Meditation

[AshvinP]

Thanks for sharing yet another piece of esoteric wisdom, Ashvin. I don't know that silence, so just couple of practical notes from me:

1. It appears that Meditations on the Tarot is available at archive.org. Also, the linked version seems to be more extensive and slightly different from the Kindle. There is more on analogy for instance.

2. Not to be niggling, but the original Latin for "As above so below" didn't sound right, and indeed there is a typo. As I know some important formulas have a value in themselves, for how they sound, I thought I would report the right one: "Quod est superius est sicut quod inferius (...) ad perpetranda miracula rei unius."

Thanks for the link, Federica. I really should check archive.org before purchasing books on Kindle

[Federica]

Thanks for sharing yet another piece of esoteric wisdom, Ashvin. I don't know that silence, so just couple of practical notes from me:

1. It appears that Meditations on the Tarot is available at archive.org. Also, the linked version seems to be more extensive and slightly different from the Kindle. There is more on analogy for instance.

2. Not to be niggling, but the original Latin for "As above so below" didn't sound right, and indeed there is a typo. As I know some important formulas have a value in themselves, for how they sound, I thought I would report the right one: "Quod est superius est sicut quod inferius (...) ad perpetranda miracula rei unius."

Thanks for the link, Federica. I really should check archive.org before purchasing books on Kindle

Kindle is certainly more practical than a .pdf, I wasn't questioning your purchase just thinking that maybe someone else could be interested in taking a look at the book.

[AshvinP]

Thanks for sharing yet another piece of esoteric wisdom, Ashvin. I don't know that silence, so just couple of practical notes from me:

1. It appears that Meditations on the Tarot is available at archive.org. Also, the linked version seems to be more extensive and slightly different from the Kindle. There is more on analogy for instance.

2. Not to be niggling, but the original Latin for "As above so below" didn't sound right, and indeed there is a typo. As I know some important formulas have a value in themselves, for how they sound, I thought I would report the right one: "Quod est superius est sicut quod inferius (...) ad perpetranda miracula rei unius."

Thanks for the link, Federica. I really should check archive.org before purchasing books on Kindle

Kindle is certainly more practical than a .pdf, I wasn't questioning your purchase just thinking that maybe someone else could be interested in taking a look at the book.

I know, but I am questioning the $14.99 that I spent on it It's definitely worth the price, but these purchases can add up quickly over time at the rate I am reading. I don't mind reading PDFs. I find Kindle is mostly better for purposes of copying and pasting to share.

[Güney27]

Thank you for the explanation.
Before meditating, would it be helpful if I try to create a feeling through thinking that connects me to my higher nature?

Of course. Actually, in my experience the best meditations happen as transformed prayer. We can start with this humbling surrender towards the Intelligence that is all around us and within us. This Intelligence is the Cosmic harmony, the musical flow of the Spirit. We're always submerged in this Harmony. Our physical and psychic organization is like a tuning fork that can be set in motion by waves. Alas, our tuning fork doesn't have perfect geometry (and we know that the frequency of a tuning fork depends on its geometry) thus it can't ring in musical resonance. In prayer it is like we want the Sunlight of Divine Intelligence to warm our being and make it softer, more pliable so that it can be shaped by the vibrations of the Spirit. Then our thinking, feeling and willing in the sensory world can be much more attuned to the flow of the World Symphony.

We can do that prayer with words and then remain silent. The words are like handles (they are more than that actually) that help us orient our whole soul disposition but then we can put the words aside and remain in silence, in the glow of our soul state thus prepared. This silencing is a natural way for reaching the concentration of the mind - much in the spirit of Ashvin's post above. In that state we feel as if our soul is surrendered in the hands of a master physician that we trust infinitely. We need this trust because we don't entrust only our body but also our whole inner world. The concentration consists in the supporting of this state where we're open for the spiritual world to impress in our intuitive 'substance'.

Very soon we'll feel as if within our peripheral vision there's movement of inner phenomena. This is the critical point where we have to resist laying our ordinary thinking on that phenomena. In doing this we immediately kill them, so to speak. They turn to stone. Conversely, the more we resist formatting the experience with our ordinary thinking habits, the more it grows, the more real it gets.

Btw, with risk of being accused once again by Lou for not respecting entheogens, it has to be said that it is precisely this critically important skill - of not touching the inner world with our crude Earthly thinking-patterns - that is severely hindered in the entheogenic state. The reason is simple: the movements of our inner world are forced upon us. We still continually kill them (even without knowing) with our ordinary consciousness but they nevertheless force their movements. I believe I have used this analogy before:



Our ordinary conscious habits act like the water the cools the lava and turns it into stone while it pushes from the inside. In our normal consciousness our cooling power is dominating and all our intellectual thoughts are felt as lifeless mineral.

