The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Inner Development

[ 1 ] In a long series of lectures, we have discussed here the conceptions of the supersensible world and its connection to the sensible world. It is only natural that the question arises again and again: Where do our insights into the supersensible world come from? Today we will address this question—or, in other words, the question of human inner development.

[ 2 ] “Inner development of the human being” is meant here in the sense that it refers to the human being’s ascent toward abilities that he must acquire if he wishes to make those supersensible insights his own. Now, please do not misunderstand the purpose of this lecture. This lecture is far from establishing rules or laws that have anything to do with general human morality or with the demands of the prevailing religion of our time. I must expressly point this out because, in our age of leveling—where people are so unwilling to accept any distinction whatsoever between one person and another—the misunderstanding arises time and again that anyone who speaks of occultism is establishing some kind of general human requirements, moral principles, or the like that apply to everyone without distinction. That is not the case. Nor is the lecture we are discussing today one that should be confused with a lecture on the general principles of the Theosophical Movement. Occultism is not the same as Theosophy. The Theosophical Society does not have the sole—and certainly not the exclusive—task of cultivating occultism. It might even be possible that someone who joins this Theosophical Society completely disapproves of occultism.

[ 3 ] Among the subjects cultivated within the Theosophical Society—which include general ethics—is occultism, which encompasses knowledge of those laws of our existence that elude ordinary sensory observation within the realm of everyday human experience. However, these laws are by no means unrelated to this everyday experience. “Occult” means hidden, mysterious. Yet it must be emphasized again and again that occultism is something for which certain prerequisites are truly necessary. Just as higher mathematics is incomprehensible to the ordinary farmer who has never heard of it, so too is occultism to many people of our time.

[ 4 ] However, occultism ceases to be occult once one has mastered it. I have thus strictly limited the scope of today’s lecture. No one can therefore object—and this must be expressly emphasized in light of millennia of experience and numerous well-established attempts—that the demands made by occultism cannot be fulfilled; they contradict general human culture. No one is required to fulfill these demands. But if someone comes to me wanting to acquire the convictions that occultism provides, yet refuses to engage with occultism, they find themselves in exactly the same situation as the schoolboy who wants to make a glass rod electrically charged but refuses to rub it. It simply will not become electrically charged without rubbing. It is much the same with those who might have objections to the practices of occultism.

[ 5 ] No one is being asked to become an occultist; everyone must come to occultism of their own free will. Anyone who objects that we do not need occultism need not concern themselves with it. Occultism does not make an appeal to humanity at large at this time. Moreover, in our present-day culture, it is extremely difficult to submit to the demands of a life that opens up the supersensible world.

[ 6 ] Two prerequisites are completely absent in our culture. The first requirement is isolation—what is called “higher human solitude” in esoteric science—and the second is the overcoming of a form of egoism that, in our time, has reached its peak in terms of our innermost psychological qualities and of which humanity remains largely unaware.

[ 7 ] The absence of these two prerequisites makes the development of inner life virtually impossible. Isolation or spiritual solitude is so difficult to achieve today because life demands ever-increasing distraction, fragmentation—in short, external sensuality. In no other culture have people ever lived so much in the external world as they do in ours. And now I ask that, once again, you not take anything I say as criticism, but merely as a characterization.

[ 8 ] Of course, anyone who speaks as I am speaking today knows full well that it cannot be otherwise—that the very great virtues and significant achievements of our time are based on these qualities. But that is precisely why our time is so devoid of any supersensible knowledge and devoid of any influence of supersensible knowledge on our culture. In other cultures—and such cultures do exist—people are able to cultivate their inner life more fully and withdraw from the influences of external life. Within such cultures, what is called, in the higher sense, the inner life flourishes. In Eastern cultures, there is what is called yoga, and those who live according to the rules of this teaching are called yogis. A yogi, therefore, is one who strives for the higher spiritual science, but only after seeking out a master of the supersensible. No one will seek it except under the guidance of a master, a guru. Once he has found such a master, he must devote a large part of each day—regularly, not sporadically—to living entirely within his soul. All the powers that the yogi must develop are already present in his soul; they lie there as surely and as truly as electricity lies within the glass rod from which it is drawn out by friction. It is true that no one knows on his own how to evoke these powers, just as no one would think on his own that a glass rod can be made electrically charged by rubbing. One must make use of the observations made over millennia and the esoteric methods developed as a result in order to evoke the powers of the soul. And this is very difficult in our time, which demands that every person fragment themselves in the struggle for existence. They do not attain the great inner concentration, nor even a conception of the concentration that was practiced in yoga. There is no awareness of the profound solitude that the yogi must seek. He must, even if only for a short time, yet with immense regularity, repeat the same thing rhythmically every day, in complete seclusion from everything in which one otherwise lives. It is necessary and absolutely essential that all the life that otherwise surrounds us die away before the yogi, that his senses become impervious to all impressions from the outside world. The yogi must be able to make himself blind and deaf to his surroundings for the time he prescribes for himself. He must be able to maintain such inner composure—and he must acquire the practice of this composure—that a cannon could be fired right next to him without disturbing his focus on his inner life. He must also free himself from all impressions stored in memory, from all recollections of everyday life.

