El significado oculto de la sangre (Parte I)

“ La sangre es un fluido muy especial”

Todos sabréis, indudablemente, que el epígrafe de esta obrita está tomado del
Fausto, de Goethe. En dicho poema se dice que Fausto, el representante del más
elevado esfuerzo humano, entra en un pacto con los poderes malignos,
representados, en dicha obra, por Mefisófeles, el emisario del Infierno. Fausto está
a punto de firmar un contrato con Mefistófeles, quien le pide lo firme con su
propia sangre. Fausto, al principio, lo mira con curiosidad; pero sin embargo,
Melistófeles emitió la siguiente sentencia que Goethe deseaba se considera con toda
seriedad: “La sangre es un fluido muy especial”.
Ahora bien, con referencia a este pasaje del Fausto de Goethe, nos encontramos
con un rasgo curioso en los llamados comentadores de Goethe. Por supuesto, la
literatura referente a la versión que de la Leyenda del Fausto hace Goethe es
enorme. Es una literatura de tan estupendas dimensiones que se necesitarían
bibliotecas enteras para almacenar tanto libro, y naturalmente, no nos es posible
detenernos en los varios comentarios hechos por esos intérpretes de Goethe sobre
ese pasaje particular.

Ninguna de las interpretaciones sugeridas arroja mayor luz, sobre la citada
sentencia, que la explicación dada por uno de sus últimos comentadores, el
profesor Minor. Él, como los demás, habla de la misma como si se tratara de una
observación irónica de Mefistófeles, y refiriéndose al asunto hace la siguiente
indicación, realmente curiosa, a la que es necesario prestar la mayor atención,
porque es de sorprenderse el oír las extrañas conclusiones a que son capaces de
arribar los comentadores de Goethe.


El profesor Minor hace notar que “el Mal es un enemigo de la “sangre” y añade
que, como la sangre es la que sostiene y preserva la vida, el Mal, que es el enemigo
de la raza humana, debe ser, por consiguiente, el enemigo de la sangre”. Entonces
–con toda exactitud- llama la atención sobre el hecho de que aun en las más
antiguas versiones de la leyenda del Fausto -como sucede con toda las leyenda en
general- la sangre siempre juega el mismo papel.

En una antigua obra sobre la materia se relata circunstancialmente que Fausto se
hizo una pequeña incisión en la mano izquierda con un cortaplumas, y que al
tomar la pluma para firmar el contrato la sangre que brotaba de la herida formó
las siguientes palabras: “¡Oh, hombre!, escápate”. Todo esto es bastante auténtico;
pero ahora viene la observación de que el Mal es un enemigo de la sangre y de que,
por esta razón, Mefistófeles exigió que la firma se escribiera con sangre. Sería de
preguntar cómo es que alguien desea una cosa por la que tiene tanta antipatía. La
única explicación razonable que puede darse, no solamente sobre el significado de
este pasaje de Goethe, sino también con referencia a todas las demás leyendas que
trata del asunto, es que, para el diablo, la sangre era algo muy especial y que no
era, en manera alguna, cuestión de indiferencia para él que el contrato se firmara
con tinta ordinaria o con sangre.

Evolución y devenir humano

Todos los seres vivos están emparentados entre sí. Se han desarrollado a través de largos períodos evolutivos, desde estadios primitivos hasta la formación de organismos superiores cada vez más complejos. Este descubrimiento se halla indisolublemente unido a los nombres de Haeckel y Darwin y forma parte, sin lugar a dudas, de los grandes hallazgos de la Biología moderna.

El enigmático, aunque innegable parentesco del hombre con el animal se documenta de manera impresionante por medio de la organización vertebral animal, por el hecho de que el hombre comienza su vida como lactante, mamando del pecho materno como cualquier mamífero.

Pero, ¿cómo se ha podido llegar a que millones de personas se contemplen a sí mismas como ejemplares superiores de mamíferos, estrechamente emparentados con los primates y, al mismo tiempo, a considerarse como el producto casual de un juego sin sentido de la Naturaleza?

Esto tiene que ver con la unilateralidad del darwinismo y con la falsificación del núcleo verdadero de la teoría evolutiva a causa de opiniones materialistas preconcebidas. Quien frente a las causas de la evolución y a las mutaciones casuales sólo considera algunos factores externos como la «lucha por la existencia», la «selección natural» y otros de tipo ambiental y niega todo principio espiritual obrante, tiene que llegar forzosamente a una concepción del hombre desprovista de espíritu.

¿Podemos percatarnos claramente de los efectos devastadores que esto conlleva para el sentimiento humano de autoestimación y para la vida práctica, cuando se concibe al hombre únicamente como un producto de la herencia y del medio ambiente? ¿Cómo deben ser entendidos los derechos humanos de este «mamífero», o quizás «depredador inteligente»? Una respuesta a esta pregunta la podemos encontrar históricamente en la acción de un partido político, que gobernando durante doce años, a partir de 1933, tuvo el «valor», de llevar estos postulados a sus últimas consecuencias: aplicó a la vida social las máximas de un darwinismo teórico y de la biología moderna. Este partido manipuló al hombre de manera consecuente según su concepción de la especie humana: el hombre es un ser pasajero determinado por su nación, por la raza, por la «sangre» (herencia) y por la «tierra» (ambiente). ¿Hemos superado en realidad los fantasmas de esa época? ¿No nos amenazan todavía un

nacionalismo y un racismo alimentados por la misma ciencia, así como «una lucha por la existencia» (¡lucha por el poder!)? ¿No nos amenaza todo ello con precipitar la humanidad hacia una nueva catástrofe todavía mayor?

La pregunta sobre el verdadero ser del hombre, sobre su verdadera procedencia y su relación con el mundo animal, es en realidad una de las preguntas existenciales más profundas que conmueven a cada ser humano. ¿Qué hace humano al ser humano? (Esto es lo que se pregunta el escritor yugoslavo Gajo Petrowic en su libro Contra el marxismo autoritario) (Wider den autoritarem Marxismos. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt 1968). ¿Qué significa plantear la pregunta: qué es el hombre? Quizás significa empezar a buscar esas cualidades particulares o propiedades que diferencian al hombre de todos los demás animales. Él lo percibe en la naturaleza «integral» de su ser, del ser del hombre, pero también es consciente de que «ninguna ciencia en particular responde a lo que este ser integral es, aquello que le hace ser hombre en cada una de sus actividades o aspectos».

La mera alusión de la religión, sobre la «inmortalidad del alma», de una visión humanista sobre una «individualidad libre»; o la alusión de la filosofía sobre el «espíritu humano», son incapaces de satisfacer por sí mismas y menos de convencer al hombre actual penetrado de un pensamiento científico. El hombre de hoy, en el caso de que existan tales verdades espirituales puede exigir con todo derecho una Biología y una Antropología modernas capaces de tender un puente para su comprensión científica Precisamente aquí intentamos tender este puente según las consideraciones

aportadas por una Antropología y Ciencia Espiritual de orientación antroposófica. La ciencia natural ha desarrollado sus métodos de investigación partiendo de lo inanimado, cayendo en el prejuicio de que lo aplicado en el campo de lo inorgánico se puede aplicar sin más al mundo de lo animado. 

Debido a ello ha llegado de manera forzada a conceptos unilaterales y mecanicistas, a negar la espiritualidad humana y a valorar erróneamente su naturaleza. Sólo ha podido captar lo externo.

A continuación deberá desarrollarse un método de observación apropiado para lo orgánico que, en principio, aparecerá como desacostumbrado. 

