LECTURE TEN
Christianity
and the Teaching of Reincarnation and Karma. Jonah and Solomon: Examples
of two modes of Initiation in olden Times. The Christ-principle and the
new mode of Initiation. The Event of Golgotha: Initiation presented
on the outer plane of World-History.
Our task to-day will
be to bring the knowledge gained in these lectures on the Gospel of
St. Luke to the culminating point indicated by spiritual
investigation — the culminating point we know as the Mystery
of Golgotha.
Yesterday's
lecture endeavoured to convey an idea of what actually took place at
the time when for three years Christ was on Earth, and the preceding
lectures indicated how the convergence of streams of spiritual life
made this event possible. The writer of the Gospel of St. Luke gives
a wonderful account of the mission of Christ Jesus on the Earth, as
we shall realize if the light of knowledge derived from the Akashic
Chronicle can be brought to bear upon what he describes.
The following
question might be asked: As the stream of Buddhism is organically
woven into Christian teachings, how is it that in the latter there is
no indication of the great Law of Karma, of the adjustment effected
in the course of the incarnations of an individual human being? It
would, however, be sheer misapprehension to imagine that what the Law
of Karma enables us to understand is not also implicit in the words
of the Gospel of St. Luke. It is indeed there, only we must realize
that the needs of the human soul differ in different epochs and that
it is not always the task of the great emissaries in world-evolution
to impart the absolute truth in abstract form, because men at
different stages of maturity simply would not understand it; the
great pioneers and missionaries must speak in such a way that men
receive what is right and suitable in a particular epoch. The
teaching received by humanity through the great Buddha contains, in
the form of wisdom, everything that in conjunction with the teaching
of compassion and love and the synthesis of this in the Eightfold
Path, can enable the doctrine of Karma to be understood. Failure to
achieve this understanding only means that no effort has been made to
use faculties in the soul leading to knowledge of the teaching of
Karma and Reincarnation.
In the lecture
yesterday it was said that in about three thousand years from now,
large numbers of human beings will have progressed sufficiently to
unfold from their own souls the teaching of the Eightfold Path and
— we may now add — that of Karma and Reincarnation. But
this must inevitably be a gradual process. Just as a plant cannot
unfold its blossom immediately the seed has been sown but leaf after
leaf must develop according to definite laws, so too the spiritual
development of humanity must progress stage by stage and the right
knowledge be brought to light at the right time.
Anyone possessed of
faculties that can be kindled by spiritual science will realize from
the voice of his own soul that the teaching of Karma and
Reincarnation is indispensable. It must be remembered however that
evolution is not fortuitous and in point of fact it is only now, in
our own time, that human souls have become sufficiently mature to
discover these truths through their own insight. It would not have
been a good thing to give out the teaching of Karma and
Reincarnation exoterically a few centuries ago; and it would have
been detrimental to evolution if the present content of spiritual
science — for which human souls are longing and with which
research into the foundations of the Gospels is connected — had
been imparted openly to mankind a few hundred years earlier. It was
necessary that human souls should be yearning for it and should have
developed faculties able to accept such teaching; it was essential
that these souls should have passed through earlier incarnations,
even in the Christian era, and have undergone the available
experiences before reaching a degree of maturity capable of
assimilating the teaching of Karma and Reincarnation. Had this
teaching been proclaimed in the early centuries of Christendom in the
form in which it is proclaimed to-day, this would have meant
demanding of human evolution the equivalent of demanding a plant to
produce the blossom before the green leaves.
Humanity has only now
become sufficiently mature to assimilate the spiritual content of the
teaching of Karma and Reincarnation. It is therefore not surprising
that in what has been imparted to humanity for centuries from the
Gospels, there is much that gives a quite erroneous picture of
Christianity. In a certain respect the Gospel message was entrusted
prematurely to men and it is only to-day that they are becoming
mature enough to develop all the faculties that could lead to an
understanding of the actual content of the Gospel records. It was
absolutely necessary that what was proclaimed by Christ Jesus should
take account of the conditions and the attitude of soul prevailing in
those days. Therefore Karma and Reincarnation were not taught as
abstract doctrines, but feelings were cultivated through which human
souls would gradually become ready to receive this teaching. What was
needed at that time was to speak in a way that could lead by degrees
to an understanding of Karma and Reincarnation rather than any
enunciation of the teaching itself.
Did Christ Jesus and
those who were around Him speak in this way? In order to understand
this we must study the Gospel of St. Luke and interpret it rightly.
If we do so we shall realize in what form the Law of Karma could be
made known to men at that time.
“Blessed be
ye poor; for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that
hunger now; for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now;
for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and
when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach
you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake.
Rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy; for behold your reward is
great in heaven” — i.e. in the spiritual worlds.
