XI
CHRISTIAN INITIATION
If in this
whole lecture course we are to concentrate our efforts on
gaining a deeper understanding of the words “Father and
Mother of Jesus,” and consequently of the essence of
Christianity in general according to the Gospel of St. John,
we must first acquire the material for an understanding of
the concept, Mother and Father, in its spiritual sense, as it
is intended in this Gospel and at the same time in its actual
meaning. For it is not a question of an allegorical or a
symbolic explanation.
We must first
understand what it means to unite oneself with the higher
spiritual worlds, to prepare oneself to receive the higher
worlds. We must at the same time consider the nature of
initiation, especially in regard to the Gospel of St. John.
Let us ask: What is an initiate?
In all ages of
the post-Atlantean human evolution, an initiate has been a
person who could lift himself above the outer physical
sense-world and have his own personal experiences in the
spiritual worlds, a person who could experience the spiritual
worlds just as the ordinary human being experiences the
physical sense-world through the outer senses, eyes, ears,
etc. Such an initiate becomes then a witness of those worlds
and their truths. That is one aspect. But there is also
something else very essential which every initiate acquires
as a very special characteristic during his initiation, that
is, he lifts himself above the feelings and sensations which
are not only justified but also very necessary within the
physical world, but which cannot, however, exist in the same
way in the spiritual world.
Do not
misunderstand what is said here and imagine that anyone who
is able, as an initiate, to experience the spiritual world as
well as the physical world must give up all other human
feelings and sensations which are of value here in the
physical world and exchange them for those of the higher
worlds. This is not so. He does not exchange one for the
other, but he acquires one in addition to the other. If, on
the one hand, he has to spiritualize his feelings, he must,
on the other, strengthen much more those feelings which are
of use for working in the physical world. In this way we must
interpret those words used in connection with an initiate,
namely, that he must, in a certain sense, become a homeless
person. It is not meant that in any sense he must become
estranged from his home and his family as long as he lives in
the physical world, but these words have at least this much
significance, that by acquiring the corresponding feelings in
the spiritual world, the feelings for the physical world will
experience a finer, more beautiful development. What does it
mean to be homeless? It means that one without this
designation cannot, in the true sense of the word, attain
initiation. To be a homeless man, means that he must develop
no special sympathies in the spiritual world similar to those
he possesses here in the physical world for special regions
or relationships. The individual human being in the physical
world belongs to some particular folk or to some particular
family, to this or that community of the state. That is all
quite proper. He does not need to lose this; he needs it
here. If, however, he wished to employ these feelings in the
spiritual world, he would bring a very bad dowry to that
world. There, it is not a question of developing sympathy for
anything, but of allowing everything to work upon him
objectively, according to its inherent worth. It could also
be said, were this generally understood, that an initiate
must be, in the fullest sense of the word, an objective human
being.
It is just
through its evolution upon the earth that humanity has
emerged out of a former homeless state connected with the
ancient dreamy, clairvoyant consciousness. We have seen how
mankind has descended out of the spiritual spheres into the
physical world. In the primal spiritual spheres, patriotism
and such things did not exist. When humanity descended from
the spiritual spheres, one part peopled the earth in one
region and another part in another region, and thus the
individual groups of human beings of different regions became
stereotype copies of those regions. Do not imagine that the
negro became black solely from inner reasons; he became black
also through adapting himself to the region of the earth in
which he lived. And so it was also with the white people.
Just as the great differences of colour and race came into
existence because human beings have acquired something
through their connection with their environment, so is it
also true in respect of the smaller differences in folk
individuality. But this has again to do with the
specialization of love upon the earth. Because men became
dissimilar, love was at first established in small
communities. Only gradually will humanity be able to evolve
out of the small communities into a large community of love
which will develop concretely through the very implanting of
the Spirit-Self. The initiate had to anticipate whither human
evolution is tending in order to overcome and bridge over all
barriers and bring about great peace, great harmony and
brotherhood. In his homelessness, he must always, at the very
beginning, receive the same rudiments of great brotherly
love. This was symbolically expressed in ancient times in the
descriptions of the wanderings experienced by the initiate,
such as those, for example, of Pythagoras. Why was this
described? In order that the initiate might become objective
toward every thing in the feelings he had developed within
the heart of the community. It is the task of Christianity to
bring to the whole of humanity the Impulse of this
Brotherhood which the initiate always possessed as an
individual impulse.
