Lecture VIII
Basle, 25 November, 1907
At the end of
St. John's Gospel, the writer says that Christ did many other
things that are not contained in this book. We must also say
that even a much longer series of lectures would not suffice
to explain all that is written in the Gospel. In this lecture
we will examine into the ideas of “the Father”
and “I”. These two ideas will give us an
explanation of the evolution of humanity, of which we have
spoken in previous lectures. Humanity started out from an
ego-consciousness that was quite different from the one we
know to-day. By “Adam” we have to understand not
a single human being, but an ego-consciousness that embraced
several generations. The one who begins such a generation is
the “Father.” The Hebrews of the Old Testament
actually felt Abraham to be their father, and the single
personalities in the Hebrew people said to themselves: I am
not an independent ego; there is one that flows down from
Abraham and branches out into all who belong to my people,
and also into me.” Just as in a large tree the saps
flow from the root into all the branches, in the same way the
sap of Abraham, the common ego of the Hebrew people, flows
through the whole tribe. When a Hebrew in Old Testament times
uttered the name “father” he referred to the
whole line of his ancestry, and this ego consciousness which
embraced all the generations he called the divine
consciousness. When he called upon the ego as God, he called
it Jahve or Jehovah. When the name “Jahven” rang
out, the people were reminded that a common ego which began
with the ancestor of their race flowed down through the whole
people. Through the intermingling of blood this condition
became different in course of time; the consciousness of the
“I am” became individualised, and Christ is the
power which was to bring the consciousness of this change to
humanity. When the man of ancient times said “I
am,” he meant something that flowed down through
generations; the man of more recent times meant by it
something that flows through his own inner being. The first
meant the God who flows through the whole community as the
divine ego-consciousness; the other feels in himself
a spark or a drop of the divine substance.
Now let us
imagine that there is transposed to the Earth a Power which
makes men clearly conscious that this “I am” can
live in each individual human being, a Power which enables
one to realise that God has sunk a drop of His own substance
into each human being. This Power would say: —
“This ‘I am’ is something that is in each
one of you, it is a part of the one divine force. What you
perceive as your individual ‘I am’ is one with
the ‘I am’ of the Father. Whichever of you has
developed within him the consciousness of this fact, can say:
‘I and the Father are one.’ If you look back as
far as to Adam, you see the ego-consciousness flow through
generations for hundreds and thousands of years. But there is
a still higher human consciousness, which was given to man in
his primal quality as Man. This is the consciousness of
humanity, the consciousness which embraces not only a few
generations, but the whole of humanity.” Then came the
consciousness which belongs to generations, lasts for
generations, and was finally individualised by man to his
“I am”. Man, therefore, already possessed the
foundations for the “I am” earlier, and
for this reason Christ could say: “Before Abraham, was
the ‘I am.’ ” That is the correct teaching
of the occult school; it ought to read: “Before Abraham
was the ‘I am.’ ”
In order to
explain the teaching of the “I am” a little more,
we will make use of the “Golden Legend”, which is
known in all Christian Schools. It relates that when Seth,
whom Jehovah had given as a substitute for Abel, came one day
to the Gate of Paradise, the Cherub with the fiery sword
allowed him to enter the garden out of which man had been
driven. There he saw two trees that were intertwined with
each other; the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge; and
the Cherub told Seth to take three seeds from these trees
that were intertwined. When Adam, his father, died, Seth laid
these three seeds in his mouth, and from the grave grew a
threefold tree, which revealed itself to many in radiant
fire, and its glow then formed itself into the words:
“I am he who was, who is, and who is to come.”
The wood of this tree which had grown out of Adam's grave was
used for many things. Out of it was fashioned the staff with
which Moses accomplished his miracles. The wood was also used
for the pillars standing at the door of Solomon's temple.