Here we have the
teaching of ‘compensation’. Without going into the
subject of Karma and Reincarnation in an abstract way, the aim is to
let the feeling of assurance flow into the souls of men that one who
for a time is still hungering will eventually experience the due
compensation. It was necessary that these feelings should flow into
the souls of men. The souls then living, to whom the teaching was
given in this form, were not, until they were again incarnated, ready
to receive, as wisdom, the teaching of Karma and Reincarnation.
What was to ripen in
human souls had to flow into these at that time. For a completely
new epoch had begun, an epoch when men were preparing to develop
their Ego, their self-consciousness, to maturity. Whereas revelations
had hitherto been received and the effects made manifest in the astral,
etheric and physical bodies of men, the Ego was now to become fully
conscious but be filled only gradually with the forces it was
eventually to acquire. Only the one Ego
[ 1 ]
which came to the Earth as the Nathan Jesus and into whose bodily
constitution, when this had been duly prepared, the Individuality of
Zarathustra passed this Ego-Being alone could bring to fulfilment
within itself the all-embracing Christ-principle.
The rest of humanity
must now, in imitation of Christ, gradually develop what was present
for three years on the Earth in the one single Personality. It was
only the impulse, as it were the seed, that Christ Jesus was able to
implant into humanity at that time and the seed must now unfold and
grow. To this end provision was made that at the right times there
shall always appear on Earth individuals able to bring the truth that
humanity will not be ready to assimilate until a later period. The
Being who appeared on Earth as Christ had to take care that His
message would be accessible to men immediately after His appearance,
in a form that they could understand. He had also to make provision
for Individualities to appear later on and care for the spiritual
needs of human souls at the stage of maturity reached in the course
of time.
In what manner Christ
made such provision for the ages following the Event of Golgotha is
related by the writer of the Gospel of St. John. He shows us how, in
Lazarus, Christ Himself ‘raised’, ‘awakened’,
that Individuality who continued to work as ‘John’, from
whom the teaching proceeded in the form described in the lectures on
the Gospel of St. John.
[ 2 ]
But Christ had also to provide for the appearance, in later times,
of an Individuality who would bring to humanity in a form compatible
with subsequent evolution, that for which men would by then be ready.
How an Individuality was ‘awakened’ by Christ for this
purpose is faithfully described by the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke.
Having declared that he would describe what ‘seers’ endowed
with the vision of Imagination and Inspiration could say about the
Event of Palestine, he also points to what would one day be taught
by another — but only in the future. In order to describe this
mysterious process the writer of St. Luke's Gospel has also included
an ‘awakening’, a ‘raising’, in his account
(Luke VII, 11–17.)
In what we read concerning the ‘awakening’ of the young man
of Nain lies the mystery of the progress of Christianity. Whereas in
the case of the healing of the daughter of Jairus, to which brief reference
was made in a previous lecture, the mysteries connected with it were
so profound that Christ admitted only a few to witness the act and
charged them not to speak of it, this other ‘raising’ was
accomplished in such a way that it might immediately be related. The
former healing was an act presupposing in the healer a profound
insight into the processes of physical life; the latter healing was an
‘awakening’, an Initiation. The Individuality in the body of
the young man of Nain was to undergo an Initiation of a very special
kind.
There are various
kinds of Initiation. In one kind, immediately after the process has
been completed, knowledge of the higher worlds flashes up in the
aspirant and the laws and happenings of the spiritual world are
revealed to him. In another kind of Initiation it is only a seed that
is implanted into the soul, and the individual has to wait until the
next incarnation for the seed to bear fruit; only then does he become
an Initiate in the real sense.
The Initiation of the
young man of Nain was of this kind. His soul was transformed by the
event in Palestine but he was not yet conscious of having risen into
the higher worlds. It was not until his next incarnation that the
forces laid in his soul at that earlier time came to fruition. In an
exoteric lecture names cannot now be given; all that is possible is
an indication to the effect that the Individuality awakened by Christ
in the young man of Nain subsequently appeared as a great teacher of
religion; in later time a new teacher of Christianity arose, equipped
with the powers implanted into his soul in a previous incarnation.
Thus Christ provided
for the subsequent appearance of an Individuality able to bring
Christianity to a further stage of development. Moreover the mission
of the Individuality who had been awakened in the young man of Nain
is destined to permeate Christianity later on, and to an
ever-increasing extent, with the teachings of Karma and
Reincarnation — teachings which when Christ was on Earth could
not be proclaimed explicitly as wisdom, because the human soul had
first to receive them into the life of feeling.
Christ indicates
clearly enough (according to the Gospel of St. Luke too) that an
entirely new factor had now entered into the evolution of humanity,
namely, Ego-consciousness. He shows — it is only a matter of
being able to read the meaning — that in earlier times the
spiritual world did not flow into the self-conscious Ego, for men
received this spiritual stream through the physical, etheric and
astral bodies; a certain degree of unconsciousness was always present
when, as in previous epochs, divine-spiritual forces flowed into men.