[ 9 ] Now consider how extraordinarily difficult it is to create these prerequisites in our culture, how little people have any concept of such isolation, of such spiritual solitude. All of this must be achieved under one condition: namely, that one must never, in any way, lose harmony—that is, complete equilibrium—with the outside world. And this is extraordinarily easy to achieve when one is so deeply immersed in one’s inner self. The person who delves deeper and deeper into his inner self must, at the same time, establish harmony with the outside world all the more clearly. Nothing that smacks of alienation or detachment from practical external life must arise within them; otherwise, they will go astray, and their higher life may, to a certain extent, become indistinguishable from madness. It is truly a kind of madness when the inner life loses its connection to the outer world. Just imagine—to illustrate this with an example—that you were wise in regard to our earthly circumstances, that you possessed all the experience and wisdom that can be gathered on Earth. You fall asleep in the evening, but wake up in the morning not on Earth, but on Mars. But conditions on Mars are entirely different from those on Earth. All the knowledge you have acquired on Earth is of absolutely no use to you there. There is no longer any harmony between what lives within you and what is happening outside of you. Consequently, probably within an hour—simply because you cannot find your bearings in these new circumstances—you would be committed to a Martian asylum. Anyone who loses touch with the outside world in the development of their inner life can easily be steered down such a path. Great care must be taken to ensure that this does not happen. All of these are major difficulties in our culture.

[ 10 ] The other obstacle is a kind of selfishness regarding inner spiritual qualities, of which present-day humanity is generally unaware. This is closely connected to human spiritual development; for one of the prerequisites of spiritual development is that one does not seek it out of selfishness. Those who seek it out of selfishness cannot get very far. Yet our age is selfish right down to the very core of the human soul. Time and again, one hears people say: “What good are all the teachings propagated in occultism to me if I cannot experience them for myself?” — Anyone who starts from this premise and does not move beyond it can hardly attain a truly higher level of development, for higher development involves the most intimate awareness of human community, so that it makes no difference whether I myself or someone else has this or that experience. I must therefore show boundless love and complete trust toward those who are more advanced than I am. First, I must bring myself to this awareness—the awareness of infinite trust in my fellow human beings—when they say, “I have experienced this or that.” Such trust must be a prerequisite for communal life, and wherever such occult abilities are utilized to a greater extent, this trust exists in a boundless way; there, one has the awareness that a human being is a personality in whom a higher individuality dwells. The foundation for me, therefore, is first and foremost trust and faith, because we do not merely seek our higher self within ourselves, but also within our fellow human beings. Everyone who lives around us is, at the core of their inner being, in complete and undivided unity with us.

[ 11 ] As long as my lower self is the focus, I remain separated from other people. But when it comes to my higher self—and only this can ascend into the supersensible world—then I am no longer separated from my fellow human beings; then I am a unified being with my fellow human beings; then the one who speaks to me of the higher truths is myself. I must completely let go of this distinction between him and me; I must completely overcome the feeling that he is ahead of me in some way. Try to immerse yourself completely in this feeling, so that it penetrates even the most intimate fibers of the human soul and all egoism fades away, and the other person—who is further along than you—truly stands before you just as your own self does; then you will have grasped one of the prerequisites necessary for awakening a higher spiritual life.

[ 12 ] You can hear it precisely where guidance on the occult life—often very misguided and erroneous—is given: The higher self lives within the human being; one need only let one’s inner self speak, and the highest truth will reveal itself. — Nothing is, on the one hand, more correct and, on the other hand, more fruitless than what is claimed here. Let a person try to let their inner self speak, and they will see that, as a rule—even if they imagine to the utmost that their higher self is coming to the fore—it is their lower self that speaks. We do not find the higher self within ourselves at first. We must first seek it outside ourselves. From those who are further along, we can learn a little, since we have it there, as it were, in vivid form. We can never gain anything for our higher self from our own selfish ego. Where the one who is further along stands, there I will one day stand in the future. By nature, I truly carry within me the seed of what he is. But first, the paths leading up to Olympus must be illuminated so that I may follow them.

