LECTURE EIGHT
Berne, September 8, 1910
It was said
yesterday that through the Christ Event the two forms of
Initiation became processes of world-historic
significance, and when this is fully comprehended it
epitomises an essential aspect of that Event.
One form of
Initiation consisted in passing through the daily
experience of waking from sleep in such a way that on
penetrating into his physical and etheric bodies a man's
faculties of perception were diverted from the physical
environment and directed instead to the processes
operating in those bodies. It was above all in the
Mysteries and Mystery-centres of ancient Egypt that
Initiation took this form. The aspirants were directed
and guided in a way that enabled them to avoid the
accompanying dangers; in a certain respect they became
changed men, able during the process of Initiation to
look into the spiritual world — to begin with into
the sphere of spiritual forces and beings working in the
htiman phsical and etheric bodies.
The Essene
Initiation may be described as follows. — When,
having lived through the 42 stages, an Essene had gained
more intimate knowledge of his inner nature, of his true
Eg0-nature, and of what made spiritual vision possible
when using the special organs transmitted by heredity,
his consciousness was led beyond the 42 stages to
awareness of the divine-spiritual Being who as Jahve, or
Jehovah, had brought about the formation of the organ
first possessed by Abraham; in the spirit the Essene
became aware of the essential importance of this organ at
that time. He was therefore looking back upon the
structure of man's inner nature — itself a product
of the same divine-spiritual Being. Knowledge of man's
inner nature was the aim of this Initiation.
In the
lecture yesterday I spoke in a general sense of what is
in store for one who penetrates into his own inner
nature. In the first place, egoism in every shape and
form is aroused, inducing a man to say to himself: I will
marshal all the passions and emotions that are connected
with my Ego and are averse from knowing anything of the
spiritual world — I will marshal all these forces
so that I can identify myself with them, acting and
feeling only out of my own Ego-centric nature! —
The danger is that a man who penetrates into his own
inner nature may become supremely egoistic, and this also
as a partisular form of illusion to those who are
endeavouring through esotcric development to achieve the
same goal. In the latter case egoism takesmany forms
which the person in question usually does not recognize;
in fact he believes his impulses to be the reverse of
egoistic.
Again and
again it has been said that the path into the higher
worlds demands inner conquests. But there are many who
would like to tread this path without any such efforts,
who would like to have vision of the higher worlds but
are unwilling to undergo the experiences that make this
possible; such people dislike having to overcome all
kinds of impulscs inherent in human nature and want to
reach the higher worlds while at the same time avoiding
all such impulses. They are quite unaware that to allow
entirely regular and normal occurrences on this path to
be the cause of disaffection is often a sign of extreme
egoism. Every individual ought really to ask himself: Is
it not inevitable that as a human being I should stir up
powers of this kind? — But although it has been
emphasized over and over again that at, a certain stage
something of the sort will happen, these people are still
taken aback. In saying this I merely want to indicate the
illusions and misconceptions to which everyone is apt to
succumb. It must also be remembered that men in our time
have become very ease-loving and would prefer to tread
the path into the higher worlds with the comforts
available to them in everyday life. But comforts much
sought after in certain domains of life simply cannot be
available along the path leading into the spiritual
world.
In former
times, a man who found this path through the process of
Initiation which led into his inner nature, came into the
realm of its own — divine-spiritual Powers at work
in his physical and etheric bodies. Such a man was able
to testify of the secrets of the spiritual world and to
recount to his fellow-men the experiences undergone in
the Mysteries while he was being led into his own inner
nature and therewith into the spiritual world. But
something was connected with this process. When the
Initiate came habk from the spiritual worlds he could say
I have gazed into the realm of spirtual existence; but I
was helped! The helpers of the Initiator made it possible
for me to live through the time when the demonic beings
from my own nature would have got the better of me.
— -But because he owed his vision of the spiritual
world to helpers from outside, he remained dependent for
the whole of his life upon this
‘Initiation-collegiate’, upon those who had
been his helpers. He carried with him into the world the
forces of the beings who had helped in his
Initiation.
This was
all to be changed and such dependence brought to an end.
