Christ in Earth's Aura: Finding Spiritual Courage

GA 266III — 17 November 1913, Berlin

Esoteric Lesson

Based on what has often been said, that the mystery of Golgotha is the most important event in human evolution and that since then Christ has been connected with the Earth's aura, Dr. Steiner said that many of us have probably asked ourselves the question in the course of our striving: Where is Christ now? (In the penultimate lodge lecture, he had already said that people were looking for Christ where he was not, like the women at the tomb who sought him there and found the tomb empty; and just as these women, the crusaders in the Middle Ages sought him where he was not. Only the disciples sought him where he was: in the spirit.)

Dr. Steiner then spoke of the period of time between birth and the age of seven, which is the time when human self-consciousness awakens. It lies between birth and the change of teeth, and during this time the individual form is essentially formed in the physical body. During the first years of life, human beings live in dreamlike, dull states of consciousness. The entire soul life of our present human cycle proceeds as it does now because it is precisely during the first seven years that human beings awaken to self-consciousness.

Let us assume that this were not the case. Let us hypothetically assume that human beings did not awaken to self-consciousness until the age of ten; then our entire soul life would also be different. Let us imagine that such a person, who had awakened to self-consciousness in his tenth year, gave instructions to wake him up at a certain hour the next morning. Upon awakening, he would have the impression that he himself was sneaking up to his door, knocking, and waking himself up, or he would see himself coming in as a figure of light, walking toward himself, opening his eyes, and thus awakening him. He would then be able to know that in the realm from which his own figure of light comes to him, Christ is also present.

Nevertheless, even though human self-awareness already enters in the course of the first seven years, many people will come to this experience in the near future. We are at a significant turning point, and this must be pointed out. The human being will then experience how the light figure of his astral body floats toward him, and in doing so he will recognize that this light figure feeds on his physical body, that every time it leaves him, it takes a piece of him with it, as it were. And when the figure takes possession of the physical body again in the morning, people will realize that they are living at the expense of death. This realization can lead people to the deepest sadness and melancholy. They will no longer value their bodies, their physical bodies. And while external culture and technological achievements, such as airplanes and other things, greatly increase people's courage, at the same time a contempt for life will arise, people will fall into deep seriousness, sadness, and melancholy, and the number of suicides will become enormous. While external courage grows in the external, sensual life, on the other hand, inner courage will necessarily decline more and more and give way to cowardice, a disguised cowardice. People will become increasingly materialistic and will want to know nothing of the spiritual and soul life. Underlying this is a kind of cowardice. The Angeloi foresaw this in the development of humanity and inspired Kant to formulate his doctrine of the limits set on human knowledge. This was necessary in the development of humanity. People who do not find their way to Christ fall into despair when they experience “I live at the expense of death,” a boundless sadness and a deep seriousness, and they actually see the figure of death walking beside them. But we know that Christ lives in the earth's aura. We are always connected to him. And when we know this and keep it alive within us, then the image of death takes on the features of Christ, who walks beside us like a human being, even if we cannot see him clairvoyantly. Clairvoyantly seeing Christ does not make him alive to us; we must know this, and that is why it must be said now.

We cannot escape the spirit of the times. It is at work everywhere, and we are caught up in our times. But the knowledge that Christ lives and that we can reach him will protect our souls from desolation, from deep melancholy, and from contempt for life. We will understand the words of our Rosicrucian motto: In Christo morimur.

If we allow all this to become truly alive in our souls during our quiet hours, it can be of great help to us.

Record B

There is an important matter we wish to consider today. With all the messages given to you in the esoteric hours, it is necessary that you process them inwardly in your soul. They should fill you completely and be the object of your inner contemplation and reflection in your leisure hours. During meditation or as a result of it, someone may ask themselves the question: Where is Christ actually? Where should I look for him?

We know that before the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ was a cosmic being who lived outside the Earth sphere; as in the event known as the baptism of John, Christ descended into the prepared physical body of Jesus of Nazareth and worked in it for three years; how, finally, through the mystery of Golgotha, the Christ being merged with the earth's aura and how, since then, Christ has been to be found in the surroundings of the earth. Those who were initiated before the mystery of Golgotha did not yet find him there. They had to be taken up to the sun in order to find him. But since the mystery of Golgotha, Christ has flowed out into the earth's aura, and there everyone can experience him. For, as we know, many people will come to see the etheric Christ in this century. Of course, to have knowledge of Christ is something else entirely.

It has often been pointed out that the forms of the physical body are formed by the age of seven. It then continues to grow, but the actual forms are already in place. We also know that modern human beings develop in such a way that the period between birth and the age of seven is the first period that they can remember. Many

Some people think that we can only think back to the age of seven, but that is not correct; it only appears to be so because in our present time memory is often covered by other mental images. This period between birth and the age of seven, up to which the human being can remember, is the moment when his ego-consciousness awakens.