[ 13 ] A feeling—believe it or not, as any experienced occultist will confirm—is the fundamental prerequisite for all occult development, as mentioned in the various religions. The Christian religion describes it with the well-known phrase, which one must fully understand as an occultist: “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Only those who have learned to revere in the highest sense of the word can understand this phrase. Suppose you had heard, in your earliest youth, a description of a venerable person—a figure who awakened in you the highest conception of a certain kind—and you were to be offered the opportunity to get to know this person more closely. A sacred awe for this person lives within you on the day that is to bring the moment when you see them in the flesh for the first time. Standing at that person’s door, you might feel hesitant to touch the doorknob and open the door. When you look up at such a venerable figure, you have grasped, to some extent, the feeling that Christianity also refers to when it says that one must become like little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It really does not matter so much whether the person toward whom this feeling is directed fully deserves it, but rather that we have the capacity to look up at something with such deep reverence from the very depths of our being. That is what is significant about reverence: that one is oneself drawn upward toward the one one looks up to.

[ 14 ] The feeling of reverence is the uplifting force, the magnetic force, that draws us upward toward the higher spheres of the supersensible life. This is the law of the occult world, which everyone who seeks a higher life must inscribe into their soul as if in golden letters. Development must begin from this fundamental state of mind. Without this feeling, nothing at all can be achieved. Furthermore, anyone seeking inner development must be clear that they are undertaking something monumental in relation to the human being. What they seek is nothing more and nothing less than a rebirth—in the literal sense. The higher soul of the human being is to be born. And just as the human being was born at his first birth from the deep inner foundations of existence, just as he emerged into the light of the sun, so too does the one who seeks inner development emerge from the light of the sun—from what he can experience in the sensory world—into a higher spiritual light. Something is born within them that lies just as deeply within the ordinary human being—who represents the mother in this process—as the child lies within the mother before it is born.

[ 15 ] Anyone who is not aware of the full significance of this fact does not know what occult development means. The higher soul, which is initially embedded deep, deep within the whole of human nature and interwoven with it, is brought to the surface. When a person stands before us in everyday life, the lower and higher natures are blended together, and that is a blessing for everyday life.

[ 16 ] Some among us, if they were to follow their lower nature, might reveal malicious and wicked traits; but within them, mingled with this lower nature, lives the higher nature, which keeps the former in check. This mixture is comparable to mixing a yellow and a blue liquid in a glass, which produces a green liquid in which we can no longer distinguish between yellow and blue. Similarly, in human beings, the lower nature is mixed with the higher, and the two can no longer be distinguished from one another. Just as you can extract the blue from the green liquid by chemical means, so that only the yellow remains and the uniform green is separated into a complete duality—blue and yellow—so, in occult development, you separate the lower nature from the higher nature. You draw the lower nature out of the body like a sword from its sheath, which then remains on its own. This lower nature emerges in such a way that it appears almost terrifying. When it was still mingled with the higher nature, nothing of this was noticeable. But now that it is separated, all its malicious and evil qualities come to the fore. People who previously appeared benevolent often become quarrelsome and envious. These traits were already present in their lower nature, but were suppressed by the higher nature. You can observe this in many people who are led down abnormal paths. It is particularly easy for a person to become a liar when they are introduced to the supersensible world. They easily lose the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. It is an essential part of occult training that the strictest discipline of character must accompany it. What the history of the saints recounts as their temptations is not legend, but literal truth.

[ 17 ] Anyone who wishes to evolve toward the higher world in any way is easily exposed to this temptation unless they have developed within themselves the strength and power of a strong character and the highest moral standards to be able to resist everything that comes their way. It is not merely that desires and passions grow—that is not even the main issue—but rather—and this may seem strange at first—the opportunities themselves also increase. As if by a miracle, the one who ascends into the higher world is beset by opportunities for evil and wickedness that were previously hidden from him. In every fact of life, a demon lies in wait for him, seeking to lead him astray. What he did not see before, he now sees. As it were, the division within their nature conjures up such opportunities from the secret recesses of life everywhere. That is why so-called white magic—the school of occult development that leads people into the higher worlds in a good, genuine, and true way—requires a very specific character development as an indispensable prerequisite. Every practical occultist will tell you that no one should dare to pass through that narrow gate—as the entrance to occult development is called—without continually cultivating these qualities. They are a necessary preparatory course for the occult life.

