ndifferent if he does not "rejoice with them that do
rejoice, and weep with them that weep." Yet this is not what is meant.
What is pleasurable _should_ rejoice the soul, and sorrow _should_ give it
pain, but what the soul is to learn to achieve is control over the
expression of joy and sorrow. If that is his aim, the student will become
aware that, far from becoming "dull and unsympathetic," he will be growing
all the more receptive to the joy and sorrow around him. But it is true
that the student will here find that he needs to watch himself carefully
for a considerable time to be able to acquire the faculty indicated. He
must be careful to see that he partakes of pain and pleasure to the full,
yet without so giving himself up to either that he gives involuntary
expression to it. It is not justified sorrow that should be suppressed,
but the involuntary weeping; not the revulsion against a mean act, but the
blind raging in anger; not the precaution against danger, but the
senseless "being afraid," etc.

It is only by means of such exercises that the occult student can gain the
inner calmness of soul necessary in order that, at the birth of the higher
ego, the soul may not find itself as a kind of double, leading a second
and unhealthy life alongside of the higher self. It is especially in these
matters that we should not yield to self-deception. Some people may be of
the opinion that they already possess in everyday life a certain degree of
equanimity, and that they therefore stand in no need of such exercises;
yet it is especially those who doubly need them. For it is quite possible
to remain equable when surveying the things of this life, and then when
ascending into the higher world to show evidences of a want of equanimity
all the greater because it had only been held in check. For it should be
emphatically understood that in the matter of occult training it is not so
much a question of what we may already seem to possess, but of carefully
and regularly practicing what we need. Contradictory as this phrase may
appear, it is nevertheless true that though life may have trained us to
this or to that, the qualities to serve us in occult training are those
that we have acquired for ourselves. Should life have rendered us
excitable, we must train ourselves to conquering this trait; yet if life
has engendered in us equanimity, we should so rouse ourselves by our own
efforts that the soul may be capable of responding to the