III
THE MISSION OF THE EARTH
Yesterday we
saw what profound contents are concealed within the first
words of the Gospel of St. John and we shall now be able to
summarize our observations by saying that the writer of this
Gospel pointed to the creation of a pre-humanity in the far
distant past and indicated that, according to Esoteric
Christianity, everything leads back to the Word or the Logos.
The Logos was already a creating power even in the ancient
Saturn Period; it then became Life while our Earth was
passing through its existence as the Sun, and it became Light
while the Earth was passing through the ancient Moon state.
Under the influence of divine spiritual forces and powers, in
the course of the three planetary states of evolution, the
human creature reached the point in his development at which
he became penetrated by the human ego, the Earth having now
developed into our present planet. Thus we may say that a
creature, like a kind of seed, came over to the Earth from
the ancient Moon, consisting of a physical body, derived from
the divine, primal Word; an ether or life body having its
source in divine Life; and an astral body issuing from divine
Light. Within this creature's inmost being, during life upon
the Earth, the light of the ego itself was now enkindled and
this three-fold bodily nature, physical, etheric and astral,
became capable of saying to itself “I AM.” Thus,
in a certain sense, we may call the Earth evolution, the
evolution of the “I AM,” the evolution of the
self-consciousness of the human race. This “I
AM,” this capacity for full self-consciousness,
developed slowly and gradually in the course of the evolution
of Earth humanity. We must clearly understand how this
evolution of Earth humanity proceeded, how slowly and
gradually the ego, that is to say, full self-consciousness,
made its appearance within it.
There was a
stage of our earthly evolution which we call the ancient
Lemurian period. It is the earliest period of our life upon
the Earth in which men appeared in the form they, in general,
possess today. Then, for the first time, what we may call the
incarnation of the ego, the true inner being of man, took
place within the three bodies, the astral, ether and physical
bodies. After that came the Atlantean period when humanity
dwelt for the most part upon the ancient continent of
Atlantis, a region forming today the bed of the Atlantic
Ocean, and which sank beneath the waters through the great
Atlantean flood, remembrance of which has been preserved in
the deluge-sagas of nearly all peoples. In harmony with their
inner natures, men have passed through successive
incarnations during the post-Atlantean period right up to our
present day. As has been stated, it was in fact during the
Lemurian period that our souls were incarnated for the first
time in a three-fold entity, consisting of physical body,
ether body and astral body, as we have learned to know them.
What preceded this will be left for a later consideration.
Thus we must go far back into the past if we wish to consider
the course of evolution, for the human being evolved very
slowly and gradually to his present condition of
existence.
From the
standpoint of Spiritual Science what does occultism call our
“present existence?” It calls it a state of
consciousness which the present day human being possesses
from the morning when he awakens until the evening when he
falls asleep. During that time, by means of his outer
physical senses, he sees the objects about him. From the
evening when he falls asleep, until the morning when he
awakens, he does not see the objects about him. Why is this
so? We know that it is because during the day, under present
evolutionary conditions, the real inner human being, namely,
the ego and astral body, are within the physical and ether
bodies upon the physical plane; in other words, they are in
the physical world. Thus the astral body and the ego can make
use of the physical organs for hearing and seeing in the
physical world, for observing physical things. From the
evening when we fall asleep, until the morning when we
awaken, the ego and astral body are out of the physical world
on the astral plane. There they are detached from the
physical eyes and ears and therefore are not able to observe
what is about them.
The
alternating state of waking by day and sleeping by night
developed slowly and gradually. This was not yet the case in
the ancient Lemurian period when the human being for the
first time passed through a physical incarnation. At that
time the ego and astral body were only for a very brief
portion of the day within the physical body, by no means as
long a period as now. Therefore, because the human being was
outside of his physical body for a longer time and entered it
only for a brief period in a waking state, life during the
Lemurian period was very different from life as we experience
it. Our state of unconsciousness during the night, when we
are not merely in the act of dreaming, is a state that has
developed slowly and gradually. Day and night consciousness
were very differently apportioned during the Lemurian period.