The question could now arise and be posed to the meditator for deeper meditation by the master: How would development proceed, what would be the consequences if human beings led this dreamlike life without ego-consciousness for longer than is the case with human beings today, if their ego-consciousness only awakened in the second period of their lives, perhaps in the ninth or tenth year? Part of the question can be answered immediately.

Let us hypothetically assume that someone whose ego has only developed in the second period of his life has ordered that he be awakened at a certain time in the morning. Then, in a kind of dream that sets in around the time he has ordered himself to be woken up, he will have the sensation that it is he himself—his ego—who is knocking on the door, going to his bed, and waking up his physical body. He will feel as if he is one with this action. Or, if he waits until he wakes up on his own, which usually happens when daylight begins to break, he will see a figure of light coming toward him and waking him up. He will then know that it was not the external daylight that woke him up, but that his soul, which was in a sea of light, glided back into his body as a figure of light. His entire soul life would also be different. There would not be such a sharp separation between daytime consciousness and dream-filled sleep consciousness as there is for other people, but they would merge more into one another. Wakefulness would be permeated by dreams that would lead almost imperceptibly into night dreams. However, since one would feel more like a spirit being, which one senses is feeding on the physical body and must gradually bring about the death of the whole body, one would always experience death in one's dreams. The image of death would always be before one's eyes. Thus, a melancholic mood would spread over the whole life and ultimately paralyze all creative power. But in this world of death, Christ can be found, there he is!

Today's human beings often lack the courage to seek Christ and enter the spiritual world. In this respect, human beings have become cowardly. We must be clear that a characteristic that develops on one side weakens all the more on the other. Someone who is courageous in the field of technology, for example in aviation, may be cowardly when it comes to entering the spiritual world. Kant was inspired by one of the Angeloi to assert in his works that reason has limits and that the powers of knowledge are restricted to the physical and material. Thus, the striving for the spiritual is so greatly dampened in our time that it does not even occur to people how cowardly they are toward the spiritual worlds and how their souls must become increasingly desolate as a result. We are all dependent on the nuances of our present culture, on the commercial, industrial era in which we live, and we must never forget that we are in a time when materialism has reached its peak. But just as a rubber ball can only be compressed to a certain point before it springs back, so too will souls that have been constricted by materialism spread their wings once again. The greater the desolation of the soul, the stronger the reaction will be.

It is always said that all development proceeds evenly. That is not true. Everywhere in nature there are leaps. And in the development of the soul, a leap into the future is preparing itself right now. Materialism was foreseen in the divine guidance of the world. Human beings were virtually cut off from the spiritual worlds so that the forces of the soul could then stir all the more strongly, for they can only be compressed to a certain degree. The physical constitution of human beings will remain the same in the future, but their soul life will develop in such a way as if their self-consciousness had only awakened in later years.

We must clearly recognize that forces of death and life are within us and that it is up to us to seize the forces of life. If people do not attain knowledge of Christ, if they reject the Christ impulse, they will face boundless spiritual desolation and will feel only death beside them, see only forces of death walking beside them, and always have the feeling: I am dying into death. A deep melancholy will seize such human souls; it will produce disgust and weariness of life and result in epidemics of suicide.

But if we permeate ourselves with the Christ impulse, we will clearly recognize that although all life is at the expense of death, death contains the seed of a new life in the spiritual worlds. Death itself will appear to us in the form of Christ. And we will truly understand the meaning of the words: In Christ we die. In the three parts of our Rosicrucian motto, consisting of ten words, we have all the wisdom that can lead us up into the spiritual worlds.

Record C

What is presented to us in such an esoteric way should be brought back to consciousness in our moments of rest, and by meditating on it, it will not merely become a concept, but a life with which we can completely unite ourselves. So now, too, something will be given that may be important for us to make into a meditation.

We have already heard much about the mystery of Golgotha, and for some of us the presence of Christ around us has become an emotional experience, even if not yet a clairvoyant one. But even if we only come to this higher experience later, we can still feel permeated by Christ. However, as we meditate on Christ in this way, the question may arise in us: Where, in what world, can we find Christ, who, as we know, was first an extraterrestrial, cosmic deity and who, through the mystery of Golgotha, connected himself with our Earth? We know that Christ will no longer appear on Earth in a physical body, but we can ask ourselves: Where in the Earth's atmosphere can Christ be found?

Now, when we are deeply immersed in meditation, we can sometimes feel questions being asked of us from the spiritual world through our teacher, and by trying to answer these questions, we can be led further in meditative reflection. One question that could be asked of us is this:

If we were so constituted that we did not acquire our ego consciousness between the ages of three and seven, that is, during the period when the physical body takes on its definite form, which later only grows larger, but instead acquired it in the tenth year, during the second seven-year period of life, how would our consciousness be formed?