In the stream in which Christ Jesus was actually working, men had had
formerly to receive the Law of Sinai, which could be addressed only
to the astral body. The Law was imparted to man in such a way that it
did indeed work in him, but not directly through the forces of his
Ego. These forces could not operate until the time of Christ Jesus
because it was not until then that man became conscious of the Ego in
the real sense. This is indicated by Christ in the Gospel of St. Luke
when He says that men must first be made ready to receive an entirely
new principle into their souls. He indicates this when speaking of
His forerunner, John the Baptist.
( Luke VII, 18–35.)
How did Christ
Himself regard this Individuality? He said that before His own coming
the mission of John was to present in its purest and noblest form
the old teaching of the Prophets that had been handed down,
unadulterated, from bygone times. He regarded John as being the last
to transmit, in its pure form, the teaching belonging to past ages.
The ‘Law and the Prophets’ held good until the coming of John.
His mission was to set before men once again what the old teaching and
the old constitution of soul had been able to impart. How did this
old constitution of soul function in the times preceding the advent
of the Christ-principle?
Here we come to a
subject — incomprehensible as it may seem at the present
time — that will some day become a teaching of natural science as
well, when it allows itself to be inspired to some extent by
spiritual science. I must now refer to a matter of which I can touch
only the very fringe but which will show you what depths spiritual
science is destined to illumine in the domain of natural science. If
you survey the branches of natural science to-day and perceive the
efforts that are made to penetrate the mysteries of man's existence
with the limited faculties of human thought, you will find it stated
that the whole human being comes into existence through the
intermingling of the male and female seeds. One of the basic
endeavours of modern natural science is to establish this theory.
Searching microscopical examination of substances is made in order to
ascertain which particular attributes proceed from the male or from
the female seed, and the researchers are satisfied when they believe,
it can he proved that the whole human being is thus produced. But
natural science itself will eventually be compelled to recognize that
only one part of the human being is determined by the intermingling
of the male and female seeds and that however precisely the product
of the one or the other may be known, the whole nature of man in the
present cycle of evolution cannot be explained by this
intermingling.
There is in every
human being something that does not arise from the seed but is, so to
speak, a ‘virgin birth’, something that flows into the process
of germination from a quite different source. Something unites with the
seed of the human being that is not derived from father and mother,
yet belongs to and is destined for him — something that is poured
into his Ego and can be ennobled through the Christ-principle. That
in the human being which unites with the Christ-principle in the course
of evolution is ‘virgin-born’ and — as natural science
will one day come to recognize through its own methods — this is
connected with the momentous transition accomplished at the time of
Christ Jesus. Before the Christ Event there could be nothing that did
not enter into man's inner being by way of the seed. Something has
actually happened in the course of the ages to bring about a change
in the development of the Ego. Humanity has not been the same since
the Christ Event; but the element that has been added since then to
what is produced by the seeds must be gradually developed and
ennobled by assimilating the Christ-principle.
We are here
approaching a very subtle truth. To anyone conversant with modern
natural science it is extremely interesting that already to-day there
are domains where investigators are faced with the fact that there is
something in man not derived from the seed. The preliminary
conditions for realizing this are already there, only the
investigators are not yet intellectually capable of recognizing what
is present in their own experiments and observations. More is at work
in the experiments than is known to modern natural science and little
progress would be made if it were entirely dependent upon the ability
of the investigators. While one or another is working in a
laboratory, in a clinic, or perhaps in his own study, there stand
behind him the Powers which direct and guide the world, and these
Powers allow that to come to light which the researcher himself does
not understand and for which he is merely the instrument. It is
therefore also true that even objective investigation is guided by
the ‘Masters’, that is, by higher Individualities. The facts now
indicated are not usually observed; but they certainly will be when
the conscious faculties of researchers are permeated by the spiritual
teachings of Anthroposophy.
As a result of the
fact of which I have just spoken, a great change has taken place in
connection with the faculties of the human being since Christ came to
the Earth. Previously, the only faculties available to man were those
derived from the paternal and maternal seeds, for these faculties
alone were able to develop in him. Between birth and death we develop
through our physical, etheric and astral bodies such faculties as we
possess. Before the time of Christ Jesus the instruments employed by
man for his own life could be developed only from the seed. After the
appearance of Christ Jesus that element was added which is of ‘virgin
birth’ and does not in any sense arise from the seed. This element
can of course be gravely impaired if a man is entirely given over to
materialistic thought; but it can be sublimated if he lets his being
be suffused by the warmth issuing from the Christ-principle and he
then brings it into his following incarnations in an ever higher and
higher form.
