The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers.
Lucifer, Ahriman, Asuras.
TO-DAY WE SHALL concern ourselves with the question: What does modern
man really possess in spiritual science? The answer to this question
will be based on many things that have come to our knowledge in the
course of lectures, especially those given last winter. Spiritual
science may appear, at first, to be one conception of the world among
the many others now existing. It may be argued: The riddles of
existence are there; people endeavor with every possible means at
their disposal, religious or scientific, to answer these riddles of
existence in an effort to satisfy, as it is said, their eagerness and
desire for knowledge. Spiritual science may well be considered just
another philosophy of life whether calling itself materialism,
monism, animism, idealism, realism, or what you will. It may be
represented as something that endeavors to satisfy the desire for
knowledge on a par with other modern world-conceptions. But this is
not correct. In what man acquires through spiritual science he has
something of positive, continuous value in life, something that not
only satisfies his thinking, his thirst for knowledge, but is a real
and potent factor in life itself. To understand this we must look far
afield and consider the evolutionary course of mankind from a
particular point of view.
We have often looked back to the times preceding the great Atlantean
flood, to the times when our forefathers, that is to say our own souls
in the bodies of those forefathers, lived on the ancient continent of
Atlantis between Europe, Africa and America. We have also looked still
further back, to the Lemurian epoch, when the souls of men incarnated
at the present time were at a much lower stage of existence. We shall
now speak again of this epoch, reminding ourselves, to begin with, of
the following: Man has attained the present stage of his life of
feeling, his life of will, his intelligence, nay even his form, because
higher spiritual Beings in the cosmos have also been at work in
earth-existence. We have spoken of these Beings as the Thrones,
the Spirits of Wisdom, the Spirits of Movement, the
Spirits of Form, the Spirits of Personality,
and so forth.
They are the great builders and architects of existence who have led
the human race onward step by step to its present stage. But we must
bring clearly before our minds to-day that Spirits and Beings other
than those who help human evolution forward have also intervened;
there are spiritual Beings who oppose the progressive Powers. And for
every epoch Lemurian, Atlantean, Post-Atlantean it is possible
to indicate which particular spiritual Beings bring the hindrances,
which spiritual Beings are the opponents of those whose only aim is
the progress of humanity.
In the Lemurian epoch the first that concerns us to-day it was
the Luciferic Beings who intervened in man's evolution, in opposition
to the Powers who at that time were striving to help him forward. In
the Atlantean epoch, the Spirits opposing the progressive Powers were the
Spirits of Ahriman or Mephistopheles. The Ahrimanic or
Mephistophelean Spirits to give the precise names are those
known in medieval times as the Spirits of Satan who must
not be confused with Lucifer.
In our own epoch, as time goes on, other spiritual Beings of whom we
shall speak later, will stand as hindrances in the path of the
progressive Spirits. We will ask ourselves now: What did the Luciferic
Spirits actually achieve in the ancient Lemurian epoch?
These things will be considered to-day from a particular point of
view. Of what domain did the Luciferic Spirits lay hold during the
Lemurian epoch? The best way to understand this is to cast our minds
back over the course taken by human evolution.
You know that on Old Saturn the Thrones poured out their own substance
to lay the first foundation of the human physical body. On Old Sun the
Spirits of Wisdom imbued man with the ether- or life-body. And on the
Earth the Spirits of Form endowed him with the I, the ego, in order
that by realizing himself as distinct from his environment he might
become an independent being. But even if through the deed of the
Spirits of Form he had become independent vis-à-vis the
external world surrounding him on earth, he would never have become
independent of the Spirits of Form themselves; he would have remained
dependent on them, he would have been directed by them as on leading-strings.
