- Filtering the external world
One of the reasons you cannot see the non-physical worlds is that
your mind is saturated with impressions received from the
physical senses. In other words, your head is full of the images
and sounds of the physical world and there is no space left for
anything else. The cup has to be emptied before any other material
can be poured in. That is why you often find in Steiner, for
instance, that the apprentice esotericist should daily put aside some
time in which he cuts off from any sensory perception. Then the
astral body, the layer of mental consciousness, can withdraw into a
life of its own, and behold non-physical images. A very similar
concept is constantly repeated in the different yogas of the Indian
tradition. The Sanskrit word pratyāhāra corresponds to a
withdrawal from the senses, through which a naked condition of
consciousness can be experienced. In Sanskrit literature, pratyāhāra
is often described as a prerequisite for higher inner experiences.
As you open your vision you will make an interesting discovery:
the pollution is not only a question of quantity but also of quality.
It is not only the fact that you constantly receive a multitude of
physical sensorial perceptions that makes you unable to see other
worlds. It is also that these physical perceptions have a harsh
effect on your system. What comes from the physical senses is
like coarse matter: it is excessively gross. Therefore, if not
filtered it makes your consciousness rough and unrefined.
In other words you are permanently inundated with unprocessed
impressions: images, sounds, smells and so on. These rush into your
consciousness and create much more damage than you think. To
draw an analogy, it is as if the nutrients you eat were sent
directly to the organs and tissues of your body without having
been processed through the digestive tract. If that were the case
your physical body would lose its identity, it would become too
‘outside-like’. And that is exactly what happens to your
consciousness. It loses its Self-identity. The Self can no longer be
discerned among this tidal wave of external impressions.
I want to insist on this fact, because it appears essential when one
observes the economy of consciousness clairvoyantly. The same
way as your physical body is made of what you have eaten, all the
sensory impressions contribute to weaving your layer of mental
consciousness. And in the present situation a thick cloud of coarse
astral matter is being generated in you day after day, veiling the
barré
(Barré)
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