SIX BASIC EXERCISES
1. OBJECTIVITY. Control of thinking. 5 minutes per day, think about a simple
object.
Who, what, when, how, history, ...
Stay focused. Give soul strength.
2. ACTION. Control of Willing. Do at the same time each day a meaningless action.
3. EQUANIMITY. Control of Expressions, Feelings.
Be in control rather than a slave to emotions. Not to stifle but
mastery.
4. POSITIVITY. Seek Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
5. OPEN-MINDEDNESS. Receptivity to new experiences, change in people.
Overcome one's "I know it all", "It can't be like that!"
6. HARMONIZE ALL. Practice in various combinations of the above.
This works on the 12-petal lotus, the chakra of the heart.
The capacity to truly love.
OUTLINE OF PATH IN KOHW
I. PREPARATION
1. Attitude of soul: Veneration and devotion to Truth and Knowledge
Otherwise, no strength to get there. Laws of the spiritual life.
2. Willingness to work upon oneself, inwardly. Not study, but doing in life. Seek
motives of admiration in others.
3. Develop an inner life. Lessen need for impressions from the outer world for we
must have experienced the divine within ourselves before we can hope to discover it
in our environment.
4. All knowledge pursued merely for the enrichment of personal learning and the
accumulation of personal treasure leads you away from the path;
but all knowledge pursued for growth to ripeness within the process of human
ennoblement and cosmic development brings you a step forward.
II. THE PATH
1. Inner Tranquility: Provide for yourself moments of inner tranquility, and in
these moments learn to distinguish between the essential and the non-essential.
During these periods the student should wrest himself entirely free from his
work-a-day life. His thoughts and feelings should take on a different coloring. His
joys and sorrows, his cares, experiences and actions must pass in review before his
soul; and he must adopt such a position that he may regard all his sundry
experiences from a higher point of view.
For every human being bears a higher man within himself who remains hidden
until awakened.
�I will summon all my strength to do my work as well as I possibly can.�
He begins to steer his own ship on a secure course through the waves of life,
whereas it was formerly battered to and fro by these waves.
This higher man now becomes the inner ruler. Such tranquil contemplation must
become a natural necessity in the life of the student.
He discovers that something living expresses itself in this thought-world. He
sees that his thoughts do not merely harbor shadow-pictures, but that through them
hidden beings speak to him. Out of the silence, speech becomes audible to him.
Formerly sound only reached him through his ear; now it resounds through his soul.
But the student in such moments must not merely indulge in feelings; he must
not have indefinite sensations in his soul. That would only hinder him from
reaching true spiritual knowledge. His thoughts must be clear, sharp and definite,
and he will be helped in this if he does not cling blindly to the thoughts that
rise within him. Rather must he permeate himself with the lofty thoughts by which
men already advanced and possessed of the spirit were inspired at such moments.
When, by means of meditation, a man rises to union with the spirit, he brings
to life the eternal in him.
Everyone can attain this knowledge; in each one of us lies the faculty of
recognizing and contemplating for ourselves what genuine Mysticism, Spiritual
Science, Anthroposophy, and Gnosis teach. Only the right means must be chosen. Only
a being with ears and eyes can apprehend sounds and colors; nor can the eye
perceive if the light which makes things visible is wanting. Spiritual Science
gives the means of developing the spiritual ears and eyes, and of kindling the
spiritual light; and this method of spiritual training: (1) Preparation; this
develops the spiritual senses. (2) Enlightenment; this kindles the spiritual light.
(3) Initiation; this establishes intercourse with the higher spiritual beings.
FROM AN ESOTERIC COSMOLOGY, lecture 6, Yoga in East and West, 30May1906, Paris, GA
94
The task of the occultist, of the true Initiate, is to change the direction of his
life's current. The actions of man today are impelled and determined by his
feelings � that is to say, by impulses from the outer world. Actions determined by
space and time have no significance. Space and time must be transcended. How can we
achieve this?
(1) Control of thought. We must be able to concentrate our thought upon a single
object and hold it there.
(2) Control of actions. Our attitude to all actions, be they trivial or
significant, must be to dominate, regulate and hold them under the control of the
will. They must be the outcome of inner initiative.
(3) Equilibrium of soul. There must be moderation in sorrow and in joy. Goethe has
said that the soul who loves is, till death, equally happy, equally sad. The
occultist must bear the deepest joy and the deepest sorrow with the same equanimity
of soul.
(4) Optimism � the attitude which looks for the good in everything. Even in crime
and in seeming absurdity there is some element of good. A Persian legend says that
Christ once passed by the corpse of a dog and that His disciples turned from it in
disgust. But the Christ said: �Lo! the teeth are beautiful.�
(5) Confidence. The mind must be open to every new phenomenon. We must never allow
our judgments to be determined by the past.
(6) Inner balance, which is the result of these preparatory measures. Man is then
ripe for the inner training of the soul. He is ready to set his feet upon the path.
(7) Meditation. We must be able to make ourselves blind and deaf to the outer world
and our memories of it, to the point where even the shot of a gun does not disturb.
This is the prelude to meditation. When this inner void has been created, man is
able to receive the prompting of his inner being. The soul must then be awakened in
its very depths by certain ideas able to impel it towards its source.
In the book Light on the Path, there are four sentences which may be employed in
meditation and inner concentration. They are very ancient and have been used for
centuries by Initiates. Their meaning is profound and many-sided.
�Before the eyes can see, they must be incapable of tears.�
�Before the ear can hear, it must have lost it's sensitiveness.�
�Before the voice can speak in the presence of the masters, it must have lost the
power to wound.�
�Before the soul can stand in the presence of the masters, its feet must be washed
in the blood of the heart.�
These four sentences have magical power. But we must bring them to life within us,
we must love them as a mother loves her child.
