The Path through the Gospels and The Path of Inner Experience
16 April 1912, Stockholm
I thank you from my heart for the kind words of the General Secretary
of the Swedish section, Colonel Kinell, and in reply I wish to say
that it is deeply satisfying, on my journey from Helsingfors, to be
able for a few days to discuss again with you in Stockholm those
things and truths which touch us all so closely. I offer you a hearty
greeting, as warmly felt as the kind words of the General Secretary.
On these two more intimate evenings we shall have to speak of a
question, an affair of mankind, which in a double connection
penetrates extraordinarily deeply into our souls. First, because the
Christ question is such that, for two thousand years now, not only has
it occupied countless souls on earth, but from it have flowed for
countless earth-souls spiritual life-blood, strength of soul,
consolation and hope in suffering, strength and sureness in action.
And not only that, but when we consider all that surrounds us as
external exoteric culture, created through many centuries, then
through deeper knowledge we see that all this would have been
impossible had not the Christ impulse taken hold of a large part of
humanity. This is one consideration which shows us what strong
interest the Christ question must offer if we approach it with
anthroposophical knowledge. This is only one side of the interest
which we bring to this problem; the other side of our interest comes
out of the particular soul and spiritual conditions of our present
time, our epoch. We need only look about us in the world and try to
understand the yearnings, the seeking of the human soul, and we shall
be able to say to ourselves: "Ever more do human souls seek after
something which, through the centuries, has been connected in men's
souls with the name of Christ, and ever more do they come to the
conviction that a renewing of the ways, a renewing of interest, a
deepening of knowledge, is necessary if the needs of human souls
(which will steadily increase with regard to Christ) are to be
satisfied." If we find on the one side a thirsting for
enlightenment about Christ, we find on the other side, among numerous
souls of the present day, doubt and insecurity as to the means used up
to this time. And therefore, because of the yearning for an answer and
because of the doubt that the truth can be learned, this is one of the
most burning questions of the present time.
It is thus obvious that a spiritual movement which penetrates more
deeply into spiritual foundations has the task of throwing light on
this question. Things are like this today, my dear friends, but in a
relatively short time, truly in a very short time, they will be
entirely different. If we somewhat unegotistically examine what, in
relation to Christ, will be needed by those men who follow after our
time, then we must say to ourselves that, although many men of the
present can satisfy themselves with what there is, souls will feel
themselves increasingly unsure and will thirst increasingly for
enlightenment. Thus in speaking of Christ today we speak of something
which we foresee as necessary for the human beings of a very
near future. Anthroposophy would not fulfil its task if it did not put
itself in a position to create clarity on these points by means of its
knowledge, as far as this is possible today.
As my point of departure I shall indicate the three paths along which
the soul, in accordance with human evolution, can attain to Christ. If
we mention three paths we must briefly describe the first path, which
today is no longer a path, though it once was; which today need not be
an esoteric path, as just in our time the anthroposophic path is, but
which was a path for millions of souls through the centuries. This is
the path through the so-called Christian documents, through the
Gospels. For millions and millions of people this path was, and
for many it still is, the only possible one. The second path along
which the human soul may seek the Christ is that which can be called
the path through inner experience, which especially in the
present and in the near future numerous souls, out of their particular
constitution and qualities, must pursue. The third path is that which,
through the anthroposophical movement, one can at least begin to
understand in our time, the path through initiation. Thus there
are three paths to Christ: First, the path through the Gospels;
second, the path through inner experience; and third, the path through
initiation.
The first path, the path through the Gospels, need be only briefly
characterized here. We all know that, in the course of the centuries,
the Gospels became nourishment for the hearts and souls of innumerable
people. We know also that the most enlightened, the most critical
natures (and these are not the irreligious), begin to have no further
relation to this Christ, because it is maintained today that external
knowledge cannot know what historical facts really stand behind that
which the Gospels relate. Had the Gospels been read by men of past
centuries as today they are read by a scholar, by a man who has gone
through the current scientific education, they would never have been
able to exercise the powerful influence, the life-influence, which has
flowed out of them. Now, if the Gospels were not read in past
centuries as the educated man of today reads them, how were they read?
To ponder a priori on what may have taken place in Palestine at
the beginning of our era, this would never have occurred to the
Gospel-readers of earlier centuries, and still does not occur to many
Gospel-readers of today. Those who begin to test, in the Gospels, what
may have taken place before the eyes of the inhabitants of Palestine
at the beginning of our era lose confidence in the historical
character of the events of Palestine. The men of earlier times did not
read in this way. They read in such a way that they allowed a picture
to work on their souls; for instance, the picture of the Samaritan
woman at the well, or of Christ imparting the Sermon on the Mount to
his disciples. The question of external physical reality never
occurred to them. How their hearts warmed, how their feelings swelled
in the presence of these great and powerful pictures — this was
to them the main thing. What formed itself in their hearts, what
force, what life-meaning they gained through these pictures —
this was the main thing. They felt that spiritual lifeblood and
strength flowed to them from these pictures. When they let these
pictures work on their souls, they felt strong; they felt that,
without these pictures, they would be weak. And then they felt living,
personal connections with what is recounted in the Gospels, and the
question of historical reality occurred to them no further. The
Gospels were themselves reality, they were present as force,
and one did not need to ask whence they came; one knew that men had
written them not with earthly means, but with impulses from the
spiritual worlds. I do not assert that one must feel in this way today
(what one must do depends on the development of mankind), but I assert
that men felt in this way through centuries.
How could it be so? On this point spiritual science is now first able
to instruct us. When we begin to understand the Gospels in the light
of spiritual science, and try to penetrate into what flows down from
spiritual worlds and is contained in the Gospels, then we stand before
the Gospels in such a way that we say: "We know from spiritual
science, quite apart from the Gospels, all that has taken place in
human evolution in connection with the Christ-impulse, and then we
find what is contained in the Gospels, quite independently of
them."
How, then, do we conceive the Gospels from the spiritual-scientific
point of view? If I may use a simple comparison, let us assume that a
man has attained enlightenment on some subject. With this
enlightenment, he meets a second man and begins to talk with him. At
first he will not suppose that the other knows anything of the subject
which is so clear to him, but from the conversation he perceives that
the other knows it quite as well as he. What must reasonably be
assumed? The reasonable thing to assume is that the other has
enlightened himself through the same or similar sources. So is it also
with the Gospels. We can do this, no matter from what standpoint we
approach the Gospels. A society could be formed of people who read the
Gospels in the above described way; then there could also be people in
this society who were determined opponents of the Gospels, and who
would say that, when the Gospels were tested by the methods of
science, it would be found that they were written much later than the
events in Palestine could have occurred, and that their accounts
contradict each other — in short, that these Gospels cannot be
regarded as historical documents. Such people might be in such a
society, and one could say: "Well, let us at first leave the
Gospels in peace, but let us do some research in the spiritual
worlds."
Then, if we did some genuine spiritual research, if we gained genuine
super-sensible knowledge, we would find that in the course of human
evolution there had once entered a strong impulse, which broke into
human evolution as an impulse from the spiritual worlds, from which
mighty things have proceeded for humanity; and we would see that at
the beginning of our era, this impulse had taken hold of a man who was
especially suited thereto. All this, and many other facts which fit
into this knowledge and which can be won only through super-sensible
research, all this we would have; and those who wished to know nothing
of the Gospels would have this as well as others. Then one could
approach the Gospels and say: "Well now, at first we did not
trouble ourselves at all about these Gospels; yet it is remarkable
that, when we read them carefully, we see that they contain what we
found in spiritual fields independently of them. Now we recognize
their value from an entirely different side."