That this did not happen was due to something which had, in a certain
sense, a beneficial effect, namely the fact that in the Lemurian epoch
the Luciferic Beings set themselves in opposition to the Spirits of
Form. It was these Luciferic Beings who gave man the prospect of
freedom but therewith the possibility of evil-doing, of succumbing
to passion and desire in the world of sense. Where did these Luciferic
Beings actually take hold? They took hold of what had been instilled
into man as his innermost member at that time the astral body. They
established their footing in the human astral body and took possession
of it. Had it not been for the coming of the Luciferic Beings this
astral body would have remained in the sole possession of the Spirits
of Form. They would have instilled into this astral body the forces
which give man his human countenance, making him into an image of the
Gods, namely, of the Spirits of Form. All this man would have come to
be; but in his life through all eternity he would have remained
dependent upon the Spirits of Form.
The Luciferic Beings had crept, as it were, into man's astral body, so
that Beings of two kinds were now working in it: the Beings who bring
man forward and the Beings who, while obstructing this constant
impulse, had at the same time established the foundations of his
independence. Had the luciferic Beings not approached, man would have
remained in a state of innocence and purity in his astral body. No
passions inciting him to crave for what is to be found only on earth
would have arisen in him. The passions, urges and desires of man were
densified, debased, as it were, by the Luciferic Beings. Had they not
approached, man would have retained a perpetual longing for his
heavenly home, for the realms of spirit whence he has descended. He
would have taken no delight in what surrounds him on the earth;
earthly impressions would have aroused no interest in him. It was
through the Luciferic Spirits that he came to have this interest, to
crave for the impressions of the earth. These Spirits impelled him
into the earthly sphere by pervading his innermost member, his astral
body. Why, then, was it that man did not fall away entirely at that
time from the Spirits of Form or from the higher spiritual realms as a
whole? Why was it that in his interests and desires he did not succumb
wholly to the world of sense?
It was because the Spirits who lead humanity forward took counter
measures; they inculcated into the being of man what would otherwise
not have been his lot, namely, illness, suffering and pain. That was
the necessary counterweight to the deeds of the Luciferic Spirits.
The Luciferic Spirits gave man material desires; as their
countermeasures the higher Beings introduced illness and suffering as
the consequences of material desires and interests, to the end that he
should not utterly succumb to this world of sense. And so there is
exactly as much suffering and pain in the world as there is interest
only in the physical and the material. The scales are held in perfect
balance; the one does not outweigh the other so many passions and
desires on the one side, so much illness and pain on the other. This
was the effect of the mutual activities of the Luciferic Spirits and
the Spirits of Form in the Lemurian epoch. Had the Luciferic Spirits
not approached, man would not have descended into the earthly realm as
soon as he actually did. His passion and craving for the world of
sense also brought it about that his eyes were opened and he was able
to gaze at the surrounding field of material existence earlier than
would otherwise have been the case. If evolution had proceeded
uninterruptedly along the course intended by the progressive Spirits,
man would have had sight of the surrounding world only from the middle
of the Atlantean epoch onwards. But then he would have seen it
spiritually, not as he sees it to-day; he would have seen it as the
direct expression of spiritual beings. Because man came prematurely
into the earthly sphere, forced downwards by his earthly interests and
desires, conditions were different from what they would otherwise have
been in the middle of the Atlantean epoch.
The result was that the Ahrimanic Spirits Mephistophelean
Spirits as it is equally correct to call them mingled in what
man was able to see and apprehend; thus he fell into error, into what, for the
first time, can correctly be called conscious sin. The host of
Ahrimanic Spirits has worked upon man since the middle of the Atlantean
epoch onwards. To what did these Ahrimanic Spirits entice him? They
enticed him into regarding everything in his environment as material,
with the result that he does not see through this material world to
its true, spiritual foundations. Were man to have perceived the
Spiritual in every stone, in every plant, in every animal, he would
never have fallen into error and therewith into evil; if the
progressive Spirits alone had worked upon him he would have been
protected from those illusions to which he must always fall a prey
when he bases himself solely upon the manifestations of the world of
sense.
How did those spiritual Beings who desire to further man's progress
act in order to combat this corruption, error and illusion arising
from the material world? They saw to it the process was of course
slow and very gradual that man was actually lifted away from the
material world as such; this enabled him to shoulder and work out his
karma. Whereas, therefore, the Beings upon whom it fell to rectify the
enticement of the Luciferic Beings brought into the world suffering,
pain and what is connected with them, namely death, the Beings whose
task it was to rectify the outcome of error concerning the
sense-world, made it possible for man, through his karma, eventually
to blot out all the error, all the evil he has wrought in the world.
