Hierarchy, to the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. The very thoughts that have lived in earth existence, that in earth existence are semblance, are awakened by the present beings of the Second Hierarchy into actual existence. And we see how the beings of the Third Hierarchy receive from the beings of the Second Hierarchy the already enlivened thoughts, that now will become a mighty world revival, a new world from the dead sensory-semblance that has been received by Angels, Archangels, Archai, a new world, a revived world will come into being by the action of the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. Then we watch as the noteworthy world mystery, the cosmic mystery comes into effect. We watch as the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes give over what they have just received from the beings of the Third Hierarchy to what we in earth-existence call rays of light, rays of light from the sun, rays of light from the stars. In all these rays of light will the enlivened, awakened web of thoughts now be given over to the world. In truth the rays of light are nothing physical. In truth the spirit shines in the rays of light. But we overlook it, when the radiation presses in so upon us, as we gaze upon it so, we overlook what these rays will have been given in the background from the domain of the beings of the Second Hierarchy. In all this radiance, in the star-radiance, in the sun-radiance, will have been given over what the beings of the Second Hierarchy weave into the fabric of world-thought, but also all that they have allowed to be given over from the enlivened thoughts, in dead sensory-semblance also dead but enlivened through the beings of the Third Hierarchy. And now we hear how they give over to these radiant spirit-forces what takes effect as creative love in the cosmos, what weaves as love on the stars’ and sun’s radiance, as love floods through the cosmos and what is decidedly the constructive formative force of the entire cosmos, how it is entrusted to the star-radiance, entrusted to the sun-radiance. Now we see with eyes of the spirit how the spirit-radiant, love-awakening, love-bearing spirits of the Second Hierarchy incorporate the world. So now we hear spoken, not to us, we bear witness to a dialogue between the beings of the Second Hierarchy and the beings of the Third Hierarchy. It simply sounds forth. We hear it merely as bystanders. It is the first time that we hear the beings of the upper Hierarchies speaking among themselves in the ongoing situation’s meditation.
And while we bear witness to the heavenly conversation, the previously night-bedecked darkness gradually lightens for the eyes of the spirit. It becomes infused with soft, gentle light. [This third stanza was now written on the board.]
Were we to take this up and be suffused with it, we would see a bit further as the eye of the spirit splays over it. Then we would see how the earth-thoughts bearing life, rising through the Second Hierarchy, have been imparted to starlight, to sunshine, and have become augmented with love. Then we would see it all being taken up by the beings of the First Hierarchy, and these First Hierarchy beings making it into the elements out of which new worlds are fashioned. What Angels, Archangels, and Archai breathed into themselves, what Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes received from them, took up, and changed into forces of creation, out of these the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim constitute new worlds. And what is noteworthy is this, that first we were witness to a heavenly conversation, carried on by the beings of the Second Hierarchy with the beings of the Third Hierarchy. Now we hear more with ears of the spirit. Beginning to speak the words of worlds are the beings of the First Hierarchy, the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. And for us initially, it is as though we were merely hearing in turn a heavenly conversation, alongside of which we are listeners, auditors. Quite soon it will become clear to us, that it is not so. First the Angels, Archangels, and Archai allowed their voices to resound. Then arose the dialogue between the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes, and the Angels, Archangels, and Archai. Then the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim intermixed themselves into the conversation. A whole chorus from the spheres of spirit resounds. We become aware, while the voices of the nine choirs are sounding forth together, that what rings forth from them in turn is directed at us as human beings. So at the last, the whole spiritual world speaks to us. Then in turn, when spoken within the spiritual world, when taken up in the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones’ world-words, then in turn it rings out also here into our human nature. It sounds forth to us in our humanity:
[This fourth stanza was now written on the board.]
The spirit-word that the “I-am” wills, is the world. And while we hear these words pressed into movement within our human nature with the ear of the spirit, it becomes light in the spiritual world. The gentle light that was there previously changes into spirit brilliance. That is the experience with the Guardian as the spiritual sphere comes to light.