Let us hold
clearly in mind that most profound idea of Christianity, that
the Christ is the Spirit of the earth and that the earth is
His body or vesture. And let us take it literally, for we
have said that we must weigh in the balance each separate
word of such a document as the Gospel of St. John. What do we
learn with respect to the “vesture of the earth”
when we make a survey of evolution? We learn, first of all,
the fact that the vesture of the earth — that is, the
solid parts of it — was divided. One person took
possession of this part, another of that part. This part
belonged to one person, that part to another. Possession,
i.e. the extension of the personality through the acquisition
of property, is in a certain sense that into which the
garment worn by the Christ, the Spirit of the earth, has, in
the course of time, been divided. One thing alone could not
be divided, but belonged to all; this was the airy envelope
surrounding the earth. And from this airy covering, the
breath of life was breathed into the human being, as we are
shown in the myths of Paradise. Here we have the first
rudiments of the ego in the physical body. The air cannot be
divided. Let us try to find out whether the one who described
Christianity most profoundly in the Gospel of St. John has
anywhere indicated this:
And they
parted His garments; but His coat they did not divide.
Here you have
the words which give you an explanation of how the earth as a
whole, together with its airy envelope, is the body or
garment, and the coat of the Christ. The garments of the
Christ were divided into continents and regions; but not the
coat. The air has not been divided; it remains a common
possession of all. It is the external, material symbol for
the love which is hovering about the earthly globe, which
will later be realized.
And in many
other connections, Christianity must bring mankind to an
acceptance of some of the ancient principles of initiation.
If we wish to understand this, we must now characterize
initiation. It will suffice, if we consider especially the
three main types of initiation; the ancient Yoga, the really
specific Christian initiation, and that initiation which is
entirely appropriate for men of the present day, the
Christian-Rosicrucian initiation. We intend now to describe
what course initiation, in general, takes in all three of
these forms; what it is and what it represents.
How does a
human being become capable of perception in spiritual worlds?
First, let me ask, how have you become capable of observing
in the physical world? The physical body has sense-organs
that make this possible. If you trace human evolution very
far back, you will find that in primeval times, the human
creature did not yet possess eyes for seeing and ears for
hearing in the physical world, but that, as Goethe says, all
organs were still undifferentiated. As proof of this, just
recall how certain lower animals today still have these
undifferentiated organs. Certain lower animals have points
through which they can distinguish only light and darkness,
and out of these undifferentiated organs, eyes and ears have
been moulded and formed. They have been worked into the
plastic substance of the physical body. Because your eye has
been moulded, there exists for you a world of colour, and
because your ear has been sculptured, a world of tone is
audible to you. No one has the right to say that a world does
not really exist; he may only say, “I do not perceive
it.” For to see the world in the true sense of the
word, means that I have the organs with which to perceive it.
One may say: “I know only this or that world,”
but one may not say: “I do not admit of the existence
of a world that someone else perceives.” A person who
speaks in this manner demands that others too should perceive
only just what he himself perceives, but nothing else; he
claims authoritatively that only what he perceives is true.
When at present someone appears and says: That is all
Anthroposophical imagining, what Anthroposophists declare
exists, does not exist,” he only proves that he and
those like him do not perceive these worlds. We take the
positive standpoint. Whoever grants only the existence of
what he himself perceives, demands not only that we
acknowledge what he knows, but he wishes to make an
authoritative decision about something of which he knows
nothing. There is no greater intolerance than that shown by
official science toward Spiritual Science, and it will become
even worse than it has ever been before! It appears in the
most varied forms. People are not at all conscious of saying
something which they should not allow themselves to say. In
many gatherings of very good Christians, one can hear it
said: "Anthroposophists talk of some kind of an esoteric
Christian teaching, but Christianity needs no esoteric
teaching; for only that can be true which a simple,
unpretentious mind can perceive and understand," which means,
of course, only what the speaker can perceive and understand.
He therefore requires that no one should perceive and
understand anything different from what he himself perceives
and understands. The infallibility of the Pope is quite
properly not acknowledged in such Christian assemblies, but
the infallibility of the individual is claimed today in the
widest circles even by the Christians. Anthroposophy is
attacked as a result of this papal standpoint in consequence
of which each individual sets himself up as a kind of little
pope.
If we consider
that the physical sense-world exists for us because the
individual organs have been carved into the physical body, it
will no longer seem extraordinary when it is said that
perception in a higher world rests upon the fact that higher
organs have been formed in the higher members of the human
organism, in the ether and astral bodies. The physical body
is, in this way, already provided with its sense-organs, but
the ether and astral bodies are not yet so provided; these
have still to be carved into them. When this has been done,
there exists what is called perception in the higher
worlds.
