SO ERKENNST DU DIE FÜHRUNG DEINES SCHUTZENGELS | Rudolf Steiner Originalworte

Tonight we'll go over your day one more time. But going backwards: from the last picture of this evening back to the moment you opened your eyes this morning. I have written about this approach: It is quite true: one cannot learn by condemning a mistake, but only by understanding it. So there will be no judgment on you. First, I'll show you how to do the exercise. Then we'll do them together until you fall asleep. Make yourself comfortable now. Let your shoulders drop. Let your hands become heavy. Take a deep breath. And slowly off again. You don't need to remember anything tonight. And if your eyes close while you're doing that, then that's fine. The exercise continues to work within you even then. I called this exercise the retrospective. She is the quietest of all the ones I have described. You don't need anything for that. No book, no light, no special place. Just the evening and yourself. And you don't need a lot of time. Those who are good at it can go back in time in just a few minutes. Those trying it for the first time today will need more time, and that's as it should be. In my book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? I added a chapter at the end containing such simple exercises. And I wrote about this: Only a few practical aspects relating to higher spiritual and mental education will be explained in more detail here. These are rules that basically anyone can follow without regard to other rules, and through which they can progress quite far in esoteric science. Secret science, that's what they called the knowledge of what is hidden from the eyes back then. Basically everyone. That's the crucial point. You don't need a teacher, no preparation, no permission. Nothing is made loud. Nothing becomes visible. And yet, something is changing. And it's not about brooding. Brooding means thinking the same thing over and over again, in circles, without rest. You might recognize this from some nights. A sentence you said. A look someone gave you. And it keeps turning and turning. Ordering is something else entirely. To organize means to lay things out calmly next to each other. It's like how you lay your clothes over a chair in the evening instead of throwing them in the corner. And about a person who turns inward in this way, I have written in my esoteric science: He will become aware of the high degree to which one learns new things not only by having new impressions and new experiences, but also by letting the old ones work within him. That's a comforting sentence, I think. You don't need to experience more to know more. You can allow what is already there to work within you. He will see that one's ideas and feelings are enriched when one compares one life experience with another. To relate one experience to another. That's exactly what a day does to you when you go over it again. Your day is over. But it's not finished. It lies within you like a field after the harvest. And on this night, something within it is allowed to continue growing. That is why I said at the same point: How experiences are processed in the human soul is also of particular importance. Not just what a person experiences. But how he processes it within himself. Two people can have the same day and live two completely different lives by evening. If this resonates with you, then subscribe to the channel so you can find this exercise again on another night. And write a picture description in the comments when you look back with me tonight. I'll show you in a moment why we're going backwards. Because that is the strangest thing about this exercise. Why not just start from the beginning? From morning to evening, just as the day was? Because something else will support you then. The usual course of events. One image leads to the next, like the carriages of a train. You don't have to do anything. You slip through your day. It 's different going backwards. No one can help you going backwards. You have to get and hold each picture yourself. And that is precisely where the power of this exercise lies. This is how I wrote it down: This is how imagination is strengthened in a healthy way. Therefore, it is also good to imagine other things in reverse, besides one's daily life, for example the course of a drama, a story, a musical sequence, and so on. The imagination becomes stronger. By " imagining" I mean the power to form and hold an image within yourself, without any external assistance. A sequence of notes played backwards. A song played from back to front. Try doing that during the day, with a song you've known since childhood. You'll notice how awake you become. But tonight we're not having any musical sequences or drama. We'll take your day. And something else happens when you walk backwards. You get out of the rush. During the day, everything rushes forward. Next, next, next. This urge ceases when going backwards. There is nothing more to come. Only what was remains. And this quiet retreat is nothing less than what many people consider great work. I wrote: The most significant means are precisely those that consist of quiet activities of the soul. In the quiet activities of the soul. Not in great deeds. Not in long books. But rather in what a person does in bed at night without anyone else ever finding out. And this quiet work won't interfere with the rest of your life. I explicitly stated that. The activity of this observation is as separate from the ordinary activities of