With it was built the bridge over which Jesus passed when He
was led to death. Finally, from this wood was made the Cross
to which Jesus was nailed on Golgotha. In the Occult School
the following explanation of this legend was given. Within
man we see two trees: the tree of red blood and the tree of
blue-red blood. The tree of red blood is the expression of
“knowledge,” the tree of blue-red blood is the
expression of “life.” The two trees were
separated from each other. That was taught in the ancient
occult schools. There was a time when man did not yet possess
red blood, it was not until the ego sank into the body of Man
that red blood arose. The life, which is expressed in the
blue-red blood, had long been there; it originated through a
higher development from the life-saps and, according to
Christian teaching, the time when it was given to man was in
the time of Paradise, when the first dawn of the ego appeared
in the human soul, when the Deity descended and man was
gifted first of all with the group-soul; but in the
group-soul he possessed the first germ out of which the
individual ego could arise. The legend of Paradise says that
when man had received red blood he became a being who
possessed knowledge, he learned to look up, his eyes were
opened; he learned to distinguish between man and woman.
But this
knowledge had to be bought at a price. The ego-consciousness
can only originate through the blood dying. In the human body
there is a continual consumption of life and renewal of life.
The blue blood has fulfilled its task when it is used up, and
out of the destruction of the blue blood arises the
ego-consciousness. In the soul of man will be developed the
forces through which he will learn to control and unite the
two trees. Man only feels the ego by bearing about within him
a process of murder and death. Man on the Earth is dependent
upon the Plant, for it alone gives him the possibility of
life. Think how man continually breathes in air which
contains oxygen, and he breathes out air that is used up, air
that contains carbon dioxide: he consumes oxygen and changes
it into carbonic acid. The oxygen, which is necessary to his
life, he obtains only through the plant, which changes back
again into oxygen the carbonic acid produced by man, and this
makes the air such that it can be used again by man. The
plant retains the carbon which it separates from the carbonic
acid, and it is given back again to man thousands of years
afterwards in the form of coal.
The Earth is a
complete organism, and if but a small part of it were to be
missing, life, as it now exists, would be impossible. From a
certain point of view we may look upon plant, animal, and man
as one being, for if we were to take away the plants, the
others would be unable to live. In the far-distant future
this relationship will be altered. The men of the present day
do not know this, but the seer can look into the time when
the current of carbonic acid will be changed into oxygen not
with the aid of the plant, but by man himself.
This is the
great future ideal of the occult schools, that man shall
accomplish consciously within himself that which is now done
for him by the plant, that man will learn to take up the
activity of the plant into his own activity. Within him will
be developed the organs which will enable him to transform
the carbonic acid for himself. The initiate can already see
in advance that the two trees, the tree of carbonic acid and
the tree of oxygen, will one day blend their crowns together.
Then will the “I AM, He Who is, and Who was, and Who is
to come,” live as something Eternal in each human
being. The ego lived even in Adam, but it had first to be
fertilised. In the beginning the Tree of Life had to be made
into the Tree of Death. It could not be given at the same
time as the Tree of Knowledge, therefore the two trees had to
be parted; the plant was placed in between. The consciousness
of eternity had first to be gained. Christ Jesus bore it
within Him, and He transplanted it into the Earth. The three
seeds are the three divine parts; Spirit Self, Life Spirit
and Spirit Man. That which is eternal in all, was laid in the
grave together with Adam. The consciousness of eternity was
announced from the grave: out of the grave grew, the tree
which bore a flaming device, “I AM, he Who was, Who is,
and Who is to come.”
Christ teaches
man to enkindle this “I am an individual man” in
human nature, when He says; “Try to support yourselves
more and more on the being of the ‘I am,’ then
you will possess that which constitutes your communion with
Me. Only through this ‘I am’ can you reach the
Divine Father, for the father and ‘I’ are
one.” A seer alone could grasp this, and the writer of
St. John's Gospel was a seer. It was not his intention to
record something of historical significance only, but he
desired to record that which can be known when one looks into
the spiritual world.
When a seer of
the time of Christ wished to see what was going on in the
spiritual world, he had to enter into the state of sleep.
This we find indicated in the third chapter. Nicodemus, a
ruler of the Jews, came to Christ by night. He came to Christ
because he wished to become a seer, because he had reached
the state in which he could become a seer; and he came by
night because his day-consciousness was then obliterated. In
the fifth verse of this chapter we also find the important
teaching that man can be born of the Spirit.