We shall now
speak of the way in which these organs are built into the
ether and astral bodies. We have said that in anyone who
aspires to initiation and has attained it, higher organs have
been developed. How is this accomplished? It is a matter of
understanding the human astral body in the state in which it
exists in its purity. During the day this astral body is
immersed in the physical body. There the forces of the
physical body act upon it; it is not then free. It carries
out the demands of the physical body; hence it is impossible
to begin the development of these higher organs during the
day. It can be begun when the astral body is out of the
physical body, in sleep; only then can the astral body be
moulded. The human astral body can only have its higher sense
organs developed when they are carved into it during sleep,
while outside the physical body. But we cannot manipulate a
sleeping human being; that would not be possible for the
modern man, if he wishes to perceive what is happening to him
in sleep. If you have him in an unconscious condition, then
he cannot observe this. Here there seems to be a
contradiction, for the astral body is not conscious of its
connection with the physical body during sleep. But
indirectly it is possible that during the day the
physical body is acted upon and the impressions which it then
receives remain within the astral body when this is withdrawn
at night. Just as the impressions which the astral body
receives from the surrounding physical world have been
impressed upon it, so in like manner we must do something
quite specific with the physical body, in order that this
something be imprinted upon the astral body and then be
formed in it in the proper manner. This happens when the
human being ceases to live in his customary way during the
day, allowing random impressions to enter his consciousness,
and takes his inner life in hand by means of a methodical
schooling in the manner described. This is called Meditation,
Concentration or Contemplation. These are exercises which are
as strictly prescribed in the schools for the purpose, as
microscopy is prescribed in the laboratories. If a person
carries out these exercises, they act so intensely upon him
that the astral body is plastically re-shaped when it
withdraws during sleep. Just as this sponge adapts itself to
the form of my hand as long as I hold it there, but forms
itself again according to the forces inherent in it as soon
as I release it, so in like manner is it with the astral
body; when in sleep it withdraws from the corporality, it
follows the astral forces invested in it. Thus it is during
the day that we must undertake those spiritual activities by
means of which the astral body, during the night, is
plastically formed so that organs of higher perception are
developed in it.
Meditation can
be regulated in a threefold manner. 1. There can be more
consideration given to the thought-matter, to the so-called
elements of Wisdom, the pure element of thought. This is the
Yoga training which deals especially with the element of
thought, Contemplation. 2. One can work more upon the feeling
through its special cultivation. This is the specifically
Christian course. 3. Again one can work through a combination
of feeling and will. This is the Christian-Rosicrucian
method. To consider the Yoga practice would carry us too far,
and it would also have no relationship to the Gospel of St.
John. We shall consider the specifically Christian initiation
and explain its basis. You must think of this form of
initiation as one which a person belonging to the present
social order could hardly undergo. It demands a temporary
isolation. The Rosicrucian method, however, is the method by
which we can work ourselves into the higher worlds without
interfering with our duties. What, however, is applicable in
principle, we can also fully explain by means of Christian
initiation.
This method of
initiation has to do exclusively with the feelings, and I
shall now have to enumerate seven experiences of the
feeling-life; seven stages of feeling, through the
experiencing of which the astral body is actually so affected
that it develops its organs during the night. Let us describe
how the Christian neophyte must live in order that he may
pass through these stages. The first stage is what is called
“Washing the Feet.” Here the teacher says to the
pupil: “Observe the plants. They have their roots in
the ground; the mineral earth is a lower being than the
plant. If the plant were able to contemplate its own nature,
it would have to say to the earth; it is true I am a higher
being, but if thou wert not there, I could not exist; for
from thee, O earth, I draw most of my sustenance. If the
plant were able to translate this into feeling, it would then
bow itself down to the stone and say: — I bow myself
before thee, O stone, thou humbler being, for I am indebted
to thee for my very existence! Then if we ascend to the
animal, it would have to behave in a similar manner toward
the plant and say: Indeed it is true, I am higher than the
plant, but to the lower kingdoms I owe my existence! If in
this manner we mount higher and reach the human being, then
each individual who stands somewhat higher in the social
scale must incline himself to the lower and say: To those on
the lower social level I owe my existence! This continues on
up to Christ-Jesus. The Twelve who are about Him are at a
level lower than Christ-Jesus; but as the plant develops out
of the stone, so does the Christ grow out of the Twelve. He
bows down to the Twelve and says: I owe you My
existence.”
When the
teacher had explained this to the pupil, he then said to him:
"For weeks must thou surrender thyself to this cosmic feeling
of how the superior should incline to the inferior and when
thou hast thoroughly developed this feeling within thee, then
wilt thou experience an inner and an outer symptom!" These
are not the essential things, they only indicate that the
pupil has practiced sufficiently. When the physical body was
sufficiently influenced by the soul, this was indicated to
him by an external symptom in which he feels as though water
were lapping over his feet. That is a very real feeling! And
he has another very real feeling in which the “Washing
of the Feet” appears to him as in a mighty vision in
the astral, the inclining of the Higher Self to the lower.
