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agrees with truth but the justification of which is at the time not provable. What is meant here has
naturally nothing to do with this sort of intuition. Intuition denotes here a cognition of the highest,
most illuminating clarity, and, if one has it, one is conscious in the fullest sense of its justification.)
To have knowledge of a sense-being means to stand outside it and to judge it according to the external
impression.
To have knowledge of a spiritual being through intuition means to have become completely one with
it, to have become united with its inner nature. Step by step the student of the spiritual ascends to such
knowledge. Imagination leads him to sense the perceptions no longer as outer characteristics of beings,
but to recognize in them the outpouring of something psycho-spiritual; inspiration leads him further
into the inner nature of beings. He learns through it to understand what these beings are to each other;
with intuition he penetrates into the beings themselves. The significance of intuition also may be
shown by the descriptions given in this book. In the preceding chapters, not only the course of Saturn,
Sun, and Moon evolutions was described, but it was told that beings participate in this development in
the most varied ways.
Thrones or Spirits of Will, Spirits of Wisdom, of Motion, and others were mentioned. In the Earth
evolution mention was made of the spirits Lucifer and Ahriman. The construction of the cosmos was
traced back to the beings who participate in it. What may be learned about these beings is won through
intuitive cognition. This faculty is also necessary if one wishes to have a knowledge of the course of
human life. What is released after death from the human bodily nature goes through various states in
the subsequent period. The states directly after death might be described in some measure through
imaginative cognition.
What, however, takes place when man advances further into the period between death and rebirth
would have to remain quite unintelligible to imaginative cognition, if inspiration did not come to the
rescue. Only inspiration is able to discover what may be said about the life of man in the land of spirits
after purification. Then something appears for which inspiration no longer suffices, where it reaches,
so to say, the limits of understanding. There is a period in human evolution between death and rebirth
when the being of man is accessible only to intuition.
This part of the being of man, however, is always present in him; and if we wish to understand it
according to its true inner nature, we must investigate it by means of intuition also in the period
between birth and death. Whoever wished to fathom the nature of man by means of imagination and
inspiration alone, would miss the innermost processes of his being that take place from incarnation to
incarnation. Only intuitive cognition, therefore, makes possible an adequate research into repeated
earth lives and into karma. The truth communicated about these processes must originate from research
by means of intuitive cognition. If man himself wishes to have a knowledge of his own inner being,
he can only acquire this through intuition. By means of it he perceives what progresses in him from
earth life to earth life.
Part 6
Man is able to attain knowledge by means of inspiration and intuition only through soul-spirit
exercises. They resemble those that have been described as meditation for the attainment of
imagination. While, however, those exercises that lead to imagination are linked to the impressions of
the sensory-physical world, this link must disappear more and more in the exercises for inspiration. In
order to make clear to himself what has to happen there, let a person consider again the symbol of the
rose cross.
If he ponders upon this symbol he has an image before him, the parts of which have been taken from
the impressions of the sense world: the black color of the cross, the roses, and so forth. The combining
of these parts into a rose cross has not been taken from the physical sense world. If now the student of
the spirit attempts to let the black cross and also the red roses as pictures of sense realities disappear
entirely from his consciousness and only to retain in his soul the spiritual activity that has combined
these parts, then he has a means for meditation that leads him by degrees to inspiration. One may place
the following question before one's soul.
What have I done inwardly in order to combine cross and rose into a symbol? What I have done my
own soul process I wish to hold fast to; I let the picture itself, however, disappear from my
consciousness. Then I wish to feel within me all that my soul has done in order to bring the image into
existence, but I do not wish to hold the image itself; I wish to live quite inwardly within my own
activity, which has created the image. Thus, I do not intend to meditate on an image, but to dwell in
my own image-creating soul activity.
Such meditation must be carried out in regard to many symbols. This then leads to cognition through
inspiration. Another example would be the following. One meditates on the thought of a growing and
decaying plant. One allows to arise in the soul the image of a slowly growing plant as it shoots up out
of the seed, as it unfolds leaf on leaf, until it develops flower and fruit. Then again, one meditates on
how it begins to fade until its complete dissolution. One acquires gradually by meditating on such an
image a feeling of growth and decay for which the plant remains a mere symbol. From this feeling, if
this exercise is continued with perseverance, there may arise the imagination of the transformation that
underlies physical growth and decay. If one wishes, however, to attain the corresponding state of
inspiration, one has to carry out the exercise differently.
The student must recall his own soul activity that has gained the visualization of growth and decay
from the image of the plant. He must now let the plant disappear completely from consciousness and
only meditate upon what he has himself done inwardly. Only through such exercises is it possible to
ascend to inspiration. In the beginning it will not be entirely easy for the student of the spirit to
comprehend completely how he should go about such an exercise. The reason for this is that the
human being who is accustomed to have his inner life determined by outer impressions immediately
finds himself uncertain and wavering when he has to unfold a soul-life that has discarded all
connection with outer impressions.
In a still higher degree than in the acquiring of imagination the student must be clear, in regard to these
exercises that lead to inspiration, that he ought only to carry them out when he accompanies them with
all those precautionary measures that can lead to safeguarding and strengthening of his power of
discrimination, his life of feeling, and his character.
If he takes these precautions, then he will have a twofold result. In the first place, he will not, through
these exercises, lose the equilibrium of his personality during supersensible perception; secondly, he
will at the same time gain the faculty of being able actually to carry out what is required in these
exercises. He will maintain in regard to them that they are difficult only so long as he has not yet
acquired a quite definite soul condition, quite definite feelings and sensations. He will soon gain
understanding and also ability for the exercises, if in patience and perseverance he fosters in his soul
such inner faculties as favor the unfolding of supersensible knowledge. If he grows accustomed to
withdrawing into himself frequently in such a way that he is less concerned with brooding on himself
than with quietly arranging and working over his life-experiences, he will gain much. He will see that
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