Aspirants for Initiation were to become less and less
dependent upon those who were their teachers and
initiators. For this help involved a factor of
fundamental importance. In our everyday consciousness a
clear and distinct feeling of ‘I’ wakens in
us at a certain moment of our existence. This has often
been spoken of, and my book Theosophy too refers
to the point of time when the human being begins to be
aware of himself as an ‘I’, an Ego — an
experience that is not possible for an animal. If an
animal were to look into its inner nature in the way a
human being does, it would not find an individual Ego,
but a group-Ego; it would feel itself belonging to a
whole group. This feeling of of egohood, was suppressed
in the ancient Initiations while a man was rising into
the spiritual worlds and from everything I have said you
will realise that this was a beneficial measure. For all
the individualistic impulses, passions and so forth which
tend to separate man from the external world are bound up
with the feeling of egohood. If passions and emotions
were to be prevented from reaching a certain strength, it
was necessary for the feeling of egohood to be dimmed.
Consciousness during Initiations in the ancient Mysteries
was not like that of dreams, but the feeling of egohood
was suppressed. The goal now, since the Mystery of
Golgotha, was that a man should undergo Initiation while
maintaining full awareness of the Ego functioning in him
during the hours of waking life. The clouding of the Ego
that was always part of the process of ancient
Initiation, was to cease. This, of course, can only come
about gradually in the course of time, but in fact it has
already been achieved to-day to a considerable extent in
all rightly constituted Initiations; the feeling of
egohood is not extinguished when a man rises into the
higher worlds.
We will now
study in greater detail an Initiation of pre-Christian
times, for example, that of the Essenes. Suppression of
the feeling of egohood was, in a certain sense,
associated with this Initiation too. That which gives man
the feelng,of ‘I’, of egohood, in earthly
existence, enabling him to have external perceptions
— this had to be suppressed. You need think only of
a very elementary aspect of everyday life to realise that
in the different state of existence during sleep, when
man is in the spiritual world, he has no consciousness of
‘I’. It is only in waking life that he has
has consciousness, when he has withdrawn from the
spiritual world and his gaze is directed to the physical
world of the senses. So it is in men to-day and so too it
was in those among whom Christ worked on the Earth. In a
man belonging to the present era of Earth-existence the
‘I’ is not, in normal conditions, awake in
the spiritual world. The essence of Christian Initiation,
however, is that the ’I’ remains fully awake
in the higher worlds as in the external, physical
world.
Think of
the moment of waking. Man emerges from a higher world and
descends into his physical and etheric bodies. At this
moment, however, he does not become aware of the inner
processes in these bodies because his faculty of
perception is diverted to the environment. Now everything
upon which man's gaze falls at the moment of waking,
everything that comes within his purview — whether
by physical perception through eyes or ears, or grasped
with the intellect bound up with the physical organ of
the brain — everything, in fact, that he perceives
in the physical environment, was designated in the
Hebraic secret doctine as Malkhut, [ Note 01 ] the ‘Kingdom’. This
was the expression used for everything in which the 'I'
of man could participate consciously. The most accurate
rendering of what was conveyed in Hebraic antiquity by
the expression the ‘Kingdom’, is this: That
in which the human ‘I’ can be consciously
present, Primarily, the Kingdom denoted the world of the
senses, the world in which man lives in the waking
condition with full Ego-consciousness.
Let us now
follow the stages of ancient Initiation while a man was
penetrating into his own inner nature. The first stage,
before he could penetrate into his etheric body and
become aware of its secrets, is not difficult to picture.
As we know, the external sheaths of a human being consist
of the astral body, the etheric body and the physical
body. An aspirant for this kind of Initiation must be
able consciously to see through his astral body as it
were from within. He must first experierice his
astral body from within if he is to penetrate into the
inner nature of his physical and etheric bodies. That is
the portal through which he must pass. New, ever new,
experiences await him — experiences as objective as
those confronting him in the external world.
If we were
to designate as the ‘Kingdom’ the objects
which our present constitution enables us to perceive in
our physical environment, we should distinguish three
kingdoms: mineral, plant and animal. In the terminology
of the ancient Hebrews no such definite distinction was
made; the three kingdoms were comprised in one.
