Meditation

I write so much about the other things filling my life, but find it hard to write about my path of spiritual developement. This is partly because it is so intimate, and partly because I am afraid of coming off as thinking of myself as somehow "holier than thou". 

So...

Why self  developement? Why spiritual self developement? and why an anthroposophical path?

I may have mentioned this before, but I have always had the conviction (or at least the hope) that there is a spiritual life before birth and after death. The idea that my life on earth should be of no more significance than that of a random leaf on a tree that buds forth in the spring and turns red in the fall before falling to the ground and eventually turning to compost has never resonated with me. There must be more of a point to all our striving and all that we experience and what we allow our experiences to make of us, than that when we die it is all over as if it had never been - except in someone's memories...

In the last few years I have occasionally thought that it would be usefull to prepare myself for the spiritual life, unendowed (or unencumbered, depending on your point of view) with a physical body, which is the reality after death. I chose the anthroposophical path because I am familiar with it. As I progress in my studies of anthroposophy I find it rings true to me. It is a path that I can work with. It describes the methods for developing organs for percieving and communicating in the spiritual world. It also describes what happens during this process and the dangers connected with it, such as succumbing to illusion, narcissism, and losing contact with reality. These indeed were always my worries and what prevented me from embarking on such a path in the past. One of the premises to avvoid these dangers is that for every step undertaken to develop ones spiritual perception, 3 steps should be taken in the developement of ones moral integrity. That is the rule that I try to keep firmly in mind. And that is where self developement comes in. 

One thing that I had not expected was that the meditative state would be so comfortable. Closing my eyes and dipping down into the meditative state is starting to get almost too pleasant. I am a little afraid that it will become an escape from the outer world of demands, responsibilities, frustrations, and conflicts in which life needs to be lived. Because there is no question about that: it is the life lived in the physical world, the goals attained, the transformations achieved, and the works performed there, that we can carry into future lives, not what is experienced in meditation itself.