Introduction to the Basics of Theosophy
GA 111 — 4 October 1907, Hanover
XIV. The Christian and Rosicrucian Training
How different people are now from the ancient Indians! We are subject to completely different influences than people were eight millennia ago! How literature has changed since the invention of the printing press! In the past, people limited themselves to the spoken word, and spiritual life consisted mainly of religious practices. Today, spiritual life has a thousand and one channels. Popular science, newspapers and so on, railways, telegraphs – all this changes the physical plan more than one imagines. Around us is not only a physical, but also a spiritual world. Even our fellow countrymen are exposed to the spiritual currents that currently prevail. So everyone lives under the influences of the materialistic age, people have to face the necessities.
It is necessary to arm oneself against the many harmful influences and to stand firm against all temptations.
In a training, all circumstances must be taken into account. Christian training is only carried out with great energy and perseverance. In the past, people withdrew from the world to train; Christian training requires an almost inexhaustible amount of energy and a strictly ascetic life. Nevertheless, it is necessary to speak about it in a few words;
The secret Christian training began at the time of the Apostle Paul. He had the power and the authority of the word to proclaim outwardly. His disciple Dionysius founded the secret school in Athens. From the sixth century this fact was considered a fable. There are the “pseudo-Dionysian” writings. In the past, “Homer” was known by heart; people relied on memory, then it became customary to write a lot. In the secret schools, the word was considered too sacred to be written down; the most worthy received it from mouth to mouth. And Dionysius himself was a hierophant; he taught the secret doctrine with power and fire. The training continued after his death. The secret teachers of this school were all called “Dionysius.”
In contrast to the other gospels, the gospel of John and the Apocalypse are to be understood in an occult sense. They are not books for brooding over. One must always read the scriptures patiently and let the first fourteen sentences [of the Gospel of John] take effect on oneself as meditation material, year after year. In this way, forces are developed that lie dormant in us. Through the Apocalypse, man comes into higher worlds; it is the description of spiritual processes. They have a great effect on the mind.
There are seven stages to Christian initiation:
- foot washing,
flagellation,
crown of thorns,
crucifixion,
mystical death,
burial,
resurrection, ascension.
The Christian disciples regarded all things with reverence and gratitude. Plants cannot live without the mineral kingdom, nor animals without the plant kingdom. Everything is interdependent, the lower is sacrificed to the higher. Therefore, the higher must lean towards the lower. Jesus Christ set the example for his disciples, leaning towards them by washing their feet.
[1. Washing of the feet:] The gospel of John is an enormous chapter, from which the hierarchy of things was born. If you immerse yourself in the feeling “I owe you my existence,” then the image of the redeemer washing the disciples' feet appears before us. You can feel as if the water is trickling around your feet.
[2. Flagellation:] Through pure devotion, one develops higher feelings. Whatever may come to him, it is necessary to remain upright without grumbling. The flagellation is the feeling of being strong against all blows. It is as if one feels an itch and pain.
[3. Crowning with Thorns:] The emotional life must be so strong that we can silently endure when our most sacred things are treated with scorn and derision. We must find the inner strength not to break down. We have the feeling of being crowned with thorns in our heads.
[4. Crucifixion:] The feeling must be: “This body you are carrying is not what you are. I carry my body here and there.” Then, little by little, one can be ready to have the blood sample, the crucifixion wounds on the hands and feet. They are involuntarily caused pathologically.
[5. Mystical Death:] To look behind the scenes of existence is known as mystical death. One no longer knows the world. In this sense, it is to be understood that after the crucifixion the black curtain in the temple tears.
[6. Entombment:] Being able to see everything that exists as related to one's body; other beings are similar to it; feeling part of the earth.
[7. Resurrection, Ascension:] It is the possibility of living in the spirit, the ability to separate from the body, that is the liberation, the ascension. It is a whole gamut of feelings that can be seen in images from the thirteenth chapter onwards in the Gospel of John. Through them one can experience a great, incomparable event: the vision of the risen Christ.
Man will prove his existence in vain from the documents he has left behind; he can only be found in a spiritual way, that is the way to the Christ who lives here. Never can a Christ live within if an historical Christ has not lived. Likewise, no being would have light and life if the outer sun did not shine in life. Thus the world owes its vision of the inner Christ to the Christ who appeared on earth. This is the fruit of the Gospel of John.
[Probably notes on the subsequent discussion from here on out.]
Theology only wants to accept the Synoptics. With the spiritual, man has lost the meaning of the Gospel of John, but an esoteric Christ will sprout from it, which gives the world a new light. The future of development is contained in the Apocalypse [of John]. For centuries, Christian initiation has been proof that the content of the Gospel is the right one.
Theology would be able to see this if it studied the documents properly; it is not for lack of clairvoyance that theologians do not find the truth. One can also use reason and feeling to arrive at the right understanding. It is said that John [Scotus Eriugena] lived as a monk in Scotland, was prior and was said to have been killed by his monks with pins. [...]
If we treat thinking, feeling and willing correctly, thousands of truths will become accessible to us. The cultivation of the soul's powers depends a lot on correct thinking, and also on nutrition. We should not be thoughtless about food. Matter, in the rough sense, is nonsense. Everything is condensed spirit. Matter is not an illusion. The fact that we take matter for spirit is an illusion. We should become aware that everything is an expression of spirit, one way or another.