Este método presupone un nuevo pensar, es decir la disposición fundamental del lector para pensar

en múltiples direcciones, así como la imparcialidad para considerar, al menos hipotéticamente, la posibilidad de la existencia de verdades suprasensible,

The cult of Satanic Mexican Taotl and Resurrection

The cult of Satanic Mexican Taotl and Resurrection

The existence of the eighth sphere is known to occultists since the late nineteenth century. It is a world-machine, outside of human and cosmic septenary normal, which will collect all that succumbed to evil. 

Like a parasite, it feeds the life force and matter of our world. This reality stands as artificial simulacrum of our physical reality and interferes with the vision of spiritual realities.

Steiner spoke a few times a satanic  cult highly Mexico, the Taotl, which have existed since Atlantis until a  spiritual being Vitziputzli (equivalent of being called "Lord") crucify the Great Magician black who presided. The ultimate criminal was crucified at the same time so as to
be as pure and innocent of all: the Lamb, Christ.

The Taotl was a cult of black magic in which the high sacrificiant, who cut the victim and killed her, became a kind of insider, because death opened a door to the spiritual worlds. The "insider" could then steal great spiritual secrets. This allowed these insiders asvoir how to make the Earth is "mechanized" (ahrimanisée) so that the human soul can no longer sustain the incarnation and is taking an irrepressible desire to escape the Earth (follow Lucifer ) ... then falling into the eighth sphere. The revelations were made to them during these terrible ceremonies were told for example to make war against another ethnic group or another clan. In the perpetual war (as in the novel 1984, or as now we are told that "War is peace," so we would be in "peace mission" in Iraq and Afghanistan! P), the human soul was torn. The black magicians, by their rituals over piont géographiqeus accurate that are connected to the "subterranean fire," use the lunar forces concentrated at the center of the Earth (the Earth's core is made of uncontrollable hatred and pure black magic) when these sacrifices and they focus. This unhealthy influence radiates across the then contains extra data and even across the world. This force increases the sense of separateness, the division between oneself and the world.

Sorat was joined by the initiation of ahrimanic Taotl. This cult is a deviation from the natural religion of Atlantis: The Tao. The Taotl was inspired by the Beast with Two Horns: Sorat, and led to the encounter of an entity ahrimanic very high, close to Sorat. Sorat is composed of Hebrew letters that designate each one of the human body: physical = Samech, Vav = etheric, astral = Ruach, Tav = ego. 

Sorat is what qu'ultimemement man can become if he rejects absolutely until the End Times Christ impulse. 666 is called "a figure of a man." The man taking the place of God, in short.

Only a psychopath could kill for pleasure. It's the world we live in: a world controlled by psychopaths. There are in every country and in all areas of society. Some kill people in their local community, others send armies across the globe to destroy entire nations.

In the cult of Taotl, rituals often led to a revelation demonic heads,which then led their armies to war to destroy everything, to sow terror and enslave the surrounding society (all of which stimulates the creation of ahrimanient reign on earth and the mechanization of life, stimulating the creation of the 8th sphere). This continues today, but the revelation is demonic psychopaths in control of governments!

"Now this cosmic wisdom, Which WAS intrinsically evil not to holy secrets hidden Held Within it, WAS Carefully concealed By The initials of Taotl. It Was Communicated to No One Who HAD not Been Initiated Correctly By The Taotl method. When a candidate HAD Been Initiated In

The Correct Way, The Teaching Concerning The Secrets of the Cosmos Was Then imparted to HIM. NOW, IT WAS FOR HIM TO RECEIVE Necessary THESE SECRETS THROUGH INITIATION IN A MOOD OF SOUL QUITE DEFINITE. HE HAD TO FEEL HIMSELF IN THE INCLINATION AND WANT TO APPLY THEM ON EARTH IN A WAY THAT THEY SUCHA WOULD SET UP THAT REALM OF DEATH Mechanistic RIGID. It Was That He Had Malthus to Receive the secret. Nor Were Communicated EXCEPT THEY are one special condition. IMPARTED WAS THE WISDOM TO NO ONE WHO HAD NO PREVIOUSLY COMMITTED A MURDER IN A PARTICULAR MANNER.

MoreOver, only some secrets Were Communicated To The Candidate After the first murder, to Further and Higher secrets imparted Were To Him After He Had Committed Others.

"These murders, however, Had To Be Quite Committed Under definite conditions. The one-to-Be Murdered WAS ugly out there That Was Reached structure by running one or Two Steps Along EACH side. 

This scaffold-like structure, a kind of bier, WAS rounded off Above and When The victim WAS ugly upon it, He Was Strongly bent back. This special way of Being Bound To The scaffold Forced stomach outward social history With One That Cut, The Initiate Which HAD Been Prepared to perform, it Could Be cut out.

"THIS KIND OF MURDER IN THE FEELINGS Engendered DEFINITE INITIATE.

FEELINGS THAT WERE MADE HIM AROUSED CAPABLE OF USING THE WISDOM TO HIM LATER IMPARTED IN THE WAY THAT HAS BEEN ABOVE INTIMATED. When The

excised stomach HAD Been, It Was Offered To The god Taotl , again with Special ceremonies. The Fact Of These initials thats the mysteries Lived The Quit for Specific Purposes to Indicated That I Have You, imparted a definite direction to Their feelings. When The Candidate To Be Initiated HAD matured this path and we HAD to come icts inner meaning-experience, They Learned Then The Nature Of The Mutual Interaction Between The One Who Been Murdered HAD and HAD Been The One Who Initiated. THROUGH THE MURDER, THE VICTIM WAS TO BE PREPARED IN HIS SOUL TO STRIVE TO THE UPWARD luciferic REALM, WHERE WAS THE CANDIDATE FOR INTRODUCTION TO OBTAIN THE WISDOM TO MOULD IN THIS WORLD Earthly Such A WAY THAT WOULD BE DRIVEN OUT SOULS OF IT. Through the Fact That a connection WAS Formed Between The Murdered And The Initiated one cannot say "murderer," goal "initiated" IT WAS MADE POSSIBLE FOR THE INITIATED TO BE TAKEN WITH THE

OTHER SOUL, THAT IS, THE INITIATED HIMSELF COULD forsake THE EARTH AT

THE RIGHT TIME.

"These Mysteries, As You Will readily admitted, are kind of The Most Revolting. Indeed, only in agreement They Are With A Design That Can Be Called ahrimanic In The Fullest Sense."

Notas sobre El Misterio del Gólgota (Parte II)

El Misterio del Gólgota II

Si visualizamos la época del Gólgota y la comparamos con otra anterior, encontramos que entonces en la tierra no quedaba nada que pudiera infundir nueva vida en los cuerpos etéreos de los seres humanos.

Después encontramos que los cuerpos etéreos de aquellos que se encontraron en contacto con el Impulso de Crístico habían sido irradiados; las personas que entendieron a Cristo absorbieron la nueva fuerza radiante que había estado en la Tierra desde entonces. Y la Luz de Cristo ha penetrado en sus cuerpos etéricos.

¿Qué es lo que sucede  ahora, que hay algo de Luz de Cristo en los cuerpos etéreos? ¿Qué ocurre en la parte del cuerpo etéreo que ha recibido la Luz de Cristo? ¿Qué sucede tras la muerte? ¿Qué es lo que permea el cuerpo etéreo como resultado del impulso de Cristo?

Es algo que no existía previamente y ofrece la posibilidad de que aparezca algo nuevo que transpira vida y es inmortal puesto que no perece con la muerte. A pesar de que el hombre está equivocado por la imagen ilusoria de la muerte, este nuevo factor está rescatado de la muerte, que no tendrá parte en él.