life as the state of waking is from that of sleeping. One cannot disturb the other in the slightest. As separate as waking and sleeping. So you don't have to work differently tomorrow, speak differently, or live differently. You only get an extra fifteen minutes of quiet time in the evening. And listen to what I compared this inner work to. It's especially fitting for this night. This state of consciousness resembles sleep in only one respect, namely in that it eliminates all external sensory perceptions; all thoughts stimulated by these sensory effects are also erased. However, while the soul has no power to consciously experience anything during sleep, it is supposed to gain this power through this state of consciousness. Only in one direction, like sleep. You let go of the outside world, just like when you sleep. But you do not sink into darkness. You become quieter and at the same time more awake. And why specifically in the evening? Because what rises up inside you is very quiet. Listen to how I described it. What initially develops as a mental and spiritual organism, and what one is meant to grasp through self-awareness, is delicate and fleeting. And the disturbances of the sensory outside world and their after-effects in memory are significant, no matter how hard one tries to prevent them. Delicate and fleeting. These are the inner images. Like the scent of a flower you pass by. Inner contemplation is what I call the quiet dwelling on a single image or a single thought. That's exactly what we're doing tonight. And in the evening it's easier because the world outside has become quiet. It's not just those disturbances that one notices, but rather even those that one doesn't notice at all in ordinary life. Including the disturbances that are completely ignored. The light on the street. An engine somewhere. The half-read sentence from this afternoon. Now much of it is gone. That's why this evening is a good time. Not because you are particularly devout, but simply because it is quieter around you. I'll show you how to look at yourself in a moment. Because everything depends on it. Do you know that? A friend tells you about a problem, and you immediately see how small it is. But if the same thing happens to you, it fills the whole evening. In my book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? I have described exactly that. Imagine for a moment that someone has experienced a severe blow of fate. How differently does he view this than a similar misfortune suffered by a fellow human being? No one can consider that unjustified. It's human nature. And it is similar in the everyday affairs of life. It's human nature. I don't blame you for that. One is interwoven with one's own experience. You're right in the middle of it. And that's why, in retrospect, you need a little movement. Just one step back. I described this step with a harsh word. Do n't be alarmed by it. I'll explain it to you in a moment. Everything regarding the secret student body depends on being able to confront oneself energetically, with inner truth and unreserved sincerity, as a complete stranger to oneself, with all one's actions and deeds. Secret discipleship, that's what the silent inner path was called back then. A path no one sees. And now to the word that matters. Like a stranger. A stranger is not cold. A stranger is not something to be ignored. Think of a person who enters a stranger's house on a winter evening. He sees the room, the light, the people at the table. He is seeing everything for the first time. He doesn't know who argued with whom yesterday. He only sees what is. So tonight you can look at yourself. As if you were seeing this person for the first time. Without the old story you tell yourself about yourself. And I have specified in more detail what can be lost in the soul. And whoever goes about it in such a way as to play their experiences, even their opinions gained, against each other as if they themselves, with their sympathies and antipathies, with their personal interests and feelings, were not involved at all, will prepare particularly good ground for the supernatural powers of knowledge. In truth, he will develop what can be called a rich inner life. Sympathy means: I like that. Antipathy means: I don't like that. Both may be silent tonight. And supernatural simply means: beyond the senses. Everything that you can neither see, hear, nor touch. A rich inner life. That's what grows from it. No more knowledge. But more space within you. And just so there's no misunderstanding: This exercise won't make you out of touch with reality. It must not pull you away from people. Thus, if he becomes aware of the advantage of inner reflection and dwelling in his own world of imagination, he may develop such an inclination to increasingly close himself off to the impressions of the outside world. But this leads to the drying out and degradation of the interior. The person who gets furthest is the one who, in addition to the ability to withdraw into himself, also maintains an open receptiveness to all impressions of the outside world. Both. Being able to go inwards. And remain open to the world. And now to what happens in almost every retrospective. An image will appear that you don't like. A word that was too harsh. An impatience. A person you've overlooked. Then the temptation to blame oneself is great. Listen to the sentence from the beginning again. It is the most important one of the night. That is absolutely true: one cannot learn by condemning a