Simply Steiner©
Meditation/Communication with the Higher World – Rudolf Steiner – 11 May 1924, Dornach
First, take this mantra and recite It. Not loudly, but in a soft, gentle manner:
O man, know thyself!
So resounds the cosmic word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it vast in spirit.
And then, once you have recited such a mantra to yourself, try to sense how the reciting reacts within you. Try to come to the point where you can sense the speaking, that you sense the difference in your body between when you are silent and when you are speaking. Try to sense the speaking within, how it passes through you. You will sense it as all kinds of pressure and wave currents in the speech organs.
And when you have sensed this, ask yourself: When I think something, due to someone talking to me or some other event that makes an impression on me relative to the present: Can I also sense it?
If you have learned to sense speaking, you will easily be able to sense the thinking which is directly induced by the immediate present. It is lighter and more delicate to sense than speaking, but it can be sensed.
Then, just as you can sense speech, you can also sense thinking. Then you will be able to touch, touch internally, perceive internally, the sense of thinking which is moved somewhat up against the back of the head. It is good to practice such an exercise, for it acts as a guide to intimate self-observation.
When this becomes an intimate experience for you, when you really feel it, then you have grasped something spiritual, which can be the beginning of a progressively increasing spiritual understanding.
Definitions:
The Guardian of the Threshold: A being that keeps careful watch and ward on the boundary which must be crossed at the entrance to the supersensible world. This spiritual being, hidden within you, which is you, but which is not usually perceived with ordinary consciousness.
The lesser guardian is a fearful astral figure that is objectively materialized out of an individual’s collective karma; that is, out of the accumulated effects of good and bad deeds that were performed throughout an individual’s incarnational history. The lesser guardian is invisible to ordinary sight; and only becomes visible to supersensible sight when an individual attempts to consciously cross the threshold into the spiritual world. The lesser guardian, then, is a spectral apparition, a personal astral creation.
Guardian Angel: Your very own dedicated guide in the spiritual world, it envelops you in unconditional love. Your angel gives you the safe space in which your higher self can develop and eventually come into independent maturity. Impulses from your angel allow true ideas to stream into your consciousness. They guide you in your earthly tasks and relationships and give you strength to overcome the inevitable challenges you meet along the way. The angels’ unconditional love remains steadfast, guiding you along your way and helping to strengthen you.
Archai: Are sometimes called Time Spirits, they shine the light of intuition into the dynamic relationships that have been built with the aid of the archangels. The Archai help to attune our efforts to be most fruitful at a particular time and place. The results of their work may be found in the rise and fall of various people and impulses over the course of human history. They regulate the earthly relations of whole human generations on earth. They lead mankind as a whole and their work is influenced by the numbers of human beings who increase their spiritual awareness. When we do not work on and become more spiritually aware we weigh down these beings. Reference to these beings may be found in the Greek word arche or beginning. This word is sometimes rendered ‘principalities or ‘rule’ and indicates the work of these beings on human consciousness. When changes in the consciousness of humanity occur, it can indicate a change in the activity of the Archai.These ideas give us a sense of movement and change. The more conscious some of us become the greater the activity of these beings which in turn affects us all.
Archangels: They unite groups of people, who share a common purpose or mission, by flowing in rhythmic motion amongst group members and their angels. They weave together mutual intentions and help us form a sense of group identity, be it a community, family, or nation. While angels give strength to each individual human, archangels inspire and give courage to each member of the group to work together to fulfill their common tasks. Whether forming a school, a team, a theatre company, or a political movement etc., the work of the archangels helps form these groups into a dynamic and viable whole. These groups may well become able to receive higher spiritual intentions in order to meet challenges particular to their historical setting and time.
Mediation Instructions:
Your mind and soul should imagine perfect silence. Your soul should also imagine itself to be already on the other side of the threshold standing before the Guardian in the spiritual world. And, although being perfectly silent you hear three sounds. The first sound comes from the distant universe; the second from the Guardian. The third will come from the beings later identified in the mantra.
Coming from all sides of the distant universe come the words:
Listen to the field of thinking- This is the true nature of thinking through a spiritually cosmic experience.
The Guardian then speaks the first three lines:
The one who wants to show to you
The paths from life on earth
To life on earth in spirit light does speak
Then the angel who shows us the path from the earthly life speaks:
Behold your senses’ shining radiance.
Again, the Guardian speaks:
The one who wants to carry you,
Your soul conveyed to souls.
In regions matter-free speaks
The next lines are spoken by the being who watches over you from the hierarchy of the Archangels:
Behold the forces working in your thinking.
The next three lines are those of the Guardian:
The one speaks who among spirits.
In earth-distant fields of creation
Desires to give you the ground of being.
After the Guardian of the Threshold has spoken, the being from the ranks of the Archia speaks:
Behold the imagery of remembrance.
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Taken together the Mediation goes like this:
Listen to the world of thinking:
The one who wants to show you.
The paths from life on earth to life
On earth in spirit light does speak.
Behold our senses’ shining radiance.
The one who wants to carry you,
Your soul conveyed to souls.
In regions matter-free speaks.
Behold the forces working in your thinking.
The one speaks who among spirits.
In earth distant fields of creation
Desires to give you the ground of being.
Behold the Imagery of Remembrance.
These words from the cosmic beings instruct on how to practice self-knowledge. Self-knowledge leads to world knowledge: but only if the Self can be in connection with the world.
So, if you really wish to penetrate into your Self, into your, I, then you must experience it together with the beings from the hierarchies. For what you call your, I, in external nature is only the distant echo. The true I exist in the same realms as these beings of the higher hierarchies. Therefore, in entering the realm of self-knowledge you must also enter the realm of the higher hierarchies, and you must hear the speech of the higher hierarchies.
The reproaches of the Guardian of the threshold always intervene in order that you do this with all of your strength. In order that entire content in the meditation appears before you in all of its majesty: Behold the field of Thinking, Behold the field of Thinking.
If you experience yourself within the spiritual world as described in the mantras, then these things will be able to help you advance. You must feel them from the right attitude, and you must seek this attitude. Above all inner devotion must be there. This inner devotion comes only from the attitude through which are shifted from the outer world for a while and live exclusively within the content and elements of the meditation. If you do this so that self-knowledge is not merely an inner brooding, but is an explicit conversation with the universe, the Guardian, and Hierarchies, then you will find yourself in possession of true self-knowledge.
Therefore, you need to achieve an inner mental attitude to feel that the human self-knowledge is something solemn, earnest, and holy and that these things should only be spoken internally by the soul when they are felt to be earnest, solemn, consecrated.
It is a great hindrance to progress on the esoteric path when solemn attitude of consecration has as not yet been developed. Everything in esoteric life depends on the pure, absolute truth prevailing. Whoever does not recognize that absolute truth must prevail- can do nothing in esoteric life. It is not merely to speak of the truth and then regard things, as one does as usual, in profane life.
You must bring together everything related to self-knowledge with an earnest, solemn consecrated attitude then you will have allowed these words to correctly work on your soul:
O man, know thyself!
So resounds the cosmic word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it vast in spirit.
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Eliza Joslin Kendall holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration and was honored by the Women's Hall of Fame for a Start-up/Small Business in 2003. She is a Certified Transformational Life Coach, as well as adept in Energy Healing, and Mediation and Conflict Resolution. Blessed with supersensible perceptions since childhood, she has long been deeply involved with the writings of Rudolf Steiner.