And then, it is as if the Guardian of the Threshold touches us gently with his spirit-organs. We feel his being, but it is as if he does not have his spirit-eyes on us, as if for a moment nothing shows, in spite of previously being in bright spiritual space. Then the word mounts up out of our inner nature, the word that today we will not yet count as being among the mantras that we have received, but instead at the close of this lesson it will be put in abeyance, set aside, and deferred till the next time. For, when we depict with sensory imagery, what really occurs purely in spiritual fashion, the Guardian of the Threshold gently covers our eyes with his hands, so that we see nothing of the spiritual brilliance we find ourselves in all about, for what mounts up within us, is what in remembrance works in the sensory world, which we have left with the acquisition of insight in the spiritual world. It mounts up.
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Eighteenth Lesson
12 Jul 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Eighteenth Lesson
12 Jul 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! The call to self-knowledge, which the soul of man can take up, when it listens impartially to all the beings and events of life, in nature and in the life of the spirit, we will once again, at the beginning of our lesson, allow to pass before our souls.
We are in the midst, my dear brothers and sisters, of our souls finding the answer to this question, having gone quite far in its contemplation, along the way to the Guardian of the Threshold, to the abyss of existence. We were infused with the instruction of the Guardian of the Threshold along the way. What had stood there previously dark and dull, a person knowing that it nevertheless held his being, that it held the source of his existence, what had been before him dark and dull started to lighten, and then became bright, quite bright. Then in the brightness we heard the Guardian’s call.
And the Angels, Archangels, and Archai allow their voices to resound upon this word of the Guardian of the Threshold, as they focus on human souls.
And so we see how there, through the flooding light of the world chalice, with which we became acquainted in the last lesson, the beings of the Third Hierarchy become irradiated and illuminated. We see droves of these high beings of Angels, Archangels, and Archai going forth in service to the higher spirits, to the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kryriotetes. And we become witness to the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes speaking to the beings serving them, implementing what these serving beings require for humanity.
And then, urged on by what is within us, we then must turn our gaze to the highest spirits, to the First Hierarchy, turning to them as they turn themselves in blessing to human beings. From there we hear:
We bear witness to what beings of the higher worlds discuss among themselves, to what the highest beings pour into human souls as world-words, to what inundates human hearts, and so we must feel ourselves within this dominion-over-all, moving-through-all world light, within which we ourselves live and move. And now we come upon a truth, perceived there where disembodied spirit-beings live their lives, where spirits think their truths, where spirits are adorned in their beauty, where the work of spirits takes spirited effect. And we come upon the grand, the all-encompassing, the spirit-world-interwoven truth: that spirit is all that is. For we appear, we live, we move in spirit. We embrace spiritual existence. And now we think about how spirit, within which we now live, is all that is. And now we know that there also where we otherwise are in life, there also in the world of sensory show is simply spirit. Spirit is alone, is all that is. This stands now before our souls as unwavering, almighty truth: that spirit is all. And it is good for us to envision this truth in imagery before the soul. [It was drawn in red.] That, illustrated in the image, is spirit. It is only spirit. [While speaking the word “is” was written within the red drawing in various places.] That which appears here, is. It is spirit. And what is outside this red area, is nothing. That stands before our souls. And the spirit-world says to us, here it is, here it is, here it is, here it is. Everywhere the spirit is, is something.  [Presently while speaking on, the word “nothing” was written at various places between the areas drawn in red, and further away the words “minerals”, “plants”, and “animals.”] And where there is no spirit, is nothing. And we are duly impressed, that that is the truth. Everywhere spirit is, is something, and where spirit is not, is nothing. And yet we ask ourselves, how does it appear to us, all that seems to show itself in the world of sensory appearance, out of which we have gone forth over the Threshold here into the spiritual world, where we find the truth of existence, the spirit, emplaced before our souls? Back over there we saw what here is drawn in red as nothing. We are too weak over there, concerning what is drawn in red, to see. What remains over there residually? Nothingness! What we see over there is nothingness, whether it is called minerals, it