Desde el Gólgota existe algo en el cuerpo etéreo que no está sujeto a la muerte, ni a las fuerzas terrenas de la muerte. Y ésto que no participa de la muerte y que los seres humanos conseguirán gradualmente por la influencia del Impulso Cristico  resplandece hacia el Cosmos, genera -en proporción a su intensidad en el ser humano-  una fuerza que fluye hacia el espacio cósmico. Y esta fuerza creará una esfera circundando la Tierra que se está transformando en Sol.

Alrededor de la Tierra se está formando una esfera compuesta de los cuerpos etéreos insulfados de vida. Como la Luz de Cristo irradia de la Tierra, así hay una suerte de reflejo que circunda la Tierra.

Lo que se refleja como la Luz de Cristo y aparece como el suceso del Gólgota, es lo que él llamo Espíritu Santo.

Asi como el suceso del Gólgota constituyó  el Primer Impulso para que la Tierra se transformara en Sol, así desde entonces la Tierra se tornó creativa, rodeándose de un anillo espiritual que en el futuro se convertirá en una especie de planeta que dará vueltas alrededor de la Tierra.

Así comenzó con el suceso del Gólgota, un proceso importantísimo que desde entonces se ha estado desarrollando en el Cosmos. Cuando se levantó la Cruz en el Gólgota y la Sangre fluyó de las heridas de Cristo-Jesús, se creó un nuevo centro cósmico. Estuvimos presentes cuando esto ocurrió, en un cuerpo físico o bien fuera de él. Así comienzan su existencia los nuevos mundos. Al contemplar a Cristo agonizante, asistimos a la génesis de un nuevo Sol.

.....gracias al impuso Crístico, la caridad llegó a convertirse en la virtud propia del alma racional, esa virtud que puede describirse como amor humano saturado de comprensión humana Esta comprensión , así como la alegría desinteresada que nos produce la felicidad ajena, es el sentimiento que un día llegará a producir los más hermosos y óptimos frutos en la convivencia humana, pues es el que latirá en quién se sienta penetrado del Impulso Crístico, y hacia ello precisamente le habrá conducido la comprensión antroposófica de ese impulso, A través del  Misterio del Gólgota  descendió Cristo hasta nuestra evolución terrestre, y por doquiera podemos percibir Sus Impulsos y Sus Actividades. ¿Por qué descendería a la tierra? Para que, mediante Su Entrega, pudiera la tierra avanzar en el camino de la evolución. Ahora hallándose el Impulso Crístico en este mundo, los hombres adoptamos una actitud destructora por inmoralidad o falta de interés hacia nuestro prójimo, mermamos una parte del fluido del Impulso Crístico: Está en nuestras manos la posibilidad de destruirlo o de fortalecerlo gracias a nuestra virtud creadora. No es sin razón que a menudo se ha dicho que Cristo fue crucificado primero en el  Gólgota , pero que lo es una otra vez en la conducta del hombre. Desde que Cristo tomó sobre sí la evolución de la Tierra por el Misterio del Gólgota, nosotros, por nuestros actos inmorales, por nuestra crueldad e indiferencia aumentamos el sufrimiento y el dolor que Cristo padeció.  En verdad, Cristo esta siendo crucificado de nuevo siempre que subsista la inmoralidad, la apatía y la falta de interés. Desde el momento en el que el Impulso Crístico penetro en el mundo, es a Cristo a quien se infringe toda pesadumbre.

Asi como con el mal y la actitud negativa debilitamos el Impulso Crístico y mantenemos la crucificcion  en el Golgota, asi tambien con el amor fortalecemos el Impulso Crístico y favorecemos su retorno a la vida. Nuestra actitud hacia los demás determina nuestra actitud hacia el Impulso Crístico.

Notas sobre El Misterio del Gólgota (Parte I)

Misterio del Gólgota

El misterio más grande de nuestro tiempo es la relativa a la segunda venida de Cristo.  La mente materialista, sin embargo, en cierto modo usurpa este evento. El espíritu materialista de hoy corrompe todo, sin embargo,  las almas de los seres humanos deben avanzar a la visión etérea y con ella a Cristo en el cuerpo etérico.

"La tarea del hombre es construir por medio de sus propios poderes, una Tierra que habrá de ser el cuerpo de un nuevo Dios, del Dios del futuro. Y mientras los hombres del pasado dirigían sus miradas a los Dioses del pasado anhelantes de unirse con ellos al morir, Novalis reconoce al Dios que en su advenimiento tendrá como cuerpo aquello que en nosotros es lo mejor y que podemos ofrendarle".
                                                                       
Hay mucha gente que niega al Cristo. La negación del CRISTO, la Ciencia Espiritual la  considera como algo que propiamente es una cuestión del destino y que concierne a la vida psíquica humana. . Negar a Dios: una enfermedad; negar a Cristo: una desgracia. Poder encontrar al Cristo, ésto es de cierto modo un asunto del destino, es de cierto modo algo que debe relacionarse con el karma del hombre. Es una desgracia no tener relación con el Cristo.





LA MISIÓN DE CRISTO EN LA TIERRA FUE SUSTITUIR EL FALSO ASPECTO DE LA MUERTE POR EL VERDADERO

Cristo vino a la tierra y removió la influencia de Lucifer y Ahrimán en el momento exactamente oportuno, eliminando la causa de todo lo que traía la muerte al mundo.
Era precisa la intervención de un Ser que no hubiera tenido nada que ver con ninguna causa de la muerte. Nada de lo originado por Lucifer y Ahrimán, ni con los hechos humanos individuales acaecidos bajo la influencia de ellos.
Solo una muerte totalmente inmerecida e inocente, sufrida por alguien sin culpa, podría extinguir toda muerte culpable.

Así la muerte en el Gólgota suministró la prueba, que habrá de ser comprendida poco a poco por la humanidad, de que la muerte es el Padre Eterno. Y , una vez que hayamos adquirido una visión correcta de la muerte, y que hayamos comprendido que el suceso del Gólgota, la muerte externa no tiene importancia, y que en el cuerpo de Jesús de Nazaret habitaba Cristo con quién nos podemos unir, una vez que nos hallamos dado cuenta de lo que Cristo consiguió, aun cuando veamos la imagen de la muerte colgando de la Cruz, al considerar la muerte como un evento meramente externo y al percatarnos de que Su Vida en el cuerpo etéreo fue lo mismo después que antes de la muerte, y que por tanto la muerte no puede afectar a la vida, una vez que hayamos entendido que se trata de una muerte que, no solo es incapaz de extinguir la vida sino que ella misma es Vida, entonces Cristo en la Cruz se convierte en el emblema eterno de que en verdad la muerte es la fuente de la vida.
…Pero que fue exactamente lo que produjo el suceso del Gólgota.


Sabemos que el cuarto principio humano es el YO y que la sangre es su instrumento físico externo. La sangre es la expresión del YO y su deterioro progresivo provocó como consecuencia que el Yo cayera progresivamente en maya o ilusión.
El poder creciente del Yo se debe a la sangre. A su vez, el ser capaz de distinguirse del mundo espiritual se debe al YO.
Para adquirir estas capacidades fue necesario nublar temporalmente su visión del mundo espiritual, y el procedimiento fue a través de la muerte.
Si el hombre hubiera sabido siempre que la muerte es la semilla de la vida, no hubiera alcanzado la necesaria independencia para su Yo, pues hubiera permanecido unido al mundo espiritual. Sin embargo aparece la muerte, dándole la ilusión de estar separado del mundo espiritual y el YO se adiestró en cuanto a la independencia.