What has now been
said necessarily implies that in all the proclamations made to
humanity prior to that of Christ, there was an element bound up with
faculties originating from the line of descent and from the seed; and
it also imparts the conviction that Christ Jesus addressed himself to
faculties that have nothing to do with the seed arising from the
Earth but from out of the divine worlds unite with the seed. Teachers
before Christ Jesus could speak to men only by using the faculties
transmitted to their earthly nature through the seed. All the
prophets and forerunners, however exalted, even when they descended
as Bodhisattvas, were obliged to use faculties transmitted by way of the
seed. Christ Jesus, however, spoke to that in man which does not
pass through the seed but comes from the realm of the Divine. He
indicates this when He speaks to His disciples of John the Baptist
(Luke VII, 28):
"For I say unto you, among those that are born of
women there is not a greater prophet than John the
Baptist" — that is to say, among those who, as they stand before
us, can be explained as having come into existence through physical
birth from male and female seeds. But then Christ adds words to the
effect that the smallest part of that which is not born of women and
which unites with the man from the kingdom of God is greater than
John. Such are the depths hidden beneath these words! Some day, when
study of the Bible is illumined by spiritual science, it will be
found to contain physiological truths of far greater significance
than any finding of the blundering thinking applied in modern
physiology. Words such as those just quoted can lead to recognition
of one of the very deepest physiological truths. Profound indeed is
the Bible when it is truly understood!
Christ Jesus
exemplifies in manifold ways, and also in a different form, what I
have now told you. His purpose is to indicate that the element which
is to come into the world through Him is something altogether new, a
truth differing from any hitherto proclaimed, because it is connected
with faculties derived from the kingdoms of Heaven — faculties
that have not been inherited. He points out how difficult it is for
men to learn to understand such a teaching, and that they will demand
to be convinced in the same way as formerly. He tells them that they
cannot be convinced in the old way of the new truth that has now
come; for what could be proof of truth in the old form could not
bring conviction of the new. The old truth was presented in
comprehensible form when symbolized by the ‘Sign of Jonah’. This
symbolized the old way in which man gradually attained knowledge and
penetrated into the spiritual world, or how — to use biblical
terms — he became a ‘Prophet’.
The old way of
attaining Initiation was this: first the soul was brought to maturity
and every necessary preparation made; then a condition lasting for
three-and-a-half days was induced in the candidate, a condition in
which he was completely withdrawn from the outer world and from the
organs through which that world is perceived. Those who were to be
led into the spiritual world were carefully prepared and their souls
trained in knowledge of the spiritual life; then they were withdrawn
from the world for three-and-a-half days, being taken to a place
where they could perceive nothing through their external senses and
where their bodies lay in a deathlike condition; after
three-and-a-half days their souls were summoned back again into the
body and they were awakened. Such men were then able to remember
their vision of the spiritual worlds and to testify of those worlds.
The great secret of Initiation was that the soul, prepared by long
training, was led out of the body for three-and-a-half days into an
entirely different world, was shut off from the environment and
penetrated into the spiritual world. Men who could bear witness to
the realities of the spiritual world were always to be found among
the peoples; they were men who had undergone the experience referred
to in the Bible in the story of Jonah's sojourn in the whale. Such a
man was made ready to undergo this experience and then, when he
appeared before the people as an Initiate of the old order, he bore
upon him the ‘sign of Jonah’ the sign of those who were able
themselves to testify of the spiritual world.
This was the one form
of Initiation. Christ said, in effect: ‘In the old sense there is no
other sign save the sign of Jonah.’
(Luke XI, 29.)
And He expressed
Himself even more clearly according to the meaning of words in the
Gospel of St. Matthew. ‘As a heritage from olden times there remains
the possibility that without effort of his own, without Initiation, a
man can develop a dim, shadowy kind of clairvoyance and through
revelation from above be led into the spiritual world.’ The
indication here is that there were also Initiates of a second
kind — men who went about among their fellows and who, as a
result of their particular lineage, were able to receive revelations
from above in a kind of sublimated trance condition, without having
undergone any special Initiation. Christ indicated that this twofold
manner of being transported into the spiritual world had come down
from ancient times. He bade the people to remember King
Solomon — thereby pointing to an Individuality to whom, without
effort on his own part, the spiritual world was revealed from above.
The ‘Queen of Sheba’ who came to King Solomon was also the
bearer of wisdom from above; she was the representative of those
predestined to possess, by inheritance, the dim, shadowy clairvoyance
with which all men were endowed in the Atlantean epoch.
(See Luke XI, 31.)
Thus there were two
kinds of Initiates: the one kind typified by King Solomon and the
symbolic visit paid to him by the Queen of Sheba, the Queen from the
South; the other kind typified by those who bore upon them the ‘sign
of Jonah’, meaning the old Initiation in which the candidate,
entirely cut off from the outer world, passed through the spiritual
world for a period lasting three-and-a-half days. Christ now added:
‘A greater than Solomon, a greater than Jonah is here’ —
indicating thereby that something new had come into the world. The
message was not to be conveyed to the etheric bodies of men from
outside, through revelations, as in the case of Solomon, nor was it
to be conveyed to etheric bodies from within through revelations
imparted by the duly prepared astral body to the etheric body, as in
the case of those symbolized by the sign of Jonah. ‘Here is something
which enables a man who has made himself ready for it in his Ego, to
unite his being with what belongs to the kingdoms of Heaven.’ The
forces and powers from those kingdoms unite with the virginal part in
the human soul, the part that belongs to the kingdoms of Heaven and
that men can destroy if they turn away from the Christ-principle, but
can cultivate and nurture if they receive into themselves what
streams from the Christ-principle.
