to this. One might imagine that
alienation must result if the student withdraws in heart and spirit from
life and its duties for a certain part of the day. Yet in reality, this is
by no means the case. For those who, in the above manner, give themselves
up to periods of inner quietude and peace will find that out of these
there grows such a fund of energy for fulfilling the outer duties of life
that they are not only not less efficiently performed, but assuredly more
so.

It is of great benefit at such times to detach oneself entirely from
thoughts of personal affairs, and to be able to raise oneself to that
which affects not oneself alone, but all mankind. If he is then able to
fill his soul with messages from a higher spiritual world, and if they
have the power of enthralling his soul to as intense a degree as any
personal concern or care, then indeed will his soul have gathered fruit of
especial value.

Those who thus exert themselves to regulate their soul-life will arrive at
the possibility of a degree of self-observation that will permit them to
review their personal affairs with the same tranquillity as those of
others. Seeing one's own experiences and one's own joys and sorrows in the
light in which those of another appear, is a good preparation for occult
training. We bring this exercise gradually to the necessary stage, if,
after the day's work is over, we allow the pictures of the day's
occurrences to pass before the mind's eye. We would then see ourselves
within our own experiences as in a picture; in other words, we would look
at ourselves in our daily life, as an outside observer.

A certain practice in self-observation having been gained by concentrating
the attention upon short divisions of the day's experience, the student
will become more and more expert in this kind of retrospect, continued
practice enabling him to review the events of the whole day completely and
quickly. It will become ever more and more the ideal of the occult student
to assume such an attitude with regard to the events of life which
confront him that he will be able to await their approach with absolute
calm and inner confidence, no longer judging them by the state of his own
soul but according to their own inner meaning and inner worth. And it is
by looking to this ideal that he will create a condition of soul that will
enable him to meditate profoundly, as described above, upon symbolical and
other thoughts and feelings.

Th