[ 18 ] The first thing a person must learn to do is to distinguish, in all their journeys through life, the insignificant from the significant, the transitory from the eternal. This is easy to say, but often difficult to put into practice. As Goethe says, it is indeed easy, yet what is easy is difficult. Take, for example, a plant or an object. You will learn to recognize that every thing has a significant and an insignificant side, and that people usually find their interest in the insignificant—in the object’s relationship to them or in some minor characteristic. Anyone who wishes to become an occultist must gradually accustom themselves to seeing and seeking a spirit in every thing. When they see a watch, for example, they must take an interest in the laws governing it. They must be able to dissect it down to its smallest parts and develop a sense of what those laws are. Suppose, furthermore, that a mineralogist is examining a rock crystal. Even through mere external observation, he will gain significant insight into the crystal. The occultist, however, must take a stone in his hand and be able to vividly sense what is suggested in the following monologue: “In a certain respect, you stand below humanity, but in another respect, you—the rock crystal—stand far above humanity.” You stand below humanity because you cannot form mental images of people, because you do not feel. You cannot imagine, cannot think, and do not live; yet you have one advantage over humanity: you are chaste within yourself, having no desires, no wishes, and no cravings. Every human being, every living creature, has wishes, desires, and cravings; you do not. You are perfect and free of desire, content with what has become of you—a model for humanity, to which they must then add their own other qualities.

[ 19 ] If the occultist can feel this quite deeply, he has grasped the significance that the stone can convey to him. In this way, a person can draw something meaningful from every object. Once it has become a habit for him to distinguish the significant from the insignificant, he has acquired yet another of the sensibilities that the occultist must possess. He must then connect his own life to what is significant. This is where people—especially in our time—very easily go astray. People are very quick to believe that the place where they stand is not where they belong. How often are people inclined to say: “Fate has placed me in a position where I do not belong. I am, let us say, a postal worker. If I were in a different position, I could convey lofty ideas to people, impart great teachings, and so on.” — The mistake these people make is that they do not connect their lives to the significance of their profession. If you see something significant in me simply because I can speak to the people here, then you fail to see the significance in your own life and profession. If the mail carriers did not deliver the letters, the entire mail system would grind to a halt, and much of the work already done by others would be in vain.

[ 20 ] Therefore, everyone in their respective roles is of extraordinary importance to the whole, and no one is greater than the other. Christ sought to express this most beautifully, in a truly magnificent way, in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John with the words: “A servant is not greater than his master, nor is an apostle greater than the one who sent him.” These words were spoken after the Master had washed the apostles’ feet. By this He meant to say: What would I be without my apostles? They must be there so that I can be present in the world, and I must pay them the tribute of humbling myself before them and washing their feet. — This is one of the most significant indications of the attitude the occultist must have toward what is significant. One must not confuse what is significant outwardly with what is significant inwardly; this must be strictly observed.

[ 21 ] Then we must develop a number of qualities. First and foremost among these is gaining mastery over our thoughts, particularly the flow of our thoughts. This is called control of the thoughts. Just consider how thoughts flit back and forth in the human soul, how they wander about inside: one impression arises here, another there, and each one alters the thought. It is not true that we have thoughts under our control; rather, thoughts control us completely. But we must reach the point where, for a certain time each day, we immerse ourselves in a specific thought and tell ourselves: No other thought may enter our soul and control us. — In this way, we ourselves hold the reins of our thought life for a time.

[ 22 ] The second point is that we should adopt a similar attitude toward our actions—that is, exercise control over them. To do this, it is necessary that we at least manage, from time to time, to perform actions that are not prompted by anything external. Everything we are prompted to do by our social standing, our profession, or our position does not lead us deeper into the higher life. The higher life depends on such intimate acts—for example, when we resolve to do something for the first time, something that springs from our very own initiative, even if it is only a completely insignificant act. All other actions contribute nothing to the higher life.

[ 23 ] The next thing—the third thing—to strive for is contentment. People swing back and forth between joy and sorrow; at one moment they are overjoyed, and the next they are deeply grieved. Thus, people are tossed about on the waves of life, joy, and sorrow. But they must attain equanimity and serenity. They must not let the greatest sorrows or the greatest joys unsettle them; they must stand firm and become resilient.