Pero el YO se hizo cada vez más independiente, exageró su independencia, fue más allá de cierto punto. Este efecto sobre el Yo podía contrarrestarse retirando la fuerza que lo había originado. El factor del egoísmo hubo de ser eliminado. Esto sucedió cuando sobrevino la muerte de Cristo en la Cruz y la sangre fluyó de sus heridas.
En la sangre fluyendo de sus heridas tenemos el símbolo del egoísmo excesivo del yo humano.
Sino hubiera fluido en el Gólgota, el ser humano se hubiera endurecido en su egoísmo y se hubiera visto abocado gradualmente a una dependencia total del mundo externo y de sus impresiones. Hubiera llegado a olvidar la existencia del mundo espiritual.
La sangre que fluyó en el Gólgota proporcionó el impulso para la desaparición gradual de las fuerzas que hacen al Yo egoísta.

Pero todo suceso físico tiene su contrapartida espiritual y asi, cuando la sangre de Cristo fluyó de sus heridas en el Gólgota, tuvo un suceso espiritual correspondiente. En ese momento por primera vez centellaron rayos de la Tierra al Cosmos. La tierra se había vuelto más y más obscura en el transcurso del tiempo, hasta el hecho del Gólgota. Fluye sangre de Cristo en el Gólgota y la Tierra comienza a irradiar Luz. El hecho del Gólgota infundió a la Tierra una luz astral que se volverá etérea y por último física.

Ley del Karma

Esta es la ley del karma que dice:

Todo lo que soy y hago en esta vida no existe por sí solo como un milagro, sino que se vincula, como efecto, con las anteriores formas de existencia de mi alma, y como causa, con otras posteriores

El Quinto Evangelio - Fragmanto sobre la Tentacion de Cristo

Libro :  EL QUINTO EVANGELIO   “SEGÚN LA CRÓNICA DEL AKASHA”

“QUINTA CONFERENCIA”

...
La Crónica del Akasha y el Quinto Evangelio nos indican que el Cristo primero fue
conducido a la soledad. Jesús de Nazareth, en cuyo cuerpo ahora estaba el Cristo, se había
privado de todo lo que le había vinculado con el mundo; y el Cristo, que sólo ahora había
arribado a la tierra, ante todo fue atraído por lo que, debido a las impresiones conservadas en la
memoria, firmemente se había grabado en el cuerpo astral. En cierto modo, el Cristo se decía a sí
mismo: este es el cuerpo que había visto que Arimán y Lucifer huyeron, y que había sentido que
los esenios, en su aspirar, empujan hacia los demás a Arimán y Lucifer. Hacia estos dos, el Cristo
se sintió atraído, pues son ellos con quienes los hombres deben luchar. A la soledad, para luchar
con Arimán y Lucifer, fue atraído el Cristo, que por primera vez vivió en un cuerpo humano.



Creo que en gran medida es verdadera la escena que ahora voy a relatar. Observar semejantes
cosas en la Crónica del Akasha es muEl último ataque lo emprendió Arimán solo, diciendo al Cristo lo que encuentra su expresión en el Evangelio de
Mateo: Haz que lo mineral se convierta en pan; si te jactas de poseer fuerzas divinas, di que estas
piedras se hagan pan. Mas el Cristo respondió: no sólo de pan vivirá el hombre, sino de lo
espiritual que proviene de los mundos espirituales. Esto lo sabía muy bien el Cristo, porque
acababa de descender de los mundos espirituales. Pero Arimán le respondió: por más que tú ten-
gas razón, realmente esto no me impide tenerte sujeto, en cierto sentido. Tú únicamente sabes lo
que hace el espíritu que desciende de las alturas; jamás estuviste en el mundo humano. Aquí
abajo, en el mundo humano, viven hombres que verdaderamente necesitan que las piedras se
hagan pan, pues no les es posible nutrirse de espíritu solamente. Este fue el momento en que
Arimán decía al Cristo algo que en la tierra se podía saber, pero que el Dios que en aquel
momento había descendido, desconocía. El no sabía que aquí abajo hacía falta convertir en pan el
mineral, el metal. Y Arimán respondió que aquí abajo el hombre se ve en la necesidad de nutrirse
con el dinero. He aquí el punto en que Arimán todavía tenía poder. Y él dijo entonces: ¡Voy a
valerme de este poder! Esto es el verdadero relato de la tentación.y difícil, por lo que advierto expresamente que ciertos
pormenores posiblemente haya que modificarlos en forma insignificante; pero lo esencial está.
Muchas veces me he referido a que la escena de la tentación, los Evangelios la relatan según
distintos aspectos. Me he esforzado en investigarla, y voy a contar imparcialmente como ella
realmente fue. En la soledad, el Cristo en el cuerpo de Jesús de Nazareth, primero encontró a
Lucifer, la entidad que se aproxima al hombre presuntuoso, falto de humildad y conciencia del
propio ser. Lucifer se dirige al falso orgullo y a la altanería del hombre. Lucifer se enfrentó al
Cristo, diciéndole, aproximadamente, lo que también figura en los otros Evangelios: ¡Mírame!
Los reinos en que el hombre ha sido colocado, fundados por los antiguos dioses, ya son
anticuados. Yo voy a fundar un nuevo reino y te daré todo lo que de belleza y gloria en los
antiguos reinos existe, si tú entras en mi reino. Pero debes separarte de los otros dioses y
reconocerme a mí. Lucifer le describió toda la belleza de su propio mundo, y todo lo que hablaría
al alma humana, si ella tuviera un poco de orgullo. Pero como Cristo había venido de los mundos
espirituales, sabía quién es Lucifer y a qué debe atenerse el alma para no ceder a la tentación.
Cristo no conocía la tentación de Lucifer, pero El sabía cómo se está al servicio de los dioses, y
poseía la fuerza para rechazar a Lucifer. Para un segundo ataque, Lucifer llamó a Arimán para
que éste le ayudase; y ambos se dirigieron al Cristo. Uno trató de incitarle al orgullo: Lucifer; el
otro habló a su miedo: Arimán. De esta manera, aquél le dijo: Con mi espiritualidad, con lo que
yo puedo darte, no te hará falta lo que ahora necesitas por haber adoptado, como Cristo, un
cuerpo humano. 'Este cuerpo te subyuga, te obliga a reconocer las leyes de la gravitación. Si yo te
arrojo al abismo, el cuerpo humano te impide quebrantar la ley de gravitación. Pero si tú me
reconoces a mí, yo voy a anular las consecuencias de la caída, y nada te pasará. Arimán le dijo:
yo voy a librarte del miedo, ¡arrójate! Ambos le acosaron, pero como en su acosamiento en cierto
modo se equilibraron, el Cristo pudo librarse de ellos; El encontró la fuerza que en la Tierra el
hombre debe encontrar para elevarse sobre Lucifer y Arimán. Arimán dijo entonces a Lucifer: tu
presencia me estorba; en vez de aumentar mis fuerzas, las disminuiste.