At that time everyone still possessed a dull clairvoyant
consciousness, and during the night, when they were out of
the physical body and in the spirit world, they perceived
this spirit world around them, although not so clearly as we
of the present see the physical objects about us during the
day. We should not simply compare this perceiving in the
spiritual world with the present dreaming. The present
dream-state is only like a last stunted remnant of this
ancient clairvoyance. However, the same images were perceived
at that time as are perceived today in dreams, but they had a
very real meaning. Let us be quite clear about the meaning of
these images.
In ancient
times, the human being, living a very brief portion of the
twenty-four hours in waking-consciousness (a much shorter
time than we today), saw the external, physical objects very
dimly as though wrapped in a mist. The capacity to see
physical objects as we do today developed very slowly. At
that time he saw the first indication of a physical body
enveloped in a mist just as we can see the lamps surrounded
by a mist, by a kind of light-aura, when we walk through the
streets on a misty evening. This, however, is only an
illusion. But that is the way mankind at first saw physical
bodies emerging about him, and when he slept he did not sink
into unconsciousness, but during his sleep-consciousness,
images emerged, pictures in colour and form. At that time
there was around him a world, in comparison with which, the
most vivid dream-world of today is only a weak, dim echo.
These images signified something psychic and spiritual in his
environment. At that time, in the beginning of his earthly
course, when during his night wanderings he approached a
creature harmful to him, he did not see it as we would now
see it — for example, he did not see the lion
approaching him as a lion's form — but he saw emerging
an image of colour and form and instinctively it told him
that here was something harmful to him, something that would
devour him, something he must avoid. These were true images
of something psycho-spiritual occurring about him. All that
belonged to the soul and spirit was seen in the night, and
evolution proceeded in such a way that slowly and gradually
the human being immersed himself in his physical body for a
longer and longer time. Ever shorter grew the night, longer
and longer lasted the day, and the more he lived within his
physical body, the more the nightly clairvoyant images
disappeared and the more did the present waking-consciousness
emerge.
However, we
must not forget that a truly genuine self-consciousness, such
as should be acquired during life upon the earth, can only be
attained by submersion in a physical body. Prior to this, the
human being did not feel himself as an independent entity,
but as a part of divine spiritual beings from whom he was
descended. Still possessing a dull clairvoyance, he felt
himself a part of a divine spiritual consciousness, part of a
divine ego, just as the hand feels itself a part of the
physical organism. He could not have said of himself “I
AM,” but would have said “God is” —
and “I in Him.”
As we shall
see more and more, a very special mission was reserved for
the Earth, which had, during its evolution, passed through
three earlier stages, Saturn, Sun and Moon. Do not imagine
that the different planetary life-conditions can be
considered as existing alongside of one another, one planet
exactly equivalent to the other. Divine creation is not
simply a repetition of something already existing. Each
planetary existence had a very definite mission. The mission
of our Earth is the cultivation of the principle of love to
its highest degree by those beings who are evolving upon it.
When the Earth has reached the end of its evolution, love
should permeate it through and through. Let us understand
clearly what is meant by the expression: The Earth is the
planetary life-condition for the evolution of love.
In Spiritual
Science we say that the ancient Moon preceded the Earth. This
ancient Moon, as planetary stage of evolution, had also a
mission. It did not yet have the task of developing love, but
it was the planet or the cosmos of wisdom. Before it reached
our earthly condition, our planet passed through the stage of
wisdom. A simple and one might say logical observation will
illustrate this to you. Just look about you at all the
creatures of nature. If you do not observe them merely with
your understanding but with the forces of your heart and
soul, then you will find wisdom everywhere stamped upon
nature. The wisdom of which we are here speaking, is a kind
of spiritual substance lying at the foundation of all things.