[ 24 ] The fourth is an understanding of every being. Nothing expresses more beautifully what it means to understand every being than a legend that has been handed down to us about Jesus Christ—not in the Gospel, but in a Persian tale. Jesus was walking through a field with his disciples, and on the way they came upon a decaying dog. The animal was a gruesome sight. Jesus stopped and gazed at it with admiration, saying, “What beautiful teeth this animal has.” Jesus discovered beauty within the hideous. Strive to find the magnificent in everything—in every object out there in reality—and you will see that every thing has something about which one can say “yes.” Do as Christ did, who admired the beautiful teeth of the dead dog. This is the path that leads to great tolerance and understanding for every thing and every being.

[ 25 ] The fifth quality is complete openness toward everything new that comes our way. Most people judge the new things they encounter based on the old things they already know. When someone comes to tell them something, they immediately reply, “I disagree with that.” — But we must not immediately counter a message we receive with our own opinion; rather, we must keep a watchful eye to discover where we can learn something new. And we can learn even from a small child. Even if someone were the wisest person, they must be willing to withhold judgment and listen to others. We must develop this ability to listen, for it enables us to approach things with the greatest possible open-mindedness. In occultism, this is called “faith,” and it is the power that prevents us from weakening the impressions that the new makes on us by what we hold against it.

[ 26 ] The sixth quality is what everyone attains naturally once they have developed the qualities mentioned above. This is inner harmony. A person who possesses the other qualities also possesses inner harmony. It is also necessary for a person seeking occult development to have cultivated a profound sense of freedom—the sense of freedom that enables them to find the center of their being within themselves and to stand on their own two feet, so that they do not need to ask everyone what they should do, but can stand upright and act freely. This, too, is something one must acquire.

[ 27 ] Once a person has developed these qualities within himself, he is immune to any danger that the division of his nature might cause within him; the qualities of his lower nature can no longer influence him, and he can no longer stray from the path. Therefore, these qualities must be cultivated with great precision. Then comes the occult life, the expression of which requires a certain rhythm in life.

[ 28 ] The expression “rhythm of life” conveys the ability developed for this purpose. If you observe nature, you will find a certain rhythm within it. You will take it for granted that the violet blooms at the same time every spring, that the grain in the field and the grapes on the vine ripen at the same time. This rhythmic succession of phenomena can be found everywhere in nature. Everywhere there is rhythm; everywhere there is repetition in a regular sequence. As you ascend to beings that are more highly developed, you see this rhythmic sequence diminish more and more. You also see, to an even greater degree in animals, all their characteristics arranged rhythmically. At certain times of the year, animals acquire very specific functions and abilities. The more highly a being develops, the more life is placed into the being’s own hands, and the more this rhythm ceases. You must know that the human body is only one of the members of the human being. Then comes the etheric body, then the astral body, and finally the higher members that underlie them.

[ 29 ] The physical body is, to a great extent, subject to the same rhythm to which all of external nature is subject. Just as plant and animal life unfolds rhythmically in its external form, so too does the life of the physical body. The heart beats rhythmically, the lungs breathe rhythmically, and so on. All of this proceeds so rhythmically because it is governed by higher powers, by the wisdom of the world, by what the Scriptures call the Holy Spirit. The higher bodies—and especially the astral body—are, I might say, in a certain sense abandoned by these higher spiritual powers and have lost their rhythm. Or can you deny that your activity with regard to wishes, desires, and passions is irregular, that it bears no comparison whatsoever to the regularity that prevails in the physical body? Whoever learns the rhythm inherent in physical nature will find in it, more and more, the model for spirituality. If you observe the heart—this marvelous organ with its regular beat and its innate wisdom—and compare it to the desires and passions of the astral body, which unleash all manner of actions against the heart, then you will recognize how detrimental passion is to the heart’s regular rhythm. However, the functions of the astral body must become just as rhythmic as the activities of the physical body.

[ 30 ] I would like to mention something here that will seem grotesque to most people today, namely with regard to fasting. We have completely lost sight of the significance of fasting. From the perspective of bringing rhythm to our astral body, however, fasting is something extraordinarily meaningful. What does fasting mean? It means curbing the appetite and deactivating the astral body with regard to the appetite. The one who fasts deactivates the astral body and does not develop an appetite. It is like switching off a power source in a machine. The astral body is then inactive, and the entire rhythm of the physical body—along with the wisdom implanted within it—works its way up into the astral body and imparts rhythm to it. Like the imprint of a seal, the harmony of the physical body is imprinted upon the astral body, and this harmony would be transmitted much more sustainably if it were not constantly disrupted by desires, passions, and wishes—including mental desires and wishes.