Then we are clear that it could not be otherwise, that those who wrote
the Gospels must have received their knowledge from the same source
which is now opening itself to humanity through the spiritual
movement. This is just what now confronts us, what will come more and
more, what will make a valid basis for the valuation of the Gospel
documents. If this is so, we must say that men will be able to find
along other ways what can be known through these documents. And so
this knowledge begins to be more and more sacred to us through the
spiritual cognition of the present day. It already worked through the
force of the Gospels. Because the Gospels are suffused with the
holiest knowledge, with the spiritual impulses of humanity, they had
an influence even where they were taken in naively. Spiritual
knowledge works not only abstractly, not only in theory, but works as
a life-force, as life-blood of the soul. And ever more and more will
men recognize how consolation and strength flow from this knowledge.
The Path of Inner Experience
But when we speak of the inner way to Christ, we encounter more and
more things which can be understood and felt at the present time only
when approached with the right spiritual-scientific understanding. We
shall try to speak of the inner Christ-experience in such a way
that it may be seen how, independently of all tradition, this may
appear in every man. To this end we must, of course, regard the human
being with the knowledge which we have found through spiritual
science. If we steep ourselves in spiritual science, then we find even
the most elementary knowledge becoming fruitful when we apply it to
life. We find that we get away from the abstract charts of the seven
members of man when we contemplate the growing and becoming of man.
The physical body has its especial development in the first seven
years of life. We perceive further that in the second seven years of
life, from the change of teeth until sexual maturity, the forces of
the etheric body play in man. Then the forces of the astral body begin
to play, and only later, about the 20th or 21st year, (depending on
his whole organization and on the nature of the forces in him) begins
what appears in man as the Ego, as the bearer of the Ego, with that
force which it really has because of its organization for the whole
life of man as the bearer of the Ego.
That the bearer of the Ego first becomes really capable of living in
the 20th or 21st year is not often observed in our present time,
because we are not yet inclined to pay attention to these things. What
does it mean that the bearer of the Ego first becomes really active in
the 20th or 21st year of life? Here we must observe, by occult means,
the growing man and view the deeper forces of his organization. These
forces continually change: from birth until the seventh year, from the
seventh year until sexual maturity, from sexual maturity until the
unfolding of the Ego. But they change in such a way that they cannot
be tested by the methods of ordinary anatomy or physiology. By occult
means, one can say that only around the 20th year does man develop his
forces in such a way that a self-sufficing Ego-bearer now exists.
Earlier this Ego-bearer is not yet formed; earlier the human
corporeality, even the super-sensible, is not yet a proper Ego-bearer.
So if we consider the members of man in the light of the great
world-principle, we must say that, through the peculiarities of his
organization, man is really ripe to develop an Ego out of himself only
in his 20th or 21st year, not earlier.
With this fact another may be contrasted, namely that in the first
years of life, in normal consciousness, we really dream ourselves,
sleep ourselves into life, and that only after a certain point of time
does life take such a course that our own memory begins. Of what
happened before this time we may be told by our parents or elder
brothers; after this point the man says "I am who I am."
From the time when he says "I have done this; I
have thought that," the man dates his own Ego; what came before
that loses itself in the twilight of the soul. Our memory reaches only
to the point of time so described.
What do we have when we put these two facts together; that the real
bearer of the human Ego is born in the 20th or 21st year, and that in
our souls we describe ourselves as an Ego from the third or fourth
year on? This means that in the present cycle of man's development he
has an opinion, a feeling, about himself which does not correspond to
his inner organization, as this has developed; for the
consciousness of the Ego appears in the third or fourth year,
but the organization for the Ego first appears in the 20th or
21st year. This fact is of fundamental importance for the
understanding of man. When this fact is stated abstractly as an item
of spiritual-scientific knowledge, no one gets particularly excited
about it; but, because this fact is true, there are numerous
experiences available which we all know well, but which we do not
observe in the light of this fact. All that man can experience of
cleavage between external organization and inner experience, of sorrow
and pain in life because (by reason of his organization) certain
things are impossible for him, of disharmony between what he wishes
and what he can perform; the fact that he may have ideals which lead
far beyond his organization: all this leads back to the fact that the
consciousness of our Ego goes an entirely different way from
that followed by the bearer of our Ego. In this respect we are two
men; An external man who is organized to develop his egohood in the
20th or 21st year, and an inner soul-man who already in his fourth or
fifth year, as to his soul-life, emancipates himself from his outer
organization. Emancipation of the Ego-consciousness from the outer
organization takes place in childhood. We go through something in our
soul which proceeds independently of our outer organization and which
can even come into sharp contradiction with our outer organization. We
are inclined, in regard to the inner consciousness of the Ego, to pay
no attention to our organization, to what is below in our bodies. In
our souls we develop in an entirely different way from that in which
our bodies develop.
Thus the course of inner development of mankind is twofold. The
development of our organization goes from the first to the seventh
year, then from the seventh to the fourteenth, from the fourteenth to
the twenty-first, in the above described way; but our inner
development is such that we are entirely independent of the above,
such that the consciousness of our Ego emancipates itself in tenderest
childhood and makes its own way through life. But what is the
consequence of this curious fact of human development? Only the
occultist can tell us this.
If we survey all that the occultist can teach, we come to a curious
fact. We come to see that sickness, frailty of the human organization,
all that makes possible illness, age, and death, comes from our being
really a duality. We die because we are organized in a certain way and
in our organization pay no attention to our Ego-development. That with
our Ego we go an independent path, not troubling ourselves about our
organization, this is brought home to us when this organization, in
sickness and death, places a hindrance before our Ego-development; we
are reminded that our Ego-development proceeds quite separately from
our organization. Whence comes really this curious fact of duality in
human nature?
When we examine man in connection with reality, we see that, if at a
certain time in the Earth evolution, namely in the Lemurian time, only
progressive forces had intervened in human development, the youthful
development of man would today proceed quite otherwise — namely
so that it would keep even step with the Ego-development. At all times
the soul-development would coincide exactly with the body-development.
It would have been impossible for man to develop himself otherwise
than in the way now set up as an ideal, for example, in my pamphlet
The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy.
(Anthroposophic Press, New York City) Had only
progressive forces been active at that time, the singular result would
have been that, in the first twenty years of life, man would have been
much less self-reliant than he is now. This lack of self-reliance is
not meant in a bad sense, but in such a way that each of you would
approve of it completely. For example, human nature in the first seven
years of life completely disposed to imitation. Since grown people, if
only progressive forces had been active in the Lemurian time, would do
nothing shameful, children between one and seven would be able to
imitate nothing bad. In the second seven years of life the principle
of authority would reign, whereas now it has come to be a curse of the
land, a curse of the world, that persons between seven and fourteen
want to be independent and are even educated to form independent
opinions. The grown persons would have been the natural authorities
for the children. From fourteen to twenty-one, man would have looked
much less into himself, upon his own self; he would have turned more
toward the outside. The force of ideals, the power of living himself
into his life-dreams would have become immensely significant for him.
Life-dreams would have sprung from his heart, and then full
Ego-consciousness would have appeared in his 20th and 21st years.
Thus there would be in the first seven years a period of imitation,
then in the second seven years a looking up to authority, then in the
third seven years a springing forth of ideals, which would bring man
to his full Ego-consciousness. The sum of those forces also working in
evolution which are called the Luciferic forces have brought about a
deviation from this path of development in the course of human
evolution. Since the Lemurian time they have torn the
Ego-consciousness away from the foundation of the organization. The
fact that we already have the Ego-consciousness in tenderest childhood
is to be traced to the Luciferic forces.