El último ataque lo emprendió Arimán solo, diciendo al Cristo lo que encuentra su expresión en el Evangelio de Mateo: Haz que lo mineral se convierta en pan; si te jactas de poseer fuerzas divinas, di que estas piedras se hagan pan. Mas el Cristo respondió: no sólo de pan vivirá el hombre, sino de lo
espiritual que proviene de los mundos espirituales. Esto lo sabía muy bien el Cristo, porque
acababa de descender de los mundos espirituales. Pero Arimán le respondió: por más que tú ten-
gas razón, realmente esto no me impide tenerte sujeto, en cierto sentido. Tú únicamente sabes lo
que hace el espíritu que desciende de las alturas; jamás estuviste en el mundo humano. Aquí
abajo, en el mundo humano, viven hombres que verdaderamente necesitan que las piedras se
hagan pan, pues no les es posible nutrirse de espíritu solamente. Este fue el momento en que
Arimán decía al Cristo algo que en la tierra se podía saber, pero que el Dios que en aquel
momento había descendido, desconocía. El no sabía que aquí abajo hacía falta convertir en pan el
mineral, el metal. Y Arimán respondió que aquí abajo el hombre se ve en la necesidad de nutrirse
con el dinero. He aquí el punto en que Arimán todavía tenía poder. Y él dijo entonces: ¡Voy a
valerme de este poder! Esto es el verdadero relato de la tentación.

EL EVANGELIO  SEGUN SAN JUAN

Doce conferencias pronunciadas en Hamburgo   (Alemania) del 18 al 31 de mayo de 1908

CAPITULO VIII

EL PRINCIPIO DE CRISTO EN LA EVOLUCION DE LA HUMANIDAD

Una breve nota sobre el Karma :

....
Cristo pone en evidencia la idea del karma, la ley del karma, en su más amplio sentido. Quien llegue a la plena comprensión de la idea del karma, la comprenderá en este sentido cristiano. Ella significa que nadie debiera erigir- se en juez sobre lo más íntimo de otro hombre; y quien no la conciba en este sentido, no habrá comprendido lo profundo de esta idea. Un hombre que se arrogue juzgar a otro, le sitúa bajo el dominio del propio yo. Pero quien realmente cree en el Yo soy en sentido cristiano, no juzga al prójimo, antes bien le dice: "Yo sé que el karma lo compensa todo. Por más que tú hayas faltado, yo no juzgo". Supongamos que a una persona que verdaderamente comprende la palabra del Cristo, le traigan un hombre que haya cometido una falta, y que todos aquellos que se dicen cristianos inculpen a éste de un grave pecado, ¿qué partido tomará elverdadero cristiano? El diría: “Por mucho que este hombre haya pecado, hay que respetar el Yo soy y dejar que obre el karma, la gran ley que es la Ley del Espíritu de Cristo mismo; al Cristo mismo hay que remitirlo". El karma se cumple en el curso de la evolución terrestre; ella decidirá qué castigo el karma impondrá al hombre.
Mirando la tierra, se diría quizás a los acusadores: "Tened cuidado de vosotros mismos! La tierra se encargará del castigo. Escribámoslo pues en la tierra, donde de por sí, como karma, ya está asentado". 

Y Jesús se fue al monte de las Olivas.

Y por la mañana volvió al templo, 

y todo el pueblo vino a El; 

y sentado El, les enseñaba.

Entonces los escribas y los Fariseos le traen una mujer tomada en adulterio; y poniéndola en medio, Dícenle: Maestro, esta mujer ha sido tomada en el mismo hecho, adulterando; Y en la ley Moisés nos mandó apedrear a tales;

Tú pues, ¿qué dices?

Mas esto decían tentándole, para poder acusarle. Empero Jesús, inclinado hacia abajo, escribía en tierra con el dedo. Y corno perseverasen preguntándole, enderezose, y díjoles:

El que de vosotros esté sin pecado, arroje contra ella la piedra, el primero.

Oyendo, pues, ellos, redargüidos de la conciencia, salíanse, uno a uno, comenzando desde los más viejos hasta los postreros; y quedó solo Jesús, y la mujer que estaba en medio.Y enderezándose Jesús, y no viendo a nadie más que a la mujer díjole:

¿Mujer, dónde están los que te acusaban?

¿Ninguno te ha condenado? 

Esto lo dice con el fin de disipar todo juzgar desde fuera y de aludir al karma interior.
Y ella dijo:   Señor, ninguno,

En ella obrará el karma; ahora no corresponde pensar en el castigo que se cumplirá por el karma, sino en que ella vaya desarrollándose hacia el bien.

Entonces Jesús le dijo: Ni yo te condeno; vete, y no peques más.

Así vemos que la idea del karma se relaciona con la idea más profunda de la naturaleza del Cristo, su significado e importancia para la Tierra. "Si habéis comprendido mi naturaleza, también habréis comprendido a Aquel cuya naturaleza represento, y que el Yo soy conduce a la compensación.”

El ser independiente y la armonía interior fueron dados al hombre por el impulso del Cristo. En nuestra época el hombre aún no ha llegado a comprender el verdadero e íntimo cristianismo; pero quien aprenda a comprender el profundo contenido del Evangelio de Juan, acogerá, con el tiempo, los impulsos que le son inherentes, y se cumplirá, en un futuro lejano, el ideal del cristianismo.

Vemos que en el tiempo post-atlante fluye en la Tierra el primer impulso para el desarrollo del hombresuperior. En la próxima conferencia conoceremos precisamente el desarrollo post-atlante del ser humano en su relación con el principio de Cristo y, partiendo de ello, explicaremos lo que el Cristo será para la humanidad del futuro.

Christ and the Human Soul

Four lectures given at Norrköping,

from 12th to 16th July, 1914

Translation revised by C.D.

Rudolf Steiner Press
London

First English edition 1927

Second edition 1956 (revised by M.C.)

See More at : 

LECTURE ONE

Let me first extend to you my heartfelt greetings. Friends in Norrköping have expressed the wish that on this occasion I should take a theme concerning that Being who in the realm of spiritual science is above all else near to us — the Christ Being. I have tried to meet this wish by undertaking to speak about the coming to life of the Christ Being in the human soul and the significance of this. We shall thus have the opportunity to speak of the most human and intimate significance of Christianity from the standpoint of spiritual science.

Let us consider the human soul. In the sense of spiritual science we have a short word which, although it does not embrace all that the expression “human soul” signifies for us, points to something which for us men of Earth fills and permeates the soul element to its farthest limits — we have the short word “I”. In so far as we are men of Earth, our ego-being reaches as far as does our soul-nature. You know that by the name “I”, or ego, we denote one of the four most immediate principles of man. We speak, in the first instance, of four members or principles of the human being — the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the ego. And in order to have the starting-point for what we shall be considering in these lectures, we need recall only one thing: we do not regard the laws and the living essence of the physical body of man as explicable in terms of our present earthly environment.

We know that if we want to understand the physical human body we must go back to the three preceding embodiments of our Earth — the Saturn, Sun and Moon periods. In a remote, primordial past, during the Saturn embodiment, the germ of the physical body was already laid down. During the Sun embodiment the foundation of the etheric body was laid down; and during the Moon embodiment that of the astral body. In reality our Earth-evolution, in all its phases and in all its epochs, is none other than that which enables the ego to fulfill its whole being. We can say that just as the physical body had reached a significant stage of its evolution at the end of the Saturn period, the etheric body at the end of the Sun period, and the astral body at the end of the Moon period, so at the end of the Earth period our ego will have reached a significant point in its evolution.

We know that our ego develops through three soul members or principles, through the sentient soul, the intellectual or mind-soul, and the spiritual or consciousness-soul. All the worlds that come within the compass of these three soul members are also concerned with our ego. In the course of our Earth-evolution these three soul members first prepared for themselves the three external bodily members — the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body — through long Earth periods. In successive post-Atlantean epochs of civilization the three soul principles developed further, and in future Earth periods they will again adapt themselves to the astral, etheric and physical bodies, so that the Earth can be prepared to pass over to the Jupiter evolution.