mistake, but only by understanding it. Do n't judge. Understand. To condemn means: I was bad. And then the matter is closed. Nothing more happens. Understanding means: How did this happen? What was there before? Was I tired? Was I afraid? Was I offended by something else all day? A mistake you have understood sits within you differently than one you have condemned. The convicted man pushes. The one who is understood becomes easy. In my other book I said the same thing even more sharply. There is only one way to overcome one's mistakes and weaknesses, and that is to recognize them correctly. Only one way. Do n't fight them. They don't regret it. They recognize them correctly. A person can also improve their intellect and reason by calmly and serenely understanding why they are weak in this regard. Such self-knowledge is of course difficult, because the temptation to deceive oneself is immeasurably great. Those who become accustomed to accepting truth about themselves open the doors to higher insight. In peace and serenity. Those two words again and again. Not in terms of harshness. No rush. And the hardest part is not the strictness, but the truth. It's so easy to sugarcoat things. It's so easy to explain yourself. I have given an example of this. It's about a person you admire, and then suddenly notice a flaw in them. For example, someone might have the experience that a personality they or others admire has this or that characteristic which they must describe as a character flaw. Such an experience can prompt a person to reflect in two ways. He can simply say to himself: Now that I have realized this, I can no longer worship that personality in the same way as before. Or he can ask himself the question: How is it possible that the revered personality is afflicted with that flaw? Two paths. The first one is fast. The second one is slow and goes further. A person who poses these questions may come to the conclusion that their veneration is not diminished in the slightest by noticing the error. Each time such a result is achieved, one learns something; one adds something to one's understanding of life. What I say here about a person I admire also applies to you tonight. You are allowed to view your mistakes in the same way. Not: I am therefore worth less. But: How is that possible? What does it include? And if other people appear in your day, then something special applies to them. I wrote it down as a warning. It is easy for a person to fall into a moral error through such observation of their fellow human beings. He can become unloving. Every conceivable means must be used to ensure that this is not the case. To become loveless. That's the danger when you start observing people. One becomes cold. One becomes the judge at the window. The idea that a person could only be an object of observation for us: this thought must not occupy us for a single moment. And then I described the feeling that should live instead. This also applies to the people who only appear to you as an image tonight. We must be filled with a feeling of holy awe towards all things human, even if only thought of as a memory. Even if it is only intended as a memory. The face of the woman at the checkout. The man who cut you off in traffic. Your own child, your own father. They are still people in your memory. Not figures in your head. And that's why I added a rule to this whole exercise, which I called the golden rule. And this golden rule is: if you try to take one step forward in the knowledge of secret truths, at the same time take three steps forward in the perfection of your character for the good. A step towards recognition. Three steps in the right direction. It should be in this ratio. And now the most important thing for everyone who is too hard on themselves in the evenings. I once wrote a sentence that a person is allowed to say to themselves. The secret student must learn not to despair over failure. He must be capable of thinking: I want to forget that I have failed at this again, and try again as if nothing had happened. As if nothing had happened. Not because it wasn't important. But because despair won't get you anywhere. He must be able to live towards the future and not allow himself to be disturbed in this endeavor by any experience of the past. Living towards the future. Even tonight, lying down, in the dark, without taking a single step. How do you actually capture an image that no longer exists? I described that in great detail once. One focuses on a single moment in which a person wanted something very strongly. Imagine a person you have once observed asking for something. Attention should be focused on desire. The best thing to do is to recall the moment when the desire was most vivid and when it was quite uncertain whether the person would receive what they desired or not. Desire, by which I simply mean a strong longing. And to recall means to put the moment back in front of you, with everything that goes with it. You can do that tonight with your own moments. Not all day at once. Just a moment. And then the one before that. Why is this so effective? Because otherwise your soul powers are scattered everywhere, and here they are focused on a single one. It is about the soul surrendering itself to very specific ideas. These ideas are those which, by their very nature, exert an awakening power on certain hidden abilities of the human soul. An awakening force. There is more sleeping inside you than you know. And a single, calmly captured image can touch