As indicated in the
Gospel of St. Luke, Christ's teaching is imbued with the new element
which came to the Earth at that time, and we see how all the old ways
of proclaiming the kingdom of God were changed through the Event of
Palestine. Christ says to those from whom, because of their
preparation, He could expect some measure of understanding: ‘Of a
truth there are some among you who are able to see the kingdom of
God, not only in the manner of Solomon, through revelation, or
through the Initiation symbolized by the sign of Jonah; if any among
you had attained nothing further than that they would never see the
kingdom of God in this incarnation before their death.’ The meaning
is that before their death they would not have seen the kingdom of
God unless they had attained Initiation in some form; but then they
would also have had to pass through a condition similar to death.
Christ wished to show that because of the new element now present in
the world there can also be men who, even before they die are able to
behold the kingdom of Heaven. The disciples did not at first
understand what this meant. Christ wanted to convey to them that
they were to be the ones who would come to know the mysteries of the
kingdoms of Heaven before natural death or the death experienced in
the old form of Initiation. The wonderful passage in the Gospel of
St. Luke where Christ is speaking of a higher revelation, is as
follows: "But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here,
which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God."
(Luke IX, 27.)
The disciples did not understand that it was they
themselves who, being closely around Him, were chosen to experience
the tremendous power of the Christ principle which would enable them
to penetrate directly into the spiritual world. The spiritual world
was to become visible to them without the sign of Solomon, and
without the sign of Jonah. Did this actually happen?
Immediately after
these words in the Gospel comes the scene of the Transfiguration,
when three disciples — Peter, James and John — are led up
into the spiritual world. The figures of Moses and Elijah appear
before them in that world and, simultaneously, Christ Jesus in Glory.
(Luke IX, 28–36.)
The disciples gaze for a brief moment into the
spiritual world — a testimony that insight into that world is
possible without the faculties designated by the sign of Solomon and
the sign of Jonah. But it is evident that they are still novices, for
they fall asleep immediately after being torn out of their physical
and etheric bodies by the stupendous power of what was happening.
Christ finds them asleep. This account was meant to indicate the
third way of entering the spiritual world, apart from the ways
denoted by the signs of Solomon and of Jonah. Anyone capable in those
days of interpreting the signs of the times would have known that
the Ego itself must develop, that it must now be directly inspired,
that the Divine Powers must work directly into the Ego.
It was also to be
made evident that the men of that time, even the very best among
them, were not capable of taking the Christ-principle into
themselves. The event of the Transfiguration was to be a beginning
but it was also to be shown that the disciples were not able, at the
time, to receive the Christ-principle in the fullest sense. Hence
their powers fail them immediately afterwards, when they want to
apply the Christ-power to heal one who is possessed by an evil spirit
but are unable to do so. Christ indicates that they are still only at
the beginning, by saying: I shall have to stay a long time with you
before your forces are able also to stream into other men.
(See Luke IX, 41.)
Thereupon He heals the one whom the disciples could not
heal. But then He says, again hinting at the mystery behind these
happenings, that the time has come when “the Son of Man shall be
delivered into the hands of men”. This means: the time has come when
the Ego, which is to be developed by men themselves in the course of
their Earth-mission, is gradually to stream into them, to be given
over to them. This Ego is to be recognized in its highest form in
Christ. “Let these sayings sink down into your ears; for the Son of
Man shall be delivered into the hands of men. But they understood not
this saying; it was hid from them, that they perceived it not.”
(Luke IX, 44–45.)
How many have understood
this saying? Greater and greater numbers will, however, eventually
understand that the Ego, the ‘Son of Man’, was to be given
over to men at that time. And the explanation that was possible in
those days, was added by Christ Jesus. He spoke to the following
effect: As he stands before us, man is a product of the old forces
that were active before the Luciferic beings had laid hold of human
nature; but the Luciferic forces drew man down to a lower level.
The results of all these processes have passed into the faculties
possessed by him to-day. Everything that comes from the seed, as well
as all human consciousness, is permeated by the influence that
dragged man to a lower sphere.