How did the Luciferic forces intervene? The Luciferic powers are
beings who remained behind on the Moon, and who therefore have no
understanding of the mission of the Earth, for that which should
develop for the first time on the Earth for the Ego after the 21st
year. They took man as he was on coming over from the Moon, and laid
in him the germ of self-reliant soul-development. So that in the
hastening of Ego-consciousness, in this peculiar cleavage in human
nature, lie the Luciferic forces. Knowledge of such a fact is given
for the first time by anthroposophy. It can be sensed by every man of
sound feeling, for every man can sense that there is something in him
which separates him from his full humanity. All that we call
unjustified egoism in our nature, all withdrawing from the activities
of men, all this stems from the Ego's not going along on the right
path of the organization. Thus do we see man before us, if he can
feel. If he says to himself: "I could be other than I am; I have
something in me which is not in harmony with myself" — then
he feels the strife within him of the progressive powers with the
Luciferic powers. This fact had to occur in the course of human
evolution; it was necessary because man would never have become really
free without the Luciferic beings; he would have been always bound to
his organization. What on the one hand brings man into conflict with
his organization, gives him on the other hand the first possibility of
being free. One thing, however, remains out of this duality of the
organization for the ordinary human life; this shows itself in our
feeling that the Ego has become incapable, out of its own powers, of
transforming the organization.
When we survey the broad circumference of what has constituted and
created man, we find the two forces described above; there are the
organic forces of our human nature, which are intended to develop in
seven-year periods, and there are the Luciferic forces. If there were
nothing else in nature or in the spiritual life in the course of human
development, it would follow that man could never, through his
emancipated Ego, come into full harmony with his nature. Were there
nothing else in the field of earth-existence, man could only become
ever more estranged from his organization; his organization would
become ever more infirm, more dried up; the cleavage would necessarily
become always greater. If man only once reaches the point of intensely
feeling this as spiritual-scientific knowledge, then he comes to a
great moment in his life, when he can say: "Here I stand with my
human organization which is given me by the progressive forces that
work from seven years to seven years (he need not express this in
precise words, he need only feel it dimly). But, because this
organization has an opposing force, which develops itself
independently, it becomes sick and infirm and finally dies." In
the depths of his soul man feels this. Without knowing anything of
anthroposophy, he need only have this feeling of a discrepancy between
the inner Ego and the outer organization, and, if he steeps himself in
this feeling, then — he knows not whence — there comes into
his soul something of which he feels: "I myself, with the Ego
which I can trace back, can do nothing against my organization, for
which I am no match. But there comes something which I can take into
my Ego as force, which I can take into my consciousness as conviction;
directly from spiritual worlds comes something which does not reside
in me, but which permeates my soul. From unknown worlds something can
flow into my soul; if I take it up in my heart, if I suffuse my Ego
with it, then it helps me directly from spiritual worlds." —
This which comes from spiritual worlds may be called whatever we like;
that is not important; only the feeling is important.
Let us assume that a man is today at odds with life and says to
himself: "I must seek through the whole world to see if somewhere
a force will spring up which will give me something through which I
can come out of the conflict, something which will help me out."
— In the nature of things this man could never find his way with
the means of the old religious confessions; in the ancient
ecclesiastical ideas he could never find anything which would give him
this force that he seeks. But, in order to have a concrete example,
let us assume that such a man went to one of the ancient holy
religions, that he went, for example, to Buddhism and steeped himself
in the extraordinary teachings of Buddhism. If the man felt, however,
naturally and in its full strength the cleavage described above, he
would feel — I do not say this would come out of a theory, but
out of a dim feeling — he would feel that in the personality, in
the individuality of Gautama Buddha, something had lived which could
appear in the world only on the basis of a long development. This
individuality went through many incarnations, achieved higher and
higher grades of evolution, and finally came so far that in the 29th
year of his life as Gautama Buddha, he was able to rise from
Bodhisatva to Buddha, was able to rise in such a way that he need
never more return to a physical body. How did that which flows out
from this individuality come into being? Every unprejudiced mind can
feel what speaks out of the Buddha, can feel all that first came about
and developed through the Bodhisatva in earth evolution after
developing through many incarnations. In the most beautiful and
comprehensive sense all this contains the forces which are found in
the periphery of the earth, in the interplay of the forces of the
organization and the Luciferic forces. Therefore, because it has gone
from incarnation to incarnation, because it stems from the same forces
from which the human forces stem, therefore that which flows from the
Bodhisatva to the Buddha has such an effect that the unprejudiced mind
does not feel anything that can call forth a full harmony between the
Ego of man and his organization. The soul feels that there must be
something which does not go from incarnation to incarnation, but which
can stream into every human soul directly from the spiritual worlds.
— When the soul feels that it must have a relation to what
streams down from the heavens, then it is beginning to have an
inner experience of the Christ. Then the soul can
understand that in Christ Jesus something had to appear which was
different from everything previously existing. This is the radical,
fundamental difference, the difference in principle between the life
of the Christ and that of the Buddha.
Buddha rose from a Bodhisatva to a Buddha with the forces which cause
man to mount from incarnation to incarnation, as is the case with
other great founders of religions. Into the life of Jesus of Nazareth
something entered, something worked into the individuality of Jesus of
Nazareth, over a period of three years, which streamed down directly
out of the spiritual worlds, which had nothing to do with human
evolution, which previously was not connected with a human life. We
must keep this difference clearly in mind if we wish to understand
why, in what the fourth post-Atlantean epoch called the Christ, there
was something which was different from all other religious impulses,
and why the other religions have always pointed mankind toward this
Christ.
If we, in the post-Atlantean time, look back into the ancient sacred
Indian culture, we see the seven holy Rishis, in whose souls there
lived something of an immediate perception of the spiritual worlds.
Had one of the seven holy Rishis been asked about the fundamental mood
of his soul, he would have said: "We look up to the spiritual
powers from whom all human development has proceeded. This reveals
itself to us in seven rays, but above this is something else,
something which lies above our sphere." Vishvakarman, this was
the name later given to what the seven holy Rishis thus felt. The
seven holy Rishis spoke of a power which had not developed with the
earth.
Then came the Zarathustra culture. Zarathustra spoke, when he directed
his gaze to the spirits of the sun, of something which should flow
into human evolution directly through a streaming out of the spiritual
worlds. "What we can give to men," so spake Zarathustra,
"is not that which will one day, from the sun-distances, stream
directly out of the spiritual worlds into mankind." What is
spiritual in the sun, this is what the later Persian culture called
Ahura-Mazdao.
In the Egyptian mysteries the Christ question was felt with a
particularly tragic force. It was felt in the deepest way, if by deep
we mean a form of human feeling in which there was an especially
strong consciousness that humanity stems from what is spiritual. The
Egyptian initiate said to himself: "Wherever we turn our gaze, we
feel in what surrounds us the decline from the original spiritual.
Nowhere in the outer world is the spiritual to be found in its
immediacy and purity. Only when man steps through the gate of death
does he descry that from which he springs. Man must first die (in
relation to inner experience, not in relation to initiation); then he
becomes united with the Osiris-principle (so did the ancient Egyptian
name the Christ principle); in life this cannot be done, that is the
discrepancy. All that is in the periphery of the earth, this does not
lead to Osiris; the soul must first have passed the portal of death to
be united with Osiris. Then, in death, the soul becomes a piece of
Osiris, it becomes itself a sort of Osiris. The world outside has
become such that it dismembers Osiris through his enemy; that is,
through all that belongs to the external world."
And the initiate of the Egyptian mysteries said: "Mankind, as it
now is in our culture, is a sort of reminiscence of the old Moon-time.