is a sort of nothingness, whether called plants, a second sort of nothingness, whether called animals, a third sort of nothingness, and so forth. We perceive nothingness because we are too weak to see what is something. And this nothingness we talk about as the realm of nature. That is the grand beguilement, or as we say, the grand illusion. There are only various sorts of nothingness around us, before our eyes, as we gaze about embodied in corporeality. And we have the deeply felt impression that we are living there, and giving names to what fundamentally is nothing, to what is a grand illusion. And what appears to us presently, what lives over there as nothing and to what we give names, it appears to us as a summation of names, names that we give to the state of nothingness. For in their true state all beings are simply in existence, here where we have entered, here in the spiritual world. Names assigned to nothingness over there are wasted on what is bereft of being. And beings not from the realms of gods, to which we belong, and to which we rightfully belong, such beings can take possession of the names we have wasted on the nothingness. And henceforth they bear these names. When we are not clear about this, that here upon the earth we give names to what has no real existence, we lapse with our names into a stark, strong illusion. We must know that we are giving names to what is intrinsically nothing. That stands out presently before our souls, while we are living and moving here within the light, so that it can be felt deep, deep, deeply by the spirit-craft of our hearts, which has remained with us in crossing over. Now we know that we have drawn out of the realm of illusion into the realm of truth. Earnest solemnity, sacred earnest solemnity in regard to truth begins to have dominion in our souls. And now we look back at the trustworthy Guardian of the Threshold, who stands at the abyss of existence. He is not speaking just now. He spoke out of the darkness. He spoke as we were just feeling the luminosity. He spoke while the luminosity grew into brilliance. Now as we stand in the brilliance astounded by the grand truth that there is only spirit, he presently does not speak, he now silently indicates how on high the beings of the higher hierarchies are speaking among themselves. And we think for a moment in regarding the spirit, that down there in life on earth we have been struck with the impression minerals, plants, animals, and physical human beings have made on us, at what the clouds have to say, at what the mountains say, at what the gushing springs are doing, at the power of lightning, at the rolling thunder, at the stars whispering world mysteries. That was what we met with along the way down there. That was our experience. Now all is silent on this side of the abyss of existence. Presently we are witnesses as the gods speak with one another, as the whole choir of angels begins to speak. Still looking upward, we see this choir turning to the higher spirits, turning to the spirits of the Second Hierarchy in service. We gaze at the loving, serving behavior of the Angels, Archangels, and Archai as they turn to the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. We have the impression of the gathering of the Third Hierarchy in service. We have the impression of the gathering of the Second Hierarchy in world-creating, in world-dominion, in world-illumination, and we hear what these beings, inwardly spirit illuminated, godlike in willing, and willing all that is godlike, what these beings are saying one to another. We hear the Angels, as they allow their word to resound. Out of their care in guiding human souls they allow their word to resound.
That is carried by the Angels. That is what they are concerned with, in how they should be guiding human souls, for they note that there is thinking going on among human beings. They turn in supplication to the Dynamis, in order to obtain the force by means of which they can properly guide human beings in thinking.
The Dynamis from the realm of illumination, dominion, and action answer full of love, full of benevolence:
And the flooding light, the force of illumination in thinking, streams forth from the Dynamis to the Angels. What the Angels receive, without human beings knowing it, illuminates within human thinking. Now we are aware of what works and moves within human thinking: the illumination of Angels! But the force of light belonging to this illumination, they have received it from the Dynamis. [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
There is thinking going on among human beings! That is their concern. That is what they put forth as their words of concern.
Now they turn in their concern to the Dynamis:
The Dynamis answer:
Our spiritual gaze goes further. We see the gathering of Archangels turning in service to the spirits of the Second Hierarchy. Now they turn to the Exusiai and Kyriotetes, to these two categories of spirits of the Second Hierarchy. Angels have turned to the Dynamis, and Archangels have turned to the Exusiai and Kyriotetes. And their concern is that there is feeling among human beings. They appeal to the Exusiai and Kyriotetes for what they need for the feeling-life of human beings, in order to guide them.
