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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness
Schmidt Number: S-2222
On-line since: 4th July, 2002
THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIENCE
To-day, the 8th May, the Theosophical Society celebrates the Day of
the White Lotus, which to the outer world is known, in the usual
terminology of the day, as the death-day of the instigator of that
Spiritual stream in which we now stand. To us it would seem more
appropriate to select a different designation for to-day's festival,
one taken from our knowledge of the Spiritual world and which should
run more like this: The day of transition from an activity on
the physical plane to one in the Spiritual worlds. For to us it
is not only an inner conviction in the ordinary sense of the words but
an ever-increasing knowledge, that what the outer world calls death is
but the passing from one form of work, from an activity stimulated by
the impressions of the outer physical world, to one entirely
stimulated by the Spiritual world. When to-day we remember the great
instigator, H. P. Blavatsky, and the leading persons of her movement
who have also now passed over into the Spiritual realm, let us in
particular try to form a clear idea of what we ourselves must make of
our Spiritual movement so that it may represent a continuation of that
activity which she exercised on the physical plane as long as she
remained on it; so that on the one hand it may be a continuation of
that activity and at the same time be possible for the Foundress
herself to continue her work from the Spiritual world, both now and in
the future. On such a day as this it is seemly that we should in a
sense break away from our usual study of theosophical matters, and
theosophical life, and should instead go through a sort of
conscientious retrospect, a retrospect concerning what the tasks and
duties the theosophical movement sets before us, and which may also
lead us to a sort of prevision of what this movement should become in
the future, and what we should do, and avoid doing.
What we are carrying on as the Theosophical movement came into the
world as the result of certain quite special circumstances and certain
historical necessities. You know that there was here no question, as
in other Spiritual movements or unions of any sort, of one or
more persons determining to follow certain ideals according as the
quality of their hearts and minds leads them to feel enthusiasm for
these ideals, trying to enthuse other people and to induce them to
form societies or unions for carrying these into practice. Not in this
way should we view the Theosophical movement if we understand it
aright. We only do this if we look upon it as an historical necessity
of our present life: something which, regardless of what people feel
or would like to feel about it, was bound to come, for it already lay
in the womb of time, so to speak, and had to be brought to birth. In
what way then may we regard the Theosophical movement? It may be
considered as a descent, a new descent of Spiritual life, of Spiritual
wisdom and Spiritual forces, into the sensible physical world from the
super-sensible ones. Such a descent had to take place for the further
development of man, and must repeatedly take place in the future. It
cannot of course be our task to-day to point out all the different
great impulses through which Spiritual life has flowed down from the
super-sensible worlds in order that the soul-life of man should be
renewed when it had, so to speak, grown old; but in the course of time
this has frequently occurred. One thing, however, must be borne in
mind.
In the primeval past, not long after the great Atlantean catastrophe
which the traditions of the various countries record as the story of
the Flood, came that impulse that we may describe as the inflow of
Spiritual life that poured into the development of mankind through the
Holy Rishis. Then came that other stream of Spiritual life that flowed
down into man's evolution through Zarathustra or Zoroaster, and we
find another stream of like nature in that which came to the old
Israelites through the revelations of Moses.
1 Dr. Steiner was forced later on to leave the Theosophical Society because of its Dogmatic Authority.
Finally, we have the greatest Impulse of all in that mighty inflow of
Spiritual life poured into the physical world through the appearance
on Earth of Christ-Jesus. This is by far the mightiest Impulse ever
given in the past, and as we have repeatedly emphasised, it is greater
than any that can at any future time come into the earth development.
We have also repeatedly stated that new impulses must ever come; new
Spiritual life and a new way of understanding the old Spiritual life
must flow into the development of mankind; were it not for this, the
tree of human development, which will grow green when humanity has
attained the goal of its evolution, would wither and perish. The
mighty Christ-Well of life out of which He poured into human
development must, through the new Spiritual impulses flowing into our
earth-life, be better and better understood.