In the entheogenic state there's always this opposition between our deadening activity and the mysterious lava forces that seem to work from the other side. This is erroneously considered to be the true experience of the spiritual world, which in reality forever remains behind the veil of the ossifying rock layers.

It is completely wrong to believe that entheogens are just another way to achieve what can be achieved in meditation (in the sense we employ in this thread). Through our concentration we withdraw the mineralizing forces and allow soul life to grow on its own. Our inner ideal, our intuitive focus on all that is good, luminous and beneficial, is what attracts the corresponding forces that begin to fill our soul. So this is by no means simply indiscriminate opening to whatever may flow. Gradually we begin to intuit the movements of the environment even without touching it with our intellect and thus ossify it into sensory-like visions. The intuitive gestures through which we resonate with the soul environment are of different order compared to that which is experienced in the continual solidifying of lava. These gentler spiritual movements in our deeper soul can never be developed when our ordinary consciousness is continually force-fed with phenomena. Not only that we have no stimulus for such development but even if we want to do it, we simply have no way to tackle it. It's like trying to think independently while we're constantly fed with TV images that suck in our attention and practically force us what to think. Only by developing the inner strength to withdraw our ordinary thinking habits through concentrating on a sublime ideal, we have the chance to discover the finer spiritual movements through which we can be conscious in the soul world without turning it into stone.

There is an exercise in which you let your problems, thoughts that often come up, feelings you experience and many other things that concern us live within you, while trying to observe yourself as a stranger. This exercise is practiced, I believe, to awaken one's higher nature within oneself.
When I practice this exercise and try to see from my perspective (the perspective in which I look out of my eyes and perceive my body), I hardly manage not to get emotional and get carried away. When I look at myself from the outside, i.e. a bird's eye view of my body, it's easier to stay neutral.
However, I thought that doing this for too long might be harmful as it could cause mine to lose its body identification point. Then this would be exactly what takes us to the extremes of the y axis, and we would be in forms of meditation practiced in the eastern regions of the world.
Surely that would lead to a state of ego death, or am I wrong?

Yes, you are right. There's a need for a very fine balance and it is by no means easy. We do need to go beyond ourselves. We surely don't need to get emotional about the panorama of our life but being completely unmoved by it is also not right. This would mean that we don't realize that we're continually forging our karma. If we contemplate our failings and this leaves us with the impression "this isn't real, this is just a dream from which I'll wake up eventually", then obviously there's inner denial and refusal to take responsibility for what we continually contribute to the world. So we should step outside our personality but what we thus become conscious of should become a healthy feedback that tells us how to work with our flow such that the riverbed can be augmented.

"Of course. Actually, in my experience the best meditations happen as transformed prayer. We can start with this humbling surrender towards the Intelligence that is all around us and within us. This Intelligence is the Cosmic harmony, the musical flow of the Spirit. We're always submerged in this Harmony. Our physical and psychic organization is like a tuning fork that can be set in motion by waves. Alas, our tuning fork doesn't have perfect geometry (and we know that the frequency of a tuning fork depends on its geometry) thus it can't ring in musical resonance.In prayer it is like we want the Sunlight of Divine Intelligence to warm our being and make it softer, more pliable so that it can be shaped by the vibrations of the Spirit Then our thinking, feeling and willing in the sensory world can be much more attuned to the flow of the World Symphony.

We can do that prayer with words and then remain silent. The words are like handles (they are more than that actually) that help us orient our whole soul disposition, but then we can put the words aside and remain in silence, in the glow of our soul state thus prepared. This silencing is a natural way for reaching the concentration of the mind - much in the spirit of Ashvin's post above. In that state we feel as if our soul is surrendered in the hands of a master physician that we trust infinitely. We need this trust because we don't trust only our body but also our whole inner world. The concentration consists in the supporting of this state where we're open for the spiritual world to impress in our intuitive 'substance'.,,


cleric,
Thank you for your personal experience and the suggested meditation.

Today,
after a prayer, I tried to focus on the lingering feeling.
I tried to keep it up. To which I tried to feel, that i live in God's presence and put my trust in him.
It was difficult for me to stay focused because at a certain point I didn't kn,ow where to put my focus.

