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.The training to be described here places in the hands of the person who has the will for his higherdevelopment the means for undertaking the transformation of his soul.Any dangerous interferencewith the inner nature of the disciple would only occur were the teacher to undertake this transformationby means that elude the consciousness of the pupil.No proper instruction for spiritual development inour age employs such means.A proper instruction does not make the pupil a blind instrument.It gives him the rules of conduct, andhe then carries them out.There is no need to withhold the reason why this or that rule of conduct isgiven.The acceptance of the rules and their employment by a person who seeks spiritual developmentneed not be a matter of blind faith.Blind faith should be completely excluded from this domain.Whoever considers the nature of the human soul, as far as it is possible through ordinary self-examination without spiritual training, may ask himself after encountering the rules recommended forspiritual training, "How can these rules be effective in the life of the soul?"It is possible to answer this question satisfactorily prior to any training by the unprejudicedemployment of common sense.We are able to understand correctly the way of working of these rulesprior to their practice.But it can be experienced only during training.The experience, however, willalways be accompanied by understanding if we accompany each step with sound judgment, and at thepresent time a true spiritual science will only indicate rules for training upon which sound judgmentmay be brought to bear.Anyone who is willing to surrender himself to such training only, and whodoes not permit himself to be driven to blind faith by prejudice of any kind, will find that all doubtsdisappear.Objections to a proper training for a higher state of consciousness will not disturb him.Even for a person whose inner maturity can lead him sooner or later to self-awakening of the spiritualorgans of perception such training is not superfluous, but on the contrary it is quite especially suited tohim.For there are but few cases in which such a person, prior to self-initiation, is not compelled topass through the most varied, crooked and useless byways.Training spares him these deviations.Itleads straight forward.If self-initiation takes place for such a soul, it is caused by its having acquiredthe necessary maturity in the course of previous lives.It may easily happen, however, that just such asoul has a certain dim presentiment of its maturity and through this presentiment is inclined to rejectthe proper training.This presentiment may produce a certain pride that hinders faith in a true spiritual training.It ispossible that a certain stage of soul development may remain concealed up to a certain age in humanlife and only then appear, but training may be just the right means of bringing forth this stage.If theindividual pays no heed to such training, it may happen that his ability remains concealed during hispresent life and will only reappear in some subsequent life.In regard to the training for supersensible knowledge described here, it is important to avoid certainobvious misunderstandings.One of these may arise through thinking that training would transformman into a different being in regard to his entire life-conduct.It cannot, however, be a question ofgiving man general instructions for his conduct of life, but of telling him about soul-exercises which,properly performed, will give him the possibility of observing the supersensible.These exercises haveno direct influence upon the part of his life-functions that lies outside the observation of thesupersensible.In addition to these life-functions the human being acquires the gift of supersensible observation.Thefunction of this observation is as much separated from the ordinary functions of life as the state ofwaking is from that of sleeping.The one cannot disturb the other in the least.Whoever, for example,wishes to permeate the ordinary course of life with impressions of supersensible perception resemblesan invalid whose sleep would be continually interrupted by injurious awakenings.It must be possiblefor the free will of the trained person to induce the state in which supersensible reality is observed.Training, to be sure, is indirectly connected with certain instructions concerning conduct in as far as,without an ethically determined conduct of life, an insight into the supersensible is impossible orinjurious.Consequently, much of what leads to the perception of the supersensible is at the same timea means of ennobling the conduct of life.On the other hand, as a result of insight into the supersensibleworld, higher moral impulses are recognized that are also valid for the sensory-physical world.Certainmoral necessities are only recognized from out this world. A second misunderstanding would arisewere it believed that any soul function leading to supersensible knowledge might produce changes inthe physical organism.Such functions have nothing whatsoever to do with anything in the realm of physiology or otherbranches of natural science.They are pure soul-spirit processes, entirely devoid of anything physical,like sound thinking and perception.Nothing happens in the soul through such a function considering its character that is different from what takes place when it thinks or judges in a healthyfashion [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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