As our own age, our nineteenth century drew near, the time came when
human development once again required a new intervention, a new
impulse. Once again new stimuli, new revelations, had to flow from the
super-sensible worlds into our physical world. This was a necessity,
and ought to have been felt as such in the earth itself, and was so
felt in those regions from which the life of earth is guided, the
Spiritual regions; only a short-sighted human observation could say:
What is the use of these constantly fresh streams of perfectly
new kinds of truths? Why should there be constantly new knowledge and
new life-impulses? We have that which was given us in Christianity,
for example, and with that we can go on quite simply in the old
way! From a higher standpoint this sort of observation is
extremely egotistical. It really is! The very fact that such
egotistical remarks are so frequently made to-day by the very people
who believe themselves to be good and religious, is all the stronger
proof that a refreshing of our Spiritual life is wanted. How often we
hear it said to-day: What is the use of new Spiritual movements?
We have our old traditions which have been preserved through the ages
as far back as history records; do not let us spoil those traditions
by what these people say who always think they know best! That
is an egotistical expression of the human soul. Those who speak thus
are not aware of this; they do not realise that they are only anxious
about the demands of their own souls. In themselves they feel:
We are quite satisfied with what we have! And they
establish the dogma, a dreadful dogma from the standpoint of
conscience, If we are satisfied with our way, those who must
learn from us, those who come after us, must learn to find
satisfaction in the same way as we have. All must go on as we
ourselves feel to be right, in accordance with our knowledge!
That way of talking is very, very frequently heard in the outer world.
This does not merely come from the limitations of a narrow soul, but
is connected with what we might call an egotistical bent of the human
soul. In religious life souls may in reality be extremely egotistical,
while wearing a mask of piety. Anyone who takes the question of the
Spiritual development of mankind seriously, must, if he studies the
world around him with understanding, become aware of one thing. He
must see that the human soul is gradually breaking away more and more
from the method in which for centuries men have contemplated the
Christ-Impulse, that greatest Impulse in the development of mankind. I
do not as a rule care to refer to contemporaneous matters, for what
goes on in the external spiritual life to-day is for the most part too
insignificant to appeal to the deeper side of a serious observer. For
instance, it was impossible in Berlin, during the last few weeks, to
pass a placarding column without seeing notices of a lecture entitled,
Did Jesus live? You probably all know that what led to
this subject being discussed as it has been in the widest circles
sometimes with very radical weapons was the view
announced by a German Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Arthur Drews, a
disciple of Edouard Hartmann, author of The Philosophy of the
Unknown and more especially of The Christ Myth. The
contents of the latter book have been made more widely known by the
lecture given by Professor Drews here in Berlin, under the title:
Did Jesus live?
It is, of course, in no sense my task to enter into the particulars of
that lecture. I will only put its principal thoughts before you. The
author of The Christ Myth, a modern philosopher who may
be supposed to represent the science and thought of the day,
searches through the several records of olden times that are supposed
to offer historical proof that a certain person of the name of Jesus
of Nazareth lived at the beginning of our era. He then tries, by the
help of what science and the critics have proved, to reduce the result
of all this to something like the following question: Are the
separate Gospels historic records proving that Jesus lived? He
takes all that Modern Theology on its part has to say, and then tries
to show that none of the Gospels can be historic records and that it
is impossible to prove by them that Jesus ever lived. He also tries to
prove that none of the other records of a purely historical nature
which man possesses are determinative, and that nothing conclusive
concerning an historic Jesus can be deduced from them.
Now everyone who has gone into this question knows, that considered
purely from an external standpoint, the sort of observation practised
by Professor Drews has much in its favour, and comes as a sort of
result of modern theological criticism. I will not go into details;
for it is of no consequence to-day that someone having studied the
philosophical side of science should assert that there is no historic
document to prove that Jesus lived, because the only documents
supposed to do so are not authoritative. Drews and all those of like
mind go by what has come to us from Paul the Apostle. (In recent times
there are even people who doubt the genuine character of all the
Pauline Epistles, but as the author of The Christ Myth does not
go so far as that, we need not go into it.) Drews says of St. Paul
that he does not base his assertions on a personal acquaintance with
Jesus of Nazareth, but on the revelation he received in the Event of
Damascus. We know that this is absolutely true. But now Drews comes to
the following conclusion: What concept of Christ did St. Paul
hold? He formed the concept of a purely Spiritual Christ, who can
dwell in each human soul, so to speak, and can be realised within each
one. St. Paul nowhere asserts the necessity that the Christ, whom he
considered as a purely Spiritual Being, should have been present in a
Jesus whose existence cannot be historically proved. One can therefore
say: that no one knows whether an historic Jesus lived or not; that
the Christ-concept of St. Paul is a purely spiritual one, simply
reproducing what may live in every human soul as an impulse towards
perfection, as a sort of God in man. The author of The Christ
Myth further points out that certain conceptions similar to
the idea the Christians have of Jesus Christ were already in
existence concerning a sort of pre-Christian Jesus, and that several
Eastern peoples had the concept of a Messiah. This compels Drews to
ask: What then is actually the difference between the idea of
Christ which St. Paul had [and which Drews does not attempt to deny],
what is the difference between the picture of Christ which St.