When I use meditation mantras, I have the words, which I repeat and focus on as a support for my concentration.
They serve as the bottom of the sea in which the anchor of concentration can hook for safety. In the case of the meditation mentioned, this was not the case and everything was a little blurry.

Somehow it seemed to me the opposite of the other meditations. Instead of focusing on one point, I try to open myself to the higher worlds and let them flow into me.

Alongside this topic, I've noticed that when I practice meditations that are pictorial, exemplifying the Rosicrucian Meditation, I sometimes feel like I'm concentrating on a memory of an image I've seen, rather than creating that image myself. Is there a way to differentiate memorial images with creatively generated images?
Why is it so beneficial if, for example, when we pray, we also want to see the imaginary lines in front of us visually?

Best regards

[Güney27]

There is an exercise in which you let your problems, thoughts that often come up, feelings you experience and many other things that concern us live within you, while trying to observe yourself as a stranger. This exercise is practiced, I believe, to awaken one's higher nature within oneself.
When I practice this exercise and try to see from my perspective (the perspective in which I look out of my eyes and perceive my body), I hardly manage not to get emotional and get carried away. When I look at myself from the outside, i.e. a bird's eye view of my body, it's easier to stay neutral.
However, I thought that doing this for too long might be harmful as it could cause mine to lose its body identification point. Then this would be exactly what takes us to the extremes of the y axis, and we would be in forms of meditation practiced in the eastern regions of the world.
Surely that would lead to a state of ego death, or am I wrong?

Guney,

With respect to the above, it's also helpful to visit or revisit the following from 'Guidance in Esoteric Training'. It reflects the eightfold path first revealed by the Buddha and also embedded in the Gospels. (their deeper esoteric significance is stimulating the development of our seven lotus flowers or 'chakras', which are connected with spritual impulses of the planetary spheres). I actually forget about these quite often. Although we naturally begin to discern their necessity as we progress on the path, it also helps to keep it explicitly in our consciousness as much as possible throughout the days. Although he gives a specific one for each day, it seems we can work on most of them at any given time we are paying attention inwardly, especially if we are doing it more 'casually'. We will notice some of them seem much more difficult for us than others, and then we should especially focus on cultivating those.

***

The pupil must pay careful attention to certain activities in the life of soul which in the ordinary way are carried on carelessly and inattentively. There are eight such activities.

It is naturally best to undertake only one exercise at a time, throughout a week or a fortnight, for example, then the second, and so on, then beginning over again. Meanwhile it is best for the eighth exercise to be carried out every day. True self-knowledge is then gradually achieved and any progress made is perceived. Then later on - beginning with Saturday - one exercise lasting for about five minutes may perhaps be added daily to the eighth so that the relevant exercise will occasionally fall on the same day. Thus: Saturday - Thoughts; Sunday - Resolves; Monday - Talking; Tuesday - Actions; Wednesday - Behaviour, and so on.

SATURDAY
To pay attention to one's ideas.

To think only significant thoughts. To learn little by little to separate in one's thoughts the essential from the nonessential, the eternal from the transitory, truth from mere opinion.

In listening to the talk of one's fellow-men, to try and become quite still inwardly, foregoing all assent, and still more all unfavourable judgments (criticism, rejection), even in one's thoughts and feelings.

This may be called: `RIGHT OPINION'.

SUNDAY
To determine on even the most insignificant matter only after fully reasoned deliberation. All unthinking behaviour, all meaningless actions, should be kept far away from the soul. One should always have well- weighed reasons for everything. And one should definitely abstain from doing anything for which there is no significant reason.

Once one is convinced of the rightness of a decision, one must hold fast to it, with inner steadfastness.

This may be called: `RIGHT JUDGMENT' having been formed independently of sympathies and antipathies.

MONDAY
Talking. Only what has sense and meaning should come from the lips of one striving for higher development. All talking for the sake of talking - to kill time - is in this sense harmful.

The usual kind of conversation, a disjointed medley of remarks, should be avoided. This does not mean shutting oneself off from intercourse with one's fellows; it is precisely then that talk should gradually be led to significance. One adopts a thoughtful attitude to every speech and answer taking all aspects into account. Never talk without cause - be gladly silent. One tries not to talk too much or too little. First listen quietly; then reflect on what has been said.

This exercise may be called: `RIGHT WORD'.

TUESDAY
External actions. These should not be disturbing for our fellow-men. Where an occasion calls for action out of one's inner being, deliberate carefully how one can best meet the occasion - for the good of the whole, the lasting happiness of man, the eternal.

