The Rudolf Steiner Archive

22. Christian Initiation and Rosicrucian Training

[ 1 ] Yesterday we discussed a topic that concerned more the outer, exoteric side of spiritual science. Today we may consider the inner, esoteric side of spiritual science.

[ 2 ] When, as is our task today, we speak to a large or even a small audience about the results of research into the supersensible, the question is soon asked: How do you know this? How can one come to experience something for oneself in relation to the higher worlds? This is a very legitimate question. However, it must be clear that one cannot embark on this path of personal observation too early, for example before becoming acquainted with the important ideas of spiritual science. One must already have become familiar with the general ideas and thoughts of the anthroposophical worldview. One must have tried to gain the insight that dawns on every human being, that there is truth in anthroposophy. One must finally have tried to understand the inner connection of the spiritual-scientific teachings from the perspective of human logic.

[ 3 ] Today, in principle, there can be no objection if someone has the desire to ascend to the levels of higher knowledge. Certainly, there is much talk from some quarters about the dangers and all that stands in the way of occult development — as the inner development of the human being is called. Much is said about Hatha Yoga and Raja Yoga, but this is more of theoretical value. If the matter is done correctly, if the person guiding such inner development is also called to do so, then there is actually no danger. Everything must be done correctly; that is what matters. A lecture such as today's is not intended to provide instructions — this should be emphasized — these must be given explicitly from person to person. Those who give them take on a great responsibility, and those who receive them must be clear that the chosen one truly deserves their trust. This trust is something that must absolutely be present.

[ 4 ] The occult or inner development of the human being thus gradually leads the individual up to the stages of his own knowledge. I would now like to outline the essentials of inner development, as I said, for information purposes, not as instruction.

[ 5 ] When someone has reached the summit of knowledge, when someone stands at the top of the mountain, he has a clear view in all directions. This is true in physical existence, and it is also true in knowledge. As long as one is not at the top, as long as one is on the path, one does not have a clear view. The more one climbs, the more one learns, but a large part remains hidden by the mountain. This image of the mountain fits very well with inner development. If you want to climb the steps to higher knowledge, you must start from a point that is suitable for you. This means that people on earth are different, also in terms of their physical, etheric, and astral constitution. The outer nature of a Hindu, a person from the Near East, a European, or an American are different from each other, much more than the non-occultist can imagine. What is beneficial for a Hindu nature in terms of inner development cannot simply be expected of a Western nature. It was therefore a mistake to transfer the Oriental teaching of yoga to Europe. This caused a great deal of harm. The much softer body of the Hindu can be developed in a completely different way than the European organism, which has been made much harder, so to speak, by civilization. Human natures are much more diverse than you can imagine. An anatomist cannot tell you anything about this, but anyone who, as a clairvoyant, takes a look inside knows how enormously different natures are.

[ 6 ] Today's humanity can be divided into three types: First, there are still those for whom the Oriental yoga initiation is essentially suitable, then those for whom the Christian-Gnostic path is possible, and finally those – and this is the case for the vast majority – for whom the path known since the 14th century as the Rosicrucian path is suitable. Mind you, these paths do not lead to different insights, because when you are at the summit, all things are equal. But the paths are and must be different.

[ 7 ] On the Christian Gnostic path, one can achieve many things; one can attain the highest insights. The Rosicrucian path, however, is suitable for modern man, because this man can find himself in situations where, because he lives within our life, doubts arise and disturbances occur which he must eliminate for himself and his work in the world. This is only possible with the one inner training based on the Rosicrucian method, which is the right one for the Western world.

[ 8 ] I would just like to mention a few aspects of Christian Gnostic initiation so that you can see that this is another area in which there is still much to learn today. I will then move on to Rosicrucian training. We will not go into the Oriental path of yoga any further today.

[ 9 ] The Christian path is outlined in a text that is hardly understood outside occult circles. The correct path of Christian initiation is fully outlined in the Gospel of John.

[ 10 ] The Gospel of John is one of the most profound writings in the world, but one must be able to read it correctly, that is, one must not believe that reading alone is sufficient and correct. It is a book of life. Above all, you must be aware that even the first words are not written merely for reading or philosophical speculation, but for meditation. But one must have them in the right way, not in the usual translation, but from the substance of the German language, the first verses of the Gospel of John must be created in such a way that not only the meaning of the sentences is there, but also the sound value of the sentences. For in real occult life, what is called the sound value of words also comes into consideration.