Just as we perceive the animals, plants and minerals
through the Ego when we gaze into the world of the
senses, so does the gaze of one in process of penetrating
into his own inner nature fall upon everything that can
be perceived in the astral body. Now, however, he does
not perceive directly through his Ego; the Ego is using
the instrument of the astral body. And what a man sees
when using a different faculty of perception — that
is, when his Ego is functioning in the world with which
his astral organs connect him — was always
designated in the language of the ancient Hebrews by
three expressions. just as we have an animal kingdom, a
plant kingdom and a mineral kingdom, the trinity
perceived when a man's consciousness was functioning in
his astral body was designated by three words:
Netzah, Yesod and Hod. To
translate these expressions into our language with any
degree of accuracy it would be necessary to probe deeply
into the feeling for words that existed in ancient
Hebraic culture, for the renderings usually given in
dictionaries do not help at all. For example, Hod as a
combination of sounds would have conveyed the meaning of
‘spirit revealing itself outwardly.’ The word
would have signified spirituality manifesting itself
outwardly, striving to express itself outwardly, but
spirituality that must he conceived of as
astral. The word Netzah would have been the term
denoting this urge for outward expression in a much
denser form. The word ‘impermeable’ may
perhaps convey some indication of the meaning.
In modern
textbooks of Physics you will find a statement that
should really count as a definition only, but logic has
not been taken into consideration. It is said that
physical bodies are ‘impermeable’; but the
definition of a physical body ought in reality to be that
at the place where it is, no other body can be at the
same time. This should count as a definition, but instead
of that a dogma is created, and it is said: bodies of the
physical world have the quality of impermeability —
whereas the correct phraseology would be that two bodies
cannot be at the same place simultaneously. That,
however, is a matter belonging to philosophy.
Self-manifestation in space so that everything else is
excluded was expressed by the word Netzah — this
would be a much denser nuance of Hod. What lies between
the two was indicated by the word Yesod.
Thus there
are three different nuances. First, an astral reality
revealing itself outwardly — Hod; when
densification or coarsening has occurred to such a degree
that things become physically impermeable, the Hebraic
term would have been Netzah; Yesod indicated the
intermediate degrees. It may therefore be said that these
three words designated the three different qualities or
attributes of the beings of the astral world.
We can now
follow the experiences of the aspirant for Initiation
through the further stages leading into his inner nature.
Having first passed through the necessary stages in his
astral body, he penetrated into his etheric body, where
he became aware of realities higher than those designated
by these three words. Why higher? — you may ask.
There is a particular reason for this — one of
which account must be taken if you want to understand the
inner structure of the world and of man. You must
remember that it is the very highest spiritual
forces that have worked on what appear to us as the
lowest manifestations of the external world.
Your attention has often been drawn to this, especially
in connection with the nature and constitution of
man.
We describe
man as consisting of physical body, etheric body, astral
body and Ego. The Ego or ‘I’ of man is in a
certain sense the highest of his members; but at the
stage at which it is to-day, it is the ‘baby’
among the four. At present the ‘I’ is
actually at the lowest stage, yet it contains the
rudiments of the highest perfection attainable by man. On
the other hand, the physical body is, in its way, the
most perfect member — although this is due, not to
man himself but to the work performed by divine-spiritual
Beings through the evolutionary epochs of Old Saturn, Old
Sun and Old Moon, The astral body too has already reached
a stage of greater perfection than that of the Ego. The
Ego is the member of our being with which we identify
ourselves. Anyone who does not deliberately close his
eyes to reality need only look within himself to find his
Ego. On the other hand, just think how far man is from
understanding the mysteries of his physical body!
Divine-spiritual Beings have been working at the human
physical body not for millions of years only but for
millions upon millions to perfect its present structure.
