The day before yesterday we spoke of how humanity is confronted by
difficult conditions. We will be better able to understand why this is
so if we consider our times in terms of the whole of human evolution,
and thus bring ourselves up to date regarding many things known and
unknown.
You know that one of the most significant pronouncements made as the
Christ event approached was, Change the disposition of your souls,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. These are words of the deepest
meaning. They indicate that something of a most essential nature took
place in man's entire soul development at that time. When these words
were spoken, more than three thousand years had passed since the
beginning of Kali Yuga or Age of Darkness. What is the significance of
this age? It was the era in which it was normal for man to depend
solely upon what was accessible to his senses, and also upon his
brain-bound intellect. Only such things as were experienced by these
means could be known and understood in the dark age of Kali Yuga.
Kali Yuga was preceded by an age in which man was not dependent only
upon his outer senses and intellect, but then he still retained a
memory, more or less, of the ancient dream-like condition in which he
was able to feel a connection with the spiritual world. It is of this
primeval age that we wish to create a picture.
Man could see not only the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, as well
as himself, within the physical realm, but he could also, in a
condition between waking and sleeping, perceive a divine world. He saw
himself as a member of the lowest kingdom in the hierarchical order,
and above him he perceived the angels, archangels and so forth. He
knew this from his own experience, so that it would have been absurd
to deny the existence of the spiritual world, just as it would be
absurd today to deny the existence of the mineral, plant and animal
kingdoms. Not only did he possess a knowledge of what streamed toward
him from spiritual realms, but he had the capacity to become
completely permeated with those forces. Then he was in a state of
ecstasy. His sense of ego was submerged, but the spiritual world with
its forms flowed into him. Thus, he had not only a knowledge, an
experience of the spiritual world, but could, if he were ill, for
instance, derive healing and refreshment by means of this ecstatic
state.
Oriental wisdom refers to the ages in which man still had a direct
connection with the spiritual world as Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga and
Dwaparu Yuga. In the latter age, however, it was no longer an actual
seeing, but a remembering that took place, in the same way that an old
man might remember his youth. Then the doors to the spiritual world
closed. Man could no longer have converse with it in his normal state
of consciousness, and the time came when only by means of a long and
rigorous preparation in the mysteries could he turn again toward the
spiritual.
During Kali Yuga, however, something did occasionally penetrate into
the physical world from spiritual realms. As a rule, it did not come
from the good powers, but was of demoniacal nature. All the strange
illnesses described in the Gospels, where people are referred to as
possessed, are attributable to demoniacal forces. In them we must
recognize the work of evil spirits. This Little Kali Yuga began about
the year 3,000 B.C. and is characterized by the fact that the
spiritual world has gradually become completely closed to man's normal
consciousness, so that all knowledge has had to be drawn from the
world of the senses. If this process had continued unabated, all
possible connection with the spiritual world would have been lost to
him. Up until the time of Kali Yuga man remembered some things that
had been retained by tradition, but in time even these connections
gradually faded. Even the teacher, the preserver of tradition, could
not speak to him about spiritual worlds because man no longer had the
capacity to understand. His knowledge gradually became limited to the
physical world.
If this process had continued, man would never again have been able to
establish a connection with the spiritual world, try though he might,
had not something occurred from another direction; that is, the
embodiment on the physical plane of that divine Being to whom we refer
as the Christ.
Formerly, man had been able to raise himself up to the spiritual
beings, but now they had to descend into his realm, appear close to
him, before he could recognize them with his ego consciousness. This
moment had been foretold by the prophets of ancient times. It was said
that man would be able to find his connection with God within, and
this by means of his own ego. But when the promised time came it had
to be brought forcefully to man's attention that that moment had
actually arrived. The one who did this most powerfully was John the
Baptist. He announced that the times had changed, that the Kingdom of
Heaven was at hand. Later, this was indicated in a similar way by
Jesus Christ, but the most significant sign was given in advance
through the many baptisms performed by John in the Jordan, and
through his teaching.
Still, by these means alone the change would not have been possible. A
number of men would have had to have a much greater experience of the
spiritual world so that the conviction could be born in them that a
divine being would reveal himself. This was achieved by submerging
them in water. When a person is about to drown, the connection of the
etheric body to the physical body is loosened, even partly withdrawn.
Then he can experience a sign of the new impulse in world evolution.
From this comes the powerful admonition: Alter the disposition of
your soul, for the Kingdoms of Heaven are near. The disposition of
soul is come upon you through which you will enter a relationship with
the descended Christ. The times have been fulfilled.
Christ Jesus Himself expressed, in the most penetrating thoughts, the
fulfillment of the times in the Sermon on the Mount, as it is called.