[ 11 ] Meditation consists of inner contemplation of certain formulas, sentences, or even words, but meditation, which is an important means of development, is not merely a philosophical or intellectual contemplation of what the occult teacher gives you, but rather an immersion into the sound value. If you were to think about a sentence given to you by a teacher, you could only bring forth thoughts that you already have. But you are supposed to receive something new; that is what this is all about. Meditation sentences are sentences that open the door to the spiritual world for you, based on centuries of experience. It is known that they have an effect on the soul in every letter, in every turn of phrase. So you must meditate on the first sentences exactly as they are written. Correctly translated, they read:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

This was with God in the beginning.

All things were made by it, and without it nothing was made that has been made.

In it was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

He came as a witness, to bear witness to the light, that through him all might believe.

He was not the light, but a witness to the light. For the true light, which enlightens all men, was coming into the world.

It was in the world, and the world was made through it, but the world did not recognize it.

It came to individual people (it came to ego-people), but individual people (ego-people) did not accept it.

But those who did accept it were able to reveal themselves as children of God through it.

Those who trusted in his name were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we heard his teaching; the teaching of the only Son of the Father, filled with devotion and truth."

[ 12 ] If we could talk at length, I could tell you many things about these first sentences. What I am now telling you briefly about this Christian initiation has been experienced by hundreds and hundreds of people. It has become a practical experience for thousands. I only want to hint at some of the stages of Christian initiation.

[ 13 ] The disciple was told for the time being: First, for weeks, months, years, you must let these first sentences of the Gospel of John live in your soul for a certain time each morning. During this time, you must turn your attention away from everything that is going on around you. You must become blind and deaf to everything around you, and these words must rise up in your soul as if you were hearing them, day after day, over and over again.

[ 14 ] This exercise initially has a certain effect on the soul. It conjures up a situation in which such a person sees how their dreams suddenly become regular, how they take on regular forms. And then comes the moment when the person knows that they are not in a world of dreams. Instead, they know: now you have a new reality around you, the imaginative, astral reality. Just as one sees trees and shrubs around oneself in ordinary consciousness, so now one sees the experiences of that world. Gradually they emerge, and then one knows what they mean. First like dream images, then more and more like living waking visions, the student sees the first twelve chapters of the Gospel of John before him.

[ 15 ] After this experience, the teacher of Christian initiation says to the student: Now you must prepare yourself for the experience of the thirteenth chapter. Imagine a plant! This plant grows out of the mineral kingdom. If it could think and feel, it would have to say to the mineral kingdom: I grow out of you; you are a lower kingdom than I am, but I could not possibly live without you. And gratefully it would have to bow down to the mineral kingdom and say: I thank you, stone! I owe my whole existence to you. — Likewise, the animal would have to speak to the plant. And human beings would have to bow down to the lower kingdoms of nature and feel the same way. And everyone who has climbed higher on the social ladder would have to bow down to those below them and say: I could not live without you.

[ 16 ] The student must practice immersing themselves in this for weeks, even months. Then two symptoms arise, the same for everyone. First, he experiences both the external and internal symptoms as a very definite fact. He sees himself as the thirteenth, washing the feet of the twelve. Christ Jesus wanted to make this great truth clear to the twelve in the washing of their feet. This wonderful soul experience comes to man in initiation. It goes as far as external symptoms. He experiences something that he feels as if he were dipping his feet in water. No one needs to be afraid of this; it will soon pass.

[ 17 ] When the student is ready, the teacher comes and says: Now you must enter a different sphere of perception. Life brings suffering and pain from all sides. You must put yourself in a state where you can face all suffering and pain, no matter where it comes from, as an upright person, so that it cannot harm you. You must remain in this state for weeks and months. — Then comes a time when an astral symptom occurs. He sees himself in the vision of the scourging, and a similar sensation occurs throughout his whole body, which, although it passes again, has the effect of permeating the student's whole body with this sensation. With this, he has made himself ready to stand upright in the scourging blows of life.

