---
ga: 44
title: "Meditation Room"
words: 814
---
# Meditation Room

*Benedictus, John, Mary, the Child.*

MARY:  
I bring you the Child,  
He needs a word  
From your mouths.

BENEDICTUS:  
My child, from now on  
You shall come to me every evening  
And receive from me  
The word that will  
Lead you to rest.  
Will you?

MARIA:  
It was the child's destiny  
Even in its early years  
So strangely interwoven with mine  
Into one.  
You showed me the way,  
That I should lead him  
From that day on,  
When his mother  
Left him as a foundling at my door.  
And miraculously  
Proved themselves in him  
The rules you gave  
In the spirit of your wisdom.  
I know that if it were not through me  
That these rules were carried out,  
None of the powers  
That lie dormant in the child  
Would lack the opportunity to fully awaken.  
But here, too, it is clear  
That blessings turn into misfortune  
If I want to bestow them.  
You know how difficult  
It was for me to win  
The child's affection. He grew up in my care,  
And nothing more than habit  
Sterilized his heart,  
Finding in me  
The means for his growth  
In body and soul. Then came the time,  
When more and more  
The love for his caregiver  
Awakened in him.  
And in this case too,  
It became clear  
That good forces are reversed  
When I am the bearer. In the sunshine of love,  
Which the boy gave me,  
What had already blossomed  
In dutiful guidance died away.  
I seem more and more  
A mystery to myself.  
The solution must come from you,  
For how can I bear any longer  
That I destroy my friend's powers  
Through my presence  
And also rob the boy  
Of the blessing of the most beautiful gifts,  
Because he lovingly  
Accepts them from me.

BENEDICTUS:  
A knot has formed here  
From threads that mysteriously  
Create karma in the becoming of worlds.  
High spirits guide  
In realms of light  
The goals of all being.  
They can forge  
The goals of the worlds only  
If humans sacrifice to them  
Their happiness and suffering,  
Experienced in earthly realms.

[This fragment ends here. The following words from a notebook from 1910 can be considered a continuation of the story.]

You do not suffer  
To fulfill your own destiny.  
What takes place in your soul  
Is not merely the effect of your own life.  
You are chosen to serve  
the plan of the World.  
The threads would break,  
In which the inhabitants of the spiritual worlds  
Weave the fate of the world,  
If from time to time  
The fate of a human soul  
Could not be woven into the fabric. Such souls carry, united in the focal point,  
The karma of humanity.  
What they experience is needed by the heavenly beings.  
Without such an impact,  
the progress of humanity would come to a standstill.  
To live a life for the spirit  
is the lot of such people.  
And whoever judges their earthly existence  
by ordinary human standards  
Has only placed a mirage before their eyes.  
You have lived lives that were your own;  
In them your destiny was fulfilled  
According to the weight of your own deeds.  
You will live again,  
That will show you the way.  
But this does not belong to you alone.  
It does not belong to human beings alone;  
It belongs to the becoming of the world.  
And what can be seen of you in the earthly world  
Is not reality as it is for other people.  
It is only a symbol of your higher calling.  
When I first saw you,  
When I saw you for the first time,  
You did not appear to me as a human being.  
You belonged to the spirit worlds  
Like other spirits.  
And you do not have a body  
In which to live out What is in your spirit.  
Your body is only a vessel  
So that you can draw  
From the powers of the earth,  
What is necessary for the heavens.  
And it became my calling  
To convey to the gods  
What you have created in your human existence.  
How could humans bear  
What is only of a divine nature.  
Your goodness is handed over,  
That works in you in spirit,  
The senses; people appropriate it,  
And there it can change into the worst —

MARIA:  
May I still trust the gods?  
They show me, where I sow good,  
Evil fruit as my own product.  
And my deeds are before me  
Like children turned into criminals,  
Whom one mother wanted to give to the world,  
To do the best for her race.  
Shame must overcome me,  
When I see myself in my deeds,  
And fear must creep into my soul.  
I see how the best  
Becomes the worst,  
Penetrates [it] from my soul  
Into the other soul.  
And I must feel  
How the lifeblood in me  
Becomes destructive poison in the other. —