Paul had in his heart and soul, and the idea of the Messiah already in
existence? Drews then goes on to say: Before the time of
St. Paul, men had a Christ-picture of a God, a Messiah-picture of a
God, who did not actually become man, who did not descend so far as
individual manhood; they even celebrated His suffering, death and
resurrection as symbolical processes in their various festivals and
mysteries; but one thing they did not possess: there is no record of
an individual man having really passed through suffering, death and
resurrection on the physical earth. That then was more or less
the general idea The author of The Christ Myth now asks:
In how far then is there anything new in St. Paul? To what
extent did he carry the idea of Christ further?
Drews himself replies: The advance made by St. Paul on the
earlier conceptions is that he does not represent a God hovering in
the higher regions, but a God who became individual man. Now I
want you to note this: According to the author of The Christ
Myth, Paul pictures a Christ who really became man. But the
strange part is this: St. Paul is supposed to have stopped short at
that idea! He is supposed to have grasped the idea of a Christ Who
really became man, although, according to him Christ never existed as
such! St. Paul is therefore supposed to say, that the highest idea
possible is that of a God, a Christ, not only hovering in the higher
regions, but having descended to earth and become man; but it never
entered his mind that this Christ actually did live on earth in a
human being. This means that the author of The Christ Myth
attributes to St. Paul a conception of the Christ which, to sound
thinking is a mockery. St. Paul is made to say: Christ must
certainly have been an individual man, but although I preach Him, I
deny His existence in any historical sense.
That is the nucleus round which the whole subject turns; truly one
does not require much theological or critical erudition to refute it;
it is only necessary to confront Professor Drews as philosopher. For
his Christ-concept cannot possibly stand. The Pauline Christ-concept,
in the sense in which Drews takes it, cannot be maintained without
accepting the historic Jesus. Professor Drews' book itself demands the
existence of the historic Jesus. It would seem therefore, that at the
present time a book can be accepted in the widest circles and
considered as an earnest and scientific work, which is centred upon a
contradiction such as turns all inner logic into a mockery! Is it
possible in these days for human thought to travel along such crooked
paths as these? What is the reason of this? Anyone who wishes clearly
to understand the development of mankind must find the answer to that
question.
The reason is that what men believe or think at any given period, is
not the result of their logical thought, but of their feelings and
sentiments; they believe and think what they wish to think. In
particular do those who are preparing the Christ-concept for the
coming age feel a strong impulse to shut out from their hearts
everything to be found in the old external records and yet they
also feel an urge to prove everything by means of such external
documents. These however, considered from a purely material
standpoint, lose their value after a definite lapse of time. The time
will come for Shakespeare, just as it came for Honker, so will it come
for Goethe, when people will try to prove that an historic Goethe
never existed at all. Historic records must in course of time lose
their value from a material standpoint. What then is necessary, seeing
that we are already living in an age when the thought of its most
prominent representatives is such that they have an impulse in their
hearts urging them towards the denial of the historic Christ? What is
necessary as a new impulse of Spiritual life? It is necessary that the
possibility should be given of understanding the historic Jesus in a
spiritual way. In what other way can this fact be expressed?
As we all know, St. Paul started from the Event of Damascus. We also
know that to him that Event was the great revelation, whereas all he
had heard at Jerusalem on the physical plane, as direct
information had not been able to make a Saul into St. Paul.
What convinced him was the Damascus revelation from Spiritual worlds!