[ 18 ] For the third stage, he receives the instruction: Now you must put yourself in the position of feeling how you would feel if you not only had to endure pain and suffering, but also if what is most sacred to you were to be showered with scorn and ridicule. You must be able to stand through your inner strength; you must have such a center within you that you can stand upright. Then a new vision appears: the student sees himself crowned with thorns. As an outward symptom, he has a kind of headache that extends into his limbs, indicating that this great experience has taken place.

[ 19 ] Then comes the fourth station. The earthly body must become something external for the disciple. Most people perceive it as the self. The body must become like a piece of wood, like something external. The disciple must get into the habit of saying, instead of “I am coming in the door,” “I am carrying the body in the door.” The body must become completely objective to him. When the student has lived with this for weeks and months, he has a vision, an astral experience: he sees himself crucified. That is the fourth stage. And as an external symptom, the stigmata appear for a short time during meditation on the hands, feet, and right side — not on the left, as is usually assumed. They show how this degree of development has worked its way into the physical body.

[ 20 ] Then come stages that we can no longer talk about because we have no words for them. The fifth stage is mystical death, where the student first experiences something like a black curtain standing between him and reality. Until he realizes this, he feels something like a kind of lostness, a kind of complete loneliness. The physical world is as if it had sunk away, and like an impenetrable black curtain it lies before the eye of the soul. This is a moment that everyone who walks this path of initiation must experience. One becomes acquainted with everything that can lie at the bottom of the soul as truly great suffering and pain, and with all the evil that exists in the world. This is the descent into hell. Then it seems to the student as if the curtain is torn, and he sees into the other world.

[ 21 ] This is followed by the burial, an experience in which one feels at one with the planets, and the seventh stage, which cannot be described, because only those who can separate their thinking from their brain can have any inkling of it. It is the Ascension.

[ 22 ] Through this description of Christian initiation, I wanted to help you understand what it means. It is a path full of renunciation. It can happen in complete silence, and there are some among you who have gone through all this. It happens, as it were, between the lines of life, and the more serious it is, the less visible it is to the outside eye.

[ 23 ] If a person wants to be armed against everything that can come from outside, they must undergo the Rosicrucian initiation. Much of what you read about it in books would lead you to regard the Rosicrucians as charlatans, for that is how they are often described by scholars.

[ 24 ] Since the 14th century, true Rosicrucians have recognized each other by a secret sign. However, outsiders were not allowed to know what Rosicrucianism was all about. It was not until a certain point in the 19th century that the basic elements of Rosicrucian initiation could be communicated. Only gradually is humanity growing into the maturity that will allow it to learn about these things. Why this must be so, why the higher mysteries must still be kept hidden, we cannot go into further detail today.

[ 25 ] The Rosicrucian initiation also has seven stages, namely: First, the study, the Rosicrucian study; second, the acquisition of imaginative knowledge; third, the acquisition of occult writing; fourth, the search for the philosopher's stone; fifth, the experience of the connection between microcosm and macrocosm; sixth, immersion in the macrocosm; and seventh, godliness.

[ 26 ] I would like to point out again that only sketchy hints can be given and nothing more.

[ 27 ] Study is not learning as it usually happens, but one must realize that there is a kind of thinking for human beings that is still fluid, real thinking, in which human beings exclude all sensory perceptions around them. Western thinkers deny that such thinking exists. They say that one can only think if there is still a remnant of sensory perception in the thought. These gentlemen simply do not know that others have been able to do this, and they do not want to believe it because they themselves cannot think in this way. Man must learn to forget everything, to disregard everything that affects the senses externally, without, however, remaining an empty vessel. This is possible if one immerses oneself in pure, sensuality-free thought content, as contained in the communications of the spiritual researcher, and reflects on what unfolds. I have followed this path in my writings; I have written them down in such a way that, as with a living being, one limb grows out of another, one thought emerges organically from another. One surrenders oneself selflessly to the thought, and an inner separation occurs. Those who want to ascend higher must read spiritual scientific communications in this way. Those who do not want to ascend higher can read them like an ordinary book. The former is the case because human beings enter other worlds through higher knowledge. You now live on the physical plane — the word “plane” should be discarded, because it causes the most errors. The English word “plan” should not mean “plane,” but just as a plan of a house has nothing to do with a plane, so it should mean plan. So you come into different planes, into different worlds. First you live here in the physical world, then you come into the astral, imaginative world. This is a world that can be described as follows: Imagine a plant, green, with red flowers. Through certain exercises, you gain the ability not only to see what your senses see, but you can also perceive how a cold flame formation emerges from the plant, as it were. You perceive floating colors. In this way, you come to perceive beings that you cannot perceive with your outer senses. Everything evaporates from the surface of things and becomes the expression of purely astral processes. This world is much more real than our sensory world, for our sensory world is created out of it, the spiritual world. This physical world is a condensed form of the astral world. For the true occultist, matter is condensed spirit that we can dissolve again. Our entire sensory world is a condensed astral phenomenon.