This was by no means a sermon for the masses. The Gospels read, When
Christ saw the multitudes of people, He withdrew from them and
revealed Himself to His disciples. To them He disclosed that man, in
ancient times, could become God-imbued during states of ecstasy. While
outside his ego, he was blissful and had direct experience with the
spiritual world from which he could draw spiritual and health-giving
forces. But now so said Christ Jesus to His disciples a man can
become God-imbued who becomes permeated within himself with the God
and Christ impulse, and can unite himself as an ego with this impulse.
In the past, he alone could ascend to spiritual spheres who was filled
with divine streamings from them. Only he, as possessor of the spirit,
could be called blessed. Such a man was a seer in the old sense and he
was a rare personality. The majority of the people had become beggars
in the spirit. Now, however, those who sought the Kingdom of Heaven
could find it through their own egos.
What occurs in such an important epoch in world evolution always
affects the whole of humanity. If only a single member of a man's
being is affected, the others all respond. All the members of his
being the physical and etheric bodies, the sentient, rational and
consciousness souls, the ego, and even the higher soul members
receive new life through the nearness of the Kingdom of Heaven. These
teachings are in complete accord with the teachings of primeval
wisdom.
In order for an individual to enter the spiritual world in earlier
times, the etheric body had to be slightly separated from the physical
body, which was thus formed in a special way. Christ Jesus therefore
said in regard to the physical body, Blessed are the beggars, the
poor in spirit, for if they develop their ego-ruled bodies in the
right way, they will find the Kingdom of Heaven.
Of the etheric body He said, Formerly, men could be healed of
illnesses of the body and soul by ascending into the spiritual world
in a state of ecstasy. Now those who suffer and are filled with the
spirit of God can be healed and comforted by finding the source, the
comfort, within themselves.
Of the astral body He said, In former times those whose astral bodies
were beset by wild and tempestuous passions could only be subdued when
equanimity, peace and purification streamed to them from divine
spiritual beings. Now men should find the strength within their own
egos, through the in-dwelling Christ, to purify the astral body on
earth. Thus, the new influence in the astral body had to be presented
by saying, Blessed and God-imbued in their astral bodies are those
who foster calmness and equanimity within themselves; all comfort and
well-being on earth shall be their reward.
The fourth beatitude refers to the sentient soul. The ego of him who
purifies himself in his sentient soul and seeks a higher development,
will become permeated with the Christ. In his heart he will thirst for
righteousness; he will become pervaded with godliness and his ego will
become sufficient unto itself.
The next member is the rational soul. In the sentient soul the ego is
in dull slumber; it only awakens in the rational soul. Because the ego
sleeps in the sentient soul, we cannot find in another man the ego
that truly makes him a human being. Before an individual has developed
the ego within himself, he must allow his sentient soul to grow into
higher worlds to be able to perceive something there. But when he has
developed himself in his rational soul, he can perceive the person
next to him. Where all those members previously referred to are
concerned, we must bear in mind what was given them in earlier realms.
It is only the rational soul that can fill itself with what flows from
man to man.
In the fifth beatitude the sentence structure will have to take on a
special form. The subject and the predicate must be alike, since it
concerns what the ego develops within itself. The fifth beatitude
says, He who develops compassion and mercy shall find compassion in
others.
The next sentence of the Beatitudes refers to the consciousness soul.
Through it the ego comes into being as pure ego and becomes capable of
receiving God into itself. If man can elevate himself to such a
degree, he can perceive within himself that drop of the divine, his
ego; through his purified consciousness soul he can see God. The sixth
sentence of the Beatitudes must, therefore, refer to God. The external
physical expression for the ego and the consciousness soul is the
blood, and where it brings itself most clearly to expression is in the
heart, as expression of the purified ego. Christ said, therefore,
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Thus, we are shown how in the most intimate sense the heart is the
expression of the ego, the divine in man.
Now let us advance to what is higher than the consciousness soul, to
manas, buddhi and atman, or spirit self, life spirit and spirit man.
Contemporary man may well develop the three members of the soul but
not until the distant future will he be able to develop the higher
members, spirit self, life spirit and spirit man. These cannot as yet
live in themselves in man; for this to occur he must look up to higher
beings. His spirit self is not yet in him; only in the future will it
suffuse him. Man is not yet sufficiently evolved to take the spirit
self completely into himself. In this respect he is still at the
beginning of his development and is like a vessel that is gradually
receiving it. This is indicated in the seventh sentence of the
Beatitudes. At first, the spirit self can only weave into man and fill
him with its warmth. Only through the deed of Christ is it brought
down to earth as the power of love and harmony. Therefore, Christ
says, Blessed are those who draw the spirit self down into
themselves, for they shall become the children of God. This points
man upward to higher worlds.