Through that alone Christianity really came into being, and through
that St. Paul gained the power to proclaim the Christ. But did he
obtain a purely abstract idea, which in itself might be contradicted?
No! He was convinced from what he had seen in the Spiritual worlds
that Christ had lived on earth, had suffered, died and risen. If
Christ be not risen then is my teaching vain, St. Paul quite
rightly said. He did not receive the mere idea, the concept of Christ
from the Spiritual worlds, he convinced himself of the reality of the
Christ, Who died on Golgotha. To him that was proof of the historic
Jesus.
What then is necessary, now that the time is approaching when, as a
result of the materialism of the age the historic records are losing
their value, when everyone can quite easily prove that these records
cannot withstand criticism, so that nothing can be proved externally
and historically? It is necessary that people should learn that Christ
can be recognised as the historic Jesus without any external records
whatever, that through a right training the Event of Damascus can be
renewed in each human being and indeed in the near future will be
renewed for humanity as a whole, so that it is absolutely possible to
be convinced of the existence of an historic Jesus. That is the new
way in which the world must find the road to Him. It is of no
consequence whether the facts that occurred were right or wrong, the
point of importance is that they did occur. It is of no consequence
that such a book as The Christ Myth should contain certain
errors, the thing that matters is, it was found possible to write it!
It shows that quite different methods are necessary in order that
Christ may remain with humanity; that He may be rediscovered.
A man who thinks about humanity and its needs and of how the souls of
men are expressing themselves externally, will not adopt the
standpoint of saying: What do those people who think differently
matter to me? I have my own convictions, they are quite enough for
me. Most people do not realise what dreadful egoism underlies
such words. It was not as the result of an idea, an outer ideal, or of
any personal predilection, that a movement arose through which people
might learn that it is possible to find the way into the spiritual
world, and that among other things, Christ Himself can also be found
there. This movement came into being in response to a necessity which
arose in the course of the nineteenth century, that there should flow
down from the spiritual worlds into the physical world, possibilities,
by means of which men will be able to obtain spiritual truth in a new
sort of way, the old way having died out. In the course of the past
winter, have we not testified how fruitful this new way may be?
We have repeatedly laid stress on the fact that the first thing for us
in our movement is not to take our stand on any record or external
document, but first of all to enquire: What is revealed to clairvoyant
consciousness when one ascends to the spiritual worlds? If, through
some catastrophe, all the historical proofs of the historic Jesus of
the Gospels and of the Epistles of St. Paul were lost, what would
independent spiritual consciousness tell us? What do we learn
concerning the spiritual worlds on the path which can be trodden any
day and hour by each one? We are told: In the Spiritual worlds
you will find the Christ, even though you know nothing historically of
the fact that He was on the earth at the beginning of our era.
The fact which must be established over and over again by a renewal of
the Event of Damascus is that there is an original proof of the
historic personality of Jesus of Nazareth! Just as a school-boy is not
told that he must believe the three sides of a triangle make a hundred
and eighty degrees simply because in olden times that was laid down as
a fact, but is made to prove it for himself, so we to-day, not
only testify out of a spiritual consciousness that Christ has always
existed, but also that the historic Jesus can be found in the
spiritual worlds, that He is a reality, and was a reality at the very
time of which tradition tells.
We have gone further and have shown that what we established by
spiritual perception without the Gospels, is to be rediscovered within
them. We then feel a deep respect and reverence for the Gospels for we
find again in them what we found in the spiritual worlds independently
of them. We now know that they must have come from the same sources of
super-sensible illumination from which we must draw to-day; we know
they must be records of the spiritual worlds.