Between physical body and Ego are the astral body and the
etheric body. Compared with the physical body, the astral
body is an imperfect member, having within it desires,
passions, emotions and so forth. Owing to the forces and
nature of the astral body man enjoys many things that are
directly injurious to the constitution of the physical
body, although the etheric body, lying between them, acts
as a check. Man enjoys many things that are poison for
the heart; if he depended on the astral body alone his
health would very soon be undermined. He owes his health
entirely to the fact that the human heart is so perfectly
constructed that it is able for many decades to withstand
the attacks of the astral body. The more deeply we
penetrate into man's constitution, the higher are the
spiritual forces that have worked at its members. It
could he said that our ‘I’ has been bestowed
upon its by the youngest gods, the youngest
divine-spiritual Powers; and much older gods have
produced in our lower members that perfection which man
today hardly even begins to comprehend; still less is he
capalslc of producing with the instruments at his
disposal the marvellous structure created by the
divine-spiritual Beings.
This
perfection was perceived and experienced in a very
special sense by those who through an Essene Initiation,
for example, penetrated into the inner regions of man's
being. An Essene Initiate said to himself: When I have
completed the first fourteen stages I pass into my
astral. body; there I am confronted by all the passions
and emotions associated with it, by whatever harm I have
done to my astral body during my incarnation. But I have
not yet been able to do as much injury to my etheric body
as to my astral body. My etheric body is still much more
godlike, much purer; it reveals itself to me when I am
passing through the. second fourteen stages. — And
he had the feeling that having resisted the attacks of
his astral body, he had overcome the greatest
stumbling-block connected with the first fourteen stages
and had now passed into the light-filled spheres of his
etheric body, the forces of which he had not vet been
able to injure to a like extent.
What a man
beheld at this second stage was indicated in the secret
doctrine of the ancient Hebrews by three expressions, all
of which arc extremely difficult to render in our modern
language. The three expressions were Gedulah (or
Hesed), Tipheret, Geburah. Let
us try to picture the three realms of experience
designated by these words.
When a man
became aware of the realities revealed to him in his
etheric body, the effect expressed by the first word,
Gedulah was a picture, a conception, of majesty and
grandeur in the spiritual world, of everything that gives
the impression of overwhelming power On the other hand,
the word Geburah, although related to Gedulah, expressed
a quite different nuance of greatness — greatness
deprived of a certain quality through activity. Geburah
expressed that nuance of greatness, of power, which
manifests outwardly in order to project itself, to assert
itself in the outer world as an independent force.
Whereas the expression ‘Gedulah’ implied that
the effect produced was due to intrinsic excellence,
Geburah conveyed the impression of a kind of
aggressiveness, of something asserting itself outwardly
through aggressive behaviour. Tipheret was the word used
to designate greatness at rest within itself, inner
richness which manifests outwardly but without any
clement of aggressiveness, giving expression to spiritual
greatness through its own nature. To convey what was
implied by this word would only be possible by combining
our two concepts of Goodness and Beauty. A being bringing
its inner richness to expression in its outer form
appears beautiful to us; and a being bringing its own
intrinsic excellence to expression outwardly, appears
good to us. But in the secret doctrine of the ancient
Hebrews these two concepts belong together — as
Tipheret. — Thus it was by penetrating into his
etheric body that a man came into contact with beings
expressing themselves through these three qualities.
The nex
stage was the penetration into the physicl body. Here a
man came to know the most ancient among the
divine-spiritual Beings who have worked at his creation.
Remind yourselves that in the articles contained in the
book From the Akashic Chronical [ Note 02 ]and in Occult Science —
an Outline, it was said that the very first rudiment
of the human physical body came into existence on Old
Saturn. Very sublime spiritual Beings, the Thrones,
sacrificed their own will-substance in order that the
first rudiment of man's physical body might arise; and
sublime spiritual Beings worked on this rudiment during
the further course of evolution through the Saturn, Sun
and Moon evolutions. In the lectures on Genesis, given in
Munich, I described how these lofty spiritual Beings
continued their work through these earlier periods,
organising and elaborating this rudiment of the human
physical body to higher and higher stages, culminating in
the marvellous physical organism in which the human
being, consisting of etheric body, astral body and Ego
can incarnate to-day.
