Initiation Paths and Christ-Centered Meditation Practice

GA 266II — 18 June 1910, Oslo

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

In the ancient Egyptian mystery schools, those who were to be initiated resolved to devote their current incarnation entirely to initiation, for it was a matter of life and death. They had to undergo trials that placed high demands on their courage, for example. They were shown things that could frighten them so much that they dropped dead. But if they passed these tests alive, they had reached the other shore and were reborn. They had descended to the God within themselves and had to face their own instincts, desires, and passions in their own bodies, and had emerged victorious from the encounter. They could now say of themselves: Ex Deo nascimur. - Now one might ask: Does this evil that one encounters on the path to the inner God also come from the gods? We must always tell ourselves that it is originally divine, that it is we humans who have made it evil.

In the Druidic mysteries, the path of ecstasy was followed. Those to be initiated united themselves with the spirit that reigned everywhere in nature: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

In the Rosicrucian path, both paths are united, that is, what is good for us is taken from both. It is no longer possible to initiate modern human beings unconsciously. Since the advent of the Christ principle, human beings must be present with their conscious awareness.

The meditations given to us by the masters of wisdom and harmony of feelings are all directed toward Christ, even if the name does not appear in them. The words:

In the pure rays of light ...

are arranged in such a way that when one makes oneself deaf and blind to the immediate environment, one slowly lifts one's etheric body out of the physical body; and in this way one then unites with the Christ etheric aura, which is now the aura of our Earth. If we were to lift ourselves out of the body without the content of our meditations, our soul would be alone with itself. But now it is permeated by Christ and experiences what Paul called: “Now it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.”

In pure love for all beings ...

These words remind us that everything spiritual is woven from love. This meditation is a slow dying of the lower self. And with this dying and rebirth in Christ, we have the connection between the two paths: In Christo morimur. It is a conscious revival in the spirit of Christ. That is why we have added the word Sanctum to the words Per Spiritum.

Record B

It is one of the greatest advantages that the esotericist gains when he faithfully applies what the masters of wisdom and harmony of feelings have composed in appropriate images or sentences.

The following is an explanation of the meditation:

In the pure rays of light ...

It has been shown how one can gradually free oneself from the physical body and thus enter the spiritual world. In the second part of the meditation, the esotericist penetrates into his own inner being at the same time. What previously had to be experienced separately should now, after humanity has progressed further, take place simultaneously. These meditations are based on this. When one has become so strong that one feels transported outside one's body into a spiritual world, the next step is to begin to perceive something in that world; but since one is also penetrating into one's inner self at the same time, one experiences the dangers of deception all the more strongly. At that moment, we are seized by the forces of temptation and conjure up images that we then take to be reality; but it is precisely the most beautiful, the most noble visions that are the deepest illusions. Only long after one has attained the power to ascend into the spiritual world is it possible to distinguish reality from deception. Only the deepest seriousness with which one approaches Theosophy brings this possibility. If we always carry the concepts that Theosophy gives us in our waking consciousness in our soul, then we create reality for the spiritual world here and, when we reach it, we will also be able to recognize what we see. In the beginning, one should resist visions, not allow them, and not, as usually happens, spin them out further and apply one's imagination to them. If one waits in the right sense, the moment will come when one knows whether it is real or not.