Man is a twofold
being. Whatever consciousness he has developed hitherto is permeated
by the Luciferic forces. It is only the unconscious part of man's
being, the last remnant of his evolution through the Saturn, Sun and
Moon periods when no Luciferic forces were at work — it is only
this that streams into him to-day as a virginal element of his
nature; but it cannot unite with him without the qualities and forces
he is able to develop in himself through the Christ-principle. As he
stands before us, man is primarily a product of heredity, a
confluence of what derives from the male and female seeds. From the
beginning he develops as a duality — a duality already
permeated by Luciferic forces. As long as a man is not illumined by
self-consciousness, as long as out of his own Ego he cannot fully
distinguish between good and evil, he reveals to us his earlier,
original nature through the veil of his later nature. Only the part of man
that is ‘childlike’ still retains a last remnant of the nature
that was his before he succumbed to the influence of the Luciferic
beings.
Hence there is a
‘childlike’ part and also a ‘grown’ part in man.
It is the latter part of his being that is permeated by the Luciferic
forces but its influence asserts itself from the very earliest embryonic
stage onwards. The Luciferic forces also permeate the child, so that in
ordinary life what was already implanted in the human being before
the Luciferic influence, cannot make itself manifest. The
Christ-power must re-awaken this, must unite with the best forces of
the child-nature in man. The Christ-power may not link itself with
the faculties that man has corrupted, with what derives merely from
the intellect; the link must be with that which has remained from the
child-nature of primeval times. That is what must be reinvigorated
and must thereafter fructify the other part (of man's nature).
“But there
arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be the
greatest,” that is, which of them was most fitted to receive
the Christ-principle into his own being. "But Jesus, perceiving the
thought of their heart, took a child and set it by them and said unto
them. Whosoever shall receive this child in my name" — that is,
whosoever is united in Christ's name with what has remained from the
times before the onset of the Luciferic influence “receiveth
me; and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me”
(Luke IX, 46–48)
— that is, He who sent this (childlike) part
of the human being to the Earth. Emphasis is there laid upon the great
significance of what has remained ‘childlike’ in man and
should be fostered and nurtured in human nature.
We may say of a human
being standing before us that he has the rudiments of very good
qualities. We may try our hardest to develop those qualities of his
so that he makes real progress, but the methods usually adopted to-day
take no account of what is present in the foundations of man's being.
It is essential to pay heed to what has remained ‘childlike’
in man, for it is by way of this childlike nature that warmth can be
imparted to the other faculties through the Christ-principle. The
childlike nature must be developed in order that the other faculties
may follow suit. Everyone has the childlike nature within him and
this, when wakened to life, will also be responsive to union with the
Christ-principle. But forces — of however lofty a kind —
that are dominated by the Luciferic influence will, if they alone
work in a man to-day, repudiate and scoff at what can live on Earth
as the Christ power — as Christ Himself foretold.
The Gospel of St.
Luke, brings home very clearly the purport and meaning of the new
proclamation. When a man who bore on his forehead the sign of Jonah
went about the world as an Initiate of the old order, he was
recognized — but only by those who were knowers — as one
who had come to testify of the spiritual worlds. Special preparation
was needed before the sign of Jonah could be understood. But a new
kind of preparation was now necessary in order to understand what was
greater than anything indicated by the signs of Solomon and of Jonah
— a new preparation which was to pave the way for a new
understanding, a new way of maturing the soul. The contemporaries of
Christ Jesus could at first understand only the old way, and the way
preached by John the Baptist was the one known to most of them. That
Christ was now bringing an entirely new impulse, that he was seeking
for souls among those who did not in the least resemble men who would
formerly have been considered suitable, was utterly incomprehensible
to them. They had assumed that He would associate with those who
practised the old kind of disciplinary exercises and would impart His
teaching to such men. Hence they could not understand why He sat among
those whom they regarded as ‘sinners’. But He said to them:
If I were to impart in the old way the entirely new impulse I have come
to give to mankind, if a new form of teaching were not to replace the
old, it would be as if I were to sew a piece of new cloth on an old
garment or pour new wine into old wine-skins. What is now to be given
to humanity and is greater than anything indicated by the sign of
Solomon or the sign of Jonah, this must be poured into new
wine-skins, into new forms. And you must rouse yourselves
sufficiently to understand the new teaching in a new form!
(See Luke V, 36–37.)
Those who were to
understand must now do so through the powerful influence of the Ego
— not through what they had learnt but through what had poured
into them from the spiritual Christ-Being Himself. Hence the chosen
ones were not men who according to the old doctrines were properly
prepared but men who in spite of having passed through many incarnations,
proved to be simple human beings, able to understand through the power
of Faith what had streamed into them. A ‘sign’ was to be
placed before them as well, a sign now to be enacted before the eyes of
all mankind. The ‘mystical death’ that had been a ceremonial
act in the Mystery Temples for hundreds and thousands of years was
now to be presented on the great arena of world-history. Everything
that had taken place in the secrecy of the Temples of Initiation was
brought into the open as a single event on Golgotha. A process
hitherto witnessed only by the Initiates during the three-and-a-half
days of an old Initiation was now enacted before mankind in concrete
reality. Hence those to whom the facts were known could only describe
the Event of Golgotha as being what in very truth it was: the old
Initiation transformed into historical fact and enacted on the arena
of world-history.