For what would have happened if he had become the prey of evil and
error? Little by little he would have become one with the evil; no
progress would have been possible for him. For with every error, every
lie, every illusion, we cast an obstacle in the way of progress. We
should fall back in our progress to exactly the same extent to which
we had cast obstacles in our path through sin and error, if we were
not in a position to rectify them; in other words, we could not reach
man's true goal. It would be impossible to attain this goal if the
counter-forces, the forces of karma, were not in operation.
Suppose that in some life you commit a wrong. If this wrong were to
become firmly fixed in your life it would mean nothing less than that
you would lose the step forward which you would have taken had you not
committed the wrong; with every wrong, a step would be lost enough
steps to correspond exactly with the wrongs committed. If the
possibility of surmounting error had not been given, man must
ultimately have been submerged by it. But the blessing of karma was
bestowed. What does this blessing mean for man? Is karma something at
which to shudder, something to dread? No, indeed! Karma is a power for
which man should be thankful. For karma says to us: If you have
committed a wrong, remember that God is not mocked; whatsoever a man
soweth that shall he also reap. An error demands that you shall right
it; then, having expunged it from your karma you can again take a step
forward!
Without karma, no progress would be possible. Karma is a blessing that
has been vouchsafed to us, inasmuch as it obliges us to rectify every
error, to re-achieve the steps that thrust us back.
Karma was thus the indirect consequence of the deeds of Ahriman. And
now let us go further. In our days we are moving towards the epoch
when other Beings will draw near to man Beings who in the future
before us will intrude more and more deeply into human evolution. Just
as the Luciferic Spirits intervened in the Lemurian and the Ahrimanic
Spirits in the Atlantean epoch, so our epoch too will see the
intrusion of Beings. Let us be clear about the nature of these Beings.
Of the Beings who intervened during the Lemurian epoch we must say:
They entrenched themselves in the astral body of man, drew his
interests, impulses and desires down into the earthly sphere. Where
to speak more precisely did these Luciferic Beings entrench
themselves?
You can only understand this by taking as a basis what is set forth in
my book Theosophy. There it is shown that the following members of
man's being must be distinguished: first, his physical body; then his
ether or life-body and his astral body or as I have called it in
that book, the sentient body, or soul-body.
These are the three members with which man was endowed before his
earthly existence. The foundation of the physical body was laid on Old
Saturn, the ether-body on the Old Sun, the soul or sentient body on
the Old Moon. On the Earth was added the sentient soul which is
actually a transformation, an elaboration carried out unconsciously,
of the sentient body. Lucifer anchored himself in the sentient soul;
and there he remains. Through the unconscious transformation of the
ether-body, the intellectual soul came into being, a more detailed
description of which is contained in the book entitled The Education
of the Child. It was in this second soul-member, the intellectual soul
the transformed part of the ether-body that Ahriman established
his footing. From there he lures man to false conceptions and
judgments of material things, leads him to error, to sin, to lying
to everything that originates in the intellectual or mind soul. In
every illusion that matter is the sole reality, we must perceive the
whispered promptings of Ahriman, of Mephistopheles. Thirdly, there is
the consciousness soul (spiritual soul), arising from an unconscious
transformation of the physical body. You will remember how this
transformation came about. Towards the end of the Atlantean epoch, the
etheric body corresponding to the head came right into the physical
head and gradually brought about selfconsciousness in the physical
body. Fundamentally speaking, man is still working at this unconscious
transformation of the physical body, at the development of the
consciousness soul. And in the age now, approaching, those spiritual
Beings known as the Asuras
(see Note 1)
will creep into the consciousness soul and therewith into the human
I or ego for the I lights up in the
consciousness soul. The Asuras will generate evil with a far mightier
force than was wielded by the Satanic powers in the Atlantean epoch or
by the Luciferic Spirits in the Lemurian epoch.