The purpose of what we call the Theosophical movement is to make such
a method of observation possible, to make it possible for spiritual
life to play its part in human science. In order that this might come
about, the stimulus thereto had to be given by the Theosophical
Society. That is the one side of the question. The other is that this
stimulus had to be given at a time which was least ripe for it. This
is proved by the fact that to-day, thirty years after the birth of the
Theosophical movement, the story of the non-historic Jesus still
endures. How much is known, outside this movement, of the possibility
of the historic Jesus being discovered in any other way than through
the external documents? What was being done in the nineteenth century
still continues: the authority of the religious documents is being
undermined. Thus while there was the greatest necessity that this new
possibility should be given to humanity on the other hand the
preparations made for its reception were the smallest conceivable. For
do we by any chance believe that our modern philosophers are
particularly ready to receive it? How little ready the philosophers of
the twentieth century are, can be seen by the concept they have of the
Christ of St. Paul. Anyone acquainted with scientific life knows that
this is the great and final result of the materialism which has been
preparing for centuries: although it asserts that it wishes to rise
above materialism, the mode of thought prevailing in science has not
progressed beyond that which is in process of dying out. Science as it
exists to-day certainly is a ripe fruit, but one which must suffer the
fate of all ripe fruit; it must begin to decay. No one can assert that
it could bring forth a new impulse for the renewal of its mode of
thought or of its methods of coming to conclusions. When we think of
this we realise, apart from all other considerations, the weight of
the stimulus given through H. P. Blavatsky; no matter what our
opinions of her capacities and the details of her life may be, she was
the instrument for the giving of the stimulus; and she proved herself
fully competent for the purpose, We who are taking part in
celebrating such a day as this, as members of the Theosophical
Society, are in a very peculiar position. We are celebrating a
personal festival, dedicated to one person. Now, although the belief
in Authority is certainly a dangerous thing in the external world, yet
there the danger is reduced by reason of the jealousy and envy that
play so great a part; even though the reverence of a few persons is
manifested outwardly, and rather strongly, by the burning of incense,
yet egoism and envy has considerable power over them. In the
Theosophical movement the danger of injury through the worship of the
personality and belief in Authority is particularly great. We are,
therefore, in a very peculiar position when we celebrate a festival
dedicated to a personality. Not only the customs of the time but also
the matter itself places us in a difficult position, for the
revelations of the higher worlds must always come along the by-way of
the personality. Personalities must be the bearers of the revelations
and yet we must take care not to confuse the former with the
latter. We must receive the revelations through the medium of a
personality, and the question that constantly recurs whether he or she
is worthy of confidence, is a very natural one. What they did on
such and such a day does not harmonise with our ideas! Can we,
therefore, believe in the whole thing?
This forms part of a certain tendency of our time, which we may
describe as lack of devotion to the truth. How often at the present
day do we hear of a case in which some prominent person may please the
public; for one or more decades what he or she does may be quite
satisfactory, for the public is too lazy to go into the matter for
itself. Some years after, if it should transpire that this person's
private life is not all it might be and open to suspicion, the idol
then falls to the ground. Whether this is right or not is not the
point. The point is that we ought to acquire a feeling that although
the person in question may be the means by which the spiritual life
comes to us, it is our duty to prove this for ourselves and
indeed to test the person by the truth, instead of testing the truth
by the person. Especially should that be our attitude in the
Theosophical movement: we pay most respect to a personality if we do
not encumber him with belief in Authority, as people are so fond of
doing, for we know that the activity of that personality after death
is only transferred to the spiritual world. We are justified in saying
that the activity of H. P. Blavatsky still continues, and we, within
the movement which she instigated, can either further that activity or
injure it. Most of all do we injure it if we blindly believe in her,
swearing by what she thought when she lived on the physical plane, and
blindly believing in her authority. We revere and help her most if we
are fully conscious that she provided the stimulus for a movement
which originated from one of the deepest necessities in human
evolution. While we see that this movement had to come, we ascribe the
stimulus to her; but many years have gone by since that time and we
must prove ourselves worthy of her work, by acknowledging that what
was then started must now be carried further. We admit that it had to
be instigated by her, but do not let us ferret about in her private
affairs, especially at the present time. We know the significance of
the impetus she gave, but we know that it only very imperfectly
represents what is to come. When we recollect all that has been put
before our souls during the past winter, we cannot but say: What
Madame Blavatsky started is indeed of deep and incisive importance,
but how immeasurable is all that she could not accomplish in that
introductory act of hers! What has just been said of the necessity of
the Theosophical Movement for the Christ-experience was completely
hidden from Blavatsky. Her task was to point out the germs of truth in
the religions of the Aryan peoples; the comprehension of the
revelations given in the Old and New Testaments was denied her. We
honour the positive work accomplished by this Personality and we shall
not refer to all she was not able to do, all that was concealed from
her and which we must now contribute. Anyone who allows himself to be
stirred by H. P. Blavatsky and wishes to go further than she, will
say: If the stimulus given by her in the Theosophical Movement is to
be carried further, we must attain to an understanding of the
Christ-Event.
