Christ Power and the Transformation of Esoteric Teaching

GA 266I — 5 December 1909, Munich

Esoteric Lesson

We have often discussed here that it is very important in what frame of mind we carry out our meditation, that the main thing is how we feel, how we think, how we perceive. Correct feeling and thinking give us the strength that leads us into the spiritual world toward which we are striving. Only through unshakeable faith in this power can we rise to the gateway of the spiritual world. In order to understand this power, we must first look at how the esoteric schools were in pre-Christian times in comparison to those that arose after the introduction of Christianity and had to absorb the Christ power, were permeated by it. What is the difference?

We must turn to the beginning of the Gospel of John for the answer: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God ... and the Word became flesh.” Through the Word becoming flesh, the method of teaching in the esoteric schools also changed. In pre-Christian times, the Word was not yet effective. Teaching was given in silence, and silently, in images, the disciple received the messages from the spiritual worlds through contemplation. He was led silently into a dark room, and in this place of silence the image of a winged old man appeared before him, pursuing a female figure shrouded in blue clouds, striving to unite with her. This image appears before the seer in the spiritual worlds when he observes an old man who has passed through the gates of death, living his life backwards in Kamaloka and striving to attain his higher self—the female figure shrouded in blue clouds—in order to unite with it and ascend to the higher worlds, to Devachan. The color blue always represents the striving toward higher things. When the disciple meditated on this image, which represents only the spiritual, the forces necessary to reach these higher worlds flowed to him.

In the esoteric schools of the present time, which rightly exist and have the Christ force at their center, it is now possible to teach through the word. In the past, communication with the divine-spiritual worlds could only be achieved through mantras, through sound; but now, through the meaningful word within themselves, human beings can initiate union with the Christ force. Winged messengers are to be the words that carry human beings up into the spiritual worlds.

When the disciple experiences a sunrise, when he sees the fiery ball rising and sending out its first rays, he feels that the sun is the bearer of physical warmth and triggers warmth within him. But he also knows that there is something spiritual behind the sun, and when he concentrates on this, the outer appearance of the sun gradually fades away and the figure appears before his spiritual eye which is recognized in all esoteric schools as the Christ Spirit. And this apparition radiates, just as its outer garment radiates light throughout the world, with love. The “bearers of light” are the Luciferic beings, the bearer of love is the Christ being. And the student must feel this love overflowing when he experiences the spectacle of a sunrise. This is expressed in the meditation:

In the pure rays of light
The divinity of the world shines forth.

When the student succeeds in closing himself off completely from external influences and noises in his meditation, when he switches off his physical body, so to speak, he lives during meditation only in his etheric body, astral body, and ego. When a person has left his physical body and etheric body during sleep and dwells with his ego and astral body in higher worlds, high spiritual beings enter his abandoned bodies. The physical body is entered by the ego of the spirits of personality who created him on Saturn, and the etheric body is entered by the ego of the archangels.

Our own ego goes into the world of the spirits of personality, the astral body into that of the archangels. They live unconsciously in these worlds, and we should consciously go through this process in our meditation, consciously enter these realms with our ego and astral body and draw the etheric body along with us. Like a magnetic fluid, it must draw us into the spiritual worlds during our meditation; then we are in the right state of mind. But it is not so much the words themselves that matter, but rather that the right meaning flows into them from the spiritual worlds; that they are filled with meaning through the power of Christ, that is what matters.

In esoteric lessons, words are chosen so that they have a completely impersonal effect as soon as they leave the lips of the teacher. For they are to provide a garment in which the Logos flowing through the world can clothe itself. The words must adapt themselves to these currents of the Logos. That is why they are used in a very specific way. For example, two expressions are chosen for some concepts because one alone would not convey the meaning of what is to be expressed. If one says, for example, “The spiritual-divine life permeates the whole world,” this does not sufficiently express the corresponding fact. If, on the other hand, one says, “Spiritual-divine life permeates and interweaves the world,” then these two expressions convey an image of what is meant.

Our way of expressing ourselves is often imprecise and inaccurately reflects even what happens on the physical plane. For example, comparing the sprouting of flowers and greenery in spring with birth, and the withering of leaves and flowers in autumn with death, is a form of expression that an esotericist should not use, because it does not reflect what actually happens in nature. We can gain a true understanding of this if we compare this process in spring with our own. The awakening of the morning. Just as we return to a new day, to our old joys and sorrows, strengthened and refreshed, from a dark subconsciousness into which we had sunk, so do the spiritual beings who bring forth the green vegetation of the earth from the darkness into which the seed had sunk into the bosom of the earth in autumn. When we give ourselves over to these thoughts in spring, we come closer to the spirit of the earth and enter the spiritual worlds in the right way. We will then perceive the spiritual behind all natural phenomena. When we see a flash of lightning split a tree, we should think of the archangelic being, and when we hear rolling thunder, we should think of a spiritual being from the worlds of sounding light, of the spirits of personality. We cannot achieve this through general talk of “union with the divine within us,” for it is not within us that we will find the new, the higher: outside of us lie the worlds into which we must consciously enter.