As the culture of the seven holy Rishis is a sort of reminiscence of
the old Saturn-time, as the Zarathustra culture is a reminiscence of
the old Sun-time, so is the Osiris-culture a reminiscence of the old
Moon-time when the Moon and its beings first separated from the sun,
on which, however, remained the beings from whom man took his origin.
At that time there took place the separation of man from the good
forces of his organization, from the source of his life-forces. But,
through the yearning and privation for the spiritual which will
endure, the time will come for men when Osiris will descend and show
himself as something which must come as a new impetus which was not
before on earth, because already in the old Moon-time it had separated
itself from the earth."
All that to which the seven holy Rishis and Zarathustra pointed, and
of which the Egyptians said that in their time men could not attain it
during life, this was the force, the impulse, which for three years
revealed itself in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. All great religions
spoke of it; it revealed itself in Jesus of Nazareth, to whom all
religions pointed. Thus not only Christians have spoken of Christ, but
also the members of all ancient religions. Thus something entered into
the course of human development which man needs and which is
accessible to inner experience.
Let us assume that a man grows up on a lonely island. Those who have
charge of his education tell him nothing of that happens in the world
in regard to the name of Christ and to the Gospels; they give him only
such culture as does not make use of the Gospels or the name of
Christ, culture which may have come to birth under the influence of
Christ, but divested of the name of Christ. What would happen in this
case? In such a man the following mood would be bound to appear. He
would say to himself one day: "Something lives in me which is in
accord with my universal human organization; this I cannot at once
grasp. For that in which my Ego-consciousness lives presents itself to
me in such a way that I need something which cannot come to me through
human culture, I need an impulse from the spiritual worlds, in order
to make the Ego stronger again in its organization, from which it has
emancipated itself." If such a person can only feel strongly that
man needs, then something can come over him from which he will
recognize that, directly from spiritual worlds, something must stream
out which penetrates directly into his Ego. He does not know that this
is called Christ; but he does know that in his consciousness he can
suffuse himself with it, that in his Ego he can foster this which
comes to him from the spiritual worlds. Then something will come to
him of which he may say: "Granted, I can be ill, I can be weak, I
can die; but from my own Ego I can make myself stronger, I can send
into my organization something which gives me strength and force
directly out of the spiritual worlds." It is indifferent what he
calls this; if the man comes to this feeling, he is gripped by the
Christ-impulse. That man is not gripped by the Christ-impulse who says
he can have something from a teacher who has passed from incarnation
to incarnation, but he who feels that directly from the spiritual
world there can come impulses of force, of strength. Men can have this
inner experience; without it men cannot live, without it men
will not be able to live in the future. They can have this experience,
because once, for three years, there lived objectively in Jesus of
Nazareth this impulse which came directly out of the spiritual worlds.
As it is true that a man can lay a seed in the earth, and that many
other seeds can come from this one, so it is true that the
Christ-impulse was once implanted into humanity, and that since that
time there is something in humanity which was not there earlier.
This is why the Egyptian life was so tragic. Men felt that in their
lives they could not come to Osiris; that they must first pass through
the gate of death, to be united with him in inner experience. Of
initiation we have still to speak. But since the time of the Mystery
of Golgotha that is possible which earlier was not possible: that of
his own motion, out of his single incarnation, man seeks his
connection with the spiritual world. And this is because the impulse
which was given through the Mystery of Golgotha can flash up in every
soul, and can enter, since that time, into every man through inner
experience. Not the Christ Who was on earth — the soul does not
trouble itself about Him — but the Christ Who is attainable
through inner experience. Since the Mystery of Golgotha it is
possible, in the single incarnations, to win a connection with the
spiritual. And because this is so, there happened in the one fact of
Golgotha something which can shine out into humanity, which is not
given through the achievements of the successive incarnations.
Therefore it is impossible that Christ should show himself in a way
which is a consequence of many incarnations, as happened to Buddha
from his incarnations as Bodhisatva.
Tomorrow we shall see how the path to the Christ in human evolution
can be found for the future.
The Path of Initiation
17 April 1912, Stockholm
If I may indicate in a few words the point at which yesterday's
considerations culminated, I would like to say that out of them the
possibility should come to light for every man, through a deepening of
his being, through a trust in the spiritual worlds, of causing to rise
within him a soul-mood, a soul-disposition, which will say to him:
"Into man flow not only the things which are in the periphery of
the earth, not only those things which stem from the evolution of the
earth itself, but it is possible for man to tune his soul in such a
way that he receives out of the spiritual worlds helping forces which
flow into him, which produce an equilibrium between the single
egoistic I and the totality of his organization — if that
possibility offers itself which has flowed into the
earth-mission." Whoever can attain this trust in this inflow from
the spiritual worlds, no matter what he calls this inner event, this
inner experience, has lived through the personal Christ-experience
inwardly. The remainder of this matter will reveal itself to us if
today we start by considering the third path to Christ, the path of
initiation.
With the path through the Gospels, and the path through inner
experience, we have the two paths to Christ which are accessible to
every man: I say expressly — to every man. But to the path of
initiation there belongs a certain preparation, as should be
understandable to everyone. In our time this requires us to go deeply,
in a real and not merely theoretical way, into the true, genuine
spiritual science which, at least in our present time, must always be
the point of departure, if we wish to understand what the way of
initiation is. Regarding the essence of initiation it would be well to
give a few introductory remarks in a certain direction. You see,
initiation is the highest which man can achieve in the course of the
Earth-evolution, for it leads man to a certain understanding, to a
real insight into the secrets of the spiritual world. What occurs in
the spiritual worlds is really the content, the object, of initiation,
and a real knowledge, an immediate perception, of events in the
spiritual worlds is attained on the path of initiation. When
initiation is characterized in this way, something very special must
strike everyone who lets this characterization work on his soul. This
is really to say, fundamentally, that initiation is — allow me
the expression — a super-religious way. The religions which in
the course of human epochs have spread over the surface of the earth,
and which still prevail among men, all of these, in so far as they are
great religions, and in so far as we study them at their points of
origin, were originally founded upon initiation, by initiates. They
have flowed out of what great initiates have been able to give to men.
But the religions were given in such a form that, in their contents,
men received what was suitable to the time in which they lived, to the
race to which they belonged, even to the region of the earth in which
they lived.
Now today we live in a very special epoch of human evolution, and it
is just the task of spiritual science to understand that we live in a
special time. The way in which among our contemporaries spiritual
science can be brought forth and spread, this was nowhere possible in
past times. Anthroposophy as such could not be publicly taught. Only
in our time do we begin to teach anthroposophy. The religions were
once the channels through which the secrets of initiation were to be
allowed to flow into mankind; to be allowed to flow in a manner
suitable at a given time to a given group of men. But today we are in
a position to give through anthroposophy something which is not
adapted to a single race, to a single region, to a single group of
men, but which can bring to every man, no matter where he finds
himself on earth, something of those secrets of existence, for
knowledge of which souls are yearning and which souls must have if
hearts are to be strong for work on earth. But this already shows that
through anthroposophy something is to be given which takes a
standpoint higher than the religious standpoints were, or still are
where these religious standpoints continue to be accepted. In a
certain way anthroposophy is that which must propagate the secrets of
initiation in a universal human way, whereas in the various ancient
religious systems of the earth the secrets of initiation were always
announced in a special manner, in a different way, adapted to the
particular human group.