Thus the occult student experiences in the astral world what
is found depicted in the Gospel of St. John as an historical
fact.
At the second
stage, the pupil is told: "Thou must develop within thyself
yet another feeling. Thou must picture how it would be were
all the suffering and sorrow possible in the world to come
upon thee; thou must feel how it would be wert thou exposed
to the piling up of all possible hindrances, and thou must
enter into the feeling that thou must stand erect even though
all the adversity of the world were to bear down upon thee!"
Then when the pupil has practised this exercise for a
sufficient length of time, there are again two symptoms; in
the first he has the feeling of being beaten from all sides,
and in the second he has an astral vision of the
“Scourging.” I am relating what hundreds of
people have experienced whereby they have acquired the
ability to mount into the higher worlds.
In the third
exercise, the pupil had to imagine that the holiest thing
that he possesses, which he defends with his whole ego-being,
is subjected to jeers and gibes. He must say to himself:
— “Come what may, I must hold myself erect and
defend what is holy to me.” When he had accustomed
himself to this, he felt something like pricking upon his
head, and he experienced the “Crown of Thorns” as
an astral vision. Again it must be said that the important
thing is not the symptoms; they appear as a result of the
exercises. Care was also taken that there was no question of
suggestion and auto-suggestion.
In the fourth
exercise, the pupil's body must become as foreign to his
feelings as any external object — a stick of wood for
example — and he must not say “I” to his
body. This experience must become so much a part of his
feelings that he says: “I carry my body about with me
as I do my coat.” He connects his ego no longer with
his body. Then something occurs which is called the Stigmata.
What in many cases might be a condition of sickness is in
this case a result of Meditation, because all sickness must
be eliminated. On the feet and hands and on the right side of
the breast appear the so-called Stigmata; and as an inner
symptom, he beholds the “Crucifixion” in an
astral vision.
The fifth,
sixth and seventh grades of feeling, we can only briefly
describe. The fifth grade consists of what is called
“The Mystical Death.” Through feelings which the
pupil is permitted to experience at this stage, he feels as
though, in an instant, a black curtain were drawn before the
whole physical, visible world and as though everything had
disappeared. This moment is important because of something
else that must be experienced, if one wishes to push on into
Christian initiation, in the true sense of the word. The
pupil then feels that he can plunge into the primal causes of
evil, pain, affliction and sorrow. And he can suffer all the
evil that exists in the depths of the human soul, when he
descends into Hell. That is the “Descent into
Hell.” When this has been experienced, it is as though
the black curtain had been rent asunder and he looks into the
spiritual world.
The sixth step
is what is called the “Interment and
Resurrection.” This is the stage at which the pupil
feels himself one with the entire earth-body. He feels as
though he were laid within and belonged to the whole earth
planet. His life has been extended into a planetary
existence.
The seventh
experience cannot be described in words; only one could
describe it who is able to think without the physical brain
instrument — and for that there is no language, because
our language has only designations for the physical plane.
Therefore, only a reference can be made to this stage. It
surpasses anything that the human being can possibly
conceive. This is called the “Ascension” or the
complete absorption into the spiritual world.
This completes
the gamut of feelings into which the pupil, during waking
day-consciousness, must place himself with complete inner
equanimity. When the pupil has surrendered himself to these
experiences, they act so strongly upon the astral body that,
in the night, inner sense-organs are developed, are
plastically formed. These seven steps of feeling are not
practiced in the Rosicrucian initiation, but the result is
the same as that of which we have just spoken.
Thus you see
that the important thing in initiation is to influence the
astral body in such a way by the indirect means of the
day-experiences, that it may, when it is wholly free during
the night, take on a new plastic form. When the human being
in this manner, as an astral being, has given himself a
plastic form, the astral body has become actually a new
member of the human organism. He is then wholly permeated by
Manas or Spirit-Self.
When the
astral body is thus divided, that part which has in this way
been plastically formed is brought over into the ether body.
And just as you press the seal upon the sealing-wax, and the
name on the seal appears not only on the seal, but on the wax
as well, so too must the astral body dip down into the ether
body and impress upon it whatever it may now possess. The
inner process, the working over of the astral body, is the
same in all methods of initiation. Only in the method of
transmission into the ether body do the individual methods
differ. We shall speak tomorrow of these differences and show
how the three methods of initiation, which have proved to be
the most profound evolutionary impulses in the course of the
post-Atlantean age, differ from each other and what
significance initiation, in general, has for human evolution.
Then these parts of the Gospel of St. John upon which we have
not yet been able to touch will also become clear.
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