[ 31 ] What is more necessary for people today than it was in earlier times is to bring rhythm into their entire higher life. Just as rhythm is implanted in the physical body by God, so must human beings make their astral body rhythmic. One must structure one’s day, organizing it for the astral body in the same way that the Spirit of Nature organizes it for the lower realms. Early in the morning, at a very specific time, one must perform a spiritual practice; at another time—which must also be strictly adhered to—a different one; and in the evening, yet another. These spiritual exercises must not be chosen arbitrarily but must be suitable for the further development of the higher life. This is a way of taking life into one’s own hands and keeping it there. So set aside an hour in the morning when you can concentrate. You must stick to this hour. During this time, you must create a kind of stillness so that the great occult Master within you can awaken. You must meditate on a profound thought that has nothing to do with the outside world, and allow this thought to come fully alive within you. A short time is sufficient—perhaps a quarter of an hour; even five minutes will suffice if you don’t have more time. However, it is pointless and of no value if you perform these exercises irregularly. If you do them regularly, so that the activity of the astral body becomes as regular as a clock, then they are worthwhile. The astral body takes on a completely different appearance when you do these exercises regularly. So sit down in the morning and do these exercises, and the powers I have described to you will develop. But, as I said, it must be done regularly, for the astral body expects the same thing to be done with it at the same time, and it becomes disordered if it does not happen. At the very least, the intention to maintain order must be present. If you bring rhythm to your life in this way, you will notice the results before too long; namely, the spiritual life, which is initially hidden from human beings, will become apparent to a certain degree.

[ 32 ] Human life generally alternates between four states. The first state is the perception of the external world. You look around with your senses and perceive the external world. The second state is what we might call imagination or the life of the imagination, which is related to the life of dreams and is even part of it. In this state, a person is not rooted in their surroundings but is detached from them; they have no realities before them, at most reminiscences. The third state is dreamless sleep. In this state, a person has no awareness of the “I” at all, and the fourth state is the one in which a person lives in memory. This is something different from perception; it is already something abstract, something spiritual. If a person had no memory, they could not undergo any spiritual development at all.

[ 33 ] Inner life begins to develop through inner contemplation and meditation. Sooner or later, a person then realizes that they are no longer dreaming in a chaotic manner, but rather in a highly meaningful way, and that strange things are revealed to them in their dreams, which they gradually begin to recognize as revelations of spiritual truths. Of course, the trivial objection can easily be raised: “That’s all just a dream—what does it have to do with us?” — But if someone discovered a steerable balloon in a dream and then built it, then that dream would indeed have revealed the truth. Thus, an idea can be grasped in a way other than the usual one, and the truth of that idea must then be found in its realization. We must therefore be convinced of its inner truth from the outside.

[ 34 ] The next stage in spiritual life is the one where we grasp the truth through our own qualities and consciously direct our dreams. When we begin to direct our dreams in a regular manner, we have reached the stages where the truth becomes clear to us. The first stage is called material cognition, for which the object must be present. The other stage is imaginative cognition. This is developed through meditation and by structuring one’s life in a rhythmic manner; it is arduous to attain. But once it is attained, the time comes when there is no longer any difference between perception in ordinary life and perception in the supersensible realm. When we are among the things of ordinary life—that is, in the sensory world—and alter our spiritual state, we then continually experience the spiritual, the supersensible world, provided we have trained ourselves sufficiently in this way. This is the case as soon as we are able to become truly blind and deaf to the sensory world, to remember nothing from everyday life, and yet to have a spiritual life within us. Then our dream life begins to take on a conscious form. And when we are able to infuse some of this into our everyday life, then what makes the soul qualities of the beings around us perceptible to us also emerges. We then no longer see only the outer appearance of things, but we also see the inner, the hidden essence of things—of plants, animals, and human beings. I know that most people will say: These are, after all, different things. — That is quite correct; they are always entirely different from what a person without such senses sees. The third is the state that is otherwise completely empty, but which begins to come alive when the continuity of consciousness sets in. This continuity arises of its own accord; a person no longer sleeps unconsciously. During the time when he would otherwise be asleep, he then experiences the supersensible world.

