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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz
Schmidt Number: S-2665
On-line since: 1st July, 2004
THE MISSION OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ ITS CHARACTER AND PURPOSE THE
MISSION OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA ON MARS
Neuchatel, 18th December 1912
Friends have expressed the wish that I should speak today on the
subject of the lecture here a year ago,
( 59 )
when it was said that the
initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz took place in very special
circumstances in the thirteenth century, and that since then this
individuality has worked unceasingly throughout the centuries. Today
we shall hear more about the character and the person of Christian
Rosenkreutz as we study the great task which devolved upon him at the
dawn of the intellectual age in order that provision might be made for
the future of humanity.
Anyone who makes his mark in the world as a leading occultist, like
Christian Rosenkreutz, has to reckon with the conditions peculiar to
his epoch. The intrinsic nature of spiritual life as it is in the
present age, developed for the first time when modern natural science
came upon the scene with men like Copernicus,
( 60 )
Giordano Bruno,
( 61 )
Galileo
( 62 )
and others. Nowadays people are
taught about Copernicus in their early schooldays, and the impressions
thus received remain with them their whole life long. In earlier times
the soul experienced something different. Try to picture to yourselves
what a contrast there is between a man of the modern age and one who
lived centuries ago. Before the days of Copernicus everyone believed
that the earth remains at rest in cosmic space with the sun and the
stars revolving around it. The very ground slipped from under men's
feet when Copernicus came forward with the doctrine that the earth is
moving with tremendous speed through the universe. We should not
underestimate the effects of such a revolution in thinking,
accompanied as it was by a corresponding change in the life of
feeling. All the thoughts and ideas of men were suddenly different
from what they had been before the days of Copernicus. And now let us
ask: What has occultism to say about this revolution in thinking?
Anyone who asks from the standpoint of occultism what kind of world
conception can be derived from the Copernican tenets will have to
admit that although these ideas can lead to great achievements in the
realm of natural science and in external life, they are incapable of
promoting any understanding of the spiritual foundations of the world
and the things of the world, for there has never been a worse
instrument for understanding the spiritual foundations of the world
than the ideas of Copernicus never in the whole of human
evolution. The reason for this is that all these Copernican concepts
are inspired by Lucifer. Copernicanism is one of the last attacks, one
of the last great attacks made by Lucifer upon the evolution of man.
In earlier, pre-Copernican thought, the external world was indeed
maya, but much traditional wisdom, much truth concerning the world and
the things of the world still survived. Since Copernicus, however, man
has maya around him not only in his material perceptions but his
concepts and ideas are themselves maya. Men take it for granted
nowadays that the sun is firmly fixed in the middle and the planets
revolve around it in ellipses. In the near future, however, it will be
realised that the view of the world of the stars held by Copernicus is
much less correct than the earlier Ptolemaic view.
( 63 )
The view of the world held by the school of Copernicus and Kepler is very
convenient, but as an explanation of the macrocosm it is not the
truth.
And so Christian Rosenkreutz, confronted by a world conception which
is itself a maya, an illusion, had to come to grips with it. Christian
Rosenkreutz had to save occultism in an age when all the concepts of
science were themselves maya. In the middle of the sixteenth century,
Copernicus' Book of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
( 64 )
appeared. At the end of the sixteenth century the
rosicrucians were faced with the necessity of comprehending the world
system by means of occultism, for with its materially-conceived globes
in space the Copernican world-system was maya, even as concept. Thus
towards the end of the sixteenth century one of those conferences took
place of which we heard here a year ago in connection with the
initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz himself in the thirteenth century.
This occult conference of leading individualities
[See East in the Light of the West,
Chapter IX, etc. Rudolf Steiner Publication Co.
and Anthroposophic Press, N.Y., 1940.] united Christian Rosenkreutz
with those twelve individualities of that earlier time and certain
other great individualities concerned with the leadership of humanity.
There were present not only personalities in incarnation on the
physical plane but also some who were in the spiritual worlds; and the
individuality who in the sixth century before Christ had been
incarnated as Gautama Buddha also participated.
The occultists of the East rightly believe for they know it to
be the truth that the Buddha who in his twenty-ninth year rose
from the rank of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha, had incarnated then
for the last time in a physical body. It is absolutely true that when
the individuality of a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha he no longer
appears on the earth in physical incarnation. But this does not mean
that he ceases to be active in the affairs of the earth. The Buddha
continues to work for the earth, although he is never again present in
a physical body but sends down his influence from the spiritual world.
The Gloria heard by the shepherds in the fields intimated from
the spiritual world that the forces of Buddha were streaming into the
astral body of the child Jesus described in the St. Luke Gospel. The
words of the Gloria came from Buddha who was working in the astral
body of the child Jesus. This wonderful message of peace and love is
an integral part of Buddha's contribution to Christianity. But later
on too, Buddha influences the deeds of men not physically but
from the spiritual world and he has co-operated in measures
that have been necessary for the sake of progress in the evolution of
humanity.