Observe anything you wish in nature, and you will find it
there. Take, for example, a piece of the thigh-bone and you
will see that it is not composed of a solid mass, but it is a
fine interweaving of supports which are arranged into a
marvelous structure. And if we seek to discover the law upon
which this bone is constructed, we find that it follows the
law which develops the greatest strength with the least
expenditure of material in order to be able to support the
upper part of the human body. Our engineering art is not yet
so far advanced that it can build such a highly artistic
structure as the all over-ruling wisdom has fashioned.
Mankind will not possess such wisdom until later in its
evolution. Divine wisdom pervades the whole of
nature; human wisdom will only gradually reach this
height. In the course of time human wisdom will inwardly
acquire what divine wisdom has secreted within the Earth.
Just as wisdom was prepared upon the Moon, that it might be
found everywhere on the Earth, so is love now being prepared
here in this Earth evolution. If you were able to look back
upon the ancient Moon with clairvoyant vision, you would see
that wisdom was not to be found everywhere at that time. You
would find many things still lacking in wisdom. Only
gradually throughout the whole of the Moon evolution was
wisdom stamped upon the outer world. When the Moon had fully
completed its evolution, everything was then pervaded by a
wisdom which was to be found everywhere. Inner
wisdom first appeared upon the Earth with the human being,
with the ego. This inner human wisdom had to be developed by
degrees.
Just as wisdom
was evolved upon the Moon, in order that it might now be
found in all things, so in like manner is love evolving. Love
came into existence first in its lowest, its most sensuous
form, during the Lemurian period, but during the course of
life upon the earth, it will become ever more and more
spiritualized, until at last, when the earth has reached the
end of its evolution, the whole of existence will have become
pervaded with love, as today it is pervaded with wisdom, and
this will be accomplished through the activity of human
beings if they but fulfil their task.
The Earth will
then pass over to a future planetary condition which is
called Jupiter. The beings who will wander about upon
Jupiter, just as human beings move about upon the earth, will
find love exhaling from all creatures, the love which they
themselves, as human beings, will have placed there during
their life upon the earth. They will find love in everything
just as we today find wisdom everywhere. Then human beings
will develop love out of their own inner selves in the same
way that they are now little by little evolving wisdom. The
great cosmic love that here upon the Earth is beginning its
existence will then permeate all things. The materialistic
mind does not believe in a cosmic wisdom, only in a human
wisdom. If men would consider the course of evolution with
unprejudiced minds, they would be able to see that all cosmic
wisdom in the beginning of the Earth's evolution was advanced
as far as human wisdom will be at the end of it. In those
times when names were more accurately chosen than they are
today, the subjective wisdom active in the human being was
called “intelligence,” in contra-distinction to
the objective cosmic wisdom. Men do not notice that what they
discover in the course of Earth-life had already been won
during life upon the Moon and implanted in the earth by
divine-spiritual beings. Let us take an example.
How it is
drummed into the heads of the school children, the great
progress humanity has made through the discovery of paper!
But wasps had already produced paper many thousands of years
ago, for what the wasps build into their nests consists of
exactly the same substance as that out of which men now
produce paper and it is produced by the wasp in exactly the
same way — only by means of a life-process. The
wasp-spirit, the group-soul of the wasps, which is a part of
divine-spiritual substance, was the discoverer of paper long
before men made the discovery.
The human
being, in fact, always follows along groping his way behind
the cosmic wisdom. As a principle, all that men will discover
in the course of the Earth's evolution is already present in
nature. But what the human being will really give to the
Earth is love, a love which will evolve from the most
sensuous to the most spiritualized form of love. This is the
mission of the Earth-evolution. The Earth is the cosmos of
love.