When a man
was able to penetrate into his inmost nature he became
aware of what was described in the Hebraic secret
teachings as the embodiment of qualities only to be
conceived of by reflecting on the very highest wisdom
attainable by the human soul. Man regards wisdom as an
ideal; he feels lifted to a higher level when be can
imbue any part of himself with wisdom. Those (among the
Esscnes) whose consciousness penetrated into the physical
body knew that they were now approaching Beings whose
very nature and substance consisted of what can be
acquired by man in a very small measure only, when he
strives for wisdom not attained through acts of ordinary
cognition but through hard and heavy experiences of the
soul, gained wonly in the course of many incarnations.
Even then only a certain amount of wisdom is acquired;
for not until it has been sought in every possible form
could anyone be said to possess it fully. At this stage
of Initiation an Essene became aware of Beings revealing
themselves as Beings of Wisdom, Beings whose intrinsic
quality manifested itself as pure, awe-inspiring wisdom..
This
quality was expressed in the secret doctrine of the
ancient Hebrews by the word Hokhmah,, rendered
to-day as ‘Wisdom’.
A
particular nuance of this attribute or quality of wisdom
is again a certain densification. This is present in man
but in his individuality he acquires it to a small extent
only. On penetrating into the physical body from within,
however, a man again encounters Beings who possess this
quality — it is a densification of wisdom —
in such a marked degree that it seems literally to
radiate from them. It is the quality expressed by the
word Binah in the secret doctrine of the ancient
Hebrews, and is akin to what can be evoked in man his
reason is called into play. Man acquires the power of
reason to a certain limited degree only. But when the
word Binah is used we must think of Beings entirely
permeated by what can he born of reason. Binah is a
denser nuance of Hokhmah. Hence when reference was made
in the Hebraic secret doctrine to the original creative
Wisdom out of which worlds were born, Hokhmah was
compared to a spring of water, and Binah to a sea —
indicating a certain degree of densification.
And the
very loftiest experience attainable through penetration
into the physical body was designated by the word
Keter. It is almost impossible to find an
adequate translation for this word. The quality which
conveyed an inkling of the attributes of divine-spiritual
Beings of the greatest sublimity could only be indicated
by a symbol expressing the fact that a man was raised
above his own level, invested with a significance greater
than was normally his. The expression designating the
lofty nature of this quality was Keter,
‘Crown’.
The
following, then, are the qualities or attributes of the
Beings whose realm a man reaches when he penetrates
within himself into his own inner nature. [ Note 03 ]
Binah
|
Hokhmah
|
Keter
|
Geburah
|
Tipheret
|
Gedulah (or Hesed)
|
Netzah
|
Yesod
|
Hod
|
|
Malkhut, the Kingdom, Ego.
|
|
You can picture to yourselves that in
an Essene Initiation entirely new experiences were
undergone by a man, when the qualities and attributes
referred to became realities to him.
How did an
Essene Initiation contrast with the character and form of
Initiation enacted among the neighbouring peoples? All
ancient Initiations were adapted to cause the suppression
of the feeling of ‘I’ that a man has when he
is gazing at Malkhut, the Kingdom. The feeling of
‘I’ was to be eliminated. Hence in Initiation
a man could not be as he was in the physical world. True,
he was led upwards into the spiritual world, but as an
Initiate he could not be man in the sense that he was man
in the Kingdom, in Malkhut. In connection with ancient
Initiations, therefore, a sharp distinction was made
between what a man experienced as an Initiate on the one
hand and within his Ego on the other.
If one
wanted to give a brief indication of the conditions
attaching to Initiation in the secret schools of ancient
times compared with those obtaining in public life, one
would have to say the following. — Let nobody
believe that he can retain the same feeling of egohood
that he has in the Kingdom, in Malkhut, if he aspires to
become an Initiate. Wonderful and glorious experiences of
I lie three times three attributes in their reality come
to him as he reaches higher and higher stages; but he
must entirely discard the feeling of egohood that is his
in the external world. Experiences designated by the
words Netzah, Yesod, Hod, and so forth, cannot be
carried. down into Malkliut, cannot remain associated
with man's ordinary feeling of egohood. That was the
conviction held universally. And anyone who might have
dared to contradict this principle in ancient times would
have been regarded as a fool, a madman and a liar.
