EL, Stuttgart, 8-13-'08
Although one can't eat one's way into the spiritual world, eating the
wrong things can make spiritual development difficult or impossible.
Alcohol only arose after the Atlantean epoch to help men to become
individualized. It closes man off from his higher capacities and
encloses him in himself. That's why alcohol was used in the Dionysian
mysteries. But now all civilized people have reached that stage so
that alcohol is an unnecessary evil today. Through its use one loses
the ability to get along with others and to understand them. Alcohol
is especially harmful for esoterics since its use changes all
developed higher forces into forces of the personal ego, repeatedly
locks it into itself, and tears the astral body apart through the
opposing streams of the higher and lower I forces. The principle
through which everyone can consciously attain his individualization
was brought through the coming of Christ to the earth. That's why
Christ Jesus says: I am the true vine.
By consuming alcohol one prepares a fertile soil for hosts of
spiritual beings, just as a dirty room gets filled with flies.
The meat (but not milk and eggs) that we eat is permeated by the
animal's astral body, and so our astral body has to work to digest it.
This takes it away from its real task of creating pictures. Also at
night it's held fast by the etheric body so that it can't leave it
properly. This hinders it from its nightly task of restoring vital
forces. Vegetarian food that consists of physical and etheric things
support the creation of large, comprehensive pictures and so gives a
greater insight that lets one oversee things better without much
deliberation. The greater force doesn't exhaust us, but summons
Vegetarian food is excellent for doctors and lawyers who will find it
easier to see through their patients or their clients' affairs, but
it's not the right thing for bankers, industrialists, salesmen and
others who have a lot of calculating, for one loses the ability to
make physical combinations. People who inherited a body that can't
stand vegetarianism should not undertake an esoteric training.
The jogging, exercising and bathing that are often recommended are
wrong for an esoteric; they pull him down into his physical body. He
should try to move his limbs as little as possible.
A budding esoteric doesn't need faith, but only confidence in his
teacher, as is true for any kind of instruction, and he needs his
healthy human intellect. This will lead him to the conviction that
masters of wisdom must exist since it would be illogical to assume
that evolution stopped with us, although this in itself wouldn't tell
him who or what these masters are. But his teacher knows who they are.
A pupil can assume that basic truths like karma and reincarnation are
true on a trial basis. Then he can find out for himself whether
they're true. When something happens to him he'll tell himself that he
must have caused it, and he'll act accordingly. That's why Jesus says
that if someone strikes you on one cheek you should offer him the
other one also, because if he hits you there too he's making bad karma
good. A meditant should do six subsidiary exercises:
Think about a simple object for at least five minutes. Hold it fast in
thoughts without going over to other things. One can prepare for this
by familiarizing oneself with the object first. After a few days one
can choose another object. This exercise arouses a feeling of firmness
in the pupil as it activates the chakram between his eyebrows. One
should send this feeling through the brain and down the backbone.
Do an unimportant thing every day at a certain time. This exercise
also gives firmness.
Develop equanimity, that is, one shouldn't fluctuate between rejoicing
to heaven and despairing to death. A joke can be enjoyed just as much
if one doesn't laugh boisterously at; one can bear a pain better if
one doesn't wallow in it too much. This gives one a feeling of quiet
calm that one lets stream from the heart to the arms, and out through
See the beautiful and true elements in all things. Christ Jesus
admired the beautiful teeth in a rotting dog, where his disciples only
saw ugliness. One can discover at least a small kernel of truth and
something beautiful in everything. If one does this exercise for some
time it gives one a feeling of great joy.
Always be open to new things. One should never say: I never heard of
that, that can't be, or I don't believe that. One should always leave
the possibility open that one can learn something from everything that
people say. Thereby one can learn from children, animals and
everything else. This gives one the feeling that one could also
perceive things while one is partly outside one's body.
This exercise is a combination of the preceding ones, so that one can
combine two and two or any way one wants. By doing this, one gets the
feeling that one has grown beyond the limits of one's skin.