What follows from this? It follows that we find the most varied
religions spread out over the earth, all of which point back to this
or that founder. We find first the Krishna religion, leading back to
Krishna; second, the Buddha religion, leading back to Buddha; third,
the ancient Hebrew religion, leading back to Moses; and we find
Christianity, leading back to Jesus of Nazareth. The religions having
all flowed out of initiation, we must be quite clear that we cannot
today take the position taken by the philosophers of religion who
consider themselves "enlightened." The philosophers of
comparative religion have a secret outlook on religions; they regard
them all either as false or as childish stages of human development.
But we, as anthroposophists, since we learn to know that the religions
are only different formulations of the truths of initiation, are in a
position to grasp the true and not the false in the various religious
systems. We do justice to all the religious systems in comparison with
one another. We regard them as equally justified revelations of the
great truths of initiation.
And from this follows something terribly important for practical
feeling and practical activity. What is this important thing? That out
of the anthroposophical mood will proceed complete understanding,
hearty respect, and full recognition of the core of truth in all
religions; and that those who, out of an anthroposophical attitude,
reflect on the world and its course of development, will respect the
truths of the various religious systems. There will be the highest
esteem and respect. Yes, my dear friends, from the anthroposophical
spiritual stream will result the following for the various religious
confessions on earth: A man will go to the adherents of any religious
system, and he will not think himself able to graft on to them, or
inoculate them with, other confessions. Much rather will we go to them
and, out of our own religious faith, discern what there is of
truth in their faith. And a man who is born in a region where a
particular religion holds sway will not, on account of this religion,
intolerantly reject all other religions, but he will be able to
approach them on the basis of what, as truth, is contained in the
different religions. Let us take an example. Such an example can be
grasped only by those who, in the depths of their soul, take seriously
the anthroposophical attitude and all that must follow from a
knowledge of the fundamental conditions of initiation. Let us assume
that an Occidental has grown up within Christianity. He will perhaps
have learned to know Christianity through having taken into himself
the great truths of the Gospels. Perhaps he has already attained also
to what is called the path to Christ Jesus through inner experience;
perhaps in his inner experience he has already experienced the Christ.
Let us assume that he now becomes acquainted with another religion,
Buddhism for example. From those who stand within the sacred truths
and knowledge of Buddhism, he learns to know something which is an
annoyance to the materialistic Occidental but which we
anthroposophists can understand: He learns to know that the founder of
this religion, after having lived through many incarnations on earth
as a Bodhisatva, was reborn as the son of King Sudhodana; he learns to
know that in the twenty-ninth year of his life as Bodhisatva he rose
to Buddha, and that with this rising to Buddha there is given in this
religion — since it stems from initiation — the one
great truth which is valid not only for Buddhism but for all men, and
which is acknowledged by every initiate and by all men who understand
Buddhism; he learns to know that the adherent of Buddhism says justly:
"When the Bodhisatva becomes Buddha in a human incarnation, then
this incarnation which the Buddha has to go through on earth is the
last. Then he does not come back again in a human body."
To one who stands within Buddhism it would be acutely painful, if it
were asserted that the Buddha would return again in a fleshly body.
Such an adherent of the Buddha would be deeply distressed, if anyone
were to dispute this truth, saying that the Bodhisatva who became a
Buddha could again at some time appear upon the earth in a physical
body. But we anthroposophists recognize the truth in the religions; we
take the position of seeking the truth of the various religions and
not their error. So we go to those who understand Buddhism and we
learn to know — or learn out of initiation to know — that it
is true that that individuality who lived as Bodhisatva on earth and
became a Buddha has since that time reached spiritual heights from
which he need not again descend to this physical globe. From that
moment on, if we stand on the ground of the doctrine of reincarnation,
we shall no longer thrust upon the Buddhist the assertion that the
Buddha could reappear in a physical body. Genuine knowledge will
create an understanding for every form of religion proceeding out of
initiation. We respect the religious forms which have been developed
on earth, in that we recognize the truth which they have to give. Yes,
my dear friends, I acknowledge as frankly and honestly as the
strictest Buddhist this truth, that the Bodhisatva who was on earth
and rose to Buddha reached therewith a height of human development
which made it possible for him no longer to descend to earth. This is
what we call having an understanding for the various forms of religion
on the earth.
Let us take the opposite case: That an adherent of Buddhism should
make his way to anthroposophical knowledge. Either out of a real
knowledge of Christianity or out of the principle of initiation, he
would allow it to become clear to him that in another region of the
earth there is another form of religion, and that those who understand
this religion are quite clear about the following: That there once
lived a personality who really belonged to no nation, least of all to
the Occident, and that from his thirtieth to his thirty-third year
there lived in this personality that impulse, that force of the
spiritual life, to which we pointed yesterday; to which, in their
Vishvakarman, the seven holy Rishis also pointed; to which, in his
Ahura-Mazdao, Zarathustra also pointed; to which, as their Osiris, the
Egyptians also pointed; and which the fourth post-Atlantean cultural
period named Christ. But that is not the point: The point is to
recognize in Christ that which lived as an impulse for three years in
the personality of Jesus of Nazareth, that which was not previously
present on earth, that which descended from spiritual heights into the
personality of Jesus of Nazareth, that which in this personality went
through the Mystery of Golgotha, and that which as such a
Christ-impulse is a once-appearing impulse for the earth and is not
connected with any ordinary incarnation of mankind; that which was
thus once present as Christ and can never return in any man,
but will come, as the Bible says, in the clouds of heaven —
meaning that as a spiritual revelation it will show itself to men.
This is a Christian avowal.
Now, one who stands within Buddhism, imbued with theosophical
earnestness and theosophical dignity, will have to recognize that he
must pay attention to and respect this Christian avowal just as the
Christian must respect his. The Buddhist who has risen to theosophy
and takes it seriously will say: "Just as you as a Christian
approach with trust the teaching that the Bodhisatva who became a
Buddha will no more return to the earth, just as it seems to me
fitting that you know that the Buddha cannot return, so I as a
Buddhist acknowledge that what you call Christ cannot return in a
physical incarnation, but as a once-appearing impulse lived only for
three years in a physical human body." — If in anthroposophy
we find the reciprocal understanding of the religions in such a way
that the initiation-principle can penetrate into man's heart in such a
way that one man shall not impose an alien opinion on others, then we
produce an understanding which unites men over the whole earth, we
establish peace between the single religions on earth.
In Christianity the founder of the religion is Jesus of Nazareth. The
Christian initiation-principle is concerned with the religion's
founder, Jesus of Nazareth, only as with a fact, as with a fact which
can be examined by occultists as a fact. With the same love, with the
same care, as are used in examining the life of Buddha or of another
founder of a religion, the life of Jesus of Nazareth is examined by
those who are acquainted with the principle of religion. How this life
of Jesus of Nazareth appears from the standpoint of pure occultism you
will find described in my pamphlet: The Spiritual Guidance of
Mankind. But the true Christian initiation-principle concerns
itself with recognizing Christ, with the way to Christ. And this
Christian religious principle was preparing for many years what was
just now described as a principle of peace for the whole earth, in
that it clearly does not proceed from the founder of a religion as
such, but from a fact which occurred once in the world.
That is the basic difference between Christianity and the other
religions. What the initiation-principle which leads to Christ has as
a task in the world is different from the cultures which have
proceeded from the other religious principles. What the Christian
initiation-principle has as a task within the world-mission proceeded
from a fact, from an event, not from a personality. This will be
understandable if we mention first some preliminary conditions. We can
put forward a single sentence, a single statement, and we have then
characterized, although externally, the starting point of esoteric
Christianity, of Christian initiation: It is the death which was
experienced in the uniting of Christ with Jesus of Nazareth. The fact
of this death, which we call the Mystery of Golgotha, is what should
be understood through the principle of Christian initiation. Now, a
true understanding of this death can be won only if we make quite
clear to ourselves the mission of death within our earth-evolution.