Let us ask:
— What then is essential for love? What is essential in
order that one person love another? It is this — that
he be in possession of his full self-consciousness, that he
be wholly independent. No one can love another in the full
sense of the word if this love be not a free gift of one
person to another. My hand does not love my organism. Only
one who is independent, one who is not bound to the other
person, can love him. To this end the human being had to
become an ego-being. The ego had to be implanted in the
threefold human body, so that the Earth might, through
mankind, fulfil its mission of love. Therefore, you will
understand Esoteric Christianity when it says: — Just as
other forces, of which wisdom is the last, streamed down from
divine beings during the Moon period, so now love streams
into the Earth and the bearer of love can only be the
independent ego which develops by degrees in the course of
the evolution of the Earth.
The human
being, however, had to be very slowly prepared for all this,
likewise for his present kind of consciousness. Let us
suppose, for instance, that in the ancient Lemurian period,
the human being had been immersed in his physical body
— he would then at that time have seen the full outer
reality, but at such a swift tempo he would not have been
able to implant love in the world. He had to be guided little
by little to his earthly mission. The first instruction in
love was given him during the time of a dawning
consciousness, before he possessed full self-consciousness,
before he was evolved far enough to observe the objects about
him with clear, waking-day consciousness. Thus we see that
during those ages when the human being still possessed an
ancient, dreamy clairvoyant consciousness, when the soul was
for long periods outside the physical body, love was being
implanted within him in his dull, not yet self-conscious
condition. Let us clearly picture the soul of this human
creature of olden times which had not yet reached the height
of full self-consciousness.
The human
being fell asleep at night, but there existed no abrupt
transition from waking to sleeping. Images emerged, vivid
dream-pictures, which, however, possessed a living
relationship to the spirit world — this means that the
human creature familiarized himself with the spirit world
during sleep. Into him, into his dull state of consciousness,
the Divine Spirit dropped the first seed of all love
activity. The power that manifests itself as love in the
course of evolution on the Earth streamed at first into
mankind during the night. The God who brought the true
earthly mission to the Earth revealed Himself first in the
night to the dim, ancient clairvoyant consciousness before He
could reveal Himself to clear, waking day-consciousness.
Then slowly
and gradually the time spent in a dim, clairvoyant state of
consciousness became shorter and shorter, the
day-consciousness became ever longer, and the boundaries of
the aura around the physical objects gradually lessened and
disappeared, the objects taking on clearer and clearer
outlines. Formerly the sun and moon were seen surrounded by a
mighty halo as though lying in a mass of fog. Only slowly did
the whole aspect become clear and objects assume distinct
outlines. By degrees the human being arrived at this
condition. What he then saw externally, while the sun shone
upon the earth, revealing to him by means of visible light
the whole of earth-life, minerals, plants and animals —
all this he experienced as the revelations of the Divine in
the outer world.
From the
standpoint of Esoteric Christianity, what is it that is
visible during waking-day consciousness? In the broadest
sense of the word, we may ask: — Of what does the Earth
consist? It is a manifestation of divine powers, an outer
material manifestation of inner spirituality. If you turn
your gaze upward toward the sun or toward what is to be found
upon the earth, you will see everywhere a manifestation of
Divine-Spirituality. This Divine-Spirituality, in the present
form, lying as it does at the foundation of all that appears
to clear, waking-day consciousness, in other words, the
invisible world behind this entire visible day-world, this is
called in Esoteric Christianity, the “Logos” or
the “Word.” For just as from the human being
speech can finally come forth, be uttered from his own inner
being, so too has everything, animal kingdom, plant kingdom,
mineral kingdom first come forth into existence from the
Logos. Everything is an incarnation of the Logos and just as
your soul rules invisibly within your inner being and creates
an external body, so too everything in the world of a soul
nature creates for itself the external body fitted to it and
manifests itself through some sort of physical organism.
Where, then, is the physical body of the Logos, of which the
Gospel of St. John speaks? It is this we wish today to bring
more and more into our consciousness. In its purest form,
this external physical body of the Logos appears especially
in the outer sunlight. But the sunlight is not merely
material light. To spiritual perception, it is just as much
the vesture of the Logos, as your outer physical body is the
vesture of your soul.