In the seventh and eighth centuries, for example, there was a very
important centre of initiation in the neighbourhood of the Black Sea,
in which the Buddha taught, in his spirit body. In such schools there
are those who teach in the physical body; but it is also possible for
the more advanced pupils to receive instruction from one who teaches
in an ether-body only. And so the Buddha taught those pupils there who
were capable of receiving higher knowledge. Among the pupils of the
Buddha at that time was one who incarnated again a few centuries
later. We are speaking, therefore, of a physical personality who
centuries later lived again in a physical body, in Italy, and is known
to us as St. Francis of Assisi. The characteristic quality of Francis
of Assisi and of the life of his monks which has so much
similarity with that of the disciples of Buddha is due to the
fact that Francis of Assisi himself was a pupil of Buddha.
It is easy to perceive the contrast between the qualities
characteristic of men who like Francis of Assisi were striving
fervently for the spirit and those engrossed in the world of industry,
technical life and the discoveries of modern civilisation. There were
many people, including occultists, who suffered deeply at the thought
that in the future two separate classes of human beings would
inevitably arise. They foresaw the one class wholly given up to the
affairs of practical life, convinced that security depends entirely
upon the production of foodstuffs, the construction of machines, and
so forth; whereas the other class would be composed of men like
Francis of Assisi who withdraw altogether from the practical affairs
of the world for the sake of spiritual life.
It was a significant moment, therefore, when Christian Rosenkreutz, in
the sixteenth century, called together a large group of occultists in
preparation for the aforesaid conference, and described to them the
two types of human beings that would inevitably arise in the future.
First he gathered a large circle of people, later on a smaller one, to
present them with this weighty fact. Christian Rosenkreutz held this
preparatory meeting a few years beforehand, not because he was in
doubt about what would happen, but because he wanted to get the people
to contemplate the perspectives of the future. In order to stimulate
their thinking he spoke roughly as follows: Let us look at the future
of the world. The world is moving fast in the direction of practical
activities, industry, railways, and so on. Human beings will become
like beasts of burden. And those who do not want this will be, like
Francis of Assisi, impractical with regard to life, and they will
develop an inner life only. Christian Rosenkreutz made it clear to his
listeners that there was no way on earth of preventing the formation
of these two classes of men. Despite all that might be done for them
between birth and death, nothing could hinder mankind being divided
into these two classes. As far as conditions on the earth were
concerned it is impossible to find a remedy for the division into
classes. Help can only come if a kind of education could be brought
about that did not take place between birth and death but between
death and a new birth.
Thus the rosicrucians were faced with the task of working from out of
the super-sensible world to influence individual human beings. In order
to understand what had to take place, we must consider from a
particular aspect the life between death and a new birth.
Between birth and death we live on the earth. Between death and a new
birth man has a certain connection with the other planets. In my
Theosophy
you will find Kamaloka described. This sojourn of man
in the soul world is a time during which he becomes an inhabitant of
the Moon. Then one after the other, he becomes an inhabitant of
Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and then an
inhabitant of the further expanses of heaven or the cosmos. One is not
speaking incorrectly when one says that between two incarnations on
the earth lie incarnations on other planets, spiritual incarnations.
Man at present is not yet sufficiently developed to remember, whilst
in incarnation, his experiences between death and a new birth, but
this will become possible in the future. Even though he cannot now
remember what he experienced on Mars, for example, he still has Mars
forces within him, although he knows nothing about them. One is
justified in saying: I am not an earth inhabitant, but the forces
within me include something that I acquired on Mars. Let me consider a
man who lived on earth after the Copernican world outlook had become
common knowledge. Whence did Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno and
others acquire their abilities in this incarnation? Bear in mind that
shortly before that, from 1401–1464, the individuality of Copernicus
was incarnated as Nicholas of Cusa,
( 65 )
a profound mystic.
Think of the completely different mood of his docta ignorantia.
How did the forces that made Copernicus so very
different from Nicholas of Cusa enter this individuality?
The forces that made him the astronomer he was, came to him from Mars!
Similarly, Galileo also received forces from Mars that invested him
with the special configuration of a modern natural scientist. Giordano
Bruno too, brought his powers with him from Mars, and so it is with
the whole of mankind. That people think like Copernicus or Giordano
Bruno is due to the Mars forces they acquire between death and a new
birth.