[ 35 ] What else does sleep consist of? The physical body lies in bed, and the astral body lives in the supersensible world. In this supersensible world, you go for a walk. As a rule, a person with today’s disposition cannot stray far from the body. However, if—through the principles provided by spiritual science—one has developed organs for this astral body that roams about during sleep, just as the physical body has organs, then it begins to become conscious during sleep. The physical body would be blind and deaf if it had no eyes or ears, and the astral body, which goes for walks at night, is blind and deaf for the same reason—because it does not yet have eyes or ears. However, these are developed through meditation; meditation is the means for developing these organs. This meditation must then be guided in a systematic manner. It is conducted in such a way that the human body is the mother and the human spirit is the father. The human body, as it stands physically before us, is a mystery in every limb it presents to us—in such a way that each limb belongs, in a specific yet hidden manner, to a part of the astral body. These are the things the occultist knows. He knows, for example, what the point between the eyebrows corresponds to in the physical body. It corresponds to a specific organ in the astral organism, and when the occultist instructs you on how to direct your thoughts, feelings, and sensations toward the point between the eyebrows—by connecting something formed in the physical body with its counterpart in the astral body—you will experience a certain sensation in the astral body. However, this must be done regularly, and one must know how. Then the astral body begins to take shape. From a mass, it becomes an organism in which the organs develop. I have described the astral sense organs in the journal *Lucifer-Gnosis*. They are also called lotus flowers. These lotus flowers are formed through specific formulas. Once they are formed, the human being is capable of perceiving the spiritual world. This is the very same world that one enters when passing through the gate of death. Hamlet’s statement that no traveler has ever returned from that unknown land is then proven false.

[ 36 ] You can therefore enter—or rather, slip into—the supersensible world from the sensible world and live in both. This is not a life spent in a fantasy world, but a life in the realm that makes life in our own realm explicable and understandable to us. Just as an ordinary person who has not studied the laws of electricity enters an electrically powered factory, sees the marvelous machinery, and does not understand it, so too does the ordinary person not understand the workings of the spiritual world. The factory visitor’s lack of understanding persists as long as he does not know the laws of electricity. Likewise, a person remains ignorant in the spiritual realm as long as he does not know the laws of the spiritual. There is nothing in our world that is not dependent on the spiritual world at every turn. Everything that surrounds us here is an outward expression of the spiritual world. There is no such thing as matter. All matter is condensed spirit, and to those who look into the spiritual world, the entire material, sensory world—the world itself—becomes spiritualized. Just as ice melts into water in the sun, so too does everything sensory melt into the spiritual before the soul that looks into the spiritual world; thus, the very foundation of the world gradually reveals itself to the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear.

[ 37 ] In truth, the life that a person comes to know in this way is the spiritual life that a person is already living continuously within, but of which they are unaware because they do not know themselves until they have developed the faculties necessary for the higher world. Imagine for a moment that you were a human being with the characteristics you have now, but without any sense organs. You would know nothing of the world around you; you would have no understanding of the physical body, and yet you would belong to the physical world. In the same way, the human soul belongs to the spiritual world but is unaware of it because it neither hears nor sees. Just as our body is composed of the forces and substances of the physical world, so our soul is composed of the forces and substances of the spiritual world. We do not recognize ourselves within ourselves, but only through our surroundings. Just as you cannot see your heart or brain without perceiving them in others through your sensory organs—even with the aid of X-rays, only your eyes can see the heart—so it is true that you cannot see or hear your own soul without recognizing it through spiritual sensory organs in the environment. You can only recognize yourself through your environment. In truth, there is no inner knowledge, no self-contemplation; there is only one kind of knowledge—a revelation through the organs of both physical and spiritual life around us. We belong to the worlds around us: the physical, the psychological, and the spiritual worlds. We learn from the physical world when we have physical organs, and from the spiritual world—from all souls—when we have spiritual and soul organs. There is no knowledge other than knowledge of the world.

[ 38 ] It is futile and empty contemplation when a person broods within himself and believes he can achieve anything through mere introspection. A person finds God within when he awakens the divine faculties within himself and then finds his higher, divine self in his surroundings, just as he can find his lower self in the world only through his eyes and ears. We become clearly aware of ourselves as physical beings through our interaction with the sensory world, and we become clearly aware of ourselves in a spiritual sense by developing spiritual senses within ourselves. Inner development means opening oneself to the divine life in the external world around us.

[ 39 ] Now you will understand why it is necessary that the one who ascends into the higher world, as I have described, first undergo an infinite strengthening of his character. People can initially experience the sensory world through themselves, because their senses are already developed—because a benevolent divine spirit, who saw and heard in the physical world, stood beside humankind in the most ancient times, before humankind could see and hear, and opened their eyes and ears. It is from such beings that human beings must learn today to see spiritually—from beings who are already capable of what they must learn. We must have a guru who tells us how to develop our faculties, who tells us what he did to bring about the development of those faculties. Anyone who wishes to guide others must have acquired one fundamental quality: unconditional truthfulness; and this is also a primary requirement that must be placed upon the student. No one may be trained as an occultist unless they have first been trained in this fundamental quality of unconditional truthfulness.