They must breathe life into feelings. And with mighty voice, since two choirs are answering, the answer from the Kyriotetes and Exusiai resounds in the spiritual world-all.
[The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
It is answered.
And we turn to the third gathering of the Third Hierarchy, to the gathering of the Archai. Their concern is that there is willing among human beings, the third concern of the Third Hierarchy. We feel the Angels turning to the Dynamis, then we felt the Dynamis in action, far up in the heights, so that the light from on high is garnered and given to the Angels in their concern for human thinking. And we felt all that is encompassed by world-warmth is garnered by Exusiai and Kyriotetes, and is handed over to the Archangels, so that they can lead in feelings in human beings. And deep below, where the spirits and gods of the deep rule, from the abysses in which rules much that is evil, from there deep forces of goodness must be obtained. There all the gods of the Second Hierarchy pull together, for in their concern for human beings willing the Archai need the strength of the depths. And so they speak:
And in answer to this, in mighty formidable cosmic voice, the mighty voices of the mighty spirits of the Second Hierarchy ring forth together, all three together, three choirs gathering into one choir, Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai, three choirs in one:
[The third part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
It is answered by Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai together:
That is the world, the world present in the sacred creator-words, the resounding of which we become witness to in spiritual worlds, as we are witness to what goes on in mineral and plant-like realms here on the earth. And we take it in, as it comes to us on our way, as it becomes our experience.
We grow into the spiritual world. Instead of what surrounds us here on this sensation-laden earth, surrounding us there are the choirs of the spiritual world. And we become witnesses to what the gods are saying, to what the gods are saying in their concern for the human world, in their caring works concerning the human world. Only when our meditation undergoes this full disengagement from what we are here on the earth, and we feel engaged with a world the gods there in their divine speech allow to exist, only then do we experience true reality. And just when we have this reality, we also have what is really around us here between birth and death. For behind all that lives here between birth and death in apparency, is what comprises the true reality we live in between death and a new birth. People of earlier times lived upon the earth, but in a dull, dream-laden clairvoyant state of existence. Their souls were filled with a sort of dream-laden pictures that spoke of the spiritual world. Imagine before us such a man of olden times. Then, when not working, even though the sun still stood in the heavens, when putting his work aside to rest awhile, then he might have paused for reflection, to bring up the pictures he was able to experience in his soul, which reminded him of what he had experienced in pre-earthly existence in the spiritual world. But he did not understand the connection of his earth existence with the other existence, the one that glowed there within in his clairvoyant dreams. But the teachings of the adepts, the initiates, were there to make it clear. They brought clarity at first to their students, and through their students to all people, about what the connection is. And so one lived in the earth-world by means of memories of pre-earthly existence. In life on earth today, the memory of the pre-earthly existence has been lost. Initiates can no longer bring clarity about the connection of life on earth with pre-earthly existence, for people have forgotten what they experienced in pre-earthly existence. Such a clarification is simply not possible. Cosmic memory does not need to be brought into clarity, for today it is simply not there. But what must be heard through initiation science, is what the gods are saying there behind sensory existence. Then people must experience it. And increasingly the time will come in which people, having gone through the portal of death, will only be able to understand the spiritual world, into which they have entered, when they can say the following: When the person has stepped through the portal of death into supra-earthly existence and then finds himself in the reality of the spiritual world, within the world of Angles, Archangels, Archai, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, when he experiences all this, then what he experiences there after death should not remain incomprehensible and dark for him, for then he must remember the things that he went through by means of initiation knowledge. And it will be important, immeasurably important to the understanding of what can be experienced there in the life between death and a new birth, to have already heard it as such, for otherwise it cannot be understood, other than through a memory of having heard, back on earth, such as what resounds over there.