upon that. But you mustn't invent this image. I explicitly pointed that out. For what matters is that I do not create perceptions for myself arbitrarily, but that reality creates them within me. The truth must spring forth from the depths of my own soul. So you shouldn't make anything up. You should not add anything that would be nicer. You're just waiting for the image to appear by itself. The images change rapidly throughout the day. They are now slowly switching. One thing at a time . And each gets its time. Let the soul rest for a moment in each picture. That's a nice word. Rest. Do not drill, do not search, do not hold. Rest. But letting go is just as important as holding on. A picture shouldn't capture you. And she must not only recognize this in the correct judgment, but also have developed such a will that she can remove the images from her consciousness at any time, erase them. The soul must be able to act completely freely and with full composure within these images. Completely free. You get a picture, you let your soul rest on it, and then you let it go again. Like escorting a guest to the door. And I also said something else, quite practical, for someone who visualizes a picture in their mind. And now, give yourself completely to the idea of ​​what you observe in your memory. One should strive to achieve the greatest possible inner peace within one's own soul. Try, as much as possible, to be blind and deaf to everything else that is going on around you. Blind and deaf to everything else. The room. The sounds outside. The thought of tomorrow. And then comes the sentence that I like best of all. And special attention should be paid to ensuring that the stimulated imagination awakens a feeling in the soul. Let this feeling rise within you, like a cloud drifting up against an otherwise completely empty horizon. Like a cloud on an empty horizon. So you're not creating that feeling. You allow it. You look at a picture of your day, and something stirs somewhere at the edge of your soul. Perhaps warmth. Perhaps a small sting. Perhaps only silence. Let it rise. And let it pass. Clouds don't stay. And just like with feelings, so it is with joy. Listen to what I wrote about her. Take, for example, the feeling of joy. In the normal course of life, the soul may experience joy when there is an external stimulus for joy. When a healthy soul perceives how a person performs an action which inspires their heartfelt kindness, this soul will experience pleasure and joy in such an action. Kindness of heart. Perhaps you encountered one today. Someone held the door open for you. Someone asked you how you were and really waited for the answer. Now, however, the contemplative soul can completely free itself from the idea of ​​the individual case in the external world that gave it joy or pleasure, and it can form the comprehensive idea of ​​kindness of heart. She can imagine, for example, how kindness of heart arises from one soul absorbing the interest of another and making it its own. Making the other person's interest your own. There's hardly a better way to describe goodness. If one tries to keep such joy alive in the soul for a longer period of time, this is immersion in a feeling, in a sensation. So if you come across a good picture tonight, don't rush on. Stay there a little longer. That's part of the exercise, too. And what if nothing happens at all? What if you look back and the day is gray and empty? That's the point where most people stop. That's why I've written more about it than about anything else. One must strive for special training in patience. Any stirring of impatience has a paralyzing, even stupefying, effect on the higher abilities slumbering within man. One should not expect that immeasurable insights into the higher worlds will open up overnight. Because then they usually certainly won't come; Contentment with the smallest things one achieves, peace and serenity should increasingly take hold of the soul. Contentment with the smallest things. If only one image comes to you clearly tonight, then this evening was good. Patience is therefore not a minor factor on this path. It is the fundamental mood of the soul. Not a single gritted tooth. A mood. Like the warmth of a room. And I spoke about the impatience very kindly, but very clearly. Anyone who can become impatient because they see nothing yet has not yet gained the right relationship to a higher world. And you can feel it, even if you don't see anything: I work mentally and emotionally. I work on a mental and emotional level. Say this sentence to yourself tonight if the images won't come to you. You're not just lying there lazily. You are doing something. Even if nothing is visible. And I advised paying close attention to what happens during that time. However, one should subtly pay attention to everything one experiences during practice, which is so fundamentally different from all experiences in the sensory world. Pay attention subtly. That means: listen very carefully. Don't wait for the big things, notice the small things. And for those who do this, their relationship to the practice itself changes. But those who cultivate the right attitude towards the practice of training will increasingly find something in this practice that they love for its own sake. But then he knows that through practice he himself stands in a spiritual and mental world, and he waits patiently and resignedly for what will happen next. Something that you love for its own sake. Just like you love a path you