If you were to
confront a human being in the same way the greater part of
humanity today confronts the sun, you could never learn to
know that human being. Your relation to each human individual
possessing a feeling, thinking and willing soul would be such
that instead of presupposing a psycho-spiritual part within
him, you would simply touch a physical body and imagine that
it might even be made of papier maché. If,
however, you wish to penetrate to the spiritual in the
sunlight, you should consider it just as you consider the
bodily part of a human being in order to learn to know his
inner nature. The sunlight has the same relationship to the
Logos as your body has to your soul. In the sunlight
something spiritual streams down upon the Earth. If we are
able to conceive not only the sun-body, but also the
sun-spirit, we find that this spiritual part is the love that
streams down upon the Earth. Not alone the physical sunlight
awakens the plants into life — they would wither and
die if the physical sunlight did not act upon them —
but together with the physical sunlight, the warm love of the
Godhead streams to earth. Human beings exist in order that
they may take into themselves the warm love of the Divine,
develop it and return it again to the Divine. But they can
only do this by becoming self-conscious ego-beings. Only then
will they be able to render back this love.
When men began
— at first for a very short time — to live in
waking-day consciousness, they could perceive nothing of the
light, that light which at the same time enkindled love. The
light shone into the darkness, but the darkness was unable
yet to comprehend it. If this light, which is at the same
time the love of the Logos, had only manifested itself during
the short day hours, humanity would not have been able to
grasp this light of love. But love streamed into human beings
in the dull clairvoyant dream-consciousness of those ancient
times. Now, let us glance behind existence at a great
significant cosmic mystery.
Let us express
it thus: — The cosmic guidance of our earth was of such
a character that for a time, in an unconscious way, love
streamed into humanity in its dim, clairvoyant state of
consciousness and inwardly prepared it to receive this love
in full, clear, waking-day consciousness. We have seen that
our Earth gradually became the cosmos that was to accomplish
this mission of love. The earth is shone upon by the present
sun. Just as human beings dwell upon the earth, and little by
little receive love into themselves, so too do other much
higher beings dwell upon the sun and enkindle love, because
the sun has reached a higher stage of existence. The human
being is an earth-dweller and to be an earth-dweller means to
be a creature which appropriates love unto itself during the
Earth-period. A sun-dweller in our time means a being that
can enkindle love, a being that can permit love to flow into
the earth. The earth-dweller would not have developed love,
would not have been able to receive it, had not the
sun-dwellers sent down ripened wisdom to them with the rays
of light. Because the light of the sun streams down upon the
earth, love is developed there. That is a very real truth.
Those beings who are so exalted that they can pour forth love
have made the sun their scene of action.
When the
ancient Moon had completed its evolution, there were seven
great beings of this kind who had progressed far enough to
pour forth love. Here we touch upon a deep mystery which
Spiritual Science reveals. In the beginning of the
Earth-evolution, there was on the one side the childlike
humanity which was to receive love and become ready for the
reception of the ego — and on the other side there was
the sun which separated from the earth and rose to a more
exalted existence. Seven principle Spirits of Light, who at
the same time were the dispensing Spirits of Love, were able
to evolve upon this sun. Only six of them, however, made the
sun their dwelling-place and what streams down to us in the
physical light of the sun contains within it the spiritual
force of love from these six Spirits of Light or, as they are
called in the Bible, the six Elohim. One separated from the
others and took a different path for the salvation of
humanity. He did not choose the sun but the moon for his
abode. And this Spirit of Light, who voluntarily renounced
life upon the sun and chose the moon instead, is none other
than the one whom the Old Testament calls “Jahve”
or “Jehova.” This Spirit of Light who chose the
moon as a dwelling-place is the one who from there pours
ripened wisdom down upon the earth, thus preparing the way
for love. Now, let us consider for a moment this mystery
which lies behind the outer facts.