Yesterday we pointed out that frailty, infirmity, illness, and death
are connected with the lack of harmony between our Ego, permeated by
the Luciferic principle, and our organization. Death, after all, is
connected with the Luciferic principle, and that in a very special
way. It would be an entirely false idea if we were to assume that
Lucifer brought death. Lucifer did not bring death, he brought what we
can call the possibility of error (also of moral error), the
differentiation of men into races, and the possibility of freedom.
Lucifer brought these things. If only what Lucifer brought had been
efficacious in mankind, if nothing had been opposed to him, then this
Luciferic principle would have led to the point where mankind would
have fallen out, would have broken out, of the progressive divine
evolution. Man would indeed have spiritualized himself, but in an
entirely different direction from that to which the progressive divine
evolution led. To retain mankind within this divine evolution, to
prevent mankind's being lost for the divine evolution, a particular
arrangement had to be set up: Man had to be continually reminded of
what the consequences are if he misuses the possibility of error and
of freedom. All illness, frailty, infirmity, and death are reminders
that man would have to estrange himself from the progressive divine
evolution if, in addition to having the Luciferic freedom, he were
healthy and full of energy. Thus illness, infirmity, and death are not
gifts of Lucifer, but gifts of the good, wisdom-filled divine powers,
who have therewith set up a dike against the influences of Lucifer.
Thus we must say that all that confronts us in the world as continuous
human tribulation coming from outside, as illness and death, is there
in order that we men may remain fettered to earth-existence until we
have an opportunity to make amends; in order that we may have an
education which will adapt us to our organization. We suffer in
order that out of our suffering we may gain experience and find an
equilibrium between our Lucifer-permeated Ego and our
divinely-permeated organization. Our organization falls away from
us repeatedly, until we have completely imbued ourselves, in our Ego,
with the laws of the evolution which is progressive in a divine sense.
Every death is therefore a point of departure for something else. Man
cannot die without taking with him that which gives him the
possibility of sometime overcoming death in his successive
incarnations. All our pains are there in order that out of suffering
we may gain the experience of how we must adapt ourselves to our
progressing divine organization. This question, however, cannot be
discussed apart from its connection with all of evolution.
We can study such a thing especially well if we examine occultly the
connections between man and the next lower kingdom, the animal
kingdom. We know that in the course of evolution man has always
inflicted pain on the animals, that he has killed the animals. One who
learns to know the Karma of human life often finds it highly unjust
that the animal, which does not reincarnate, should suffer, should
bear pain, and even, in the case of the higher animals, should go
through death with a certain consciousness. Should no Karmic
compensation take place here? Naturally, the human being has to make a
Karmic compensation in Kamaloka for the pain which he inflicts on
animals, but I am not speaking of this now; I am speaking of the
compensation for the animals. Let us make one thought clear: If we
consider human evolution, we see how much pain man has strewn over the
animal kingdom and how many animals he has killed. What do these pains
and these deaths mean in the course of evolution?
Occult study shows us that every pain which is inflicted on a
pain-feeling being other than man, every death, is a seed for the
future. Animals, as they are willed by the progressive divine
evolution, are not destined to have incarnations like man. But, if a
change comes into this wisdom-filled world-plan, if man intervenes and
does not leave the evolution of the animals to be as it would have
been without man, what happens then? Now, you see, occult research
teaches us that every pain, every death, inflicted by man on the
animals, will return and arise again, not through reincarnation, but
because pain and death have been inflicted on the animals. This
pain and suffering call up animality again. These animals on which
pain has been inflicted will arise again, though not in the same form;
but that which feels pain in them, that comes again. It comes again in
such a way that the sufferings of the animals are compensated, so that
to every pain its complementary feeling is added. These pains, these
sufferings, this death, these are the seed which man has sown; they
return in such a way that to every pain its contrary feeling is added
in the future. To use a concrete example: When Earth is replaced by
Jupiter, the animals will not appear in their present form, but their
pains and sufferings will awaken the forces for the feeling of pain.
They will live in men, and will embody themselves as parasitic animals
in men. Out of the sensations and feelings of these men, out of their
pains, the compensation will be created. This is the occult truth,
which can be stated objectively and unadorned even if it is not
pleasant to the man of today. Man will one day suffer this, and the
animals will have, in a certain well-being, in a pleasant feeling, the
compensation for their pains. This already happens slowly and
gradually in the course of present-day earth-life, no matter how
strange this seems. Why are men plagued by beings which are really
neither animals nor plants, but stand between the two, by bacilli and
similar creatures, which feel a well-being when man suffers? They have
brought this upon themselves in earlier incarnations through
inflicting pain and death on animals. For the being, though not
appearing in the same form, feels this across time and feels the
compensation for its pains in the suffering which man must undergo.
Thus all the pain and suffering in the world are positively not
without consequences. It is a seed from which proceeds what is caused
by pain, suffering, and death. There can be no suffering, no pain, no
death, without causing something which springs up later on.
Let us consider in this light the death on Golgotha, which followed
from the uniting of Christ with Jesus of Nazareth. The first thing
which becomes clear to anyone who goes through the requisite
initiation is that this death on Golgotha was no ordinary death on
earth, no ordinary human or other death. Persons who do not yet
believe in the super-sensible can form no conception of this death on
Golgotha. For even externally this Mystery of Golgotha has something
very strange, something from which man has much to learn. This is that
no historical writings tell of the Mystery of Golgotha, and the
critics of the Gospels assert that the Gospels are in no way
authoritative as historical documents. Principles of initiation are
applied to that which was not written out of historical observation.
What happened on Golgotha can still be perceived today by initiates,
can still be seen today in the Akashic Record by people who undergo
initiation. The writers of the Gospels also wrote only out of the
Akashic Record; an event is described for which the original writers
of the Gospels never thought of calling in the aid of perceptions on
the physical plane. So strong was then the consciousness that one had
to do here with something which stood in relation to the super-sensible
worlds, and that the most important thing was to gain a relation to
the super-sensible worlds. Out of the sense-world no right relation to
these events can be won. What happened becomes clear through
initiation. One could say that at the beginning of our era there lived
a man, Jesus of Nazareth; that in the 30th year of his life he
experienced a certain change through the reception of the Christ, and
that after three years he was crucified. This would signify an event
for the progressive history of mankind. If this were said, it would be
the opposite of what the initiate learns to know; it would be an
affair of men on earth, no matter how spiritualized it might become.
With the initiation-principle, this is not the point.
Fundamentally, it might be said — but you must not misunderstand
me — radically, it might be said that, at first glance, what
happened on Golgotha was not an event which concerned men in so far as
they are on the physical plane. At first glance! Not in the way in
which it is related: A man once lived, Jesus of Nazareth, at the
beginning of our era, who in the 30th year of his life experienced a
certain change through the reception of the Christ, and was then
crucified in his 33rd year — not so is the initiation-truth of
Christianity told. It must be stated entirely differently.
It must be stated approximately thus: One who is to be initiated into
the Christian principle learns the following: Before this Earth there
was a Moon-condition. During this Moon-condition the Luciferic beings
remained behind. These Luciferic beings developed further, alongside
the progressive divine spiritual beings. In the Lemurian time Lucifer
drew near to men, injected himself into the human earth-evolution, and
brought about what was characterized yesterday. Thus Lucifer was
inside the whole human development. Had human evolution continued in
this way with Lucifer, it would gradually have happened that the
mission of the Earth would not have reached its goal; man would have
dried up, the human Ego would have separated from, would have broken
out of, the divine spiritual evolution. On the old Moon a series, so
to speak, of beings belonging to the super-sensible worlds learned that
Lucifer had become rebellious, that he had taken up a position hostile
to them. Thus the gods were compelled to see that Lucifer had become
the adversary of the progressive divine development. — One can at
first completely ignore all that concerns man in this. Let us consider
all this as the affair of the gods and of their adversaries, the
Luciferic beings, and let us consider mankind as a creation of the
gods. This was the situation.