In John XIV, 6.
Christ says: “I am the way, the truth, and the
life.” Where is this way that leads to the highest
Deity through Christ? The “I am” works on the
astral body and forms out of it the Spirit Self; it works on
the etheric body and forms out of it the Life Spirit; it
works on the physical body and forms out of it the Spirit
Man. When, therefore, the ego of man works on the astral
body, the Spirit Self is formed, and in it then arises the
Life Spirit. In this way man comes to the true life. In the
“I am” lies the way to the truth and to the truth
life, because the “I Am” works upon the lower
bodies and enables the true life to arise in them. We may
represent this in the following way: —
I am
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the way
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the Truth
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and the Life
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Direction,
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Spirit Self
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Life Spirit
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Spirit Man
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The “I am” shows the direction
man must take in order to unfold Spirit Self, Life Spirit,
and Spirit Man.
In the Gospel
of St. John we can also find, direct Anthroposophical truths.
The writer of this Gospel relates
(in Chapter 9:3)
the fact that in each human being there is an individual ego,
that in this ego there is a spark of divine substance, and that
this spark must develop to the “God within us.” In
most of the translations of the Bible, Christ's answer to the
question: “Who did sin, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind?” we read: “Neither hath this
man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him.” But is this a view worthy of
a Christian, that God makes a man be born blind, in order
that God may make His Glory manifest in him? What an
incredible conception of God, that can arrive at such a
conclusion: This passage is much more simple and clear when
we view it with the knowledge of Spiritual Science. Christ
replied: “Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents;
he is fulfilling his karma, in order that the divine spark in
him shall become visible, in order that the works of
“The God in him” shall be made manifest. That is
the way in which Christ's answer should be translated:
“He was born blind in order that the works of the God
in him may be made manifest.” Each human being through
repeated incarnations on Earth. It is not necessary that he
should have sinned in this life; it is possible that he has
brought from a former life the guilt which has led to this
fate in this life. Here we have the teaching of karma, quite
in the anthroposophical sense, karma which works over from
one incarnation to another. The fact that Christ's teaching
was opposed to the general views of the Jews is apparent, and
this also explains the discord into which He comes with them
(John 9:22).
There is
another passage in the Gospel which reminds us of the
teaching of karma. In the eighth chapter we read that when
the Pharisees asked His opinion of the adulteress, Jesus bent
down without speaking a word, and wrote with His finger on
the ground. But the earth, as we have seen, is His own body.
He does not condemn the adulteress, but He writes her deed
into his own organism. By this He indicates that, just as
seed planted in the ground grows up and bears fruit after its
kind, so does each seed of man spring up in a later life and
will bear the fruit corresponding to it and that there is no
power on Earth that can take away the consequences of a deed.
Theologians believe in thc propitiatory death: they believe
that Christ has died for us and that therefore they cannot
accept the teaching of karma, as this contradicts the view
that Christ, through His death, has taken upon Himself the
sins of the world. But when this matter is rightly grasped,
the disharmony between the anthroposophical and the
theological view dissolves into harmony.
The teaching of
karma signifies for life in the world that which the ledger
signifies for the merchant. According to the law of karma we
must assume that the effect of what I have done in a former
life approaches me in the present life, and that what I now
do will come forth again in a later life. Thus we have a
complete life-balance: on the one side the good deeds are
entered, on the other side the bad ones. Now if someone
believes that under the dominion of the law of karma he
cannot perform any voluntary acts, as his mode of acting is
always the result of his former deeds, he is like a merchant
who would say: “I have just balanced my books, I cannot
do any more business, for this would make my balance
wrong.” For a merchant this would be a wrong way of
thinking, and the opinion we have described above in respect
of the result of karma is equally wrong.
When rightly
understood, the teaching of karma is not fatalistic; freedom
of will and karma can be united with one another in the most
beautiful manner. When rightly understood, karma is never
something that is unchangeable. And if a man refused to help
another in misfortune, saying that he must not interfere with
his karma, he would be acting just as wrongly as a merchant
who refuses a loan, or a gift of a sum of money, when this
can save him from bankruptcy. Just as a merchant enters a
loan like this as a debt which he has to pay later, while the
lender writes it down in his books as a loan so will the one
who does a good deed write it as an entry to his credit,
while he to whom it is done will write it down as a debt.