In the course of the Earth-period man will cast away all the evil
brought to him by the Luciferic Spirits together with the blessing of
freedom. The evil brought by the Ahrimanic Spirits can be shed in the
course of karma. But the evil brought by the Asuric powers cannot be
expunged in this way. Whereas the good Spirits instituted pain and
suffering, illness and death in order that despite the possibility of
evil, man's evolution may still advance, whereas the good Spirits made
possible the working of karma to the end that the Ahrimanic powers
might be resisted and the evil made good, it will not be so easy to
counter the Asuric powers as earth-existence takes its course. For
these Asuric Spirits will prompt what has been seized hold of by them,
namely the very core of man's being, the consciousness soul together
with the I, to unite with earthly materiality. Fragment after
fragment will be torn out of the I, and in the same measure in which
the Asuric Spirits establish themselves in the consciousness soul, man
must leave parts of his existence behind on the earth. What thus
becomes the prey of the Asuric powers will be irretrievably lost. Not
that the whole man need become their victim but parts of his spirit
will be torn away by the Asuric powers. These Asuric powers are
heralded to-day by the prevailing tendency to live wholly in the
material world and to be oblivious of the realty of spiritual beings
and spiritual worlds. True, the Asuric powers corrupt man to-day in a
way that is more theoretical than actual. To-day they deceive him by
various means into thinking that his I is a product of the physical
world only; they hue him to a kind of theoretic materialism. But as
time goes on and the premonitory signs of this are the dissolute,
sensuous passions that are becoming increasingly prevalent on earth
they will blind man's vision of the spiritual Beings and spiritual
Powers. Man will know nothing nor desire to know anything of a
spiritual world. More and more he will not only teach that the highest
moral ideals of humanity are merely sublimations of animal impulses,
that human thinking is but a transformation of a faculty also
possessed by the animals, that man is akin to the animal in respect of
his form and moreover in his whole being descends from the animal
but he will take this view in all earnestness and order his life in
accordance with it.
Man does not as yet entirely base his life on the principle that his
true being descends from the animal. But this view of existence will
inevitably arise, with the result that men will also live like
animals, will sink into animal impulses, animal passions. And in many
things that need not be further characterized here, many things that
in the great cities come to expression in orgies of dissolute
sensuality, we can already perceive the lurid, hellish glare of the
Spirits we call the Asuras.
Once again let us look back. We have said that suffering and pain, nay
even death, were brought by the Spirits who are intent upon man's
progress. The words of the Bible are unambiguous: In travail shalt
thou bear thy children! Death has come into the world. Death was
decreed for man by the Powers opposing the Luciferic Spirits. From
whom came the gift of karma itself, who made karma possible for man?
To understand what is here being said you must discard all earthly,
pedantic notions of time. Earthly notions of time give rise to the
belief that what has once happened here or there will have an effect
only upon what comes afterwards. But in the spiritual world it is the
case that what comes to pass reveals itself in its effect, beforehand;
in its effect it is already there, in advance. Whence comes the
blessing of karma? Whence has there arisen in our earth-evolution this
blessing of karma? From a Power none other than Christ.
Although Christ appeared only later, He was always present in the
spiritual sphere of the earth Already in the ancient Oracles of
Atlantis, the priests of those Oracles spoke of the Spirit of the
Sun, of Christ. In the old Indian epoch of civilization the Holy
Rishis spoke of Vishva Karman; Zarathustra in ancient Persia spoke
of Ahura Mazdao, Hermes of Osiris; and Moses spoke of
the Power which, being eternal, brings about the harmonization of the temporal
and natural, the Power living in the Ehjeh asher Ehjeh (I am the
I AM) as the harbinger of Christ. All spoke of the Christ; but where was He
to be found in those ancient times? In the realm to which the eye of
spirit alone can penetrate, in the spiritual world. In the spiritual
world He was always to be found, working in and from the spiritual
world. It is He Who even before man appeared on earth, sent down the
possibility of karma. Then He came Himself to the earth, and we know
what this has meant for man. We have described what was wrought by Him
in the earthly sphere, we have spoken of the significance of the Event
of Golgotha and of its effect also upon those who at that time were in
the spiritual world, not incarnate in earthly bodies. We know that at
the moment on Golgotha when the Blood flowed from the wounds, the
Christ-Spirit appeared in the underworld, flooding the whole world of
spirit with radiance and light; we have said that the appearance of
Christ on the earth is the event of supreme importance also for the
world through which man passes between death and a new birth
(see Note 2).