Now, there is a certain peculiarity in the spiritual, in the
super-sensible, worlds. One thing is not present there which is
present on the earth; death, in all its forms, is not found there. In
the super-sensible worlds one transforms oneself, but one does not die.
Metamorphoses, not birth and death, are present there. For
example, the group-souls which are in the super-sensible worlds do not
die; they transform, metamorphose themselves. Birth and death do not
exist there, where the effects of the physical world have never
reached. Only where the traits of the physical world have already been
transmitted to a certain extent to the beings of the spiritual world,
there is something which may be regarded as analogous to death, as
with the spirits of nature; but we cannot go into this today. In the
real super-sensible world there is no birth or death, only
transformation, metamorphosis.
For the divine spiritual beings who may be designated the creators of
men, birth and death do not come into consideration. Lucifer also does
not incarnate himself as a human being in the physical world. He works
in man through man; uses men as his vehicle, as it were. Thus we have
to do with the gods and with the Luciferic beings, who look down, so
to speak, upon their creations. Had evolution continued in this way,
had nothing happened in the world of the gods, then the intention of
the gods for men would never have been fulfilled; Lucifer would have
thwarted the plan of the gods. The gods had to make a sacrifice —
that was their concern — they had to experience something which
was related to their sphere in such a way that it really could not be
experienced by gods if they remained in their own sphere: They had to
send from their own ranks down to the physical plane a being who
experienced something which otherwise gods in the spiritual worlds
cannot experience. The gods had to send the Christ down to earth to do
battle with the Luciferic principle. In the course of time, when the
time was fulfilled, the gods, whom we group together under the name of
the divine Father-world, sent down the Christ in order that he should
learn to know the unending pains of men, which mean something entirely
different for a god from what they mean for a man. Therewith the gods
entered the earth-sphere to do battle with the Luciferic spirits. A
god had to suffer death on the cross, the most disgraceful human
death, as Paul especially emphasizes.
We were allowed, once in the Earth's development, to be witnesses
— because we looked as through a window into the spiritual worlds
— of an affair of the gods.
Previously — so says the initiation-principle — man was
compelled under all circumstances to rise into the divine-spiritual
worlds in order to take part in the initiation-principle. The
initiation-principle stands before the whole of mankind in the Mystery
of Golgotha, an event which is at the same time sensible on the
physical plane (if men would only see it) and super-sensible, a true
affair of the gods. This is the essential thing, that a god once went
through death, as a counterpoise to Lucifer, and that men were allowed
to look on. This is what the initiation-principle gives as Christian
wisdom, and this is the real origin of the faith that to men, as men,
something can flow as a force which can take them beyond the
earth-sphere and beyond death; because once the gods settled their
affair on earth and allowed men to look on. Therefore that which
streams out from the Mystery of Golgotha is something universally
human. And if every pain, every suffering, every death has its effect
(even those inflicted by men on animals) so does this death
also have its effect. This death was a seed sown by the gods; it was
something which remained bound up with the earth, and has remained
bound up with it ever since, remained bound up with it in such a way
that every man, through trust, through love for the spiritual worlds,
will find it. He does find it!
The initiate knows that this is so; the believing-trusting man feels
that from the spiritual worlds help can come to him for his striving,
if he can only develop enough belief and trust. This will develop
itself in a very definite way.
There were those who were contemporaries of the Egyptian initiates.
Through initiation these initiates had made quite clear to their
pupils the whole tragedy of the conflict of the gods with Lucifer, by
setting before men symbolically in their mysteries the Osiris-Set
myth. Just yesterday we considered what feelings the Osiris-Set myth
called forth in the Egyptians. There lived the divine-spiritual to
which men wished to attain; this was called Osiris. But on earth the
human being cannot unite himself with Osiris; he must first go through
the gate of death. On earth Osiris could not live; he was immediately
dismembered; this was not the place for what was incarnated in Osiris.
The last culture epoch before the Graeco-Latin looked up to Christ, to
the Osiris-principle, as to a Beyond. Then came the Greek time, which
was so deeply imbued with the feeling that it was better to be a
beggar on earth than a king in the realm of shades. In the time in
which this was still felt in Greece, in the time of the old heroes,
men felt the whole discrepancy between the Ego, permeated by the
Luciferic principle, and the progressive human organization. Men felt
then that the fourth post-Atlantean culture period ran its course in
such a way that they had to crowd in a great deal of what man can
experience just here on earth. Thence the abnormal, the singular, in
this period. In no other time do so many remarkable series of
incarnations occur as in this fourth period. Men had to do a great
deal here on earth, because they now looked more on this world than on
the worlds beyond, as the third culture epoch had still done. The
Greeks did not prize this incorporation into Osiris; they were more
occupied with cramming as much as possible into the human
incarnations, they wanted to get as much as possible out of the
incarnation. Thence the remarkable fact that Pythagoras, the great
initiator of a certain line of Greek culture, in an earlier
incarnation had fought as a Trojan hero on the side of the Trojans. He
himself says that he was a Trojan hero, mentioned in Homer, and that
he recognized himself as an enemy of the Greeks because he recognized
his shield. When Pythagoras says that he had been Euphorbos,
anthroposophy teaches a full understanding of this assertion. The
Greeks, even the greatest among them, laid especial value on what the
single physical incarnations meant for them.
But the fourth post-Atlantean period had also to lead men to feel the
spiritual worlds in their full significance, for in that time fell the
Mystery of Golgotha. At the time when men in Greece were
prizing the outer world most, there occurred in an unknown corner of
the world the Mystery of Golgotha; on the earthly stage, where
otherwise men carry out their human affairs, the gods carried out
their own affairs.
Just as the Egyptian learned to look up to death when he thought of
his Osiris, so man learned to know, in the fourth post-Atlantean
period, how a contemporary religious form was present, in which lived
the impulse which could bring to men the feeling that in this physical
world something takes place which is really an affair of the gods;
that there takes place the living refutation of that which the Greeks
had until then believed — "Better to be a beggar on earth
than a king in the realm of shades." For now the Greeks learned
to know him who, as a king, had descended from the realm of the gods,
and, as a beggar, had lived out his destiny on earth among men. That
was the answer to the feeling of the fourth past-Atlantean period. But
this is also that complex of feelings from which the rays for the
future earth-development can proceed. The Egyptian had looked up to
Osiris, who for him was the Christ, in order to unite himself with him
after death; in the fourth post-Atlantean period man looked upon the
Mystery of Golgotha as the contemporary act which taught men that in
the physical world an event had taken place which was an affair of the
gods.
We are living in the fifth post-Atlantean period. In our fifth
post-Atlantean period men will add the great teachings of Karma
to the other teaching, they will learn to understand their
karma. In our fifth post-Atlantean period, human beings are
experiencing the third act which follows consistently after the Osiris
act and the act of the Mystery of Golgotha. They will learn to grasp
the idea: "I am placed on earth through birth; my destiny is on
earth; I experience joy and sorrow; I must understand that what I
experience as joy and sorrow does not approach me in vain, that it is
my Karma, and that it comes to me because it is my Karma, my great
educator. I look upon that which was before my birth, which placed me
in this incarnation, because this, my destiny, is necessary for my
further development. Who sent me hither? Who will continue to place me
on this earth, into my destiny, until I have discharged my Karma? I
shall owe this to the Christ that men can ever more be called to
suffer their destinies, until they have discharged their Karma on
earth." Therefore Jesus of Nazareth, out of whom Christ spoke,
could not say to men; "Try to escape as fast as possible out of
the physical body"...but he had to say to men: "I will place
you into your destinies on this earth so long as you have not
discharged your Karma. You must discharge your Karma." Men will
learn as we approach the future that they were united with Christ
before birth, that they have received from him the grace of
discharging their old Karma in the incarnations.