The Essenes
were the first to teach that the time would come when
everything that is above would be carried down, so that
man would be able to experience it while maintaining his
feeling of egohood intact. The Greeks spoke of
Βασιλεια
τωυ
ομραυωυ (the
Kingdoms of Heaven). It was the Essenes who first taught
of the coming of One who would bring down for the
‘I’, for the Ego living in Malkhut, what is
above in the ‘Kingdoms of Heaven.’ And this
too was taught in words of awe-inspiring power by Jeschu
ben Pandira to the Essenes and to a few of those around
him. The gist of his teaching as transmitted in the
immediate future through his pupil Mathai (Matthew) may
be indicated briefly in the following way. —
Inspired as
he was by the successor of Gautama Buddha, by the
Bodhisattva who will eventually become the Maitreya
Buddha, Jeschu ben Pandira taught to this effect. —
Hitherto the Kingdoms of Heaven could not be brought down
into Malkhut, into the realm to which the Ego of man
belongs. But when the three times fourteen generations
have taken their course and the time is thus fulfilled,
there will be born from the progeny of Abraham, from the
stem of David, the stem of Jesse (Jessians=Essenes), One
who will bring the nine attributes of the Kingdoms of
Heaven into the realm in which the ‘I’ of man
is actively present. — This teaching led to Jeschu
ben Pandira being stoned as a blasphemer, for it was held
to be the grossesst violation of the principles of
Initiation by those who refused to admit or to recognise
that because humanity progresses, something that is right
for one period is not necessarily right for another.
Then came
the time when prophecy was fulfilled, when the three
times fourteen generations had run their course and when
there could arise from the blood of the people a bodily
constitution in which Zarathustra was able to incarnate,
and subsequently, having achieved. further development by
the means available in the body of the Nathan Jesus, to
offer up that body to the Christ. [ Note 04 ] The time had come of which
Christ's forerunner had declared that the Kingdoms of
Heaven would draw near to the Ego which lives in the
external world, in Malkhut.
We shall
now realise the nature of the task facing Christ after
the Temptation. He had withstood the Temptation through
the power of His own being, through the principle which
in a man to-day, we call the ‘I’, the Ego. He
had been victorious over all the attacks and temptations
confronting one who penetrates into his own astral,
etheric and physical bodies. This is clearly shown in the
story. Egoism in all forms is present in such a way as to
reveal it in its greatest possible intensity.
A stubborn
factor arising in one who is striving for esoteric
development is the tendency to occupy himself solely with
ins own personality. It is precisely in those who want to
find their way into the spiritual world that the habit is
so often found of loving to talk about their own
cherished personality, concerning themselves with it
every moment of the day. Whereas in other circumstances
people may deliberately refrain from adopting this
attitude when they make efforts to develop or perhaps
when they first become anthroposophists, they now begin
to pay great attention to their own Ego; and then
illusions arise on all hands, illusions from which they
were formerly diverted by the ordinary demands of life.
Why does this happen? It is because such people are
incapable of coping with what rises up from their own
inner nature. They are utterly at a loss to know how to
deal with what is happening in themselves. Formerly they
were alert and readily attracted by the external world;
now they are diverted to their own inner world and all
sorts of feelings and emotions that were within them
begin to rise up. Why is this? What such a person really
wants is to be an an Ego, entirely independent of the
external world. But then he often falls into the error of
wanting to be treated like a child who is told clearly
what he must do. He wants to be anything rather than a
man who sets his own direction and aim in accordance with
what esoteric life teaches him. He has not yet begun to
reflect about it, but he has the feeling that dependence
upon the external world is a disturbing factor,
especially when he wants to be absolutely untrammelled
and give all his attention to the dictates of his own
egoism. But there is one fact, trivial though it may
seem, that prevents him from detaching his bodily life at
least from the surrounding world; this fact is that human
beings are obliged to eat! It is a trivial fact but it is
fatally true. We can learn from it how powerless we are
without the world around us. It is a trenchant example of
our dependence upon the surrounding world without which
we could not live; we are really like a finger on our
hand: if we cut it off it withers. A quite trivial
consideration can therefore show us the extent to which
we are dependent upon the surrounding world.