Where one does things of one's own accord, out of one's own initiative: consider most thoroughly beforehand the effect of one's actions.

This is called: `RIGHT DEED'.

WEDNESDAY
The ordering of life. To live in accordance with Nature and Spirit. Not to be swamped by the external trivialities of life. To avoid all that brings unrest and haste into life. To hurry over nothing, but also not to be indolent. To look on life as a means for working towards higher development and to behave accordingly.

One speaks in this connection of `RIGHT STANDPOINT'.

THURSDAY
Human Endeavour. One should take care to do nothing that lies beyond one's powers - but also to leave nothing undone which lies within them.

To look beyond the everyday, the momentary, and to set oneself aims and ideals connected with the highest duties of a human being. For instance, in the sense of the prescribed exercises, to try to develop oneself so that afterwards one may be able all the more to help and advise one's fellow- men - though perhaps not in the immediate future.

This can be summed up as: `TO LET ALL THE FOREGOING EXERCISES BECOME A HABIT'.

FRIDAY
The endeavour to learn as much as possible from life.

Nothing goes by us without giving us a chance to gain experiences that are useful for life. If one has done something wrongly or imperfectly, that becomes a motive for doing it rightly or more perfectly, later on.

If one sees others doing something, one observes them with the like end in view (yet not coldly or heartlessly). And one does nothing without looking back to past experiences which can be of assistance in one's decisions and achievements.

One can learn from everyone - even from children if one is attentive.

This exercise is called: `RIGHT MEMORY'. (Remembering what has been learnt from experiences).

SUMMARY
To turn one's gaze inwards from time to time, even if only for five minutes daily at the same time. In so doing one should sink down into oneself, carefully take counsel with oneself, test and form one's principles of life, run through in thought one's knowledge - or lack of it - weigh up one's duties, think over the contents and true purpose of life, feel genuinely pained by one's own errors and imperfections. In a word: labour to discover the essential, the enduring, and earnestly aim at goals in accord with it: for instance, virtues to be acquired. (Not to fall into the mistake of thinking that one has done something well, but to strive ever further towards the highest standards.)

This exercise is called: `RIGHT EXAMINATION'.

"With respect to the above, it's also helpful to visit or revisit the following from 'Guidance in Esoteric Training'. It reflects the eightfold path first revealed by the Buddha and also embedded in the Gospels. (Their deeper esoteric significance is stimulating the development of our seven lotus flowers or 'chakras', which are connected with spiritual impulses of the planetary spheres). I actually forget about these quite often. Although we naturally begin to discern their necessity as we progress on the path, it also helps to keep it explicitly in our consciousness as much as possible throughout the days. Although he gives a specific one for each day, it seems we can work on most of them at any given time we are paying attention inwardly, especially if we are doing it more 'casually'. We will notice some of them seem much more difficult for us than others, and then we should especially focus on cultivating those.,,


Ashvin,
Thank you for your recommendation.
I read about this practice once, but I don't understand what it has in common with the meditation I mentioned.
Are these exercises intended as secondary exercises, like the six given by Steiner?

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,
Thank you for your recommendation.
I read about this practice once, but I don't understand what it has in common with the meditation I mentioned.
Are these exercises intended as secondary exercises, like the six given by Steiner?

Guney,

It relates to how we can lift beyond our current personality in a healthy and balanced way, not risking ego-inflation or self-annihilation, which are two great dangers on an esoteric spiritual path. As Cleric put it:

There's a need for a very fine balance and it is by no means easy. We do need to go beyond ourselves. We surely don't need to get emotional about the panorama of our life but being completely unmoved by it is also not right. This would mean that we don't realize that we're continually forging our karma. If we contemplate our failings and this leaves us with the impression "this isn't real, this is just a dream from which I'll wake up eventually", then obviously there's inner denial and refusal to take responsibility for what we continually contribute to the world. So we should step outside our personality but what we thus become conscious of should become a healthy feedback that tells us how to work with our flow such that the riverbed can be augmented.

The exercises on the lotus flowers provided by Steiner are adapted to our modern thinking constitution. They gradually de-personalize our sphere of concerns and interests, but without severing the connection between the archetypal spiritual and the Earthly personality, the eternal and the temporal. They counter-balance that risk with a profound sense of humility towards our higher self and responsibility towards our lower self. These sorts of exercises don't sit well with the 'oneness mystics', for ex., exactly for that reason. They are seeking immediate unity with the Godhead and can't fathom the need to 'wash the feet' of their Earth-bound personality, even though it is critical for genuine spiritual growth. That sort of ego inflation is a major risk in spiritual seeking, as we see all too often these days and even on this forum. The esoteric Christian exercises protect against that risk. I wouldn't call them 'secondary', because cultivating these sorts of inner qualities are critical for progress in any other areas of spiritual practice.