The impulse going forth from Christ is in the fullest sense reality.
We need but ask ourselves what would have become of the earth had
Christ not appeared. Precisely from the opposite picture an earth
without Christ you can apprehend the significance of Christ's
coming. Let us suppose that Christ had not come, that the Mystery of
Golgotha had not taken place.
Before Christ's Coming, the condition in the spiritual world of human
souls who were the most progressed, who had acquired the deepest
interest for earthly life, was truly expressed by the saying of the
Greeks: Better it is to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in
the realm of the Shades. For before the Event of Golgotha the souls in
the spiritual world felt completely isolated, enveloped in darkness.
The spiritual world in all its gleaming clarity was not transparent to
those who entered it through the portal of death. Each one felt
isolated, thrust back into himself as though a wall were between
himself and every other soul. And this feeling of isolation would have
become more and more intense. Man would have hardened within the ego,
would have been thrown back into himself, nor could he have found any
bridge to the others. And egoism, already intense, would have
increased beyond all telling with every new incarnation.
Earth-existence would more and more have made men into utter egoists.
There would have been no prospect of brotherhood on the earth or of
inner harmony among souls; for with every journey through the
spiritual world, stronger influence would have penetrated the ego.
That is what would have happened to an earth without Christ. That the
way from soul to soul will be found again, that it has been made
possible for the mighty force of brotherhood to pour over all humanity
this is due to Christ's Coming, to the Event of Golgotha. Therefore
Christ is the Power who has enabled man to turn earth-existence
ultimately to good account, in other words to give karma its true
configuration for karma must be worked out on the earth. That man
finds in himself the force to profit by his karma in physical
existence, that advancing evolution is possible for him all this he
owes to the working of the Christ Event, to the presence of Christ in
the earthly realm.
And so we see many diverse forces and beings working together in the
evolution of humanity. Had Christ not come upon the earth, man would
have been engulfed in error, because having hardened within himself he
would have become as it were a globe on its own, knowing nothing of
other beings, entirely self-enclosed, driven into that condition by
error and sin.
Christ is verily the Light which leads out of error and sin, the Light
which enables man to find the way upwards. And now let us ask
ourselves: What was it that was lost to man in that he descended from
the spiritual world, was ensnared in desires and passions under the
influence of Lucifer, and then, under Ahriman's influence, in error,
illusion and lying in the earthly world? He lost direct vision of
the spiritual world, he lost understanding of the spiritual world.
What, then, must he regain? He must regain full understanding of the
spiritual world. As a self-conscious being, man can grasp the import
of Christ's Deed only by realizing with full clarity of understanding,
the significance of Christ. The Christ-Power is there in very truth
not brought by man, for the Christ-Power was brought to the earth by
none other than Christ Himself. Karma has come into humanity through
Christ. But now, with self-consciousness, man must learn to know
Christ in His real nature and His connection with the whole universe.
Only so can man work in the true sense as an I. What then, does he
actually achieve when, after Christ's appearance, he does not merely
rest satisfied with letting Christ's power work upon him
unconsciously, with saying: I am content with the knowledge that
Christ came to the earth; He will redeem me and ensure my progress!
but when he says: I am resolved to know what Christ is in all reality,
how He descended; I am resolved to participate through my own spirit
in Christ's Deed! what does man achieve thereby?