If we take the expression comprehensively enough, we might also speak of man's Earth-evolution as his soul evolution. One could say that when the Earth began, the soul element also began, in conformity with law, to bestir itself in man. At first it began to work on the external sheaths, then it developed its own being, and from then onward it begins again to work on the external sheaths in order that preparation may be made for the Jupiter evolution.

We must keep before our mind's eye what man is meant to become in his soul during the Earth evolution. He is to become what may be designated by the word “personality”. This personality needs in the first place what may be called “free will”. But it needs also, on the other side, the possibility of finding within itself the way to the divine in the world. On the one side free will, the possibility of choosing between the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the true and the false; on the other side, the laying hold of the divine so that the divine penetrates into the soul and we know ourselves to be inwardly filled with it. Such are the two goals of man's evolution on the Earth; and to aid him in reaching them he has received two religious gifts. One of these gifts is destined to lay down in the human soul those forces which lead to freedom, to the capacity for distinguishing between the true and the false, the beautiful and ugly, the good and bad. And another religious gift had to be given to man during his Earth evolution in order that there might be laid in his soul the seed through which the soul can feel united to the divine within itself.

The first religious gift comes to meet us at the beginning of the Old Testament as the great picture of the Temptation and the Fall.

The second religious gift comes to us from all that the Mystery of Golgotha signifies.

The Temptation and the Fall have to do with the implanting of freedom in man, the gift of being able to distinguish between good and bad, beautiful and ugly, true and false. The Mystery of Golgotha points to the possibility of man's soul finding again the path to the divine, of knowing that the divine can flash up within it and penetrate it. These religious gifts include everything that is most important in the Earth evolution — everything proceeding from the Earth evolution that the soul can experience in its uttermost depths, everything associated most profoundly with the being and becoming of the human soul. How far is there a connection between these two religious gifts and the being and becoming of the human soul — its inner experience?

I do not want to put these matters before you in an abstract way, so I will start from a certain scene in the Mystery of Golgotha as it stands before our eyes in historical tradition and has impressed itself — and should indeed have impressed itself even more — on the hearts and souls of mankind. Let us assume that we have in Christ Jesus that Being of whom we have often spoken in the course of our lectures. Let us assume that in Christ Jesus we have before our spiritual eyes that which must appear to humanity as the most important fact in the whole universe. And then let us set in contrast to this feeling the outcry, the fury, of the enraged multitudes in Jerusalem at the time of the condemnation before the crucifixion. Let us observe that the High Court of Jerusalem held it above all things necessary to question Christ Jesus as to His relationship with the divine, as to whether He claimed to be the Son of God. And let us bear in mind that the High Court held such a claim to be the greatest blasphemy that Christ Jesus could have uttered.

An historical scene is there before us — a scene in which the people cry out and clamor for the death of Christ Jesus. And now let us try to picture to ourselves what this shouting and rage signified historically. Let us ask: What ought these people to have recognized in Christ Jesus? They ought to have recognized that Being who gives meaning and significance to Earth life. They ought to have recognized that Being who had to accomplish the deed without which Earth humanity cannot find the way back to the divine. They ought to have understood that humanity has no significance apart from this Being. Men would have to strike out from the evolution of the Earth the world “man” if they wished to strike out the Christ Event. Now let it come home to us that this multitude condemned and were enraged against the Being who actually makes man Man upon the Earth; who is destined to give to the Earth its goal and purpose. What does this mean? Surely it means that in those who in Jerusalem at that time ranked as the representatives of human knowledge concerning the true being of man, the knowledge of man was obscured. They had no knowledge of what man is, what his mission on the Earth is to be. We are told nothing less than that humanity had reached a point where it had lost itself, where it had condemned that which gives purpose and significance to the Earth-evolution. And out of the cries of the enraged multitude could be heard, not the words of wisdom, but of folly: “We do not wish to be Man; rather do we wish to cast away from us that which gives us any further meaning as Man.”

When we reflect on all this, the relation of man to sin and guilt — in the sense of Pauline Christianity — assumes a different aspect. Man, in the course of his evolution could fall into sin which he was not himself able to wash away; that is what St. Paul means. And in order to make it possible for man to be cleansed of sin and debt, Christ had to come to the Earth. That is St. Paul's view. If this view requires any evidence, it is there in the fury and clamor of those who cried “Crucify Him!” For this implies that the people did not know what they themselves were to be on the Earth; they did not know that it was the aim of their earlier evolution to veil their being with darkness.

Here we come to what may be spoken of as the preparation of the human soul for the Christ Being. Through what it is able to experience within itself, the soul feels, even though it may not be able to express it in words: “Since the very beginning of the Earth I have developed in such a way that through what I possess in my own being I cannot fulfill the aim of my evolution. Where is there anything to which I can cling, which I can take into myself and with it reach my goal?” To feel as if the human being extends far beyond anything that the soul can achieve through its own strength by reason of its evolution on the Earth hitherto — such is the Christian attitude or mood of preparation. And when the soul finds that which it must recognize as essentially bound up with its being — but for the attainment of which it could not find the power within itself — when the soul finds that which bestows this power, it finds the Christ. The soul then develops its connection with the Christ, saying to itself: “At the very beginning of the Earth a certain nature was pre-ordained for me; in the course of Earth-evolution my true nature has been darkened, and when now I look into this darkness I feel that I lack the power to bring my true nature to fulfillment. But I turn my spiritual gaze upon the Christ, who gives me this power.” On the one hand the human soul feels this lack, and on the other hand it feels the approach of Christ and stands as if in a direct personal relationship to Him. The soul seeks Christ and knows that it cannot find Him if He does not give Himself to humanity through human evolution, if He does not approach from outside.

There is a well-known Christian Church Father who was not afraid to speak of the Greek philosophers, Heracleitos, Socrates and Plato, as Christians who lived before the founding of Christianity. Why does he do this? As we know, the doctrines professed today obscure much of what was at first an illuminating Christian teaching. St. Augustine himself said: “All religions have contained something of the truth, and the element of truth in all religions is what is Christian in them, before there was a Christianity in name.” St. Augustine dared to say that. Nowadays many a man would be regarded as a heretic if he were to say something similar within certain Christian congregations.

We shall most readily understand what this Church Father wished to convey, when he called the old Greek philosophers Christians, by endeavoring to enter into the feeling of those souls who in the first Christian centuries tried to determine their personal relationship to the Christ. These souls did not think of Christ as having had no relation to the Earth evolution before the Mystery of Golgotha. The Christ has always been concerned with the evolution of the Earth. Through the Mystery of Golgotha, however, His task, His mission, in the Earth-evolution was changed. It is not Christian to seek Christ in the evolution of the Earth only since the Mystery of Golgotha. True Christians know that Christ has always been connected with the evolution of the Earth.

Let us now turn to the Jewish people. Did the Jews know Christ? I am not asking whether the Jewish people knew the name of Christ or if they were conscious of all I have to say to you; I am asking whether those who really understand Christianity are justified in saying: “Judaism had Christ; Judaism knew Christ.” It is possible to have some person near one and to see his external form without being able to recognize or value truly his essential being, because one has not risen to real knowledge of him. In the true Christian sense, ancient Judaism had Christ, only it did not recognize Him in His true being. Is it Christian to speak in this way? It is indeed Christian, as truly as it is Pauline.