[ 40 ] In contrast to sensory experiences, one can verify what is being said. But when I tell you something from the spiritual world, you must have faith, because you are not yet at the stage where you can verify it. Anyone who wishes to be a guru must have become so truthful that it is impossible for him to take such assertions regarding the spiritual world and spiritual life lightly. The sensory world immediately corrects the errors we make regarding that sensory world, but in the spiritual world we must have that guiding principle within ourselves; we must be rigorously trained so that we are not forced to rely on the external world for verification, but rather have that verification within ourselves. We can acquire this control only by cultivating the strictest truthfulness here in this world. That is why the Theosophical Society, when it began to present some elementary teachings of occultism to the world, had to adopt the principle: “No law above the truth.” — Few understand this principle. Most are satisfied if they can tell themselves, “I am aware that it is true,” and if it is false, they say, “I was mistaken.” The occultist must not rely on his subjective honesty. In doing so, he is on the wrong track. He must always be in harmony with the facts of the external world, and he must regard any experience that contradicts them as an error or a mistake. For the occultist, there is no longer any room for “I can do this” or “I can’t do that.” He must be in absolute harmony with the facts of life. One must begin to feel responsible, in the strictest sense, for every assertion one makes. Then one trains oneself to attain the unconditional certainty that anyone who wishes to be a spiritual guide must possess for themselves and for others.

[ 41 ] So you see that today—we’ll have to discuss this topic again to add the higher parts — I had to describe a series of qualities and methods that will seem too intimate to you to discuss with others, that every soul must work out for itself, and that may seem unsuitable to you for achieving the immense goal that is to be attained, namely, entry into the supersensible world. Anyone who follows the path I have described will undoubtedly achieve this entry.

[ 42 ] When? One of the most distinguished participants in the Theosophical Movement, our long-deceased member Subba Row, spoke accurately on this subject. When asked how long it takes, he replied: Seven years, perhaps seven times seven years, perhaps seven incarnations, or perhaps just seven hours. — It depends entirely on what a person brings with them into life. There may be a person standing before us who seems quite stupid, but who has brought with them a higher life that is now hidden and simply needs to be brought out. Today, most people are further along in occult terms than it appears, and many would be aware of this if our material circumstances and our material age did not push them so far back into the inner life of the soul. A large percentage of people today were once more advanced. Whether what is within a person comes to the surface depends on various factors. But it is possible to offer some help. Imagine a person standing before me. In a previous incarnation, he was a highly developed individual, but now he has an undeveloped brain. An underdeveloped brain can sometimes obscure great spiritual abilities. But if one teaches them the ordinary, mundane skills, it is possible that their inner spiritual nature will also emerge. However, this does not depend solely on this, but also on the environment in which the person lives.

[ 43 ] In a very significant way, a person is a reflection of his or her environment. Suppose a person is a highly developed individual but lives in an environment that only arouses and fosters certain prejudices within him, which then exert such a powerful influence that his higher potential cannot emerge. If such a person does not find someone to bring that potential out of him, then it simply remains hidden within him.

[ 44 ] I was able to give you only a few hints about this; but after Christmas we will speak again about the broader and deeper matters. The one idea I wanted to convey is that the higher life is not developed in a tumultuous way, but rather very intimately, in the deepest recesses of the soul, and that the great day on which the soul awakens and enters the higher life truly comes like a thief in the night. The development toward the higher life leads a person into a new world, and once they have entered this new world, they see, so to speak, the other side of existence; then what was previously hidden from them is revealed. Perhaps not everyone can do this—perhaps only a few can—and everyone should tell themselves this. But that should not deter them from at least initially setting out on the path that is open to everyone—namely, hearing about the higher worlds. Human beings are called to live in community, and those who isolate themselves cannot attain a spiritual life. However, it is a form of separation in the higher sense when I say: “I do not believe that; it has no bearing on me; it may apply to the afterlife, but it does not apply to the occultist.” It is a fundamental principle for the occultist to regard other people, in reality, as the manifestation of his own higher self, because one then knows that one must find others within oneself.

[ 45 ] There is a subtle difference between the two phrases “finding the others within oneself” and “finding oneself in the others.” But in a higher sense, this means: That is you. — And in the highest sense, it means: To recognize and understand oneself in the world—the poet’s words, which I had the privilege of quoting a few weeks ago in a different context: “One man succeeded; he lifted the veil of the goddess at Sais. — But what did he see? He saw—miracle of miracles—himself.” To find oneself not in a self-centered inner world, but selflessly in the world, is true self-knowledge.