But the acquisition of the kind of powers which lead from one triumph
to another is due to the fact that Mars had a different influence in
those times from what it exercised previously. Mars used to radiate
different forces. The Mars culture that human beings experience
between death and a new birth went through a great crisis in the
earth's fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was as decisive and
catastrophic a time on Mars in the fifteenth and sixteenth century as
it was on the earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Just as at
the time of the Mystery of Golgotha the actual ego of man was born,
there was born on Mars that particular tendency which, in man, comes
to expression in Copernicanism. When these conditions came into force
on Mars, the natural consequence would have been for Mars to continue
sending down to earth human beings who only brought Copernican ideas
with them, which are really only maya. What we are seeing, then, is
the decline of the Mars culture. Previously, Mars had sent forth good
forces. But now Mars sent forth more and more forces that would have
led men deeper and deeper into maya. The achievements that were
inspired by Mars at that time were ingenious and clever, but they were
maya all the same.
So you see that in the fifteenth century you could have said Mars'
salvation, and the earth's too, depended on the declining culture of
Mars receiving a fresh impulse to raise it up again. It was somewhat
similar on Mars to what it had been like on the earth before the
Mystery of Golgotha, when humanity had fallen from spiritual heights
into the depths of materialism, and the Christ Impulse had signified
an ascent. In the fifteenth century the necessity had arisen on Mars
for the Mars culture to receive an upward impulse. That was the
significant question facing Christian Rosenkreutz and his pupils; how
this upward impulse could be given to the Mars culture, for the
salvation of the earth was also at stake. Rosicrucianism was faced
with the mighty task of solving the problem of what had to happen so
that, for the earth's sake, the Mars culture should be brought once
more onto an ascending path. The beings on Mars were not in a position
to know what would bring about their salvation, for the earth was the
only place where one could know what the situation on Mars was like.
On Mars itself they were unaware of the decline. Therefore it was in
order to find a practical solution to this problem that the aforesaid
conference met at the end of the sixteenth century. This conference
was well prepared by Christian Rosenkreutz in that the closest friend
and pupil of Christian Rosenkreutz was Gautama Buddha, living in a
spirit body. And it was announced at this conference that the being
who incarnated as Gautama Buddha, in the spiritual form he now had
since becoming Buddha, would transfer the scene of his activities to
Mars. The individuality of Gautama Buddha was as it were sent by
Christian Rosenkreutz from the earth to Mars. So Gautama Buddha leaves
the scene of his activity and goes to Mars, and in the year 1604 the
individuality of Gautama Buddha accomplished for Mars a deed similar
to what the Mystery of Golgotha was for the earth. Christian
Rosenkreutz had known what the effect of Buddha on Mars would signify
for the whole cosmos, what his teachings of Nirvana, of liberation
from the earth, would signify on Mars. The teaching of Nirvana was
unsuited to a form of culture directed primarily to practical life.
Buddha's pupil, Francis of Assisi, was an example of the fact that
this teaching produces in its adepts complete remoteness from the
world and its affairs. But the content of Buddhism, which was not
adapted to the practical life of man between birth and death, was of
great importance for the soul between death and a new birth. Christian
Rosenkreutz realised that for a certain purification needed on Mars
the teachings of Buddha were pre-eminently suitable. The Christ Being,
the essence of divine love, had once come down to the earth to a
people in many respects alien, and in the seventeenth century Buddha,
the prince of peace, went to Mars the planet of war and
conflict to execute his mission there. The souls on Mars were
warlike, torn with strife. Thus Buddha performed a deed of sacrifice
similar to the deed performed in the Mystery of Golgotha by the bearer
of the essence of divine love. To dwell on Mars as Buddha was a deed
of sacrifice offered to the cosmos. He was as it were the lamb offered
up in sacrifice on Mars, and to accept this environment of strife was
for him a kind of crucifixion. Buddha performed this deed on Mars in
the service of Christian Rosenkreutz. Thus do the great beings who
guide the world work together not only on the earth but from one
planet to another.
Since the mystery of Mars was consummated by Gautama Buddha, human
beings have been able, during the period between death and a new
birth, to receive from Mars different forces from those emanating
during Mars' cultural decline. Not only does a man bring with him into
a new birth quite different forces from Mars, but because of the
influence exercised by the spiritual deed of Buddha, forces also
stream from Mars into men who practise meditation as a means of
reaching the spiritual world. When the modern pupil of Spiritual
Science meditates in the sense indicated by Christian Rosenkreutz,
forces sent to the earth by Buddha as the redeemer of Mars stream to
him.
Christian Rosenkreutz is thus revealed to us as the great servant of
Christ Jesus; but what Buddha, as the emissary of Christian
Rosenkreutz, was destined to contribute to the work of Christ Jesus
this had also to come to the help of the work performed by
Christian Rosenkreutz in the service of Christ Jesus. The soul of
Gautama Buddha has not again been in physical incarnation on the earth
but is utterly dedicated to the work of the Christ impulse. What was
the word of peace sent forth from the Buddha to the child Jesus
described in the Gospel of St. Luke? Glory in the heights and on the
earth peace! And this word of peace, issuing mysteriously from
Buddha, resounds from the planet of war and conflict to the soul of
men on earth.