The early Theosophical movement failed to grasp the religious and
spiritual life of the Old and New Testaments; that is why everything
is wide of the mark in this first movement, and the Theosophical
Movement has the task of making this good and of adding what was not
given at first. If we inwardly feel these facts, they are as it were a
claim, made by our Theosophical conscience.
Thus we visualise H. P. Blavatsky as the bringer of a sort of dawn of
a new light; but of what good would that light be if it were not to
illuminate the most important thing that mankind has ever possessed! A
Theosophy which does not provide the means of understanding
Christianity is absolutely valueless to our present civilisation; but
if it should become an instrument for the understanding of
Christianity we should then be making the right use of the instrument.
If we do not do this, if we do not use the impulse given by H. P.
Blavatsky for this purpose, what are we doing? We are arresting the
activity of her spirit in our age! Everything is in course of
development, including the spirit of Blavatsky. Her spirit is now
working in the spiritual world to further the progress of the
Theosophical movement; but if we sit before her and the book she
wrote, saying: We will raise a monument to you consisting of
your own works, who is it that is making her spirit
earth-bound? Who is condemning her not to progress beyond what she
established on earth? We, ourselves! We revere and acknowledge her
value if, even as she herself went beyond her time, we also go further
than she did so long as the grace ruling the development of the world
continues to vouchsafe spiritual revelations from the spiritual world.
That is what we place before our souls to-day as a question of
conscience, and after all that is most in accordance with the wishes
of our comrade H. C. Olcott, the first President of the Theosophical
Society, who has also now passed into the spiritual world. Let us
inscribe this in our souls to-day, for it is precisely through lack of
knowledge of the living Theosophical life that all the shadow-sides of
the Theosophical movement have arisen. If the Theosophical movement
were to carry out its great original impulse, unweakened, and with a
holy conscience, it would possess the force to drive out of the field
all the harmful influences which, as time went by, have already come
in, as well as others which certainly will come. This one thing we
must very earnestly do: we must continue to develop the impulse. In
many places to-day we see Theosophists who think they are doing good
work, and who feel very happy to be able to say: We are now
doing something which is in conformity with external science!
How pleasing it is to many leading Theosophists if they can point out
that those who study various religions confirm what has come from the
spiritual world; while they quite fail to observe that it is just this
unspiritual mode of comparison that must be overcome. For instance
Theosophy comes into close contact with the thoughts which led to the
denial of the historic Jesus and indeed there is a certain relation
between them. Originally Theosophy only ranked the historic Jesus with
other founders of religion. It never occurred to Blavatsky to deny the
historic Jesus; though she certainly placed Him one hundred years
earlier. She did not deny His existence, but she did not recognise
Christ-Jesus; although she instigated the movement in which He may
some day be known, she was not able herself to recognise Him. In this,
the first state of the Theosophical movement comes strangely into line
with what those who deny the historic Jesus are doing to-day.
For instance, Professor Drews points out that the occurrences that
preceded the Event of Golgotha can also be found in the accounts of
the old Gods, for example in the cult of Adonis or Tammuz, in that
there is a suffering God-hero, a dying God-hero and a risen God-hero,
and so on. What is contained in the various religious traditions is
always being brought forward and the following conclusion drawn: you
are told of a Jesus of Nazareth, who suffered, died and rose again and
who was the Christ; but you see that other peoples also worshipped an
Adonis, a Tammuz, etc. The similarity to one of the old gods is
constantly being insisted on, when referring to the occurrences in
Palestine.
This is also being done in our Theosophical movement. People do not
realise that comparing the religions of Adonis or Tammuz with the
events in Palestine proves nothing. I will show you by means of an
example wherein such comparisons are at fault; on the surface they may
work out all right, yet there is a great flaw in them. Suppose an
official living in 1910 wore a certain uniform as an outer sign of his
official activity; and that in 1930 a totally different man should
wear the same uniform. It will not be the uniform but the individual
wearing it that determines the efficiency of the work he accomplishes.