Further on, mention is made of what will be brought about in the
future, but it will encounter in ever-increasing measure the
opposition of the present time and be fiercely rejected. It is said in
the eighth sentence of the Beatitudes, God-imbued or blessed are they
who are persecuted for righteousness sake, For they will be fulfilled
in themselves with the Kingdom of Heaven, with life spirit or buddhi.
Connected with this we find references also to the special mission of
Christ Himself, in the sentence that reads, Christ's intimate
disciples may consider themselves blessed if they have to suffer
persecution for His sake. This is a faint allusion to spirit man or
atman, which will be imparted to us in the distant future.
Thus, in the Sermon on the Mount the great message that the Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand is proclaimed. In the course of these events the
mystery of human evolution was fulfilled in Palestine. Man had reached
a degree of maturity in all the members of his being so that he was
able with his purified physical forces to receive the Christ impulse
directly into himself. So it came to pass that the God-man Christ
merged with the human being Jesus of Nazareth and these united forces
permeated the earth for three years with their powers. This had to
happen so that man would not lose completely his connection with the
spiritual world during Kali Yuga.
Kali Yuga, the Dark Age, however, continued until the year 1899. That
was a particularly important year in human evolution, for it marked
the end of the five thousand year period of Kali Yuga and the
beginning of a new stage in the evolution of mankind. Onto the old
faculties present during Kali Yuga man would now develop new spiritual
faculties. So we approach a period in which new natural capacities and
possibilities for gaining access to divine spiritual worlds will
awaken in man. Before the first half of the twentieth century has
passed, some people will, with full ego consciousness, experience the
penetration of the divine spiritual world into the physical sense
world in the same way as did Saul during his transformation into Paul
before Damascus. This will then become the normal condition for many
people.
Christ will not incarnate again in a physical body as he did in Jesus;
now nothing would be achieved by it. It was dictated then by profound
cosmic-earthly laws of evolution; otherwise, people would not have
been able to recognize Him. But now men have evolved further and
possess soul powers with which they can penetrate into the etheric.
Thus, in future, Christ will become visible to mankind in the etheric
and not in a physical body. From the middle of the twentieth century
on, and continuing for the next twenty-five hundred years, this will
happen more and more often. Enough people will by then have
experienced the event at Damascus that it will be taken to be a common
occurrence all over the world.
We study spiritual science so that these faculties, which are at first
barely perceptible, may not be overlooked and lost to mankind, and
that those blessed with this new power of vision may not be considered
dreamers and fools, but may instead have the support and understanding
of a group of people who in their common purpose may prevent these
delicate soul seeds and soul qualities from being roughly trampled to
death for lack of understanding. Spiritual science shall indeed
prepare the conditions whereby these faculties can flourish and
thrive.
Recently, I explained that these new qualities give us an insight into
the Land of Shamballa, so that we may learn to know the significance
and true nature of Christ, whose second coming indicates a maturing of
mankind's cognition.
Generally speaking, the ages of history repeat themselves, but always
in a new form. In spiritual science the beginning of Kali Yuga is seen
as the closing of the portals of the spiritual world. After the first
thousand years had passed there was the first compensation for it. In
the individuality of Abraham, after his initiation by Melchisedek, it
became possible for a human being to recognize God in the surrounding
world through true insight and a proper evaluation of the external
world spread out, as it were, like a carpet before his senses. In
Abraham we see the first dawning of a knowledge that enables man to
comprehend the true essence of an Ego-God, a God related to man's ego
nature. Abraham realized that behind the phenomena of the sense world
was something that made it possible for the human ego to conceive
itself as a drop of the infinite, unfathomable world ego.
A second stage of God revelation was experienced at the time of Moses,
when God approached man through the elements. In the burning bush, in
the thunder and lightning upon Sinai, He manifested himself to man's
senses and appealed to his innermost being. In the third thousand
years in which a knowledge of God was breaking through there followed
the age of Solomon. God revealed Himself through the symbols of the
Temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem.
Thus, the divine revelation proceeded in stages. God first appeared to
Abraham as Ego-God, or the Jehovah God, then to Moses in the burning
bush, in thunder, and then to Solomon in the symbols of the Temple.
What is representative of a particular age repeats itself later in
reverse order. The turning point is the appearance of Christ Jesus in
Palestine. What immediately preceded that time is the first to
reappear. Consequently, the first thousand years after Christ are
again a Solomon epoch; the spirit of Solomon is active in the best men
of that time so that the Mystery of Golgotha may be inculcated. In
those early centuries after Christ, Solomon's symbols could be
interpreted most readily by those who were most deeply affected by the
event of Golgotha.