walk in the evening, no matter where it leads. And elsewhere I needed an image that belonged to that night. It's about a person walking along a path. If he does not apply this attention, then he simply passes by the experiences like a pedestrian lost in thought who does not see the trees on either side of the path, although he would see them if he focused his gaze on them. The trees are there. They have not disappeared. The hiker simply didn't look. That's how it is with your day. It was full of trees. And then I wrote down how a person is allowed to feel about it internally. Like a promise to myself. I want to do everything that is appropriate for me as practice, and I know that in the appropriate time I will receive as much as is important to me. I am not demanding this impatiently; But I always make myself ready to receive it. I'm not demanding it. I'm getting ready. And you don't have to wait until you succeed at something to know that it was right. However, it is not the case that only success can bring the realization of the correctness of practicing. If the student approaches the exercises correctly, then the satisfaction he gets from the practice itself gives him the clarity that he is doing something right, not just the success. The evening itself is already the fruit. Not just what will eventually come of it. And for all those who are looking back for the first time today, I have one more consolation. You will probably make hundreds and hundreds of unsuccessful attempts. One simply mustn't lose patience. Hundreds of failed attempts. I didn't write this to discourage you. But so that you don't think you're the only one who can't do it. And one more thing, the most important for tonight: Don't decide beforehand what you want to watch. Only if you form a preconceived opinion about what you actually want to see will you not have this feeling. Then one will misjudge what is in truth something immeasurably important. Don't underestimate what is immeasurably meaningful. This happens often. A person waits for a great light and overlooks the small image that has quietly arrived. And that's why I also said where the phrase comes from: I see nothing. If someone keeps telling themselves: I don't perceive anything, then it's usually because they've imagined that this perception has to look a certain way; And because he doesn't see what he imagines he should see, he says: I see nothing. So tonight, leave it open what your pictures will look like. They may be pale. They may be fragmentary. They may only be a smell or a sound. Now the instructions themselves. Exactly as I wrote them in my book. First, what this exercise actually requires of you. It does not require a new way of life. The point is not to give people general rules for living, but to speak to them of spiritual practices which, if performed, will give them the opportunity to observe the supersensible. Spiritual rites. That sounds complicated, but it simply means: something the soul does. Just as the hand grasps and the eye sees. You are not supposed to live any differently. You are only supposed to accept something. In reality, these are details about actions that enable the soul to bring about moments within its life in which it can observe the supersensible. To bring about such moments. Do n't wait for her. Do it yourself. For example, this very moment. And you don't start just anywhere. You start right where you are. Elevation to a supersensible state of consciousness can only originate from ordinary waking consciousness. The soul lives in this awareness before its ascension. From ordinary waking daytime consciousness. So, from the person you were all day today. From no one else. And you don't have to walk this path blindly. That was always important to me, too. One can form a proper understanding of how these rules work before submitting to them. However, this effect can only be experienced during the training. You are allowed to understand beforehand. You will experience it along the way. And then: The space you create for yourself in the evening has a door. You decide who gets in. The bill, which is due tomorrow, is outside. She is allowed to stand there. She's not running away. And if someone thinks that you're missing out on life by doing this, then that's not the case. You are not neglecting your life if you withdraw from it for a quarter of an hour in the evening. One returns to it stronger in the morning. And in doing so, I advised, a person should maintain their balance. But what matters most is the uniformity and balance of the soul's qualities. Man is all too easily inclined, when he devotes himself to a certain mental activity, to fall into one-sidedness. Uniformity. No exaggeration, not even in a good way. And one more thing: What you experience on such evenings belongs to you alone. I gave a rule that surprised some people. Once again, an important rule for the esoteric student is: Understand how to remain silent about your spiritual visions. Yes, don't even keep quiet about it to yourself. Be silent even to yourself. That means: Don't overanalyze it. Do n't make a theory out of it. Do n't immediately explain to yourself what it means. Give yourself over to your mental views without prejudice and don't disturb them by thinking about them too much. Unbiased. Like a child looking into a fire. And I wrote a silent sentence about the person who practices in this way. The quiet contemplation within, the dialogue with the purely spiritual world, fills his entire