Now, suppose that in the year 2090 an historian comes forward and
says: I have ascertained that in 1910 there lived a man who wore
a particular coat, waistcoat and trousers and further, that in 1930
the same uniform was being worn, we see therefore, that the coat,
waistcoat and trousers have been carried over and that on both
occasions we have the same being before us.
Such a conclusion would of course be foolish, but not more so than to
say that in the religions of Asia Minor we find Adonis or Tammuz
undergoing suffering and death and rising again, and that we find the
same in Christ! The point is not that suffering, death and
resurrection were experienced, the point is by Whom were they
experienced! Suffering, death and resurrection are like a uniform in
the historical development of the world and we should not point to the
uniform we meet with in the legends, but to the individualities who
wore it. It is true that individualities, in order that men might
understand them, have so to say performed Christ-deeds which show that
they too could accomplish the acts of a Tammuz, for instance; but each
time there was a different being behind the acts. Therefore, all
comparisons of religions proving that the figure of Siegfried
corresponds to that of Baldur, Baldur to Tammuz and so on, are but a
sign that the legends and myths take certain forms in certain peoples.
When we are trying to gain knowledge of man there is no more value in
these comparisons than there would be in pointing out that a certain
species of uniform is later found to be in use for the same office.
That is the fundamental error prevailing everywhere, even in the
Theosophical movement, and it is nothing but a result of the
materialistic habit of thought.
The will and testament of Blavatsky will only be fulfilled if the
Theosophical movement is able to cultivate and preserve the life of
the spirit if it looks to the spirit which shows itself, and
not in the books someone may have written. Spirit should be cultivated
among us. We will not merely study books written centuries ago, but
develop in a living way the spirit which has been given us. We will be
a union of persons who do not simply believe in books or in
individuals, but in the living spirit; who do not merely talk about H.
P. Blavatsky having departed from the physical plane and continuing to
live on after her death, but who believe in such a living way in what
has been revealed through Theosophy that her life on the physical
plane may not be made a hindrance to the further super-sensible
activity of her spirit.
Only when we think about her in that way will the Theosophical
movement be of use, and only when men and women who think in that way
are to be found on the earth can H. P. Blavatsky do anything for the
movement. For this it is necessary that further spiritual research
should be made, and above all that people should learn what was
asserted in the last public lecture: that mankind is in process
of development and that something approximate to conscience came into
being at the time of Jesus Christ; that such things do arise and are
of significance to the whole of evolution. At a particular point of
time conscience arose; before that time it was altogether a different
thing, and it will be different again after man's soul has for some
while developed further in the light of conscience. We have already
indicated the way in which it will alter in the future.
As a parallel to the appearance of the Event of Damascus a great
number of people in the course of the twentieth century will
experience something like the following: As soon as they have acted in
some way they will learn to contemplate their deed; they will become
more thoughtful, they will have an inner picture of the deed. At first
only a few people will experience this, but the numbers will
continually increase during the next two or three thousand years. As
soon as they have done something the picture will be there; at first
they will not know what it is; but those who have studied Theosophy
will say: This is a picture! It is no dream; it is a picture,
showing the karmic fulfilment of the act I have just committed. Some
day this will take place as the fulfilment, the karmic balancing of
what I have just done! This will begin in the twentieth century.
Man will begin to develop the faculty of seeing before him a picture
of a far-distant, not-yet-accomplished act. It will show itself as an
inner counterpart of his action, its karmic fulfilment, which will
some day take place. Man will then be able to say: I have now
been shown what I shall have to do to compensate for what I have just
done, and I can never become perfect until I have made that
compensation. Karma will then cease to be mere theory, for this
inner picture will be experienced.
Such faculties as this are becoming more frequent; new capacities are
developing; but the old are the germs for the new. What will make it
possible for men to be shown the karmic pictures? It will come as a
result of the soul having for some time stood in the light of
conscience! Not the various external physical experiences it may have
are of most importance to the soul, but rather its progress towards
perfection. By the help of conscience the soul is now preparing for
what has been just described. The more incarnations a man has during
which he cultivates and perfects his conscience, the more he is doing
towards acquiring that higher faculty through which in the form of
spiritual vision the voice of God will once more speak to him, the
voice of God which was formerly experienced in a different way.