We must eat like someone who knows that they are taking on spirit with matter. We have every reason to be fervently grateful to the divine powers, because we are eating divine power. We should eat in the highest spirit of worshipful devotion, not thoughtlessly, because eating is not a base pleasure.
When we eat food that rises towards the sun, we also eat the power of the sun, which gives us wings. When we eat food that grows down into the earth, we become material. Meat pulls us down into matter the most. Milk and milk products are beneficial to us because they come from the life process of the animal. The animal's Kama is present in the flesh; it is the salt that separates out in the plant root that hardens everything. We should be aware of whether we are striving up or down on a higher level. If we put ourselves in the position of how nature grows, a spiritual understanding awakens in us; it grows in us.
The teacher of the secret teaching will be a physician in the spiritual sense. If we live for years on milk, we will gain the strength to achieve magnetic healing success. Living for years on milk spiritualizes the human being. Thus spiritual relationships are present in the seemingly most crude of activities.
When an animal walks across a meadow, it can still see the spiritual essence of things, the etheric body of the plant. Man has lost this ability through the development of the intellect. He must regain it through higher vision, then he will come into a secure relationship with all things in the world.
Our age is for material body care. The more you leave your body alone, the freer your spirit becomes to reach higher levels; the opposite approach enslaves the spirit. Achieving this, walking for hours in the sun and the like, is more effective as a hardening process than sun baths and cures, which take up the whole day.
Imagination affects feeling; the environment is very important. Centuries ago, all objects were made with devotion. The facades of the houses, even the keys had an inner relationship to the people. Our soul no longer has spiritual relationships to objects outside of us. It is the task of theosophy to reflect in all things what we feel. All activity must be a reflection of theosophical feeling. Every age thus reflects its world. Everlasting artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael reflected Christianity in their paintings. In music, Christianity became sound. Pictures awaken mysterious feelings. There is an enormous difference between poison being instilled into the soul and feeling being nourished by pictures born out of the spirit.
The forms of Gothic architecture express themselves in the times of Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler, who mystically raised souls to God. It is the same in stone that was the Christian feeling in the Middle Ages. The sunny views of this people are reflected in the Greek orders of columns. Our age has no style of its own. A style must be born out of the feelings of a people. We have patchwork styles. The material age is evident in the department store. It is no coincidence that stone has become iron. We are at a turning point. It is the spiritual process of Theosophy to take everything that is deeply felt into our feelings, which is likely to ennoble it. The blood is purified and ennobled by good pictures. A theosophical hour must have a blood-purifying and healing effect. A teacher has a liberating effect when he evokes images that are beneficial to people. This is a remedy that not only works externally, but also brings about the recovery of the whole being.
We have to integrate our will into the laws of the world. Exercises can subjectively integrate the human being into the will of the world; he experiences it, while the feeling is more negative.
Nothing is more harmful to secret training than fear. It is necessary to systematically eliminate it. This is best done by planning actions that one carries out happily, without being deterred by obstacles. If possible, divide one's time into seven periods. Observe and reverse the method, and in this way you will fit into the laws of the world.
When a person reaches the age of thirty-five, he becomes mature and experiences a crisis in a special way. Dante wrote the “Divine Comedy” when he was thirty-five years old. The divine truths are hinted at in number, measure and weight. Those who live with the laws develop a strong will, otherwise they weaken. What Goethe achieved after the age of thirty-five is quite different from what he achieved earlier. When so-called prodigies are pushed too hard too soon, they wither away.
It takes patience and perseverance to develop dormant powers. Maturity delights the teacher. He is always there when you need him. What awakens life carries the human being forward. Theosophy and Life: Everyone has a mission to fulfill in their own place. The Theosophists must be the architects of giving the world what it needs. The social question is not solved theoretically and dogmatically, but through understanding in the theosophical sense.
Theosophy must become a spiritual sun that fertilizes everything earthly, something universal. In the thousands of lodges, there are enough people who do not know the alphabet of science. They are not the ones who provide higher education, and yet the impetus must come from them. A picture: the catacombs rise up before me. Underground, the new spiritual culture of Rome spread. The emperor Nero had people who were secretly Christians smeared with pitch and set on fire. They were persecuted when they came to the surface. And yet, through the uneducated beginners and proclaimers, the rising Christianity conquered the world; the others followed. Those who have mastered life live in secret. Science still looks down on them. It will become theosophical when it can no longer do otherwise.
Every age has its task, they are similar. There is something in the Middle Ages that individual branches of the mind will become in the future; all life flows together to form a spiritual pyramid.
A painting in the chapter house in Florence depicts the mission of intellectual life. At the base are figures representing the individual branches of intellectual life. Above them is the feminine, which inspires the soul. Higher still stand the protectors of spiritual life: Job, David, Isaiah, Saul, John. The whole is crowned by the group of virtues: justice, wisdom, temperance, faith, love, hope.
In his work, Dante tried to bring together the whole of time as if at a central point. It is up to our time to bring together the separate spiritual currents.
We implore the protection of the powers of the spiritual trinity: spirit self, life spirit, spirit man.
The composite Rosicrucian training forms a center from which a unified spiritual truth is to permeate everything.
Something emanated from the persecuted Christians of the catacombs that penetrated to the highest spiritual world. We resemble the first Christians in many ways, and a new upsurge of spiritual life is expected of us.
What is gathering together in feeling, what is slowly preparing, must flow up to the highest spiritual spheres.