Egoism at
its highest pitch may take the form of the wish: If only
I could become independent of the surrounding world; if
only I were myself capable of conjuring into existence by
magic that which as an ordinary human being I need in
physical life but which causes me to be so strongly aware
of my dependence upon the world around! Such a wish may
actually arise in those who are seeking to attain
Initiation. Even hatred may be aroused by the realisation
that one is dependent on the environment and incapable of
conjuring the means of nourishment into existence by
magic. It seems strange to say this, but although wishes
that soon arise on a small scale when a person is
striving to develop, appear paradoxical, in their extreme
form they become downright absurdity. A man is usually
quite unaware that he has such wishes. In point of fact
no human being has them so strongly that he is deluded
into claiming the power to create food by magic, to
sustain life by something not derived from the external
world, from Malkhut. But in an extrernesase someone might
believe: If only I were able to live so entirely in my
astral body and Ego that I could rely for my needs
entirely on my own wishes, I should no longer be
dependent on the surrounding world!
This form
of temptation does arise. And in the case of the One who
was to undergo it in its greatest intensity, it is
characterized by the saying that the Tempter .confronting
Christ Jesus bade Him turn stones into bread. This is
temptation in its extreme form. The descent into a man's
own inner being is described most wonderfully in St.
Matthew's story of the Temptation.
The second
stage comes after the aspirant for Initiation has
penetrated into his astral body and is confronted by all
the emotions and passions that could have made him into
an utter egoist. Perceiving all this, instead of
resisting and overcoming it, a man would like to cast
himself down into the etheric body and physical body.
This is a situation that may well he described as hurling
oneself into the abyss. And this is how it is actually
described in St. Matthew's Gospel: man casts himself down
into what he has not hitherto been able to spoil to any
considerable extent — namely, the etheric and
physical bodies. But the passions and emotions must first
have been overcome. The Christ Being knows this and
facing the Tempter, having overcome the forces by His own
power, declares: Thou shalt not tempt the Being to whom
thou shoulds't surrender thyself !
Then comes
the tthird stage — the penetration into the
physical body. When this descent into the physical and
etheric bodies takes the form of temptation, it is an
experience that may come to every human being during the
process of Initiation at the stage when he sees himself
from within. He then perceives everything that is
contained in the three highest attributes. This is like a
world to him but, to begin with, a world of illusion
only, a world he cannot see as intrinsic truth unless he
penetrates through the sheath of the physical body and
rises to those spiritual Beings who are not themselves
actually within the physical body but only work in it. If
we do not rid ourselves of egoism it is always the
tempter of the physical world, Lucifer or Diabolus, who
wishes to deceive us about our own being. He promises us
everything that confronts us — although it is
merely the product of our own maya, our own illusion. If
this spirit of egoism does not leave us, we behold a
whole world, but a world of deception and lies. Lucifer
promises us this world. Let us not believe it to be a
world of truth I We enter this world but remain in maya
if we do not eventually free ourselves from it.
The Christ
Being lived through these three stages of temptation
before the eyes of mankind as a model and an example to
be followed. Inasmuch as the Temptation was once
undergone outside the sanctuaries of the Mysteries,
resisted through the power of a Being indwelling the
three human sheaths, the impulse was given whereby it was
made possible for man in the future course of evolution
to rise into the spiritual world with the
‘I’-consciousness belonging to the external
realm of Malkhut. The two worlds were no longer to be
separate and man was to be capable of rising into the
spiritual worlds with the ‘I’ that lives in
Malkhut. This was achieved for humanity through the
victory over the Temptation as related in the Gospel of
St. Matthew. A Being living on the Earth had now provided
the model for the ascent of the human ‘I’
from the kingdom of Malkhut into the higher worlds and
realms of existence.
What was
the result of the Christ Being having lived through as an
historical event, an experience hitherto undergone only
in the secrecy of the Mysteries? The natural result was
the preaching of the Kingdom. The Gospel of St.