[ 28 ] Behind this astral world there is yet another world, which we can best describe by showing you how human beings come to experience it. When they do the exercises I have described in my writings, their dreams are regulated first. Try to immerse yourself in the nature of dreams. What is a dream? I will give a few examples from life, as I have no others to offer.

[ 29 ] Someone dreamed that he had caught a tree frog and was holding the corner of his bed in his hand. When awake, he would have noticed that the fact underlying the dream was that he was holding the corner of his bed in his hand. The dream symbolizes the process. Another example: someone dreams that they are in a damp, black cellar full of cobwebs. They wake up with a headache. Entire dramatic events can be dreamed in this way. A student is standing at the door of the lecture hall. Another student enters, bumps into them, and, as the dream continues, a pistol duel ensues. The shot rings out—and the chair next to the bed has fallen over. This small event has been symbolically expressed in the entire “dream action.” A farmer's wife dreams that she goes to the city, enters the church, where the pastor preaches about sublime things. At a particularly sublime moment, the pastor transforms: he looks as if he has grown wings and suddenly begins to crow. At that moment, the farmer's wife wakes up, because the rooster is crowing outside. This action of the rooster crowing has been symbolically transformed in the dream.

[ 30 ] Such is the nature of dreams. All of this is chaotic. However, life enters this world, and everything becomes harmonious and regular when you attain a certain degree of certainty that there is a reality there. This is how it first appears, and later you carry what you perceive in the dream world over into ordinary life. Something develops that can be called “the continuity of consciousness.”

[ 31 ] Human beings also have dreamless sleep. At the next stage of development, the Rosicrucian student learns to perceive the beings and processes around them in the state of sleep: from the darkness of dreamless sleep, the revelations of the spiritual world resound. This is the next world, the devachanic world. The Pythagorean schools called this world the world of the music of the spheres: The spiritual world resounds. If you really want to hear something about the devachan, it can only be described to you as a resounding world. Goethe, who was initiated into Rosicrucian wisdom to this degree, knew this fact: “The sun resounds in the old way.” This is either nonsense or higher wisdom. The physical sun does not sound, but the spirit of the sun is a real, sounding being. And Goethe remains in the picture; read in the second part of Faust: “Sounding to spiritual ears / The new day is already born.” He wrote this because what the Pythagoreans called the music of the spheres was a truth for him. I can only hint at all this. All things will speak to us, a new revelation will emerge.

[ 32 ] These are the stages that the Rosicrucian student can reach through his exercises. The worlds are always completely different, and those who only know the physical world cannot conceive of what they can experience in other worlds. Only one thing remains the same throughout all worlds, and that is logical thinking. Perceptions are quite different in the astral and devachanic worlds, but the laws of thinking are the same in all three worlds. Therefore, the Rosicrucian student must first learn this way of thinking so that he does not stray from the safe path.

[ 33 ] The second stage is the acquisition of imaginative knowledge. I can only tell you a few things to explain what this means. When you see a tear rolling down a cheek, you conclude that there is sadness in the soul. When you see a cheerful physiognomy in a person, you conclude that the soul is cheerful. You do this with regard to human beings. Anyone who wants to ascend to imaginative knowledge must do this with regard to the whole world. The life of plants, animals, and stones must become an expression of the physiognomy of the world soul. Some things must be like cheerfulness, others like the sparkling tears of the earth spirit. This must become a reality for human beings. Just as we read a person's physiognomy in their face, so the whole earth must become an expression of the spiritual soul of the earth. There is much to experience here. The mystery of the Holy Grail, the ideal of the medieval Rosicrucian student, is connected with this.