The night
belongs to the moon and it belonged to the moon to a much
greater degree in that ancient time when the human being was
not yet able to receive the force of love in the direct rays
of the sun. At that time he received the reflected force of
ripened wisdom from the moonlight. This ripened wisdom
streamed down upon him from the moonlight during the time of
night-consciousness. Therefore, Jahve is called the Ruler of
the Night who prepared humanity for the love that was later
to manifest during full waking-consciousness. Thus we can
look back to that ancient past in human evolution when
spiritually that event occurred which is merely symbolized by
the heavenly bodies, the sun on the one side, the moon on the
other. (See drawing). During the night, at certain times, the
moon sends down to us the reflected force of the sun, but it
is the same light which also shines upon us directly from the
sun. Thus in ancient times, Jahve or Jehova reflected the
force of matured wisdom, the force of the six Elohim, and
sent this force down into human beings while they slept,
preparing them to become capable later, by degrees, of
receiving the power of love during waking-day
consciousness.
The above
drawing attempts in a symbolic manner to show the waking-day
human being when his physical and etheric bodies are
dependent upon the Divine and his ego and astral body are
within the physical and ether bodies upon the physical plane.
Here the whole human organism is shone upon by the sun from
without. We now know that for the humanity of primeval ages,
night was much longer and much more filled with activity than
it is at present. The astral body and ego were then outside
of the physical and ether bodies, the ego existing wholly
within the astral world, and the astral body sinking into the
physical body from without, having, however, its entire inner
being still embedded in the divine-spiritual world.
Therefore, the sun could not shine directly upon the human
astral body and enkindle in it the force of love. Hence, the
moon, which reflects the sunlight, was active through Jahve
or Jehova. The moon is the symbol of Jahve or Jehova and the
sun is none other than the symbol for the Logos, which is the
sum of the other six Elohim. This drawing, which you should
study, and upon which you should meditate, tries to indicate
this in a symbolic way and if you reflect upon it, you will
discern what deep, mystery-truths are presented in it,
namely: that during long periods of time, in
sleep-consciousness, the force of love was being implanted in
human beings by Jehova, in a manner of which they were
themselves unconscious. In this way they were being made
capable of experiencing the Logos, of feeling the force of
Its love. One can ask: — How was this possible, how
could that take place? We come now to the other side of the
mystery.
We have said
that the human being was destined for self-conscious love
upon the earth. He must, therefore, have a leader, a teacher,
during his clear day-consciousness, a leader who stands
before him so that he can be perceived by him. Now it was
only during the night, in dim consciousness, that love could
be implanted within the human being. But little by little
something happened, something happened in full actuality
which made it possible for him to see outwardly, physically,
the Being of Love itself. But how could that occur? It could
only take place, because the Being of Divine Love, the Being
of the Logos, became a man of flesh, whom men by means of
their physical senses could perceive upon the earth. It was
because mankind had developed to a condition of perceiving by
means of outer senses that God, the Logos, had Himself to
become a sense-being. He had to appear in a physical body.
This was fulfilled in Christ-Jesus, and the historical
appearance of Christ Jesus means that the forces of the six
Elohim, or of the Logos, were incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth
at the beginning of our Christian era and were actually
present in Him in the visible world. That is the important
thing. The inner force of the sun, the force of the
Logos-Love assumed a physical human form in the body of Jesus
of Nazareth. For, like an external object, like an outer
being, God had to appear to the earthly, human
sense-consciousness in a bodily form.
You will ask
what was that Being Who appears at the beginning of our era
as Christ-Jesus? It was the incarnation of the Logos, of the
six other Elohim, whose advent had been prepared by Jahve-God
who preceded them. This figure of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom
the Christ or the Logos was incarnated, brought into human
life, into human history itself, what previously streamed
down upon the earth from the sun, what was present only in
the sunlight. “The Logos became flesh.” It is
upon this fact that the Gospel of St. John places the
greatest importance and the writer of this Gospel had to lay
great emphasis upon it because it is a fact that after the
appearance of a few initiated Christian pupils who understood
what had occurred, there followed others who could not fully
understand it. They understood full well that at the
foundation of all material things, behind all that appears to
us in substantial form, there exists a psycho-spiritual
world. But what they could not comprehend was that the Logos
itself, by being incarnated in an individual human being,
became physically visible for the physical sense-world. This
they could not comprehend. Therefore, that teaching which
appeared in the early Christian centuries called the
“Gnosis,” differs from the true Esoteric
Christianity on this point. The writer of the Gospel of St.