If our consciousness were such that we led a kind of dream life until the age of ten, and then our ego-consciousness awoke, we would have a completely different soul life. For example, if we wanted to be woken up in the morning, we would see ourselves outside our bodies knocking on the door, and we would know that we ourselves were inside, making the sound that woke us up. Or we would not wake up as usual and see that it has become light, but we would see ourselves as a figure of light, as one with the light, and feel, as we open our eyes, how we glide into ourselves as light and permeate our body with consciousness.

But consciousness would not be such that there would be a sharp boundary between waking life during the day and dream life at night, but rather the two would flow more into each other. The whole of daily life would be permeated by a kind of dream state. But at the same time we would know that in the form in which we are bodyless, we are spirit beings who feed on the body and bring about death. We would therefore always carry the consciousness of death with us in our dreams, always see the image of death beside us. And that would spread a great melancholy and sadness over life and rob us of all our vitality.

If this were the case, then today's materialistic culture could become ever more flourishing, but human beings would become desolate in their inner lives and would no longer be able to develop any courage to face life. Courage is indeed declining among people; a kind of physical courage is being developed, for example in air travel, but this is at the expense of spiritual courage, the courage to truly rise above ordinary materialistic consciousness. Therefore, strange as it may sound, the good angels had to inspire Kant to write his “Limits of Knowledge,” because with the materialistic culture that was to come, people lacked the courage to penetrate the spiritual worlds, and so they remained completely stuck in the physical world. But just as a rubber ball that is compressed to the extreme springs back, so too will this reaction be triggered in the soul life, and then people's courage will once again turn to the conquest of the spiritual worlds.

It is not the normal way for human beings to attain self-consciousness only at the age of ten, and it will not be so in the future either. However, the future will be such that consciousness will undergo the transformations described, and these times are rapidly approaching. Esotericists must anticipate some of these things, and that is precisely why we have our Theosophy and our esoteric development, so that we may learn to understand the future.

In the future, all human beings would constantly see death beside them, experience death within themselves; melancholy would be the basic mood of the soul, and suicides would increase in a frightening manner. But it is precisely there, in that world of death, that we must seek Christ! If we can permeate ourselves with an understanding of the mystery of Golgotha, the image of death will be transformed into the image of Christ, and then we will know where to find Christ.

Without Christ, human beings would always have to go around with the feeling: I am dying, I am dying into death. But this feeling can give way to the realization: in Christ I die! This should be a very special meditation for such a person: In --- morimur. From this, the strength can grow to maintain vitality and courage of soul with the new human consciousness and to always feel united with that world in which Christ is, in which he is always with us and around us. “Watch and pray” should become the motto for attaining such consciousness.

All this can become real life for us if we meditate seriously again and again on our motto:

Ex Deo nascimur In (Christo) morimur Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimns.

Record D

Today we will present something that you must continue to meditate on in order to progress. It has often been said that Christ was in the cosmos before his baptism in the Jordan and could be seen there by clairvoyants. Through his baptism in the Jordan, Christ then entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth and, during the mystery on Golgotha, flowed into the Earth's atmosphere and remained there. Some people have asked themselves: Where is Christ now? Where can he be found?

Human memory goes back to before the age of seven, when the ego consciousness began; at that point, the physical body is fully formed in terms of its shape and only continues to grow. The ego consciousness falls within this first period. Question: What would it be like if memory only went back to the age of ten, i.e., into the second period?

Let us assume that this were the case — then everything would be different. The person who was awakened in the morning would experience a dreamlike state, as if it were he himself who was creeping up to his door and knocking to wake his physical body; or if he were awakened as usual by the light of day, he would experience it as if he himself were approaching his physical body as a figure of light, opening his eyes and letting light shine into it. He would return to his physical body in the morning, knowing that he was destroying it, driving it toward death. Upon awakening, he would see death standing beside him, and melancholy would spread over his soul. Sleep would be a conscious dream experience; his consciousness would not cease: this is what one would experience at the present stage of human development.

Now, the ego consciousness will never awaken in the tenth year, but humanity is progressing, the soul experience is changing, and human beings will experience what has just been described in the near future. If the mystery of Golgotha had not taken place, human beings would be enveloped in deep melancholy as material culture progressed, because the figure of death would be a constant companion. Through the mystery of Golgotha, the form of death will be transformed into the form of Christ for those who have taken the Christ impulse into themselves: what has just been described is the place where Christ is to be sought, and our task is to prepare the moment when human beings will experience this awakening. Knowing these occult secrets, we should wait and look to the morning star that will rise for humanity. The material culture of technology creates courage for physical life, but cowardice for spiritual life, for the strengthening of the soul forces. That is why the spiritual is denied. The Angeloi inspired Kant to deny humans the possibility of spiritual knowledge so that the human soul forces, compressed like a rubber ball, would one day spring upward and grasp spiritual knowledge with all the greater force.