Ęschylos still represented his Orestes as having a vision before him
of what had been brought about by his evil actions; he was compelled
to see the results of these actions in the external world. The new
capacity in course of development for the soul is such that men will
see the effects of their deeds in pictures of the future. That is the
new stage. Development runs its course in cycles, following a circular
movement, and what man possessed in his older vision comes back again
in a new form.
Through knowledge of the spiritual world we are really preparing to
awake in the right way in our next incarnation, and this knowledge
also helps us to work in the right way for those who are to come after
us. For this reason Theosophy is in itself no egotistical movement,
for it does not concern itself with what benefits the individual alone
but with what makes for the progress of all mankind.
We have now enquired on two occasions: What is conscience?
To-day we have also asked: What will the conscience now
developing, eventually become? How does conscience stand, if we regard
it as a seed in the age through which we are now passing? What will be
the result of the action of this seed of conscience? The higher
faculties just described! It is very important that we should
believe in the evolution of the soul, from incarnation to incarnation,
from age to age. We learn that, when we learn to understand true
Christianity. In this respect we still have a great deal to learn from
St. Paul. In all Eastern religions, even in Buddhism, you find the
doctrine that the outer world is Maya. So it is; and in
the East that is established as absolute truth. St. Paul points to the
same truth, and emphatically asserts it. At the same time St. Paul
emphasises something else: Man does not see the truth when he
looks with his eyes; he does not see the reality when he looks at what
is outside. Why is this? Because, in his descent into matter he
himself transfused the external reality with illusion. It is man
himself, through his own act, who made the outer world an
illusion. Whether you call this the Fall, as the Bible does, or
give it any other name, it is a man's own fault that the outer world
now appears as an illusion. Eastern religions attribute the blame for
this to the Gods! Beat thy breast, says St. Paul,
for thou hast descended and so dimmed thy vision that colour and
sound no longer appear spiritual. Dost thou believe that colour and
sound are materially existent? They are Maya! Thou thyself hast made
them Maya. Thou, man, must release thyself from this; thou must
re-acquire what thou has done away with! Thou hast descended into
matter and now must thou release thyself therefrom, and set thyself
free though not in the way advised by Buddha: Free thyself from
the longing for existence! No! Thou must look upon the life on earth
in its true light. What thou thyself hast reduced to Maya, that thou
must restore within thee This thou can'st do by taking into
thyself the Christ-force, which will show thee the outer world in its
reality!
Herein lies a great impulse for the life of the countries of the West,
a new impulse, which as yet is far from having been carried into all
parts. What does the world know to-day of the fact that in one part of
it an endeavour is actually being made to create a theory of
Knowledge in the sense of St. Paul, as it were? Such a theory
could not alarm as Kant does: The thing-in-itself is
incomprehensible. Such a theory of knowledge could only say:
It lies with thee, 0 man; through what thou now art, thou art
bringing about an untrue reality. Thou must thyself go through an
inner process. Then will Maya be transformed into truth, into
spiritual reality! The task of both my books,
Truth and Science
and
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
was to put the theory of Knowledge on a Pauline basis. Both these
books are focused on that which is the great achievement of the
Pauline conception of man in the Western world. The reason these books
are so little understood, or at most in theosophical circles, is
because they assume the hypothesis of the whole impulse which has
found expression in the Theosophical movement. The greatest must be
seen in the smallest!
Through such considerations as these, which lift us above the limits
of our narrow humanity, and show us how, in our little every-day work,
we can link on to that which goes on from stage to stage, from life to
life, leading us ever more and more into the spiritual existence,
through dwelling on these we shall become good Theosophists. It
is right that we should devote ourselves to thoughts such as these, on
a day devoted to a personality who gave the stimulus to a movement
that will live on and on, which is not to remain a mere colourless
theory but must have the sap of life within it, so that the tree of
the theosophical conception of the world may constantly renew its
greenness.
In this spirit let us endeavour to make ourselves capable of preparing
a field in the Theosophical movement in which the impulse of Blavatsky
shall not be hindered and arrested, but shall progress to further
development.
Last Modified: 07-Oct-2024
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