Because all these things had transpired it was possible to avert the
division of human beings into the two distinct classes, consisting on
the one hand of men of the type of Francis of Assisi, and on the other
of men who live wholly as materialists. If Buddha had remained in
direct and immediate connection with the earth, he would not have been
able to concern himself with the practical people, and his influence
would have made the others into monks like Francis of Assisi. Through
the deed of redemption performed by Gautama Buddha on Mars, it is
possible for us, when we are passing through the Mars period of
existence between death and a new birth, to become followers of
Francis of Assisi without causing subsequent deprivation to the earth.
Grotesque as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that since the
seventeenth century every human being is a buddhist, a franciscan, an
immediate follower of Francis of Assisi for a time, whilst he is on
Mars. Francis of Assisi has subsequently only had one brief
incarnation on earth as a child; and he died in childhood and has not
incarnated since. From then onwards he has been connected with the
work of Buddha on Mars and is one of his most eminent followers.
We have thus placed before our souls a picture of what came to pass
through that great conference at the end of the sixteenth century,
which resembles what happened on earth in the thirteenth century when
Christian Rosenkreutz gathered his faithful around him. Nothing less
was accomplished than that the possibility was given of averting from
humanity the threatened separation into two classes, so that men might
remain inwardly united. And those who want to develop esoterically
despite their absorption in practical life can achieve their goal
because the Buddha is working from the sphere of Mars and not from the
sphere of the earth. Those forces which help to promote a healthy
esoteric life can therefore also be attributed to the work and
influence of Buddha.
In my book
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment,
I have dealt with the methods that are appropriate
for meditation today. The essential point is that in rosicrucian
training, development is such that the human being is not torn away
from the earthly activities demanded of him by his karma. Rosicrucian
esoteric development can proceed without causing the slightest
disturbance in any situation or occupation in life. Because Christian
Rosenkreutz was capable of transferring the work of Buddha from the
earth to Mars it has become possible for Buddha also to send his
influences into men from outside the earth.
Again, then, we have heard of one of the spiritual deeds of Christian
Rosenkreutz; but to understand these deeds of the thirteenth and
sixteenth centuries we must find our way to their esoteric meaning and
significance. It would be good if it were generally realised how
entirely consistent the progress of theosophy in the West has been
since the founding of the Middle European section of the Theosophical
Society.
( 66 )
Here in Switzerland we have given lecture cycles on the four Gospels.
( 67 )
The substance of all these Gospel cycles is
potentially contained in my book
Christianity as Mystical Fact,
written twelve years ago. The book
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment
describes the Western path of
development that is compatible with practical activities of every
kind. Today I have indicated that a basic factor in these matters is
the mission assigned to Gautama Buddha by Christian Rosenkreutz, for I
have spoken of the significant influence which the transference of
Buddha to Mars made possible in our solar system. And so stone after
stone fits into its proper place in our Western philosophy, for it has
been built up consistently and in obedience to principle, and
everything that comes later harmonises with what went before. Inner
consistency is essential in any world conception if it is to stand
upon the ground of truth. And those who are able to draw near to
Christian Rosenkreutz see with reverent wonder in what a consistent
way he has carried out the great mission entrusted to him, which in
our time is the rosicrucian-christian path of development. That the
great teacher of Nirvana is now fulfilling a mission outside the
earth, on Mars this too is one of the wise and consistent deeds
of Christian Rosenkreutz.
In conclusion, the following brief practical indication will be added
for those who aspire to become pupils of Christian Rosenkreutz.
A year ago we heard how the knowledge of having a certain relationship
to Christian Rosenkreutz may come to a man involuntarily. It is also
possible, however, to put a kind of question to one's own destiny:
Can I make myself worthy to become a pupil of Christian Rosenkreutz?
It can come about in the following way: Try to place before your soul
a picture of Christian Rosenkreutz, the great teacher of the modern
age, in the midst of the twelve, sending forth Gautama Buddha into the
cosmos as his emissary at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
thus bringing about a consummation of what came to pass in the sixth
century before Christ in the sermon of Benares.
( 68 )
If this picture, with its whole import, stands vividly before the
soul, if a man feels that something streaming from this great and
impressive picture wrings from his soul the words: O man, thou art not
merely an earthly being; thou art in truth a cosmic being! then
he may believe with quiet confidence: I can aspire to become a pupil
of Christian Rosenkreutz. This picture of the relationship of
Christian Rosenkreutz to Gautama Buddha is a potent and effective
meditation.
And I wanted to awaken this aspiration in you as a result of these
considerations. For our ideal should always be to take an interest in
world happenings and then to find the way, by means of these studies,
to carry out our own development into higher worlds.
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