soul. Contemplation is an old word for a calm, contemplative gaze. And "Zwiesprache" means: a conversation between two people. And finally, the sentence that ties everything together. Shortly before, I had spoken of an ideal: to let life's events come to one with inner security and peace of mind, and not to judge them according to one's own mood, but according to their intrinsic value. And then I wrote: It is precisely through his focus on this ideal that he will create the mental foundation to be able to devote himself to the immersions in symbolic and other thoughts and feelings described above. The psychological foundation. The soil on which everything else grows. And now enough has been explained. Now we're doing it. You don't need to make an effort. If you doze off and wake up later, just pick up where my voice is. Just lay your hands down. Relax your jaw . Let your forehead soften. We'll start with the very last one. Right here, at this very moment. Look at yourself, lying there now. From the outside, it looks as if you were standing in the doorway and saw a person lying in their bed. How is he lying there? What does his face look like? Is the forehead still tense, or is it already calm? Look at the room around him. The light, or the darkness. The window. The blanket above him. Now take a step back. How did you lie down? Which hand was holding the blanket? What was the last thing you heard? And before that. The way to the bed. The footsteps in the hallway. The light you turned off. The switch under your finger. And before that. The wash basin. The water. Your face in the mirror. Let your soul rest on this image. Just a moment. And go back further. Late evening. What did you do in the last hour before bed? Have you read it? Did you watch television? Did you speak to anyone? Or were you silent? Look at the room where you were sitting. The chair. The table. What was in your hand. And if someone has been with you: Look at their face. Just look. Don't think anything of it. I have written about such evening images: And one need not merely think of the so-called significant impressions of life, but every person in every situation – even in the most impoverished four walls – can experience enough, if only they remain receptive to it. You don't need to go looking for experiences; They are everywhere. They are everywhere. Even on a day when you think nothing happened. Go back further. The dinner. What did you eat? Where did you sit? How did it taste? And who prepared it? You yourself, or someone else? Look at the table from above. The plates. The glasses. The hands that have walked over them. And before that. The transition into evening. The moment when the day ended and the evening began. Perhaps you were still out and about then. Perhaps you came in the door and took off your shoes. Look at this person coming home. Look how tired he is. Be kind to him. And was there a noise when you came in? One vote? A dog? Or was it silent? You don't have to force anything. If an image doesn't appear, then move on. The day will pass even without this picture. And now, the afternoon. The hours that, in retrospect, often blur the fastest. What was the last thing you did in the afternoon before the evening began? Where have you been? Indoors or outdoors. Was it light? Has it rained? What was the air like? See the place you've been from the outside. The house, the street, the room. And go back further. Was there a conversation in the afternoon? A voice on the phone, a face, a few sentences across the table? Look at the other person. And remember what I told you earlier: Even in memory, he is a human being, not an object of your contemplation. If there was something unfriendly in it: Just let it be for a moment, without defending yourself and without accusing yourself. Just ask: How did this happen? And was the other person perhaps tired too? Had he also had a long day? And if you don't find anything, then just keep walking. What doesn't happen today might happen tomorrow. Further back. What was your hand holding this afternoon? A cup? A tool? A steering wheel? A book? Another person's hand? And your feet – where have they gone? See the way. Look at the ground beneath you. Was there a tree there? A window? A piece of heaven? I once spoke of a person who finds something within themselves that is greater than their own judgment. Perhaps this afternoon was such a moment. There lives within me that guides me more accurately than the degree of judgment I currently possess. I must keep my mind open to this something within me, something whose judgment I have not yet matured to. Perhaps you didn't say something today, even though you wanted to. And in hindsight, it was a good thing. It then becomes clear to her, as if in a healthy intuition, that there is more to man than what he can overlook with his judgment. There is more to man. There was more to you today than you know. We go back further, to the middle of the day. Did you have lunch? Where? Alone or with others. Look at the plate. Look at the colors on it. Look at the hand that held the fork. And the bread that might have been there: Think for a moment about the grain, the field, the rain and the sun that ripened it. And the many hands that worked on it without ever knowing you. Further back. The hours before noon. What was the work done during those hours? And was there a moment in it where you were completely focused? So completely that you forgot about time? Look at this moment. Let your soul rest upon him. And was