[ 34 ] Let us take an example. The Rosicrucian student stood before his teacher, who gave him an exercise to do. What I now present in the form of a dialogue has never been spoken as a conversation, but what it contains has been practiced, it has been experienced. It is completely true and absolutely correct in every detail. The student comes to the teacher, and the teacher says to him: Look at the plant! It stretches its roots into the ground, it grows upward, opens its calyx upward, in which it has its organs of fertilization and reproduction. Chaste, noble, and pure, it allows itself to be kissed by the sunbeam and the light, the holy spear of love, which, as a sunbeam, penetrates the calyx of the plant and draws out what is latent in the plant's organs of fertilization. You would be imagining something wrong if, comparing the plant with the human being, you thought that the flower was the head and the root the feet. The root is the head and the flower the lower part. The human being is an inverted plant.

[ 35 ] Thus, the occultist sees in humans the inverted plant and in the plant the inverted human, with the animal standing in the middle. Look at the plant: it corresponds to the downward-pointing beam of the cross, the animal to the horizontal beam, and humans to the vertical, upward-pointing beam. This is the original meaning of the cross: it is the symbol of the plant, the animal, and the human being as the three kingdoms of nature. That is why Plato writes that the world soul is crucified on the world body. And now the teacher continued to the student: Look at the human being, the human being in the flesh! What is this human flesh? Compare it with what is contained in the plant. Plant matter is chaste and pure. Human flesh is permeated with desire and passion. Man stands higher on the ladder of development, but with this he has also taken on desire and passion. And a future form of man arose in the intuition of the occult student, in which human flesh will again be pure and chaste like the chaste calyx of a flower, which stretches out its fertilizing organs toward the sacred spear of love of the sunbeam. Then their productive powers will strive toward the spirit as purely as the plant of the lance of love strives toward the light today. Those who strive for this seek a transformation of the flesh. Thus, the great ideal was presented before the eyes of the student, that human beings will one day be as pure and chaste as the plant. This ideal is called the Holy Grail. It is one of those images that speak to the heart and the whole soul. It is not thoughts that enable the student to ascend, but images that affect the whole soul and carry the heart and feelings along with them. Only then can imaginative knowledge be attained.

[ 36 ] The third stage is the acquisition of occult writing. There is something in the world that is called a vortex in occult life. This vortex is present everywhere in nature and in the spiritual world. Imagine looking up at the Orion Nebula, which forms a strange spiral. If you were a seer, you would see a vortex winding like a six and then a second one that is darker. These two vortices intertwine. This also occurs in the spiritual world.

[ 37 ] We live in the time after the great Atlantic flood. Before this time, our ancient ancestors lived, people of a completely different kind. Today, we imagine that the people of that time were the same as they are now. However, the external physical conditions were completely different. Atlantis was a land that was always dark, shrouded in thick fog. It is important for you to know this. Ancient German mythology has preserved the memory in the words Nifelheim, Nebelheim, Nibelungen. In accordance with these conditions, human organization was completely different. Likewise, the Atlanteans had a completely different culture. You would get an idea of this if I could describe to you in detail how people at that time perceived articulated sounds in all things. There were no moral codes. If someone wanted to know how to behave towards their neighbor, they could not turn to any authority: they listened to the waves and knew.

[ 38 ] That was a culture of which every trace seems to have disappeared. It has perished. When did that happen? We can see it in the sky. About eight centuries before the birth of Christ, the sun rose in the constellation of Aries. It moves through a constellation over the course of about 2160 years. Around the year 800 BC, the sun entered the constellation of Aries, or the Lamb. Humanity felt that the new constellation had brought them the new fertility of spring, the new good. Therefore, we see that they considered the lamb or the ram to be important. There is much to suggest this, for example, the Argonaut legend, in which the Golden Fleece plays such an important role. Even Christ is called the Lamb of God. The symbol to which worship was offered was the lamb. Previously, the sun was in the constellation of Taurus, hence the worship of the bull in Egyptian and Persian culture. Even earlier, the sun passed through the image of the twins. This corresponds to the important role played by duality in the Persian teachings of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Traces of this can even be found in ancient Germanic culture. Before that, the sun passed through the constellation of Cancer. This was the time that followed the onset of the Atlantic flood. A vortex had taken place in the spiritual realm.