John pointed to this fact in powerful words, when he said:
“No, you should not look upon the Christ as a
super-sensible, ever invisible being only, one Who is the
foundation of all material life, but you should consider this
the important thing: ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us.’” This is the fine distinction between
Esoteric Christianity and the primal Gnosis. The Gnosis, as
well as Esoteric Christianity recognizes the Christ, but the
former only as a spiritual being and in Jesus of Nazareth it
sees at most a human herald, more or less bound to this
spiritual being. It holds firmly to an ever invisible Christ.
On the contrary, Esoteric Christianity has always held the
idea of the Gospel of St. John, which rests upon the firm
foundation of the words: “And the Logos became flesh
and dwelt among us!” He Who was there in the visible
world is an actual incarnation of the six sun Elohim, of the
Logos! With the incarnation of the Logos, the earthly mission
— or in other words, what the earth was to become
through the Event of Palestine — first really began.
Previously, all was only a preparation.
What then did
the Christ, who dwelt within the body of Jesus of Nazareth,
especially have to represent Himself to be? It may be said He
had to represent himself as the great bringer and quickener
of the self-conscious, independent human being. Let us
express this living Christ-teaching in a few short,
paradigmatic sentences. The earth exists in order that full
self-consciousness, the “I AM,” may be given to
mankind. Previously, everything was a preparation for this
self-consciousness, for this “I AM;” and the
Christ was that Being Who gave the impulse that made it
possible for every human being — each as an individual
— to experience the “I AM.” Only with His
advent was the powerful impulse given which carries earth
humanity forward with a mighty bound. We can follow this by
means of a comparison of Christianity with the Old Testament
teaching. In the latter, the human being did not yet fully
feel the “I AM” in himself. He still possessed a
remnant of a dreamy state of consciousness, held over from
those ancient times when he did not feel himself as a
personality, but as a part of a Divine Being, just as the
animal today is still a member of a group-soul. Mankind had
its beginning in the group-soul and then advanced to a state
of independent, personal existence, in which every individual
experiences the “I AM,” and the Christ is the
force that has brought it to this consciousness of the
“I AM.” Let us consider this for a moment in its
full inner significance.
The follower
of the Old Testament did not feel himself as much enclosed
within his own individual personality as did the follower of
the New Testament. He did not yet say as a personality,
“I am an I.” He felt himself within the whole
ancient Jewish people and experienced the group-ego of his
folk. Let us enter in a living way into the consciousness of
a follower of the Old Testament. The Christian feels the
“I AM” and gradually will learn to feel it more
and more, but the follower of the Old Testament did not feel
the “I AM” in this way. He felt himself as a
member of the entire folk and looked up to its group-soul.
And if he wished to express this in words, he would have
said: “My consciousness reaches up to the Father of the
whole people, to Abraham; we — I and Father Abraham
— are one. A common ego encompasses us all, and I only
feel myself safe within the spiritual substantiality of the
world when I feel myself resting within the whole
folk-substance.” Thus the follower of the Old Testament
looked up to Father Abraham and said: “I and Father
Abraham are one! In my veins flows the same blood that flows
in the veins of Abraham.” He felt Father Abraham as the
root from which every individual Abrahamite had sprung as a
stem.
