Interpretation For Contemplation
1. As we focus our consciousness away from the outer world and on the soul, we create a special, extraordinary kind of life of the soul. An outer world and an inner world present themselves to our spirit.

2. Withdrawal into the inner world is not something we can accomplish once and for all, and then repeat at will. The process is more like the beginning of an extended journey into worlds of which we were previously unaware. Each step we take on this pilgrimage prepares us for further steps along the way. The first step is important, because it enables us to begin our search for the answer to the question as to what is the essence of the human being. We journey into new worlds invisible to the ordinary consciousness. Only through the soul's inner journey into these new worlds can we discover the essence of terrestrial existence, beyond the delusions of our outer senses and our thoughts. When we understand our true essence, we will realize how essential is this inner journey of the soul.

3. We can select any thought we choose as the focus of our intense concentration, thereby making it live as the single object of our inner life. Excluding external impressions and internal memories, we can create a regular inner activity in which we surrender to specific thoughts or feelings. We must work patiently over an extended period of time before we begin to experience ourselves in a new manner.

4. It's possible to provide an illustrative example of the new kind of experience of self that can occur--with the understanding that very different kinds of experience may occur with various persons. The soul during sleep may wake up--in a dream state. This dream state will be felt to be different from the usual dream state. We experience this dream world in the same way we experience the ordinary world, but we are shut off from the ordinary world. We use ordinary concepts and images to represent this dream world to ourselves, knowing full well that these concepts and images represent a completely different kind of inner, spiritual experience.

5. Through such experiences we gain awareness of an inner transformation of our real self in a completely new manner. We gain the realization that the oppressive problems of ordinary existence cannot be solved within our sense world because the senses and the intellect cannot penetrate deeply enough into the more inclusive universe (of many domains). To penetrate deeply enough into the Larger Universe to discern solutions to his problems, a person must so transform himself that he can have experiences outside his body which provide deep knowledge.

6. When we locate our consciousness in our body, we feel separate from the rest of reality. When we locate our consciousness in our soul, we feel a unity with all reality.

7. When we are able to experience a realm beyond our ordinary sense world, we do so with our spiritual body. With this elemental body we experience a domain unknown to the ordinary sense experience. Supersensible experiences impress us as being communications from a Higher World of the soul.

8. We experience elemental entities when locating our consciousness in our soul. The supersensible domain is an entirely different world from our ordinary sense world. Ordinary experience reveals only part of the Larger Reality and influences us to deny the existence of the supersensible domain.

9. We can attain higher powers of clairvoyant perception through maintaining a serene emotional state, neither too eager for unusual experiences nor insufficiently motivated to attain supersensible capabilities. Insufficient desire for expanded capabilities or preconceived biases make us blind to supersensible realities.

10. We are not compelled to experience our existence in the ordinary manner; we can experience our being in an extra-ordinary way through locating our consciousness in and identifying with our soul: deliberately feeling, sensing, and thinking in a new manner. Through this effort, our soul attains the ability to realize a completely new kind of experience which can be felt as highly pleasurable. We realize that we are not confronting the sense world in the ordinary manner. That we are not within the ordinary sense world but actually living in a new inner world of soul experience. Previously, we have habitually experienced our consciousness through our senses and our thoughts. We have been incapable of conceiving of a supersensible life lived through consciousness of our soul. As a child must learn to experience the ordinary sense world, we must teach ourselves to conceive of and experience a new supersensible life of the soul.

11. Through experiencing our former sense-based state of consciousness as a memory, we can experience our life in the soul as our primary focus of being. We are able to experience our ordinary ego as alien, as something which our soul earlier identified with, but now no longer. We experience ourself as a spiritual being that will continue after physical death.

12. We continue to gain knowledge of the supersensible world by focusing on specific ideas or sensations to the exclusion of all else.

13. Through living in our soul, we become aware that before coming into existence in the terrestrial realm we had our being in the supersensible world of the spirit.

14. Locating our consciousness in our soul, we gain awareness that our ultimate evolutionary development requires a specific kind of life in the terrestrial realm.