[ 39 ] You can still see this constellation with the occult symbol of Cancer in the calendar today. Humans know many such symbols. In truth, these are nothing more than a reproduction of the original forces of nature. If you train your mind to understand the occult symbols, you will strengthen your will through occult writing. You will learn the paths taken by the spiritual beings that underlie nature. Symbolic characters such as the pentagram or the hexagram are a faint echo of this. One occult symbol that you often read about is the swastika. The adventurous explanations for it are incredible. In truth, it is nothing more than the symbol for the astral sense organs, the wheels or lotus flowers, several of which are located in the astral body: in the heart, in the larynx, between the eyebrows. When the latter wheel begins to turn, astral vision occurs. The symbol for this astral organ of perception is the swastika.

[ 40 ] The fourth stage is the so-called preparation of the philosopher's stone. This really exists. At the end of the 18th century, a person who heard something “loud” but not “clashing” gave a rather nice description of the philosopher's stone in a magazine. The author himself did not know how well he described it. At that time, certain events led to some secrets of the occult school being revealed, and someone described the philosopher's stone. This is actually something that everyone knows about, something that many people hold in their hands every day without having any idea what it is. To see what is meant, let's take a moment to consider it. Think about human breathing. They breathe in oxygen, thereby transforming their blue blood into red blood, and they breathe out carbon dioxide, so that they exhale toxic substances every moment. Plants, on the other hand, absorb the carbon dioxide that humans and animals exhale, retain the carbon, and use it to build their bodies. They release the oxygen back into the air so that humans can breathe it in again. This is a cycle. Occultists have attached great significance to this process. If you dig up a plant in the form of coal today, you can see how the plant has built its body from carbon. Humans absorb oxygen, transforming their blue blood into red blood, while plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, which humans then absorb again.

[ 41 ] Now let us clarify what happens through a specific regulation of the breathing process in Rosicrucian training. How and in what way this takes place can only be said from person to person, but we can talk about the success. Constant dripping wears away the stone, as the saying goes. This is how it is with the process I am now describing. The occult student receives instructions from the teacher on how to do his breathing exercises from the spirit. These are instructions for regulating the breathing process in a certain way, which makes it possible for human consciousness to gradually expand beyond something of which the human being is otherwise unaware, something that otherwise takes place in plants. The plant now forms a whole with him. Normally, humans release carbon and take in oxygen. The student must now take this into his consciousness. In their breathing process, they consciously experience the transformation of carbon into oxygen, of blue blood into red blood. They learn to accomplish within themselves what they would otherwise leave to the plant. Now they are able to build up their own body. They learn this through regular breathing. They have acquired the ability to carry out the plant process within themselves. Now you have the real process by which man learns to purify his flesh physically. This process contains the alchemy of the human body. It brings about the transformation of man into the bearer of a pure, chaste incarnation, comparable to that of a plant. The student has the consciousness of the high, the bright; he knows that he only had to pass through the flesh. This is the transformation of coal into diamond. You will now understand what the rhythmization of the breath means in Rosicrucian training and in what sense one has spoken of a philosopher's stone. The regulated breathing process is the path to the philosopher's stone.

[ 42 ] These are only hints, but you will understand that something profound lies behind the search for the philosopher's stone, something that relates to the transformation of all humanity, so that human beings become different from what they are today — they and the whole earth. The powers of the soul must be so great and strong and firm, morally great, that man also draws the flesh into the process of redemption. We have to redeem everything around us, all creatures.

[ 43 ] The fifth step is to immerse oneself in the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm. A great occultist of the Middle Ages, whom one must first learn to read, used a beautiful image to illustrate the relationship between the macrocosm and the microcosm. Paracelsus said: You see the individual letters there. Man is the word composed of letters. Thus, in all of nature, one sees a spread-out human being, and in man, one sees nature composed. — Paracelsus, for example, called the cholera patient Arsenicus, because the same forces are at work in him as in arsenic.