Thus the rendering of help is not excluded by the law of
karma, and it seems quite in order to lighten the karma, of
one's neighbour by deeds of mutual help. A man can by his
good deeds show kindness to one of his fellow-men; but there
are also deeds which can benefit a large number of people,
that is to say, it can lighten their karma and can thus be
inscribed in the life-account of many. And when a deed is so
mighty as the deed of Christ, it is inscribed in the karma of
all men, because this deed lightens the karma of all those
who allow it to work in them.
We see,
therefore, that the law of karma is also mentioned in St.
John's Gospel, and that its existence does not interfere with
freedom of action in any way. Through His act of
self-sacrifice Christ Jesus connected Himself with the whole
of humanity. In accordance with the law of karma, each act is
inscribed in the ledger of life: It is brought into
connection with the body of Christ, with the Earth, and for
this reason He does not at once condemn the adulteress, but
inscribes the act in His own body. He receives into His own
body all that man does; for karma must always express itself
again in the earthly world. This story points, in a very
significant manner, to the fact that Christ, through His
deed, has connected Himself with the karmic development of
the whole of humanity. He guides the future evolution of
humanity.
When we examine
into the five ages of civilisation again, the Indian,
Persian, Egyptian, Greco-Latin, and European, we find that in
the third age the foundations were laid for the Christ Power
which will become fruitful for the whole of humanity. What
was then placed in human evolution will only come forth to
life in the Sixth Age. In that Age the Spirit Self, which
will have developed out of the Spiritual Soul, will unite
with the Life Spirit. The Christ-power shone forth
prophetically from the Third to the Fourth Age. In the Sixth
Age will take place the great Marriage of Humanity, when the
Spirit Self unites with the Life Spirit. Humanity will then
be united into a great bond of brotherhood, and ego will
stand beside ego and brother beside brother; that bond of
brotherhood we find foretold in the description of the
Marriage at Cana of Galilee, which is not only an historical
fact but symbolically represents how the sons of men will
unite in the Sixth Age into a great bond of brotherhood that
embraces the whole of humanity. From the Third Age there are
still three Ages to go through before this event will come:
the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth. In esoterisism an Age is called
a day; therefore we read at the beginning of the second
chapter: “And on the third day was a marriage at
Cana,” which indicates that in the description about to
be given, something that will take place in the future is
referred to. The Mother of Jesus (the Spiritual Soul) is
present at the marriage, and Christ says to her: “What
have I to do now, and what have you to do? My hour is not yet
come.” Here it is clearly said that in this marriage of
Cana something is indicated which will only take place in the
future. And as this hour is not yet come, what does Jesus
do?
He changes the
water into wine. Again and again we find the explanation
given, that this action indicates new fire, new life-force
was to be given to the Jewish people which was falling into
decline; for the “insipid” water is changed into
“fiery” wine. One might presume that the wine
drinkers have thought out this explanation to justify their
action. But if we are able to grasp the significance of this
deed, we can look very deeply into the evolution of the world
and humanity.
Men have not
always used alcohol. All that develops in the Spiritual has
its corresponding expression in the Material, and conversely,
everything material has also its counterpart in the
Spiritual. Wine, alcohol, only appeared at a certain time in
the history of humanity and the world; and it will disappear
from it again. Here we see a profound truth of occult
investigation. Alcohol was the bridge which led from the
group-ego to the independent, individual ego; without the
material effect of alcohol man would never have made the
transition from the group-ego to the individual ego; it
produced the individual, personal consciousness in man. When
humanity has reached this goal, it will no longer require
alcohol, and this will then disappear again from the physical
world.
From the above
it may be seen that all that happens has its significance in
the wise guidance of the evolution of humanity. For this
reason, a man who drinks alcohol should not be scolded; but
on the other hand, those who have hurried on before the rest
of humanity and have developed so far that they no longer
require alcohol, should avoid it. Christ appeared on Earth to
give humanity the forces which will enable men to achieve the
highest ego-consciousness in the Sixth Age; He desires to
prepare men for the “time which is not yet come.”