"Do you know what I have done for you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, because I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example so that you should do as I have done for you."

[AshvinP]

Luke,

I have no practical experience with Eurythmy and am also interested in developing that at some point. I only hear great things, of course.

It's interesting about your Waldorf experience. Do you mind sharing more about that? Were you a student there or just come into contact with it somehow?

I was only enrolled in the Waldorf nursery-- not sure what that is called in the USA, maybe the equivalent there is pre-school or kindergarten? Early years education would be a more universal term I suppose. I did not have further experience beyond that, unfortunately.
As far as I recall right now, the Waldorf schools have a gentler or more relaxed atmosphere than mainstream schools. I know that in the nursery we did practical or hands on activities, such as engaging with texture and the senses. Screens (such as TV) was not allowed, unless it served an educational purpose (which still had an allocated time slot). We were served healthy food or drinks for lunch; no fizzy drinks (soda) or junk food were served (which is a good thing).
I also know that Waldorf schools are very accomodating to children with special needs as well. I did have mild special needs in childhood which is why I was in the school for a few years. But some of the kids who go into these schools can have demanding special needs, and mainstream schools are not suited for them at all, so their parents put them into the Waldorf schools instead.

Thanks for sharing, Luke. I find it very interesting to consider the Karmic paths we all traveled to arrive together on this forum in these times. Would you say that you basically forgot about that whole experience until recently? Did you know of Steiner and his work in your early years or just discover it again recently?

[Cleric K]

cleric,
Thank you for your personal experience and the suggested meditation.

Today,
after a prayer, I tried to focus on the lingering feeling.
I tried to keep it up. To which I tried to feel, that i live in God's presence and put my trust in him.
It was difficult for me to stay focused because at a certain point I didn't kn,ow where to put my focus.

When I use meditation mantras, I have the words, which I repeat and focus on as a support for my concentration.
They serve as the bottom of the sea in which the anchor of concentration can hook for safety. In the case of the meditation mentioned, this was not the case and everything was a little blurry.

Somehow it seemed to me the opposite of the other meditations. Instead of focusing on one point, I try to open myself to the higher worlds and let them flow into me.

Guney, you are correct that focusing on the feeling naturally leads to blurriness. The feeling has to be cultivated such that it becomes a context of meditation. For example, in a purely sensory sense, when you meditate there's a certain temperature in your room. You may feel comfortable or too hot, or too cold. If you're shivering you may not be paying special attention to this but it certainly somehow plays out in your meditation. But this doesn't mean that the sense of warmth has to be the point of meditation. It is similar with the prayerful context. We prepare fertile conditions at the center of which our concentration proceeds. That is, the cultivated mood becomes like an environment, aura, the 'temperature' of our soul and then we quietly bring our mind to focus on a thought-image.

Alongside this topic, I've noticed that when I practice meditations that are pictorial, exemplifying the Rosicrucian Meditation, I sometimes feel like I'm concentrating on a memory of an image I've seen, rather than creating that image myself. Is there a way to differentiate memorial images with creatively generated images?

To understand this we can imagine projecting a movie on the wall and asking whether it is prerecorded or generated in real time. This is not the essential thing. What’s important is that we have worked with our normal thinking on these images and we have tried to understand and feel with our whole being their meaning, like in the case of the rose cross symbol which presents the very important truth of ‘spiritual grafting’ without which we can never find our proper bearings in reality. When we meditate, it is as if all the soul content that we have thus worked on, is projected in the image. Whether the image is original or remembered is not important because we strive to experience ourselves within the stream of light that projects it. Even if the image is remembered and static, the light of our ‘projector’ is always new. It must be continually replenished just like we need ever new photons if we are to project an image on the wall, even if it is static. This is what is important because this is where we find the real flow of inner life. It is within this ‘cone of light’ that we begin to intuit the unsuspected finer texture of the soul. There we find the actual reality of what has been symbolized in the image (and not within the image itself).

Now when we speak of 'cone of light' we should not try to fantasize that as something in front of us which projects the images in our imagination. That is just a regression, the imagined cone is itself part of the flat picture. The cone is 'made of' the pure intuition giving us the consciousness that we sustain the image with our spiritual force and everything that we have invested in it. Of course the texture of this intuition can be projected into an image - that's why we can speak of cone of light - yet we should always keep in mind that we're after the living experience of which the image is only a metaphor.