Those are the words, my brothers and sisters, that properly belong in the esoteric school today. They should ring forth there, by means of the instruction through which the power of the Age of Michael is channeled through the esoteric school. It can then be as follows. In the esoteric school the first to be heard within life on earth will be the voice of the Angels:
The answer of the Dynamis:
The voice of the Archangels is heard.
The answer of the Kyriotetes and Exusiai:
The words of the Archai:
All three ranks of the Second Hierarchy answer, the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes:
Having heard this in esoteric schools, and on hearing them ringing forth again after having gone through the portal of death, people will hear both together, the esoteric school here and the life between death and a new birth there. They will understand what there resounds. Or people may remain dull and unwilling to hear what the esoteric schools have to say about preparedness through Anthroposophy in general. They may not take up what can be gently heard through initiation knowledge from the higher realms. Then they go through the portal of death. There they hear what they should have heard earlier. They will not understand the incomprehensible ringing, the simple reverberation, the noise of worlds resounding in the words of power of the gods speaking among themselves. The gospels speak of this. Paul speaks of it, that people should attend to the guiding wisdom of Christ before death brings them into the land of the spirit. For death in spirit-land comes also, at the same time, when we go through the portal of death and do not understand what resounds there, when instead we are only able to hear incomprehensible noise, instead of the understandable words of the gods. This is because what has befallen us, instead of life of the soul, is death of the soul. That the soul might live, for this reason there is initiation knowledge. That the soul remains alive when it passes through the portal of death, for this reason there are esoteric schools. This should permeate us thoroughly And now let us recall the path we have been walking along in the spirit. Let us recall how we approached the Guardian in order to become acquainted with how someone might cross over the abyss of existence. And let us look just now upon the impressions that from over there have worked on our souls, let us take up into our souls what can parade before our souls as the inner drama of self-awareness. We have gone down the path. Standing there in a certain way are three tablets. Presently we stand before the third, after we have taken up into our souls all the depths of the divine call. From the first tablet, a short time after having come to the abyss of existence, there it would peal forth:
Now the Guardian of the Threshold approaches us. The second tablet looms. On it is written:
Then when we have arrived on the other side, passing by the earnest Guardian, standing there, we would hear a dialogue such as this:
Human beings are willing!
From there we gaze back over here on the sensory world. From there we feel the words concerning this sensory world:
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Nineteenth Lesson
02 Aug 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Nineteenth Lesson
02 Aug 1924, Dornach Tr. John Riedel Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends! Once again, we will begin by allowing the verse to flood into our souls, the verse that can presently bring to us how all that is and is becoming in the world, what has been in times long past, is in the present, and will be in the future, how out of all sounds forth to us, evermore resounds in us, and calls out to us to seek self-awareness, and as such is the foundation for true, for truly balanced world-awareness. O Man, know yourself! Well, my dear brothers and sisters, we have allowed mantric verses to pass by our souls, which in their craft comprise the way forth into spirit-land, past the Guardian of the Threshold, into what is at first the dim, dark, night-bedecked spiritual world, which at first just feels light, then for soul-perception becomes light. In this spiritual world we have seen how a person partakes, generally unawares although he can become aware, how a person partakes of the dialogue of the higher hierarchies among themselves, which the hierarchies among themselves work on and interweave into the world, which itself is spoken forth in word-of-worlds. And finally, we have been able to situate ourselves in that world-domain in which the various hierarchy choirs ring all together. Let us bring to mind once more how the choirs of the various hierarchies resound within one another, there, where we are infused with