That is what took
place on Golgotha! In former times the three-and-a-half days spent in
deathlike sleep had brought to the few Initiates who witnessed it,
the conviction that the spiritual will at all times be victorious
over the bodily nature and that man's soul and spirit belong to a
spiritual world. This was now to be a reality enacted before the eyes
of the world. An Initiation transferred to the outer plane of
world-history such was the Event of Golgotha. Hence this Initiation
was not consummated only for those who witnessed the actual Event,
but for all mankind. What issued from the death on the Cross streamed
into the whole of humanity. A stream of spiritual life flowed into
mankind from the drops of blood which fell from the wounds of Christ
Jesus on Golgotha. For what had been imparted by other Teachers as
‘wisdom’ was now to pass into humanity as inner strength, inner
power. That is the essential difference between the Event of Golgotha
and the teachings given by the other Founders of religion.
Deeper understanding
than exists to-day is necessary before there can be any true
conception of what came to pass on Golgotha. When Earth evolution
began, the human Ego was connected physically with the blood. The
blood is the outer expression of the human Ego. Men would have made
the Ego stronger and stronger, and if Christ had not appeared they
would have been entirely engrossed in the development of egoism. They
were protected from this by the Event of Golgotha. What was it that
had to flow? The blood that is the surplus substantiality of the Ego!
The process that began on the Mount of Olives when the drops of
sweat fell from the Redeemer like drops of blood, was carried further
when the blood flowed from the wounds of Christ Jesus on Golgotha.
The blood flowing from the Cross was the sign of the surplus egoism
in man's nature which had to be sacrificed. The spiritual
significance of the sacrifice on Golgotha requires deep and
penetrating study. The result of what happened there would not be
apparent to a chemist — that is to say to one with the power of
intellectual perception only. If the blood that flowed on Golgotha
had been chemically analysed it would have been found to contain the
same substances as the blood of other human beings; but occult
investigation would discover it to have been quite different blood.
Through the surplus blood in humanity men would have been engulfed
in egoism if infinite Love had not enabled this blood to flow. As
occult investigation finds, infinite Love is intermingled with the
blood that flowed on Golgotha. The writer of the Gospel of St. Luke
adhered to his purpose, which was to describe how, through Christ,
there came into the world the infinite Love that would gradually
drive out egoism. Each of the Evangelists describes what it was his
particular function to describe.
If these things could
be explained in still greater depth we should find that all
contradictions alleged by materialistic research would be invalidated,
as they are in the case of the antecedents of Jesus of Nazareth when the
true facts of his early childhood are known. Each Evangelist describes
what concerned him most closely from his own standpoint. St. Luke
describes what his informants, who were ‘seers’ and
‘servants of the Word’ were able to perceive as the result of
their special preparation. The other Evangelists are concerned with
different aspects — the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke
perceives the out-streaming Love which forgives the most terrible of
all wrongs the physical world can inflict. Words expressing this
ideal of Love, words of forgiveness even when the most terrible of
wrongs has been committed, resound from the Cross on Golgotha:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”
(Luke XXIII, 34.)
Out of His infinite Love, He who on the Cross on Golgotha
accomplishes the Deed of untold significance, implores forgiveness
for those who have crucified Him.
And now we turn once
again to the doctrine of the power of Faith. Emphasis was to be laid
upon the fact that there is something in human nature that can
stream from it and liberate man from the material world, no matter
how firmly he may he bound to that world. Let us think of a man
embroiled in the material world through every imaginable crime, so
that the forum of that world itself inflicts the punishment; let us
conceive, however, that he has saved for himself something that the
power of Faith can cause to germinate within him. Such a man will
differ from another who has no Faith, just as the one malefactor
differed from the other. The one has no Faith, and the judgment is
fulfilled. In the other, however, Faith is like a faint light shining
into the spiritual world; hence he cannot lose the link with the
spiritual. Therefore to him it is said: ‘To-day’ — since
you know that you are connected with the spiritual world — ‘you
shall be with me in Paradise!’
(See Luke XXIII, 43.)
Thus do the truths of
Faith and Hope, as well as the truth of Love, resound from the Cross
in the account given in the Gospel of St. Luke.
There is still
something else, belonging to the same realm of the soul's life, upon
which the writer of this Gospel wishes to lay emphasis.
