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body are finally overcome. The student notices this by the fact that gradually certain expressions of the
physical body that formerly took place unconsciously now come under his control. He notices it also
by the fact that for a short time he feels the need, for example, so to control the breath that it comes
into a sort of concord or harmony with what the soul performs in the exercises or otherwise in inner
meditation.
The ideal of the development is that no exercises be made at all by means of the physical body itself,
also no breathing exercises, but that everything that occurs in the physical body in this way should
only come about as a consequence of pure intuition exercises.
Part 8
If the student of the spirit ascends upon the path into the higher worlds of knowledge, he notices at a
certain stage that the cohesion of the forces of his personality assumes a different form from the one in
the physical-sensory world, where the ego effects a uniform co-operation of the soul forces, of
thinking, feeling, and willing. These three soul forces stand always in a certain relationship to each
other in the conditions of ordinary human life. One sees, for example, a certain object in the outer
world.
It pleases or displeases the soul. That is to say, of necessity the visualizing of a thing will be followed
by a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. One may, perhaps, desire the object or have the impulse to alter
it in one way or another. That is, the power of desire and will associate with visualizing and feeling.
That this co-ordination takes place is caused by the ego uniting visualizing (thinking), feeling, and
willing and in this way bringing order into the forces of the personality. This healthy order would be
interrupted if the ego were to prove powerless in this regard; if, for example, desire should elect to go a
different way from feeling or thinking.
A human being would not be in a healthy soul condition who might think that this or that is right, but
who might want something of which he is convinced that it is not right. The case would be similar if
someone did not want what pleases him, but rather what displeases him. The human being now notices
that on the path to higher knowledge thinking, feeling, and willing do indeed separate and each
assumes a certain independence. For example, a certain thought has no longer an inward urge toward a
certain feeling and willing. The matter is as follows.
In thinking something may be perceived correctly, but in order to have any feeling or to come to a
resolution of the will, we need again an independent impulse from ourselves. During supersensible
perception thinking, feeling, and willing do not remain three forces that radiate from the common
egocenter of the personality, but they become three independent entities, three personalities, as it were;
one must now make one's own ego all the stronger, for it is not merely a matter of its bringing three
forces into order, but of leading and directing three entities. This separation, however, must only exist
during supersensible perception.
Here again it becomes clear how important it is that the exercises for higher training be accompanied
by those that give certainty and firmness to the power of judgment, and to the life of feeling and
willing. For the person who does not bring these qualities with him into the higher world will soon see
how the ego proves weak and unable to act as an orderly guide for thinking, feeling, and willing. If this
weakness were present, the soul would be as though torn by three personalities in as many directions
and its inner unity would cease.
If, however, the development of the student proceeds in the right way the described transformation of
forces signifies true progress; the ego remains master of the independent entities that now form its
soul.  In the further course of this evolution the development continues. Thinking that has become
independent stimulates the emergence of a special fourth soul-spirit being that may be described as a
direct influx of currents into man, similar to thoughts. The entire cosmos then appears as a thought-
structure confronting man as does the plant or animal world in the realm of the physical senses.
Likewise, feeling and willing that have become independent stimulate two forces in the soul that act in
it like independent beings. Still another seventh power and being appears that is similar to one's own
ego itself.
This entire experience is connected with yet another. Before his entrance into the supersensible world,
man knew thinking, feeling, and willing only as inner soul experiences. As soon as he enters the
supersensible world he perceives objects that do not express the physical-sensory, but the psycho-
spiritual. Behind the characteristics of the new world now perceived by him stand soul-spirit beings.
These now stand before him as an outer world, just as in the physical realm stones, plants, and animals
stood before his senses. The student of the spiritual can now perceive an important difference between
the world of soul and spirit that reveals itself to him, and the world that he was accustomed to
perceiving through his physical senses. A plant in the world of the senses remains just as it is,
whatever the human soul may feel or think about it. With the images of the world of soul and spirit this
is, at the outset, not the case. They alter according to what the human being feels or thinks. In this way
he gives them form that depends upon his own nature. Let us imagine that a certain picture appears
before man in the world of imagination.
If, at first, he remains indifferent to it in his soul, it then shows itself in a certain form. At the moment,
however, when pleasure or displeasure is felt in regard to the picture, it changes its form. The pictures
therefore, in the first instance, express not only what they are, independent of man, but they reflect
what man is himself. They are permeated through and through by his own nature. The latter spreads
like a veil over the supersensible beings. Although real beings confront him, he does not see them, but
instead, his own creation.
Thus he may have something true before him and, nevertheless, see something false. Indeed, this is not
only the case in regard to what man notices in himself as his own essential nature, but everything that
is in him affects this world. He may have, for example, hidden inclinations that do not come into
evidence in life because of his education and character; they affect the world of the soul and spirit,
which takes on a peculiar coloring through the whole being of man, no matter whether he himself
knows much about this being or not.  In order to be able to advance further from this stage of
development it is necessary that man learn to distinguish between himself and the outer spiritual world.
It is necessary that he learn to eliminate all the effects of himself upon his soul-spirit environment.
This cannot be done otherwise than by acquiring a knowledge of what he himself carries into the new
world.
It is therefore important that he first possess true, thoroughly developed self-knowledge, in order to be
able to have a clear perception of the surrounding world of soul and spirit. Now, certain facts of human
development demand that such self-knowledge must take place quite naturally at the time of the
entrance into the higher world. Man develops his ego, his self-consciousness in the everyday physical-
sensory world. This ego now acts as a center of attraction for everything belonging to man. All his
inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, passions, and opinions group themselves, as it were, around his
ego, and this ego is also the point of attraction for what may be designated as the karma of man.
If this ego were to be seen unconcealed it would show that certain forms of destiny must still be [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]