what the high beings of the Second Hierarchy are saying, where we are infused with what the beings of the First Hierarchy are speaking forth. As they speak, we presently begin to hear them resounding together as a choir. The Guardian makes us mindful, as we have already become acquainted with in previous lessons, of the following: See the ethereal iris’s After the Guardian of the Threshold has advised us about the spirited mystery of the rainbow, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai peal forth as if from a choir: Sense our thoughts The spirits of the third hierarchy clarify how in service to humanity they apply in supplication to the Second Hierarchy, to the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. Out of their domain we hear, once again in chorus: What you have taken up, And when we have heard how the spiritual beings of the Second Hierarchy align with our “I-am” in world-creativity, then the Thrones, Seraphim, and Cherubim of the First Hierarchy peal forth in choir: In your worlds of will And now we stand within the spirit word, within the spirit word that lies at the foundation of world formation. We feel this spirit word around about us. We feel the world infused throughout with this spirit word. We feel ourselves interwoven with this spirit word. We feel the influx of this spirit word into our most intimate human nature. And finally, we feel this world-wide spirit word streaming into our hearts. We feel ourselves there with the whole of our human nature in the surging of this spirit word. We feel ourselves there in spirit in the word-interlaced world spirit. There is the Guardian in the distance. We have walked past the Guardian. Presently he is quite distant. We hear him yet softly, as he now allows a final admonishing word to stream forth to us from his distant reach. The Guardian speaks from afar. The human I knows itself in the realm of the Seraph-Cherub-Throne borne Spirit-Word. The Guardian speaks: Who speaks in spirit-word There sounds forth in answer from the realm of the First Hierarchy: Speaking is star-flaming, – we feel the world-speech, the language of the world-word within ourselves – in my heart. My dear brothers and sisters! Whoever would penetrate into the esoteric realm should certainly feel at once the primeval sacred ehyeh asher ehyeh,2 the I am which is a sacred holy word, that resounds here but emerges from a reality on the other side. The I am that we take hold of in fleeting thoughts is merely a reflection. We must most certainly make ourselves aware that the true I am does not emerge from us in speech within the earthly realm, initially. If we are worthy and would say the I am, we first must come into the realm of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, for there the I am rings true. Here in the earthly realm, it is somewhat illusory. But there, in yonder watch, in order to experience truly and inwardly the I am, there we must hear world-words. We must solemnly hear the question of the Guardian of the Threshold, who most certainly speaks there in world-words. With thunderous flaming, spiritually thunderous flaming the Seraphim, who forge their way through the world, there where we now stand the Seraphim speak the world-word’s fiery speech. The word is flame, flaming voice. And as we experience ourselves in this blazing world fire, in this fiery speech speaking in flaming voice, then we experience the true I am. That is contained in these words, which come now as a question from the distant Guardian of the Threshold, whom we have long ago passed by, and then in answer comes forth from the domain of the First Hierarchy: Who speaks in spirit-word [The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
When a person’s customary word resounds, then what speaks by means of the person’s word is human thinking. And when the spiritual world-word resounds, then what speaks by means of spiritual world-word is world-thinking. This lies embedded within the following question of the Guardian, that he now sets forth as a second from the distance. The Guardian speaks from afar. The human-I knows itself in the realm of the Seraph-Cherub-Throne borne Spirit-Word:What thinks in spirit-word These are the very thoughts issuing, coming forth, of world-souls, from all world-souls, from all the beings belonging to the various hierarchies. They sculpt, form, fashion everything that exists in the world’s realms. Therefore, the Guardian asks who it is that thinks the potent thoughts that form and fashion all things: What thinks in spirit-word Again, coming to us from the realm of the First Hierarchy:
First it was the flaming speaking the words. The stars flaming speak the words. The luminaries, from which the flaming comes, think.