Where was Christ for ancient Judaism? It is said in the Old Testament that when Moses led the Jews out of Egypt into the wilderness, a pillar of cloud went before them by day and a pillar of fire by night. It is said that the Jews passed through the sea, that the sea parted in order that they might pass through, while behind them the Egyptians were drowned, for the sea closed in on them. It is also said that the Jews murmured because they had no water, but at the command of God Moses was able to strike a rock with his staff so that water poured forth for the Jews to drink. Moses led the Jews, he himself being led by God. Who was the God of Moses? We will in the first instance allow Paul to answer. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians (X:1-4), we read: “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud” (he means the pillar of fire) “and all passed through the sea and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea ... and all drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” Thus who was it, according to Paul, who led the Jews and who spoke with Moses? Who was it who caused water to flow out of the rock and who turned away the sea from the path of the Jews? Only those who wish to declare that Paul was no Christian would dare pronounce it unchristian to see Christ in the guiding God of the Old Testament, in the Lord of Moses.

In the Old Testament there is a passage which must, I think, present great difficulties for all who reflect more deeply. It is a passage to which anyone who does not read the Old Testament thoughtlessly, but who wants to understand its connections, will return again and again. “What may this passage mean?” he asks himself. The passage (Numbers XX:11-12) is as follows: “And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he struck the rock twice; and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron: ‘Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.’”

Take this passage in its context in the Old Testament. When the people murmured, the Lord commanded Moses to strike the rock with a staff: Moses struck with his staff on the rock, and water flowed out; everything that the Lord commanded took place through Moses and Aaron, and yet, directly after this, we are told the Lord reproved Moses — if it is a reproof — for not having believed in Him. What does it mean? Turn to all the commentaries on this passage and try to understand it with their aid. You will then understand it as one understands a great deal in the Bible — really not at all — for behind this passage a great mystery is hidden. It is this: He who led Moses, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He who led the people through the wilderness and caused water to flow out of the rock, He was the Lord, Christ! But the time was not yet come; Moses himself did not recognize Him; Moses thought He was another. This is what is meant by Moses not having believed in Him who had commanded him to strike the rock with his staff.

How did the Lord — Christ — appear to the Jewish people? We are told that by day it was in a pillar of cloud and by night in a pillar of fire — and by His dividing the waters for their safety ... and many other things we can read in the Old Testament. In phenomena of cloud and fire, in the air, in the elemental events of nature He was active, but never once did it occur to the ancient Jews to say to themselves: That which appears in the pillar of cloud and in the pillar of fire, that which worked wonders such as the parting of the waters, appears also in its purest original form in the human soul. Why did this never occur to the ancient Jews? Because, owing to the course taken by human evolution, the soul of man had lost the power to feel its deepest being within itself. Thus the Jewish soul could look into nature; it could allow the glory of the phenomena of the elements to work upon it; everywhere it could divine the existence of its God and Lord; but directly within itself, as the Jewish soul then was, it could not find Him.

There in the Old Testament we have the Christ. There He worked, but men did not recognize Him. How did the Christ work? Do we not see how He worked when we read through the Old Testament? The most significant thing Moses had to impart to his people through the mouth of Jahve was the Ten Commandments. He had received them out of the power of the elements from which Jahve spoke to him. Moses did not descend into the depths of his own soul; he did not ask in lonely meditation: “How does God speak in my own heart?” He went up the mountain and through the power of the elements the divine Will revealed itself to him. Will is the fundamental note of the Old Testament: this is often spoken of as the Law. Will works through the evolution of humanity and is expressed in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. The God proclaimed his Will to man through the elements. Will holds sway in the Earth evolution. That is really the purport of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament, accordingly, calls for man's submission to this Will.

If we hold all this before our souls, we can sum it up by saying: The will of the Lord was given to men; but men did not know the Lord; they knew not the divine in such a way as to connect it with their own human souls.

Now let us turn from the Jews to the heathen. Did the heathen have Christ? Is it Christian to say of the heathen that they also had Christ? The heathen had their Mysteries. Those initiated in the Mysteries were brought to the point where their souls passed out of their bodies; the tie connecting body and soul was loosened; and when the soul was outside the body, it perceived in the spiritual world the secrets of existence. Much was connected with these Mysteries; much varied knowledge came to the candidates for Initiation in the Mysteries. But when we investigate what was the highest that the disciple of the Mysteries could receive into himself, we find that it consisted in the fact that outside the body he was placed before the Christ. As Moses was placed before Christ, so in the Mysteries was the disciple placed with his soul, outside his body, before Christ.

Christ was there for the heathen also, but for them he was there only in the Mysteries. He revealed Himself to them only when the soul was out of the body. Christ was there for the heathen, even if among them there was as little recognition of this Being as Christ as there was among the Jews of that Being of whom we have just spoken and before whom the disciples of the Mysteries were placed.

The Mysteries were instituted for the heathen. Those who were fit and ready were admitted into the Mysteries. Through these Mysteries Christ worked upon the pagan world. Why did He work thus? Because the soul of man, in its development since the beginning of the Earth, had lost the inherent power to find its true essence through itself. This true being had to reveal itself to the soul of man when the soul was unhampered by the bonds of human nature; when, that is, it was not bound up with the body. Hence Christ had to lead men by means of the fact that as initiates of the Mysteries they were as though divested of their human nature. Christ was there for the heathen too! He was their leader in the Mysteries. For never could man have said: “When I develop my own powers, then I can find the meaning and purport of the Earth.” This meaning was lost, obscured in darkness. The forces of the human soul had been pressed down into regions too deep for the soul of itself, through its own powers, to be able to realize the meaning of the Earth.

When we allow what was given in the pagan Mysteries to the disciples and candidates for Initiation to work upon us, it proves to be Wisdom. To the Jews was given Will, through the Law; to the disciples of the pagan Mysteries was given Wisdom. But if we look at the characteristics of this pagan Wisdom, can we not express it by saying: If he did not leave his body when he was a pupil of the Mysteries, the Earth-man could not, through Wisdom alone, recognize his God as such. As little through Wisdom as through Will could the divinity reveal itself to men. Indeed, we find an injunction that resounds most wonderfully through Greek antiquity, like a powerful demand upon mankind. At the entrance to the shrine of the Mysteries of Apollo stood the words, “Man, know thyself!” What are we told by the fact that these words, “Man, know thyself!” stood at the entrance to the sanctuary, like a summons to mankind? We are told that nowhere outside the sanctuary, where man remains what he has become since the beginning of the Earth, can he fulfill the commandment “Know thyself!” He must become something more than man; he must loosen in the Mysteries the ties which bind the soul to the body, if he is to know himself. These words, standing like a powerful demand before the Apollonian sanctuary, point to the fact that darkness had fallen upon humanity — in other words, that God could be reached through Wisdom as little as he could directly reveal himself as Will.

Even as the individual human soul feels that it cannot bring forth within itself the forces which impart to it the purport of the Earth, so do we see the human soul at such a stage of development among the Jews that even Moses himself, their leader, did not recognize who was leading him. Among the heathen we see that the demand “Know thyself” could be fulfilled only in the Mysteries, because man, as he had developed in the course of the evolution of the Earth, was unable with his connection of body and soul to unfold the power whereby he could know himself. The words “Not through Will and not through Wisdom is God to be known” sound to us from those ages. Through what, then, was God to be known?

We have often characterized the essential nature of the point of time when Christ entered into the evolution of Earth-humanity. Let us now consider exactly what it means when it is said that a certain darkening of the soul of man had set in, that the divine could be revealed neither through Will nor through Wisdom. What is the real meaning of this?