Had He let things remain at the stage of the “water
sacrifice” only, mankind would never have obtained the
individual ego. The changing of the water into wine signifies
the raising of man to individuality. Humanity has reached a
point in its evolution where it required wine, therefore
Christ changed the water into wine. When the period comes
when man no longer requires wine, Christ will then change the
wine back again into water. How was it possible for the power
to appear in Christ which enabled Him to change water into
wine? As the Earth itself is the Body of Christ, He could
make the forces of the Earth active within Himself. On the
Earth the water that flows through the wine is changed into
wine; Christ could accomplish as a personality all that takes
place in the Earth, because all the forces of the Earth must
also be in Him, as soon as the Earth is His Body and is
ensouled by His astral body.
What does the
Earth accomplish with its forces? If we plant a seed in the
Earth, it germinates and grows and bears fruit. It is
multiplied; from one come many. Through reproduction the,
animals also bring forth many. The same power of increase,
the power to multiply, also works in Christ, and this is
indicated in the Feeding of the Five Thousand. Christ
possesses the power which is natural to the Earth, to
multiply the seed. If we bear in mind the thought that the
Earth with the forces is the Body of Christ, and apply it to
what we find recorded in St. John's Gospel, many details will
become comprehensible to us. What are the Gospels on the
whole? In St. John's Gospel we have a presentation of the
principles of initiation, such as were to be found in various
places in ancient times. What the pupil for initiation did
outwardly was not the essential thing for the school to which
he belonged; the essential thing was what he experienced from
stage to stage, from degree to degree of initiation.
Modern scholars
are very astonished to discover in the story of Buddha's life
occurrences that are similar to those recorded in the story
of the life of Christ Jesus. This is explained by the fact
that the writers of these accounts did not record the outer
circumstances in the life, but the inner spiritual facts.
These are the same in all true initiates; for all have
traversed the same path and on the way have had the same
experiences. What the initiate had to experience on the path
of initiation was laid down in the writings on initiation,
and all initiates of the same degree had to go through the
same experiences. The biographers, therefore, only wrote a
biography of the various stages of initiation. The Gospels
are nothing more than old records of initiation of various
depth; but what in former times was accomplished in a lower
state of consciousness, took place publicly in the Mystery of
Golgotha. The death which hitherto had been overcome in
initiation in the etheric body, was now overcome in the
physical body. The Event on Golgotha is the initiation of a
highest Initiate, who was not initiated by anyone else.
Therefore the
writer of St. John's Gospel could only describe the life of
Christ in the way it is described in the codex of initiation.
This Gospel is a book of life, and whoever lives it through
will awaken within himself the power to see spiritually. It
is a seer's book, and was written for the training of
spiritual vision. Whoever lives it through, sentence by
sentence, will experience the great and mighty result, that
he meets Christ spiritually face to face. It is not so easy
to convince people; they must themselves work up to the stage
at which the knowledge dawns upon them that the Christ is a
reality.
St. John's
Gospel is the way that leads to Christ, and the writer
desired to give everyone the opportunity to understand it.
Whoever develops the Spirit Self will experience within
himself the dawning of that wisdom through which he can
understand what Christ is. Christ Himself indicates this: He
hangs on the Cross; at His feet stand His mother and His
initiated pupil, whom He loves. This pupil is to bring to men
the knowledge of the significance of Christ, therefore Christ
Jesus points to the mother Sophia with the words: “This
is thy mother, whom thou art to love!” The
spiritualised Mother of Jesus is the Gospel itself; it is the
wisdom that leads men up to the highest knowledge. This
disciple has given us the mother Sophia; that is to say, he
wrote for us the Gospel which enables those who search into
it to know Christianity, and to comprehend the origin and
goal of this great movement.
The Gospel of
John contains the wisdom of “the God in man,”
Theosophia, and the more that men devote themselves to the
study of this document, the more will they receive wisdom and
enlightenment from it.
THE END.
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