From an Esoteric Lesson by Rudolf Steiner in Christiania, Norway, June 11, 1912:
It has become clear to you from
previous studies that if you do your exercises in a serious and worthy way,
certain effects will result. A faithful, conscientious self-observation is
necessary if you want to notice results soon. But self-observation shouldn't be
practiced so that it becomes self-satisfaction; that's a great danger for an
esotericist. The exercises have an effect all right, but if there's pride and other
inclinations at the bottom of your soul, the effect on you isn't good. All men
tend to have delusions of grandeur, but in ordinary life it's soon corrected by
the outer facts. There a man soon notices that he can't do certain things, even
though he imagined he could before. In occult life this corrective perception
doesn't appear as directly, and one must use strict self-control to avoid the
danger of pride.
A second danger is in dishonesty, which makes the intellect and memory get worse, and this eventually degenerates into
lack of control over one's actions. One finds an antidote for this in the
accessory exercises, in the study of theosophy and in joy in nature. Thereby
willing, feeling, and thinking are strengthened. A study of theosophy is supposed
to exercise one's intellect. For it doesn't suffice to take it all on authority
and faith; this would bring about a complete loss of intellect and eventually
make one immoral. One would then be inclined to quiet one's conscience by
quoting an authority. One should check everything with one's thinking. That's
why everything is clothed in concepts and words that one can understand, that
appeal to one's intellect. One should confirm theosophy with one's thinking.
If you love nature's beauty and
enjoy its small things you won't just feel nature in majestic oceans or
mountains — like sensation-seeking modern materialists — but in things that can
be found anywhere. When higher worlds open up to a man, he shouldn't close
himself off from the outer world. He should become familiar with nature and try
to understand it, and not criticize it without sympathy. Then every little
animal can teach him something. A man shouldn't say: It's only maya. One would
have to answer him: Yes, it's only maya — but it's the maya of the gods, and that's
beautiful. Why can a man be glad about a tree today? Because the gods were once
gladdened by what was around them. It would be bad for the future if a man
walked through the world indifferently, for he would leave a joyless world
behind him. Every joy that one has had from small things will give rise to
something for others in the future, and not just for oneself. What's true here
is that all concealed things will become manifest.
These three things are supposed to
have a healing effect on thinking, feeling, and willing. In ancient times, men
were much more robust, and the exercises were more drastic than the one nervous
people do today. Ancient Hebrews spoke about four rabbis who went into the
garden of maturity; the first became a megalomaniac, the second did mad things,
and the third died. That's drastically expressed to point to the corporeal
difficulties that can arise in an esotericist from moral and intellectual defects.
These also arise in an ordinary person, but not as directly, and he doesn't know
about the connection between lies and disease, for instance. An esotericist makes
his body much more receptive. He should see a warning in all difficulties and
ailments, which the gods send him to show that something isn't in order; then he
should be even more attentive and careful.
A man should only say what's been
checked and is true. It's not enough for him to excuse himself with an “I said
it in good faith.” That's not enough.
An esotericist should also never say “It's
not my fault.” That's a denial of karma and it doesn't help, for karma appears
anyway. One should be responsible for one's deeds and improve them.
It would be easy and certainly
sensational for me to say that my school is inspired — as it really is — but
that's not the outer world's business. There, one must appeal to reason, so that
people see what's said. That's why one must write in such a way that it makes
sense to the human intellect. It's worthless to refer to inspiration or to offer Krishnamurti's book to the world and say that it's inspired by a
master of wisdom.
When esotericists from other schools
object that they enter other worlds too, then one must realize that the main
thing is how one enters them, and not what one sees there. One can be an advanced
seer and yet see everything wrong.
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