there a moment in it where something annoyed you? Look at him like a stranger. Not like the one to whom it happened. Like someone who happens to come along and calmly observes. How big is it now, as seen from here, in the middle of the night? And if it's still big, then so be it. Some things take more than one night. Was there someone you did good to this morning? A word, a glance, a hand movement that no one noticed? Stay with this image a little longer. The good pictures deserve it. I have said something else about this understanding of one's own mistakes and these own strengths, which should strengthen you. There are hidden strengths within me, and I can bring them out from within. Hidden within you lie hidden powers. Not just anywhere out there. Inside you. And now the last thing. Or rather: the first one. Early morning. How did your work begin? Where did you go, and how did you get there? See the path from the morning. The street, the platform, the corridor, the stairs. Who did you meet there? Even people you don't know. A face seen in passing. Further back. The departure. The door you closed behind you. The key is in your hand. And before that: breakfast. What did you drink? Was it warm in your hands? And before that: getting dressed. What clothes did you wear this morning? Watch your own hands in the process. And before that: the washing. The water on the face. Cool or warm. And now we come right back to the beginning. Getting up. The feet that touch the ground. The first step of the day. And in front of that: the light. What was it like when you first opened your eyes? Was it dark? Was it grey? Did the sun already come through the window? And the very first thought. Do you remember him? Perhaps it was a worry. Perhaps a joy. Perhaps it's just the desire to stay in bed a little longer. And the moment before that: You woke up from sleep. From a night you remember nothing about. About every such beginning I have written: I must be prepared at every moment for the possibility that any thing or being can bring me a completely new revelation. At every moment. Even this morning, when you were still half asleep. And now the sentence that best fits this look back. He tells you what your memory is actually for. This is precisely why the memory of past experiences is most useful to me: it enables me to see new things. You looked back last night. Not to cling to the old ways. But so that you can see something new tomorrow. And now the whole day is spread out behind you. From waking up to this pillow. Do n't look at it piece by piece anymore. See him as a whole. Like a landscape viewed from a hilltop in the evening. A day. A single day of your life. And it is now complete. And what you take away from this is not a judgment. It is a silent trust. This is how I described it: In order for this to be the case, he must learn to maintain inner peace and security in difficult life circumstances; He must cultivate within himself a strong trust in the good forces of existence. A strong trust in the good forces of existence. Stay in this silence for a little while longer. You did something last night that no one can see. And that does change something. I once described it this way: Whoever finds the necessary inner stillness and peace that are part of such observation, their soul will undergo a great transformation as a result. It will soon go so far that the inner enrichment his being experiences will also give him security and peace in his outward behavior. A great transformation. It wo n't happen tonight. But it begins on nights like this. And this transformed outward behavior will in turn have an effect on his soul. And so he will continue to help himself. He will find ways and means to discover more and more of human nature that is hidden from the external senses. Inside and outside, back and forth, like breath. This is how this path is taken. And if you practice again tomorrow, and the day after, something will grow inside you that cannot be obtained from the outside. He who, with patience and perseverance, cultivates in his soul such inner qualities that are conducive to the emergence of supersensible knowledge will soon gain understanding and ability for the exercises. The sprouting. Like a seed. You can't see it germinate. All you can see is that it will be there one day. And if you are awake for just a moment longer, then lift your gaze. Not with your eyes. Only in thought. Beyond the roof of your house. And whoever, with mature judgment in later life, gazes at the starry sky and, with complete devotion, admires the revelation of high powers, thereby makes himself ready to recognize the supersensible worlds. The stars are above you. Even if there are clouds in front of it. Even if you can't see them. And now I'll leave you with a short saying for the night. Four lines, nothing more. It belongs to everyone who looks back on their day in the evening. Plants sprout in the soil. Rain pours down from the heavens. Love sprouts in the human heart. Wisdom flows into human minds. Love sprouts in the human heart. Your day is organized. It lies behind you, picture by picture, and none of it is lost. What you didn't do well today can wait until tomorrow. No one wrote down what you did well today. But it hasn't disappeared. And now you may let go. The day is over. If you think about this night tomorrow morning, then give the video a like, subscribe to the channel and write to me picture by picture. Good night. Good night. Feel free to look back. And sleep well.