Recall to your minds that because the Luciferic Spirits slipped into
his astral body, man has come down into the world of sense, thereby
falling prey to the evil but also acquiring the possibility of
self-conscious freedom. Lucifer is in very truth present in the being
of man, has drawn him down to the earth, has ensnared him in earthly
existence; inasmuch as the passions and desires contained in the
astral body had first been led by Lucifer into the earthly realm,
Ahriman too was able to invade the astral body in the intellectual
soul. Christ appeared, and with Him the force which can bear man
upwards again into the spiritual world. But now, if he so wills, man
can come to know Christ, he can gather all wisdom to this end. What
does he achieve thereby? Something of untold moment! When a man knows
Christ, when he absorbs the wisdom which begets insight into what
Christ truly is, then he redeems himself and the Luciferic Beings
through this knowledge of Christ. Were man merely to say: I am content
with the fact that Christ appeared and to allow myself to be redeemed
by Him unconsciously then he would contribute nothing to the
redemption of the Luciferic Beings. These Luciferic Beings who have
brought man freedom, also make it possible for him, if he so wills, to
turn it to account in order to understand Christ. Then the Luciferic
Spirits are cleansed and purified in the fire of Christianity and the
wrong done to the earth by them is changed into blessing. Freedom has
been attained; but it will also be carried into the spiritual sphere
as a blessing. That man is capable of this, that he is capable of
understanding Christ, that Lucifer, resurrected in a new form, can unite
with Christ as the good Spirit this, as prophecy still, was told by
Christ Himself to those around Him, when He said: Ye shall be illumined
by the new Spirit, by the Holy Spirit! This Holy Spirit
is none other than the Spirit through whom man can apprehend what
Christ has wrought. Christ desired not merely to work, but also to be
apprehended, to be understood. Therefore the sending of the Spirit by
whom men are inspired, the sending of the Holy spirit, is implicit
in Christianity.
In the spiritual sense, Whitsuntide belongs inseparably to Easter.
This Holy Spirit is none other than the Lucifer-Spirit, resurrected
now in higher, purer glory the Spirit of independent understanding,
wisdom-inwoven. Christ Himself foretold that this Spirit would come to
men after Him, and in the light of this Spirit their labors must
proceed. What is it that works onward in the light of this Spirit? The
world-stream of spiritual science, if rightly conceived! What is this
spiritual science? It is the wisdom of the Spirit, the wisdom that
lifts into the full light of consciousness that in Christianity which
would otherwise remain in the unconscious. The torch of the
resurrected Lucifer, of the Lucifer now transformed into the good,
blazons the way for Christ. Lucifer is the bearer of the Light
Christ is the Light! As the word itself denotes, Lucifer is the
Bearer of the Light. That is what the spiritual scientific movement
should be, that is implicit in it. Those who know that the progress of
mankind depends upon living apprehension of the mighty Event of
Golgotha are they who as the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of
Feelings are united in the great Guiding Lodge of mankind. And as
once the tongues of fire hovered down as a living symbol upon the
company of the apostles, so does the Holy Spirit announced by Christ
Himself reign as the Light over the Lodge of the Twelve. The
Thirteenth is the Leader of the Lodge of the Twelve. The Holy Spirit
is the mighty Teacher of those we name the Masters of Wisdom and of
the Harmony of Feelings. It is through them that his voice and his
wisdom flow down to mankind in this or that stream upon the earth. The
treasures of wisdom gathered together by the spiritual scientific
movement in order to understand the universe and the Spirits therein,
how through the Holy Spirit into the Lodge of the Twelve; and that
is what will ultimately lead mankind step by step to free,
self-conscious understanding of Christ and of the Event of Golgotha
Thus to cultivate spiritual science means to understand that the
Spirit has been sent into the world by Christ; the pursuit of
spiritual science is implicit in true Christianity. This will become
more and more evident to men; and then they will realize that in
spiritual science they have a potent asset in their lives. Men owe to
spiritual science the consciousness which dawns in them by degrees,
that Christ is the Spirit Who fills the world with light. And the
consequence will be that here on this earthly globe, in the physical
world itself, men will make progress in their moral life, in their
life of will, in their intellectual life. Through physical life itself
the world will be spiritualized in ever-increasing measure. Men will
grow in goodness, strength and wisdom and will gaze with ever
deepening vision into the foundations and origins of existence. They
will bear with them into the super-sensible life the fruits acquired in
this physical life, and ever and again bring these fruits back from
the super-sensible life into a new incarnation.