When a man's whole
being is pervaded with the Love that streamed from the Cross on
Golgotha he can turn his eyes to the future and say: Evolution on the
Earth must make it possible for the spirit living within me gradually
to transform the whole of physical existence. We shall in time give
back again to the Father-principle which existed before the onset of
the Luciferic influence, the spirit we have received; we shall let
our whole being be permeated by the Christ-principle and our hands
will bring to expression what is living in our souls as a faithful
picture of that principle. Our hands were not created by ourselves
but by the Father-principle, and the Christ-principle will stream
through them. As men pass through incarnation after incarnation, the
spiritual power flowing from the Mystery of Golgotha will stream into
what they achieve in their bodies — which are the creations of the
Father-principle — so that the outer world will eventually be imbued
with the Christ-principle. Men will be filled with the confidence
that resounded from the Cross on Golgotha and leads to the highest
Hope for the future, leads to the ideal that can be expressed by
saying: I let Faith germinate within me, I let Love germinate within
me and I know that when they grow strong enough they will pervade all
external life. I know too that they will pervade everything within me
that is the creation of the Father-principle. Thus Hope for
humanity's future will be added to Faith and Love, and men will
understand that in regard to the future they must acquire firm
confidence, saying: If only I have Faith, if only I have Love I may
entertain the Hope that what has come into me from Christ Jesus will
gradually find its way into the outer world. And then the words
resounding from the Cross as a sublime ideal will be understood:
“Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!”
(Luke XXIII, 46.)
Words of Love, of
Faith and of Hope ring out from the Cross according to the Gospel
which indicates how spiritual streams that had previously been
separate united in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. What had formerly
been received in the form of wisdom, streamed into men as an actual
power of the soul, exemplified by the sublime ideal of Christ. It is
incumbent upon human beings to acquire deeper and deeper
understanding of what is communicated in a record such as the Gospel
of St. Luke, in order that the three words resounding from the Cross
may become active forces in the soul. When with the faculties that
the truths of spiritual science can develop in them men come to feel
that what streams down to them from the Cross is not lifeless
exhortation but vital, active force, they will begin to realize that
a truly living message is contained in the Gospel of St. Luke. It is
the mission of spiritual science gradually to unveil what is
enshrined in such records.
In this course of
lectures we have tried to penetrate as deeply as possible into the
content of St. Luke's Gospel. In the case of this Gospel too, one
course of lectures cannot possibly unveil everything and you will
realise at once that a very great deal has inevitably remained
unexplained. But if you pursue the path indicated by lectures such as
have been given here you will be able to penetrate more and more
deeply into these truths and your souls will be better and better
fitted to receive and assimilate the living Word hidden beneath the
outer words.
Spiritual science is
not a body of new teaching. It is an instrument for comprehending
what has been given to humanity. Thus for us it is an instrument for
understanding the Christian revelation. If you have this conception
of spiritual science you will no longer say: ‘It is Christian
theosophy or just another form of theosophy!’ There is only one
spiritual science and we apply it as an instrument for proclaiming
the truth, for bringing to light the treasures of the spiritual life
of mankind. It is the same spiritual science that we apply in order
to explain the Bhagavad Gita on one occasion and on another the
Gospel of St. Luke. The greatness of spiritual science lies in the
fact that it is able to penetrate into every treasure given to
humanity in the realm of spiritual life; but we should have a false
conception of it if we were to close our ears to any of the
proclamations made to humanity.
It is with this
attitude of mind that you should listen to the proclamation made in
the Gospel of St. Luke, realizing that it is pervaded through and
through by the inspiration of Love. And then the increasing knowledge
that can be acquired from this Gospel with the help of spiritual
science will contribute not only to insight into the mysteries of the
surrounding Universe and of the spiritual ground of existence but to
an understanding of the momentous words in the Gospel of St. Luke:
‘And peace be in the souls of men in whom there is good will.’
When thoroughly understood, the Gospel of St. Luke is able, more than any
other religious text, to pour into the human soul that warmth-giving
Love through which peace reigns on Earth — and that is the most
beautiful mirror-image of divine mysteries revealed on Earth. What
can be revealed must be mirrored on Earth and, as mirror-image, rise
up again to the spiritual Heights. If we learn to understand
spiritual science in this sense it will be able to reveal to us the
mysteries of the divine-spiritual Beings and of spiritual existence,
and the mirror-image of these revelations will live in our souls.
Love and Peace — here is the most beautiful mirror-image on Earth
of what streams down from the Heights.
In this way we can
receive and assimilate the words of the Gospel of St. Luke which
resounded when the forces of the Nirmanakaya of Buddha streamed down
upon the Nathan Jesus-child. The revelations pour down from the
spiritual worlds upon the Earth and are reflected from human hearts
as Love and Peace to the extent to which men unfold the power, the
‘good will’, which the Christ-principle enables to flow from the
centre of man's being, from his Ego. The proclamation rings out
clearly and with the glow of warmth when we truly understand the
meaning of these words in the Gospel of St. Luke:
The revelation of the
spiritual worlds from the Heights and its answering reflection from
the hearts of men brings peace to all whose purpose upon the evolving
Earth is to unfold good will.
Notes:
1.
See references to the nature of this Ego in
Lectures
Four,
Five
and
Seven.
2.
See the lecture-courses given at
Hamburg, in May 1908,
and at
Cassel, in July 1909;
also the book
Christianity as Mystical Fact,
Ch. VIII.
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