[ 44 ] But it goes further than that. When a person concentrates very strongly on a very specific part of their inner being, namely the point between the eyebrows — which is of course only a reference point — they have a very specific experience that leads them into the inner happenings of the greater world. These correspond to what is contained microcosmically between the eyes. In this way, the correspondence between the macrocosm and the microcosm must be experienced piece by piece. Through immersion in his inner being, the student must get to know the outer world.

[ 45 ] On the sixth and seventh stages, the Rosicrucian student grows together with the whole world. He gains a real understanding of what is out there in the world. To the same extent, his feelings and his whole soul grow together with the outside world. This is the state that is called godliness. Then the earthly body becomes his body. This is what is called merging with the universe. It is a long path of specific spiritual training. Those who have gone through it become messengers of the spiritual world, speaking from experience.

[ 46 ] Today, anyone can walk this path — in principle, everyone. For some it takes a long time, for others a shorter time. One of the best theosophists, the late Subba Rou, said about the time that is so often asked about: It is true that one person needed seventy incarnations, another seven incarnations, yet another seventy years or even seven years; there have been those who have achieved it in seven months, and some who have achieved it in seven days, depending on the karma from past earthly lives. — When you begin to walk the path, you must have patience and perseverance and be aware that you are exposed to great dangers if you have not undergone good character training beforehand. Consider this parable: Take a green liquid that is a mixture of blue and yellow. If you now add a chemical agent, you are able to separate the blue from the yellow liquid. Previously, you could not see the properties of the two now separated liquids. Now they reveal their properties. It is the same with human beings. The high and the low are mixed together. The low is protected by the added higher forces from exerting its full intensity. Now you separate the parts through your exercises. One may then observe that someone who was previously reasonably tolerable becomes malicious and devious, and other negative characteristics emerge. One must be aware of this. Such a danger can be prevented under all circumstances if certain preliminary exercises are performed, through which the student is placed on a certain inner moral footing of character.

[ 47 ] First, they must acquire the ability to strictly control their thoughts. They must practice placing a thought at the center of their soul life for a long time; the more intense, the better. The practitioner must remain with the object and string all thoughts together. This exercise must be performed for at least five minutes every day. The more, the better, but one must not overdo it.

[ 48 ] Secondly, initiative is required. This consists of the student performing an action every day entirely on his own initiative. It is sufficient if it is a very small, insignificant action, such as watering flowers. After some time, one undertakes another action.

[ 49 ] Thirdly, one must become master of pleasure and pain. The “ecstatic one moment, despondent the next” must cease. This makes one more refined and receptive, but one must be the master, and not the feelings.

[ 50 ] Fourthly, positivity is necessary. What this means is explained in a Persian legend about Jesus Christ. Christ was walking along the road with some of his disciples. There was a dead dog lying by the side of the road, already in a state of decay. The disciples turned away and said, “How ugly this animal is!” But Christ stopped and said, “Look what beautiful teeth this animal has!” So even in the ugliest things there is beauty to be sought and found, in the most evil things there is good, and in the smallest things there is greatness. The positive qualities must be sought everywhere.

[ 51 ] Fifthly, absolute impartiality towards all new impressions must be acquired, impartiality in the highest degree. People tend to say: I've never heard that before, I've never seen that before, I don't believe it! — To the greatest extent possible, one must break the habit of speaking of impossibilities. One must have a chamber in one's heart in which, for example, one leaves open the possibility that the church tower really is leaning when someone says that the church tower is leaning. At least one must consider what one hears to be possible.

[ 52 ] The sixth stage consists of harmonizing the five qualities.

[ 53 ] Then the student has developed such a strong nature within himself that he is protected against what might otherwise harm him in occult training. One must not dismiss this occult training by saying, “I only want to have an ethical benefit.” — If one wants to penetrate into the higher worlds, one must follow the path indicated. The path of highest knowledge is at the same time the path of highest compassion. One must attain compassion through knowledge, not through phrases. All those who stand around full of compassion cannot help with a broken leg, except for the one who knows what to do and does it right. If one merely preaches in theosophy, it is like standing in front of the stove and saying to it: Your duty is to warm the room. — It is the same when one tells people to practice brotherly love. Just as you have to put wood in the stove and light it, you have to give people what connects souls in the great brotherhood, and that is knowledge. True knowledge is the fuel for the great brotherhood of humanity. Today is the age of materialism, which has led to people becoming separated.