Thus the earth will more and more become the expression of its Spirit,
of the Christ-Spirit. Spiritual science will be understood in the
light of the world's foundations, apprehended as a real and active
power. In various respects to-day mankind is near to losing the Spirit
altogether. In the recent public lecture
(see Note 3)
it was said that men suffer to-day under the fear of heredity. The fear of
the burden of heredity is the direct offspring of our materialistic age. But
is it enough if a man simply says to himself that he need not have this fear?
By no means does that suffice. A man who does not concern himself with
the spiritual world, who does not instill into his soul what can flow from
spiritual science, is subject to the forces of physical heredity. Only
by steeping his whole being in what spiritual science can communicate
to him does he gain mastery over the forces of heredity, regards it as
a factor of no essential significance and becomes the victor of
everything that the powers of hindrance place in his way in the
external world. It is not by arguing or philosophizing it away, or by
contending: Spirit exists! that man brings the life of the senses
under his command, but by permeating himself with the Spirit, by
absorbing the Spirit, by having the will to acquire intimate knowledge
of the Spirit. Then spiritual science will make men healthier even in
the physical world; for spiritual science is itself a therapy that
brings vigor and health. And the essential power of spiritual science
will become still more evident to us when we consider what becomes of
the human being when he passes through the gate of death. The modern
mind finds great difficulty here.
Man thinks to himself: Why need I trouble about what happens in the
spiritual world? When I die I go into the spiritual world in any case
and then I shall see and hear what goes on there! In endless
variations one hears this easy-going way of talking: Why should I
trouble about the spiritual before I die? When the time comes I shall
see what there is to see. My relationship to the spiritual world will
not be altered in the slightest, no matter whether I do or do not
concern myself with it. But indeed this is not so! A man who thinks
in such a way will enter a world of darkness and gloom, unable to make
very much of what is said in my book Theosophy about the spiritual
worlds. For it is only by allying himself in spirit and soul with the
spiritual world during life in the physical world that man can acquire
the faculty of perception in the spiritual world; the preparation must
be made in his life here on earth. The spiritual world is there in
very truth the faculty of being able to see in that world must be
acquired on the earth; otherwise there is blindness in the spiritual
world.
Spiritual science is therefore the power which alone makes it possible
for man to enter the spiritual world with consciousness. Had Christ
not appeared in the physical world, man would have gone under in that
world, could not have found entry to the spiritual world. But Christ
lifts him into the spiritual world in such a way that he can see and
be conscious there. This depends upon his knowledge of how to unite
his being with the Spirit sent by Christ; failing that knowledge, he
remains unconscious. Man has to win his immortality through his own
efforts, for an unconscious immortality is no immortality. A beautiful
saying of Meister Eckhardt is: What does it profit a man to be a king
if he knows it not, What he meant was: Of what use is the
spiritual world to a man if he does not know what the spiritual worlds
are in reality? The capacity for seeing the spiritual world can be
acquired only in the physical world. Those who ask: Why was it
necessary for man to descend at all into the physical world? do well
to take this to heart. Man descended in order to acquire vision of
the spiritual world. He would have remained blind to the spiritual
world had he not descended and attained the self-conscious manhood
which enables him to return to the spiritual world now lying in
radiance and light before his soul.
Spiritual science is therefore not merely a conception of the world
in the accepted sense but something without which even in the
immortal part of his being man can know nothing about the worlds of
immortality. Spiritual science is an active power, permeating the soul
as reality. And in that you are present here in the pursuit of
spiritual science, you are not only gathering knowledge but you are
growing into something you would otherwise not have become. That is
the difference between spiritual science and other world-conceptions.
The latter are rooted in knowledge; spiritual science is rooted in
being.