—So says the person to himself, standing within it all.— In the primal source of light3 That is the second colloquy, the second call, as if the beings of the First Hierarchy were giving us world-permission, that we within ourselves may experience the "I am". What thinks in spirit-word [The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
The world-spirit-word must speak. From it, thoughts stream forth. But the thoughts are formative, the thoughts are infused with force; the thoughts stream forth and world beings and world events thereby come into being, becoming all that is. In it the word-formed world-thoughts live, the thought-laden world-words. It is not a simple sort of thinking; it is not a simple sort of speaking; it is formation, creative forceful crafting, forces streaming forth in words. Forces imprint the thoughts out into world-beings, into world-events. All this is indicated, pointed to, in the third question which the Guardian of the Threshold puts to us from afar: What crafts4 in spirit-word The whole world, which there resounds with the world-word, which there is thoroughly illuminated with world-thinking, is just the same as what thinks and speaks in human beings, is incorporated or embodied, is just the same as what resounds in the world-word. What shines thoroughly illuminated by thinking is world-embodiment. The Thrones carry it, bear it, or said somewhat better, it is that within which the Thrones bear the thoroughly thought-illuminated, world-spirit-word. To this the answer comes, from the realm of the First Hierarchy, to the question of the Guardian: Crafting is star-world-embodiment,6 We must build a word that is rather uncommon. But just as one illuminates by light and as the verb to live is built from the noun life, likewise in what emerges as a force in what is borne by the body, likewise one can build the word abide, or embody. Then to embody is nothing that is dead, to embody is nothing that is finished, to embody is something that is active at all times, is versatile, is moving, it embodies. Embodying are thronal bearing-powers; World-word, world-thinking, then world-embodiment. Speaking, then thinking, and in the third question the Guardian refers to world-embodiment:
[The third part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
In a certain way, my dear brothers and sisters, it is a sort of closure along the path, the path that began in the realm of illusion, in the realm of maya, that has led us to the Guardian of the Threshold, that has led us in self-awareness through to self-awareness in the spiritual realm, and that has allowed us to hear the choirs of the Hierarchies. In a certain way it is a closure, for we now stand in the position of being allowed to experience in ourselves the true I am, the ehyeh asher ehyeh. We are able to experience it in this dialogue, as the threefold It is I springs us forth from the heart, allows us to spring forth from the heart, so that when it springs us forth from the heart, it will allow into our heart the echo of what the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones allow to resound within this heart.
With that, my dear brothers and sisters, the first stage of the school’s First Class has in a certain sense been completed. We have allowed those impartations that we could receive from the spiritual world, for this school is a school constituted by the spiritual world itself, we have allowed those images and inspirations that can come from the spiritual world to be drawn into us. They constitute what for our souls is the way to go forth in capturing the true human "I" in the vicinity of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones. My dear brothers and sisters, as you have heard in general anthroposophical proceedings concerning the supersensory School of Michael, it had initially resounded inwardly in such heart-felt lessons. The mighty images, cultivated imaginatively at the start of the nineteenth century, and then placed before the soul, if one was so destined to be in the vicinity of Michael, the revelations of the school of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, which in the supersensory world was led by Michael himself and high spiritual beings, in the aforementioned sense. And now we stand before this anthroposophical school founded by Michael. We feel ourselves within it. Michael-words they are, Michael-words that ought to characterize the way that leads forth into the spiritual world and into the human "I". These Michael-words of the esoteric Michael-school have built, so to say, the first stage. As will then be announced, when we meet once again in September for these Class lessons, then it will be the will of the Michael-power to begin by highlighting the imaginative cultus-revelations from the beginning of the nineteenth century. That will be the second stage. All that has now been brought before our souls as mantric words, will stand before our souls more fully in imagery, which, insofar as is possible, will be the imagery as brought down here of the supersensory imaginative cultus from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The third chapter of this school will build what will lead us on to those interpretations that were given to the mantric words in the supersensory Michael School of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. We should feel that we place ourselves in the midst of all that is within the spiritual world itself. Ever and again, however, we should look back upon the physical-sensory world, and in exemplary-unassuming fashion accommodate ourselves to that which has dominion in the sensory-physical earthly world. To this end, and in closing, let us once more allow to sound before our souls all, if we are capable of receiving it, if we are able to sense it, all that sounds forth from every stone, from every plant, from every animal, from every billowing cloud, from every bubbling spring, from every rushing gust of wind, from the woods and mountains, and everywhere from the things and events of the earth all around, if can sense it there as it sounds forth. We were in the realm of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones. By itself the voice of the Guardian sounded forth from afar. We go in modesty back again, past the Guardian, back into the realm of the sensory show, into what is apparent to the senses. And again, we allow the words to reverberate within us:
 
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