[LukeJTM]

Thanks for sharing, Luke. I find it very interesting to consider the Karmic paths we all traveled to arrive together on this forum in these times. Would you say that you basically forgot about that whole experience until recently? Did you know of Steiner and his work in your early years or just discover it again recently?

I don't remember how much of Rudolf Steiner's work I was exposed to back then... some of my childhood is still hard to recall consciously, which is what I am slowly working on, but regardless. I recall I did know the name but again I don't recall how much I knew of Steiner. His name always had a mysterious aura to me for some reason. I heard things about him over the years from people. But yes it is probably right I didn't know much about his work until recently.

I don't know what it was like for you, but I must admit I did not really have much exposure at all to spirituality or a religion in my upbringing, so I can still have a lot of skepticism to new or unknown things, which I think is good thing because it gives reason to investigate something rather than just believing it. My exposure to spirituality has been gradual over time, I became more open minded over time. Over the years I have been called, inwardly, to heal past experiences, and I want to understand things like what are we all doing on this planet, what is the bigger meaning or purpose of my existence and the whole universe, where did the universe come from, etc; all these things have lead me to here. These are all important things in my opinion.

EDIT: I was actually doing meditation in the past, but I lost the discipline to stick with it for long. It was just "normal" meditation, focusing on the breath to empty the mind, rather than focused visualization (which I was exposed to once in the past actually, but I didn't do it often). So now I am starting to work at getting back into doing it long-term.

I wonder, how did you arrive to where you are, Ashvin? As in, what lead you to esotericism. If you would like to share a little, of course.

[AshvinP]

Thanks for sharing, Luke. I find it very interesting to consider the Karmic paths we all traveled to arrive together on this forum in these times. Would you say that you basically forgot about that whole experience until recently? Did you know of Steiner and his work in your early years or just discover it again recently?

I don't remember how much of Rudolf Steiner's work I was exposed to back then... some of my childhood is still hard to recall consciously, which is what I am slowly working on, but regardless. I recall I did know the name but again I don't recall how much I knew of Steiner. His name always had a mysterious aura to me for some reason. I heard things about him over the years from people. But yes it is probably right I didn't know much about his work until recently.

I don't know what it was like for you, but I must admit I did not really have much exposure at all to spirituality or a religion in my upbringing, so I can still have a lot of skepticism to new or unknown things, which I think is good thing because it gives reason to investigate something rather than just believing it. My exposure to spirituality has been gradual over time, I became more open minded over time. Over the years I have been called, inwardly, to heal past experiences, and I want to understand things like what are we all doing on this planet, what is the bigger meaning or purpose of my existence and the whole universe, where did the universe come from, etc; all these things have lead me to here. These are all important things in my opinion.

EDIT: I was actually doing meditation in the past, but I lost the discipline to stick with it for long. It was just "normal" meditation, focusing on the breath to empty the mind, rather than focused visualization (which I was exposed to once in the past actually, but I didn't do it often). So now I am starting to work at getting back into doing it long-term.

I wonder, how did you arrive to where you are, Ashvin? As in, what lead you to esotericism. If you would like to share a little, of course.

Thanks, Luke. It's interesting because Steiner does speak of how certain things we sow (or which are sown for us) in early childhood are later reaped in adulthood, after a lengthy interval of life which is mostly unrelated, and we can learn a lot about Karmic law, at least at the level of the Earthly personality, by paying attention to these patterns. In your case it seems a pretty explicit connection but I am not sure.

My upbringing was similar, in so far as my parents were only nominally Hindu and didn't force me to learn or practice anything spiritual, except go to temple and say prayers on certain occasions. It was much more of a social thing for them. On the other hand, my grandfather was a well known philosopher in India, from a long line of philosophers. I didn't really know him well in this incarnation, but I am pretty confident that this fact had something to do with why I incarnated into this family, given the course my life has now taken.

I can't point to many things which led me to esotericism in this incarnation which are out of the ordinary, apart from a strong intellectual capacity for philosophy and religion, and a strong inclination towards the Christian faith. So I feel most of the more explicit reasons are to be found in previous incarnations. Mostly I feel that I stumbled onto this forum through a series of 'chance' happenings in my intellectual life which caught my attention. I'm sure that's generally the case for a lot of people in a similar situation. Of course what's most important is that we are here now doing the work with a strong and lively spirit! We will unveil the deeper reasons why sooner or later.