Rightly conceived, these things will make us say to ourselves: With
this illumination, an inner, fundamental connection is revealed
between Christ, the Spirit, and spiritual science. In face of this
connection all the superficial statements made to-day to the effect
that a Western trend is being set up in opposition to an Eastern trend
of occultism fall to the ground. There can be no question of any such
opposition. There are not two occultisms, there is only one occultism;
and there is no opposition between eastern and western Theosophy. There
is only one truth. And what is our reply to be when we are asked: If
eastern occultism is the same as western occultism, why is it that in
eastern occultism, Christ is not acknowledged? The right reply is that
it is not for us to give the answer; that obligation does not rest
upon us, for we fully acknowledge eastern occultism. If asked whether
we acknowledge what eastern occultism says about Brahma, about the
Buddha, we shall answer: Most certainly we acknowledge it. We
understand what is meant when we are told that the Buddha attained his
exalted rank in this or that way. We deny no single one of the eastern
truths; in so far as they are positive truths we acknowledge them all.
But shall this prevent us from acknowledging as well, what goes yet
further? No indeed! We acknowledge what is said by eastern occultism,
but that does not prevent us from acknowledging, too, the western
truths.
When people allege that it is an inferior way of thinking on the part
of orientalists to say that the Buddha died from eating too much pork
as these learned gentlemen assert and it is explained that this
actually has a deep meaning, namely that the Buddha imparted to those
immediately around him too much of the esoteric wisdom, so that this
over-abundance caused the onset of a kind of karma then we agree
that it is so; we say: certainly there lie behind it the deeper
esoteric truths as stated by you who are eastern esotericists! But
when the statement that the Apocalypse was revealed to St. John on
Patmos amid thunder and lightning is held to be unintelligible
(see Note 4),
then our answer will be: everyone who is aware of what is really meant,
knows that it is a truth! We do not refute what is said about the
Buddha but we cannot agree when the validity of the other statement
(concerning the Apocalypse) is denied. We do not contest the assertion
that the astral body of the Buddha was preserved and was later
incorporated in Shankaracharya. But that does not prevent us from
teaching that the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth was preserved and
in multiple replicas was incorporated in various individuals dedicated
to Christianity, like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Elizabeth of
Thüringen. We deny no single truth of oriental esotericism. Therefore
when we are asked: Why is anything refuted? Why is there opposition?
it is not incumbent upon us to answer. It would be incumbent upon
us to answer if the opposition came from our side. But it does not!
The duty to answer rests upon one who denies, not upon one who agrees.
That is obvious enough.
In the coming weeks
(see Note 5)
you will be able to hear of the connection
between spiritual science and the Event of Golgotha and you will
realize that the whole vocation, the whole mission of the spiritual
scientific movement in the world is raised to a higher sphere inasmuch
as spiritual science puts into effect the inspiration, the power
proclaimed as the Spirit by Christ Himself.
So we see how Powers work together in the world, how everything that
appears to oppose the progress of mankind subsequently turns out to be
a blessing. We realize, too, that in the Post-Atlantean epoch from
age to age the Spirit who has brought man freedom will appear again
in a new form; Luciferus, the sovereign Bearer of Light, will be
redeemed. For everything in the great World Plan is good and the evil
endures only for a season. Therefore he alone believes in eternity of
the evil who confounds the temporal with the eternal; he who does not
rise from the temporal to the eternal can never understand the evil.
- Note 1:
- The Asuras are retarded Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archai
(Spirits of Personality). They are Beings who instead of furthering
man's progress to independence, lure him into gross egoism. In the
negative sense they now bear the name originally pertaining to the
entire Hierarchy. C.S.P.
- Note 2:
- Cp. Lecture 13, Cycle VIII: The Gospel of St. John in relation to
the other three Gospels, especially to the Gospel of St. Luke.
At the moment when the Blood flowed from the wounds on Golgotha,
the earth which in the course of evolution had grown ever
darker began to send rays out into cosmic space, began to be
radiant.
- Note 3:
- Berlin, 18th February, 1909.
- Note 4:
- The reference is to a passage in The Secret Doctrine, by H. P.
Blavatsky. A later volume, compiled by Annie Besant from manuscripts
left by Blavatsky includes a statement indicating that the author was
not unaware of the significance of thunder and lightening as an
accompaniment of spiritual revelations. (C.S.P.)
- Note 5:
- Lecture-Course on the Spiritual Hierarchies.
|