Matthew therefore relates the Temptation first and then
proceeds to describe the stages of the ascent of the Ego,
the ‘I’, that henceforth will be able in
itself consciously to experience the spiritual world. The
secret of the ‘I’ that in accordance with the
mode of consciousness prevailing in the external world
rises into the spiritual word — this secret, as the
Gospel of St. Matthew relates, was now to be unveiled
through the Christ Being during the time following the
Temptation. Then come the chapters beginning with the
Sermon on the Mount and therewith presenting the
conception given by Christ of the Kingdom, of
Malkhut.
Such are
the profundities to be fathomed in the Gospel of St.
Matthew. The sources and basic elements of this Gospel
must be sought in the secret teachings not only of the
Essenes but in those existing in the whole world of
ancient Hebraic and Greek culture. We then feel for such
a text the profound reverence which, as was said in the
Munich lectures [ Note 05 ] ,
arises when, enriched with the findings of
spiritual-scientific investigation, we turn to the
records bequeathed to us by the seers of olden time. We
feel that such records speak to us across the ages. It is
as though a spirit-language in which great
Individualities converse with one another through the
centuries were becoming audible — audible, of
course, only to those who understand the words of the
Gospel: ‘He who hath ears to hear, let him
hear!’ But just as in the remote past many things
had to happen in order that physical ears might become
part of our organism, so it is in the case of the
spiritual ears through which we comprehend what is said
in those great spiritual records.
The purpose
of modern Spiritual Science is to enable us to read and
decipher these spiritual records. Not until we have
acquired insight into the true nature of the in the
Kingdom, in Malkhut, shall we able to understand the
chapter in St. Matthew's Gospel beginning: Blessed are
they who are beggars for the Spirit; for through
themselves, through their own Ego, they shall find the
Kingdoms of Heaven!
An Initiate
of ancient times would have said to a man: In your own
Ego you search in vain for the Kingdoms of Heaven. But
Christ Jesus said: The time has come when in their
own Egos men will find the Spirit when they seek the
Kingdoms of Heaven.
The
historic Christ Event consists in the carrying of
profound Mystery-secrets into the external world. In this
sense we shall be studying that Event still more closely,
and then you will understand how to interpret the
Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount.
Note on the ten Sephirot.
In a lecture on the subject given by
Rudulf Steiner in Doruach, 10th May, 1924, to the
workmen engaged on building the second Goetheanum, he
answered the question put by one of them as to what the
Jews meant by the ‘Sephirot-Tree.’ He said
that the ten Sephirot were expressions designating
‘the forces by which man is connected with the
spiritual world’, adding that these ten forces of
the universe were pictured by the ancient Hebrews as
working in upon the human being from all sides and
directions. The lecture dealt in detail with the
qualities connected with each of the ten forces.
In
kabbalistic literature, various synonyms are used fur
the ten Sephirot, e.g. potencies, emanations,
attributes, principles. There are also many variations
in the actual names and in their spelling. The Sephirot
are often depicted in the form of a tree and its
branches (a picture of organic life) and are charted at
definite points on a figure representing Adam Kadmon
(‘Primeval Man’). This figure was also used
to illustrate the lecture to the workmen referred to
above.
A useful
article on the Sephirot will be found, for example, in
the Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, and for
students of Jewish mysticism who are able to read
German, the following book written by a learned
kabbalist and anthroposophist is strongly to be
recommended: Der Sohar and seine Lehre, by
Ernst Muller, with a Preface by Professor A. Bergman
(Origo Verlag, Zurich, 1951).
Notes:
1. One of the ten
Sephirot. See note on p. 148.
2. Published in
1959 (American edition) with the title Cosmic
Memory.
3. The ten
Sephirot of kabbalistic literature, See note
at end of lecture, p. 148.
4. See lecture 12, p. 209; also The
Gospel of Luke, notably Lectures Four to Seven,
Rudolf Steiner gives a condensed account of these
happenings in The Spiritual Guidance of Man,
Lecture Three.
5. See Genesis: Secrets of the Bible
Story of Creation, notably the beginning of
Lecture VI (p. 73) and the end of Lecture VIII (pp.
99-100)
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