People speak of so many relationships between the human and the divine. They often speak of the relationship between the human and the divine, and of the meaning which the human has within the divine, in such a way that it is impossible to differentiate between the relation of the human to the divine, or of anything else earthly to the divine. Today we find again and again that philosophers want to rise to the divine through pure philosophy. But through pure philosophy one cannot rise to the divine. Certainly by means of it man does come to feel that he is bound up with the universe and to know that the human being must, in some way or other, be bound up with the universe at death; but how and in what manner he is thus connected with the universe he cannot know through pure philosophy. Why not? If you take the whole meaning of what we have considered today, you will be able to say to yourselves: What is at first revealed to the soul of earthly man between birth and death is too weak to perceive anything that transcends the earthly, that leads to the divine-spiritual. In order to make this quite clear to ourselves, let us investigate the meaning of immortality.

In our day many people no longer have any knowledge of the real meaning of human immortality. Many today speak of immortality when they can merely admit that the being of the human soul passes through the gate of death and then finds some place or other in the universal All. But every creature does that. That which is united with the crystal passes over into the universe when the crystal is dissolved; the plant that fades passes into the universe; the animal at death passes over into the universe. For man, it is different. Immortality has a meaning for man only if he can carry his consciousness through the gate of death. Think of an immortal human soul that was unconscious after death; such immortality would have absolutely no meaning. The human soul must carry its consciousness through the gate of death if it is to speak of its immortality. Because of the way in which the soul is united to the body, it cannot find anything in itself of which it can say, “I carry that consciously through death”, for human consciousness is enclosed between birth and death; it reaches only as far as death. The consciousness that belongs at first to the human soul extends only as far as death. Into this consciousness there shines the divine Will, for example in the Ten Commandments. Read in the Book of Job as to whether this illumination could stimulate man's consciousness to such a point that it might say to itself: “I pass as a conscious being through the gate of death.” What a challenge to us there is in the words spoken to Job: “Reject God and die!” We know that he was uncertain whether he would pass with consciousness through the gate of death. And let us set beside this the Greek saying which gives expression to the dread felt by the Greeks in the face of death: “Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of the shades.” Here we have from paganism, also, a testimony to the uncertainty felt by man concerning his immortality. And how uncertain many people are even today. All those people who say that man, when he goes through the gate of death, passes into the universal All and is united with some universal being or other, take no heed of what the soul must ascribe to itself if it is to speak of its immortality.

We need only pronounce one word, and we shall recognize the attitude that man must take up with regard to his immortality. The word is Love. All that we have said concerning the word immortality we can now connect with what is denoted by Love. Love is not anything that we appropriate to ourselves through the Will; or anything that we appropriate to ourselves through Wisdom. Love dwells in the realm of the feelings. We must admit to ourselves that the human soul would fall short of its true nature if it were unable to be filled with love. Yes, when we penetrate into the nature of the soul, we realize that our human soul would no longer be a human soul if it could not love. But let us now suppose that on passing through the gate of death we lost our human individuality and were united with some universal divinity. We should then be within this divinity; we should belong to it. Love would have no meaning if we were within the Godhead. If we could not carry our individuality through death, we should in death have to lose love, for in the moment that individuality ceased, love would cease. One being can love another only if the other is separate from himself. If we are to carry our love of God through death, we must carry with us that which kindles love within us — our individuality.

If the meaning of the Earth was to be brought to man, information concerning his immortality had to be given him in such a way that his nature would be thought of as inseparable from love. Neither Will nor Wisdom can give man what he needs; only Love can give it to him. What was it, then, that became darkened in the course of man's evolutionary path on Earth? Take the Jews or take the heathen: their consciousness of anything beyond death had been darkened. Between birth and death — consciousness; beyond death and beyond birth — darkness; of their bodily consciousness nothing more remained. “Know thyself!” — at the entrance of the Greek Mysteries, stood this most holy demand of the sanctuary upon mankind. Man could only answer: “If I remain bound to my body with my soul, as is the way with a man of Earth, I cannot recognize in myself an individuality which could love beyond death. I cannot do it.” The knowledge that man can love as an individuality beyond death — this is what had been lost for man.

Death is not merely the cessation of the physical body. Only a materialist can say that. Suppose that throughout every hour of life in the body man's consciousness were such that he knew what lies beyond death as certainly as he knows today that the sun will rise on the morrow and take its journey across the heaSee more at: vens. Then death would have no sting for him; death would not be what we call death; he would know in the body that death is only a phenomenon leading from one form to another. Paul did not understand by “death” the cessation of the physical body; by “death” he understood the fact that consciousness extends only as far as death, and that man, in so far as he was united with the body in the existence of that period, could, within his body, extend his consciousness only as far as death. Whenever Paul speaks of death, we might add: “Lack of consciousness beyond death.”

What did the Mystery of Golgotha give to man? Was it a series of natural phenomena, a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire, that stood before humanity with the Mystery of Golgotha? No! A man, Christ Jesus, stood before men. With the Mystery of Golgotha did any event drawn from the mysterious realms of nature take place — did a sea divide so that the people of God could go through? No! A man stood before men; a man who made the lame to walk and the blind to see. By a man were these things done.

The Jew had to look into nature when he wanted to see him whom he called his divine Lord. Now it was a man who could be seen. Of a man it could be said that God dwelt in him. The pagan had to be initiated; his soul had to be withdrawn from his body in order that he might stand before the Being who is the Christ. On the Earth he had been unable to divine the Christ; he could know only that the Christ was outside the Earth. But He who had been outside the Earth came down to Earth, took on a human body.

In Christ Jesus there stood as man before men that Being who had formerly stood in the Mysteries before the soul that was liberated from the body. And what came to pass through this? It was the beginning of the course of events whereby the powers that man had lost ever since the start of the Earth evolution — the powers which assured him of his immortality — were restored to him through the Mystery of Golgotha. The overcoming of death on Golgotha gave birth to the forces which could rekindle in the soul the powers it had lost. And the path of man through Earth evolution will henceforth be this: Inasmuch as he takes the Christ more and more into himself, he will discover within himself the power which can love beyond death, so that he will be able to stand before his God as an immortal individuality. Therefore, only since the Mystery of Golgotha has it become true to say: “Love God above all, and thy neighbor as thyself.”

Will was given from out of the burning thorn-bush; Will was given through the Ten Commandments. Wisdom was given through the Mysteries. But Love was given when God became man in Christ Jesus. And the assurance that we can love beyond death, that by means of the powers won back for our souls a community of Love can be founded between God and man and all men among one another — the guarantee for that proceeds from the Mystery of Golgotha. In the Mystery of Golgotha the human soul has found what it had lost from the primal beginning of the Earth, in that its forces had become ever weaker and weaker.

Three forces in three members of the soul: Will, Wisdom, Love! In this Love the soul experiences its relation to Christ.

I wanted to bring these things before you from a certain aspect. Whatever may have seemed aphoristic in the explanations given today will find its context later on. But I believe we can inscribe deeply in our souls that progress in the knowledge of Christ is a real gain for the human soul, and that when we consider the relationship of the human soul to Christ, it again becomes clear to us how before the Mystery of Golgotha there was a veil, as it were, between the human soul and Christ; how this veil was broken by the Mystery of Golgotha, and how we can say with truth: “Through the Mystery of Golgotha a cosmic Being flowed into Earth-life, a super-earthly Being united Himself with the Earth.”

We shall speak in the following lectures of all that the human soul, with Christ, can experience within itself.