Thus did the men of the fourth post-Atlantean period look up to Jesus
of Nazareth as the bearer of the Christ. Thus will the men of our time
learn that the Christ will reveal himself ever more supersensibly, and
will govern more and more the threads of Karma in the affairs of the
earth. They will learn to know that spiritual power as that destiny
which the Greeks could not yet recognize, which will bring men to the
point of discharging their Karma in the most fitting way in the
successive incarnations. As to a judge, as to a lord of Karma, men
will look up to the Christ in the succession of incarnations, when
they experience their destiny. Thus men will stand in such a relation
to their destiny that they will be stimulated increasingly to deepen
their souls, until they can say to themselves: "This destiny is
not allotted to me through an impersonal power, this destiny is
allotted to me through that with which I feel myself related in my
inmost being. In Karma itself I perceive what is related to my being.
My Karma is dear to me because it makes me better and better."
Thus one learns to love Karma, and then this is the impulse to know
the Christ. Men first learned to love their Karma through the Mystery
of Golgotha. And this will continue further and further, and men will
learn more and more that under Lucifer's influence alone the earth
would never have been able to reach its goal, that the evolution of
mankind would have had to become more and more corrupt without the
Christ.
But Christianity does not look upon the Christ as a personality, as
the founder of an abstract religious system. In our present time the
founder of a religion, in accordance with the demands of our time,
only brings about discords. Not from a personality does the Christian
initiation proceed, but from a fact, from an impersonal act of the
gods which took place before the eyes of men. That is why this secret
of Golgotha, this event which took place at the beginning of our era
and from which went forth the seed of this unique death, the seed from
which now grows man's love for his destiny, for his Karma, has
been transmitted to mankind in a special way.
We have seen that the death which man inflicts on animals has a
certain consequence. The death on Golgotha works as a seed in the
human soul which feels its relation to the Christ. So was it with the
Mystery of Golgotha: The One died, and just as a single seed is laid
in the earth, in order that it die and spring up in the field, and
that there be an increase of that which proceeded from the one seed,
so the death of a god was realized on the cross. The seed was strewn
on Golgotha, the soil was the human soul; what springs up are the
relations of man to the super-sensible Christ, who will never more
disappear from the evolution of the earth, who will always appear to
men in the most varied ways. As men were able to see him physically in
the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, so will they be able to raise
themselves to see in the near future an etheric Christ-image; they
will see the Christ as Paul saw him.
That which is contained in the Christian initiation was preserved in
the symbol of the Holy Grail; it was brought into that community which
imparts the Christian initiation. For those who receive the
Christian initiation what is said here is not an abstract theory, not
an hypothesis, but a fact of the super-sensible worlds. The cultivation
of the Christian initiation was entrusted to those who were the
guardians of the Holy Grail, and later to the fosterers of the
community of the Rose Cross. What proceeds from the Christian
initiation should, according to its whole nature, work impersonally.
Everything personal should be excluded therefrom; for the personal has
brought only quarrels and strife into humanity, and will do this
increasingly in the future. Therefore it is a strict rule for those
who, symbolically speaking, serve the Holy Grail or, speaking
literally, serve the cultivation of the Christian initiation, that
none of those who have a leading part of the first order to play
within the brotherhood of the Holy Grail or the community of the Rose
Cross — neither they nor those who live in their surroundings
— may speak of the secrets which they know and which work in
them, before the passage of one hundred years after their deaths.
There is no possibility of learning the complete truth about a leading
personality of the first order until one hundred years have passed
after his death.
This has been a strict law within the Rosicrucian community since its
foundation. Exoterically, no one knows who is a leader in the
Rosicrucian community until one hundred years have passed after his
death. Then what he has given has already passed over into humanity,
has become the objective property of mankind. Thus everything personal
is excluded. Never will it be possible to point to a personality in an
earthly body as a carrier of the Christian mystery. Only a hundred
years after the death of such a personality would this be possible.
This is a law which all the brothers of the Rose-Cross well observe.
Never will a Rosicrucian brother point to a living personality as a
leader of the first order in relation to that which, as Christian
initiation, should flow into humanity. In ancient times one could
point prophetically to those who would come: The prophets were
preceded by their forerunners, their prophets, and these prophets
pointed to the founders of religions who should come later; in the
time of Jesus of Nazareth the contemporaries, for example the Baptist,
pointed to him who was their contemporary; but the spiritual
organization of mankind, after the Mystery of Golgotha, of necessity
became altered in such wise that it can no longer be the prophet's way
to point to a personality who will come or who is already present. On
the contrary, a person who was a bearer of the Christian mystery, of
that spiritual fact which is tested by the hearts of men, will first
be pointed out a hundred years after he has passed from the physical
plane through the gates of death.
All these things do not happen out of human caprice, but because they
must happen. They must happen because humanity now stands
before a time when love, peace, and understanding must spread in the
process of the development of mankind. But they will spread only if we
learn to take impersonally what is present, if we learn to champion
the truth-containing element which has been given to mankind in the
course of human evolution. Never more shall we, if as Occidentals we
meet a Buddhist, seek to make him a Christian through persuasion or
compulsion; for we believe that what has been given to him, and is the
deepest thing in his religion, will surely lead him to the Christ. We
believe above all things in his own truth; we will not injure the
feelings of the Buddhist by saying it is not true that the founder of
his religion, after he had lived among men as a Bodhisattva, has as a
Buddha no expectation of further physical incarnations. Thereby we
establish peace between the religious confessions. In this way, in the
future the Christian will understand the Buddhist, and the Buddhist
will understand the Christian. The Buddhist who will understand
Christianity will say: "I understand that the Christian makes his
religious principle something impersonal, an impersonal fact, the fact
of the Mystery of Golgotha, an affair of the gods which man may watch
and through which he may receive what can connect him with the
divine." No reasonable Buddhist will come to the Christian and
say that the Christ can be incarnated in a physical body. On the
contrary he would see in this a transgression of the true religious
principle. And so no new discord-producing confession with a religious
leader of a personal sort will be brought into the world, but the
initiation principle itself with its peace, its harmony, its
way of producing understanding, will meet all religions with vivifying
understanding, and will not wish to force the truth of one religion
upon another. As the Oriental Buddhist would answer to the Occidental
who said to him that the Buddha could appear in a fleshly body:
"Then you do not understand the matter, you do not know what a
Buddha is" so would the Buddhist who had grasped the true heart
of Christianity, and who stood for spiritual knowledge in earnestness
and dignity, reply to one who should speak to him of a Christ
incarnated in the flesh: "You do not understand Christianity if
you believe that the Christ comes again in a physical body; you
understand Christianity just as little as one understands Buddhism who
believes that the Buddha would appear in a fleshly body." What
the Christian, if he is an anthroposophist, will always grant to the
Buddhist; this will the Buddhist, if he is an anthroposophist, always
grant also to the Christian. And so with every adherent of every
religious confession of the earth. Thus will anthroposophy bring the
great and understanding union, the synthesis of the religious
confessions on the earth.