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Rudolf Steiner – How to Know Higher Worlds

[A spiritually advanced person] has direct knowledge of his Higher Self.  He learns to know how his higher Self is connected with lofty spiritual Beings and forms a unity with them. He perceives how the lower self stems from a higher world and it is revealed to him that his higher nature out-lasts the lower.

He can now himself distinguish the perishable within him from the imperishable. This means that through his own perception he learns to understand the teaching of the incorporation (incarnation) of the higher Self in a lower self. It is now clear to him that he is involved in a higher, spiritual complex of circumstances, and that his qualities and destiny are the outcome of this.

He learns to recognise the law of his life, his Karma.

He realises that his lower self, in his present existence, is only one of the forms which his higher Self can adopt. He discerns the possibility of working from his higher Self upon his lower self, so that he may come nearer and nearer to the ideal. He can now also discern the great differences between human beings in respect of their degree of development.

He becomes aware that there are men of higher rank than his own who have already reached the stages which still lie ahead of him, and he realises that the teachings and deeds of such men proceed from the inspirations coming from a higher world.

He owes this knowledge to his own first glimpse into this higher world. The persons called the 'great Initiates of humanity' will now begin to be realities for him.