Initiation

From AnthroWiki
Revision as of 16:16, 1 July 2021 by Odyssee (talk | contribs)

Initiation (from Latin: initium "entrance, beginning, start") can be attained step by step through a path of spiritual practice which serves the spiritual development. The spiritual disciple will work according to literary instructions or seek advice and help from a spiritual teacher who will point out to him suitable exercises for concentration and meditation (soul exercises) and other rules helpful to the training of the spirit. The path of initiation is a path of knowledge on which the spiritual disciple works on his etheric body, after after he has previously purified his astral body. Once he has completed his spiritual training, he becomes an initiate.

„Everything that works only on the astral body is only preparation for the actual esoteric training, for the actual occult training. Occult training begins where we learn to work into the etheric or life body, where man is enabled, through the guidance given him by the occult teacher, to transform the temperaments, inclinations and habits, where man becomes another. With this comes only the insight into the real higher world, that man becomes another man.“ (Lit.:GA 96, p. 258f)

An important principle of occult development

„An important principle in occult development is that of attaching no other value to oneself than that which comes from the achievements in the physical world within the present incarnation. This is extremely important. Any other value must first come on the basis of a higher development, which can only come about when one first stands firm on the ground that one considers oneself to be nothing other than what one has been able to achieve in this incarnation. This is also natural if one looks at the matter objectively, for what one has achieved in the present incarnation is also the result of previous incarnations; it is what karma has made of us up to now. What karma still makes of us we must first have made; we must not include that in our value.“ (Lit.:GA 136, p. 41)

Three ways into the spiritual world

Basically there are three different ways of training and gaining knowledge, corresponding to the three soul forces of thinking, feeling and willing.

„Man must be prepared in such a way that during ordinary daily life he does those exercises which are prescribed for him by the initiate schools, meditation, concentration and so on. These exercises are basically the same in all schools of initiation as far as their importance for man is concerned. They are only slightly different from each other in that the further back we go into the pre-Christian schools of initiation, the more they are directed towards exercising, training the thinking, the powers of thought. The nearer we approach the Christian times, the more they are directed towards training the powers of feeling, and the nearer we approach the more recent times, the more we see how in the so-called Rosicrucian schools, conditioned by the demands and needs of humanity, a special kind of culture of the will, of exercises of the will, is introduced. Even if the meditations are at first similar to those in the other pre-Christian schools, a special training of the will element prevails everywhere at the bottom of the Rosicrucian exercises.“ (Lit.:GA 104, p. 53)

On the Rosicrucian path of training, which is the most modern of these three paths of training, it is above all the element of will that is active in thinking that must be grasped:

„Thinking exercises on the one hand, will exercises on the other, must be done if the gate is to open to the supersensible world into which we must enter, if we want to recognise ourselves, as human beings, according to our Eternal, and if we want to recognise the world according to the Eternal. The exercises of thought are accomplished precisely by remembering how will always plays into thinking; the exercises of will by observing the play of thinking into the will. It is only in ordinary life that we do not observe this willfulness. In order to arrive at modern initiation, we must pay attention precisely to the quiet will that is within the life of the imagination. We must gradually achieve this through the exercises I have described in my book "Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds And Its Attainment". This is precisely what I want to suggest here: we must let what is usually the most important thing, the thought-content, recede and learn to use the will consciously in thinking.“ (Lit.:GA 211, p. 144)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
Retrieved from "https://en.anthro.wiki/index.php?title=Initiation&oldid=4525"