In the second thousand years after Christ we can recognize a
repetition of the Moses epoch. What Moses experienced outwardly, now
appears in the mysticism of men such as Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, and
so on. The mystics experienced in their inner beings what Moses
experienced outwardly in the burning bush, in the thunder and
lightning. They spoke of how the Ego-God revealed Himself to them when
they withdrew into themselves. When they perceived within their souls
the spark of their egos, then the Ego-God, the One-God Jehovah
appeared to them. This was the case with Tauler, who was a great
preacher and made powerful revelations. To him came the layman who was
called, The Friend of God, of the Mountain, of whom it was
thought that he wished to become Tauler's pupil. But he soon became his
teacher instead, after which Tauler was able to speak of God with such
inner force that a number of pupils and listeners were reported to
have fallen prostrate, lying as if dead, as he preached. This is
reminiscent of the events that occurred when Moses received the Laws
on Sinai.
The centuries up to our present time have been filled by this spirit.
Now, however, we are entering an era that recalls and revives the age
of Abraham, in the sense that men are being led away from the world
perceptible to our physical senses. The spirit of Abraham will
influence our knowledge so that men will renounce the old mentality
that only laid store in the physical world. But in contrast to
Abraham, for whom the spirit of God was only to be found in the world
of the senses, we shall now grow beyond the sense world and into the
spiritual world.
Even though men knew nothing of all this in the past, we may well say
that it has not interfered with our development. In the era now
approaching, however, we will be placed in circumstances that will
require men consciously to take their destiny into their own hands.
They must know how Christ will be perceivable in the future. It is
truly related that after the event of Golgotha Christ descended to the
dead in the spiritual world to bring them the Word of Salvation. The
Christ event is active today in the same way. Therefore, it is the
same whether a person lives in the physical world here on earth or has
already passed through death. If he has gained an understanding for it
here on earth, he can still experience the Christ event in the
spiritual world, and that will indicate that man has not lived upon
this, our earth, without reason. If, however, a person fails to
acquire an understanding for the Christ event here on earth, the
effects of the event of Golgotha will pass him by without a trace
during the period between death and a new birth. He will then have to
wait until his next return to the earth, until a new birth in order
then to be able to prepare himself.
Man must not believe that Christ will reappear in the flesh, as some
false teachings claim, for in that case it would be impossible to
believe in the progressive development of man's faculties, and we
would have to say that events repeat themselves in the same way. But
this is not so. They do repeat themselves, but on ever higher levels.
In the next centuries it will often be proclaimed that Christ will
return and again reveal Himself. False messiahs or Christs will
appear. But those armed by the above explanations, with a true
understanding of Christ's real coming, will reject such
manifestations. The knowledgeable ones who can see the history of the
last centuries in this light will be neither surprised nor exhalted
that such messiahs appear. As an example, this happened just before
the Crusades and also in the seventeenth century, when a false
messiah. Shabattai Tzevi, appeared in Smyrna. Pilgrims flocked to him
even from France and Spain.
At that time such a deceptive belief did not do so much damage. But
now, when man with his more advanced faculties should be able to
recognize that it is a mistake to believe in Christ's second coming in
the flesh, and that it is in accordance with truth that He will
reappear in the etheric body now it is an absolute necessity to
distinguish such things plainly. A confusion of these facts will have
serious consequences. We cannot believe in an alleged Christ who
reappears in the flesh, but only in a Christ who appears in the
etheric body. This manifestation will take the form of a natural
initiation, just as at present the initiate experiences this event in
a special way.
Thus, we are approaching an age in which man will not only feel
himself surrounded by a physical sense world, but also, according to
the degree of his development, a spiritual world. The leader in this
new world of the spirit will be the etheric Christ. No matter what
religious community or faith people belong to, once they have
recognized these facts in themselves, they will acknowledge and accept
the Christ event. The Christians who have the experience of the
etheric Christ are perhaps in a more difficult situation than those
who belong to other religions, yet they should endeavor to accept this
Christ event in just as neutral a way as the others. It will, in fact,
be man's task to develop, especially through Christianity, an
understanding for the possibility of entering the spiritual world
independently of any special religious confession, but simply through
the power of good will.
Anthroposophy should help us above all in this. It will lead us into
that spiritual land, described in ancient Tibetan writings as a remote
fairyland but meant to be the spiritual world, the Land of Shamballa.
Not in a dreamy way but in full consciousness should man enter this
land under the guidance of Christ. Even now the initiate can and must
go often to the Land of Shamballa in order to acquire new forces. In
future, other men, too, will enter the Land of Shamballa. They will
see its radiant light, as Paul saw above him the light that streamed
from Christ. This light will stream toward them, also. The portals of
this realm of light will open to them and through them they will enter
the holy Land of Shamballa.
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