Then
Christ-Jesus came and said to his nearest, most intimate
initiates: Hitherto, mankind has judged only according to the
flesh, according to blood-relationship. Through this
blood-relationship, men have been conscious of reposing
within a higher invisible union. But you should believe in a
still higher spiritual relationship, in one that reaches
beyond the blood-tie. You should believe in a spiritual
Father-substance in which the ego is rooted, and which is
more spiritual than the substance which as a group-soul binds
the Jewish people together. You should believe in what
reposes within me and within every human being, in what is
not only one with Abraham, but one with the very divine
foundation of the world. Therefore Christ-Jesus, according to
the Gospel of St. John, emphasizes the words: “Before
Father Abraham was, was the I AM!” My primal ego mounts
not only to the Father-Principle that reaches back to
Abraham, but my ego is one with all that pulses through the
entire cosmos, and to this my spiritual nature soars aloft. I
and the Father are one! These are important words which one
should experience; then will one feel the forward bound made
by mankind, a bound which advanced human evolution further in
consequence of that impulse given by the advent of the
Christ. The Christ was the mighty quickener of the “I
AM.”
Now, let us
try to hear a little of what His most intimate initiates
said, how they expressed what had been revealed to them. They
said: Heretofore, no individual physical human being has ever
existed to whom this name of “I AM” could be
applied; He was the first to bring to the world the “I
AM” in its full significance. Therefore, they named
Christ-Jesus the “I AM.” That was the name in
which the closest initiates felt themselves united, the name
which they understood, the name “I AM.” We must
in this way delve deeply into the most significant chapters
of the Gospel of St. John. If we take that chapter where we
find the words: “I am the Light of the world,” we
must interpret them literally, quite literally. Now, what was
this “I AM” which for the first time appeared in
carnate form? It was the force of the Logos that streamed to
earth in the sunlight. All through the entire eighth chapter,
beginning with the twelfth verse which is usually entitled
“Jesus, the Light of the World,” we find a
transcription of this profound truth concerning the meaning
of the “I AM.” When you read this chapter,
emphasize the words “I” or “I AM”
wherever they appear and realize that “I AM” was
the name in which the initiates felt themselves
united. Then you will understand it and it will seem to you
that this chapter must then be read in somewhat the following
manner:
Then Jesus
spoke to His disciples and said: That which is able to say
“I AM” to itself, is the Force of the Light of
the World, and whoever follows after me will see in clear,
waking consciousness what those who wander in darkness do
not see.
But those
who clung to the old belief that only by night can the
Light of Love be implanted within the human being, those
who were called the Pharisees, answered: Thou callest upon
thy “I AM” but we call upon Father Abraham. In
this way we feel the power which justifies us in acting as
self-conscious beings. We feel ourselves strong when we
immerse ourselves in the substance of a common ego which
reaches to Father Abraham.
Jesus said:
— If one speaks of the I, as I speak, then is the
testimony a true one; for I know that this I comes from the
Father, from the primeval foundation of the world and I
know whither it tends.
Now, let us
consider those important words of Chapter VIII, verse 15,
which should be translated in the following manner:
Ye judge all
things according to the flesh, but I judge not the
perishable that is in the flesh.
And if I
judge, then is my judgment true. For the I does not exist
for itself alone, but it is united with the Father from
whom it has descended.
That is the
meaning of this passage. Thus everywhere you find reference
to a common Father. We are now able to bring the idea of the
Father still more clearly before our souls. Then we see that
the words, “Before Father Abraham was, was the I
AM,” contain the living essence of the Christian
doctrine.
Today we have
gone deeply into the words of the Gospel of St. John, more
deeply than we would have been able had I interpreted them
from an external point of view. We have drawn these words out
of Spiritual Wisdom and have alluded to certain important
words in the Gospel of St. John which show the very
essentials of Christianity. We shall see that just by
understanding such germinal and primal key-words, light and
clarity will be brought into the whole of the Gospel.
Let us
consider all this as a teaching that was given in the
Christian esoteric schools, a teaching which the writer of
the Gospel has transcribed — in a way which we shall
discuss — in order that he might hand it down to
posterity for those who really wish to penetrate into its
meaning.
|