Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 13 September 1906

19. The World Center, Christ, The I

The I is the same in man as Christ is in the world. It is the turning point in the whole evolution of mankind. Everything that preceded Christ in the development of mankind was a preparation for the appearance of Christ; everything that followed the appearance of Christ proceeded from it. Christ is the center of the world. He is the Word who stands in the center of the whole development. Like rays, the whole evolution of mankind flows toward Him, toward His embodiment.

The whole world life had gone through a descending process into the physical. At last it appeared in the physical. The Divine had completely united with its own creation when Christ descended to the personality of Jesus of Nazareth and made His entrance in Him. This Christ was an expression of the whole world life in a physical body, in the shell of the personality of Jesus, who lived in Palestine. There the whole world life was radiated together as in a center. There the world ego dwelled during three earthly years. There the world ego came to the consciousness of its whole task for the world, which had gone out from it before. If at first the Logos had let the world come out of him by the word of creation, he himself held this world flowing out of him in his arms and pulsated it with his own life, now he took upon himself the great sacrifice to no longer live only as creator and sustainer of this world and to rule over it, but he moved with his life into the center of this world. He had designed the world as a shell, as the temple in which he wanted to dwell. There the word connected itself with everything that was thought by the same. The word became flesh. Therefore it could connect [with] the human shell that walked in Palestine as Jesus of Nazareth. Never before had the I so completely embedded itself in man. The Christ-embodiment was the I-becoming of the world. Long, through millions of years, this moment had prepared itself, and through millions of years it will continue to work to bring time to completion. From this moment, the center of our whole development, all further development radiates, as in former times all development flowed together there. We can develop only rooted in the Word, in the life of Christ, which has been the heart of the world since the Incarnation of Christ. All life had flowed to this heart of the world, and now it flows out and pulsates through everything that is. What has formed out of there, at the incarnation of the divine life, is the expression of the greatest love of the Godhead for us. She did not want to have around her only dependent beings who had come forth through her power and were guided by her power; she wanted to see free beings around her, to whom she communicated so much of herself that they could become like the Deity. Her own bliss, her own power, her own wisdom she wanted to communicate to them. Therefore, the deity sacrificed itself and moved into the center of the world; it thus formed the heart of the world, in order to flow from there through everything created with its own inner being. After three years of activity, the Christ Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross. Thus the world life prepared its own descent into humanity during three world years, the first three planetary years; then it united completely with the world in the earth center, where this earth reached its greatest condensation. And now it remained at first hidden from mankind at large. Only some people, a small crowd, could recognize the world life in the Christ Jesus. Thus the world life rested in the world. It resounded incessantly as the Word and instilled its life into the world; it flowed into every human being and gave him his power to feel himself as I, to find a center in himself, to live in his I. But people did not recognize the connection between the world life and the Christ Jesus. But people did not recognize the connection with the world life, the Christ. Until the third day, Christ remained for the world the dead Christ, who had died and been buried on the cross. Just as at that time his disciples believed that he had really passed away from them, that he was dead, so also for a time people could no longer consciously feel his life. He had to be resurrected so that people could recognize him. On the third day, the Christ rose from the dead in Palestine. The certainty that he was alive was returned to the small multitude that had believed in him, Then this certainty flowed into them. And they became the bearers of this certainty. From them once this certainty should go over to all people. "All days I am with you, even to the end of the world," Christ said to them. They had experienced that he was alive and that physical death could not destroy his life. He who could overcome physical death could bring everything else to life. They realized that he was the world life. Only through him could one ascend to the Godhead. He brought the Deity to life before their eyes. There was the deity in truth there in the world. He was the truth itself, the divine truth; he was the life itself, the divine life; and so he was also the mediator, the way that could lead people to the goal. The way, the truth and the life he was for all mankind. From him alone mankind could progress towards perfection.

Just as the whole of humanity had found in Christ its center, the world ego, around which the whole of world life must be grouped, so then also men each found in himself the ego as the central point around which their own being must be grouped. Only through the appearance of Christ did I-consciousness become fully possible for man. He was, after all, the embodied I of the world. He had told men that he was closely connected with them, that his life flowed through them: "I am the vine, you are the branches." Such is the close connection of the core of our being with the Christ of the world. He gave them bread and wine, saying, "This is my flesh; this is my blood. With all that you receive into yourselves from the world, you receive my life." What is around us, everything that lives, that grows and blossoms and develops, it is a part of the Christ-life that dwells in everything created. With each thing that we take into us from the environment, the Christ life flows into us. This should become more and more conscious to humanity. When this consciousness of being one with Christ has fully entered humanity, then Christ has risen for the whole world; then he has so saturated the world with his life that everything that lives will be his temple in which he can express his own life unhindered. For the first time he expressed it fully in the appearance of the Christ Jesus. Then it came to expression in all those people who united themselves wholly with him, in those who had brought themselves so far into harmony with the world life that they became a part of the world life, that the world word spoke through them to the world. It is these who work out of the world-word in the world, who themselves embody the word and can thereby bring the word to men.

Before Christ there were great leaders and teachers of mankind; they taught mankind and guided it. Since Christ appeared, another has entered mankind. The leaders of mankind now not only instruct mankind, but they share their lives with mankind. They have a magical effect on those whom they teach. They lead humanity to freedom, therefore they must share their own lives with humanity, so that each I may develop to freedom and self-reliance, to God-likeness.

Some great leaders are in humanity who do not teach outwardly, but who give to mankind the impulses which communicate to them their own power, their life, a part of the Christ-life, of the world-ego. Humanity should learn by itself to understand the Divine and to live in the Divine, through its own knowledge, not through compulsion and dependence. Before Christ appeared, humanity could not do that. Before, it lacked the power to do so. Christ was the world impulse for the development of freedom of mankind.

The more people unite with the power of the Christ-life, the more they become free beings, the more God-like they become. There, in the center of the world, people must get all the impulses of life. The I in man is the key to this center of the world. It is the spark that connects him with the central fire of the world. It is the source from which he must draw; it is eternally renewed by the world ego, the world life itself. It is the narrow gate through which man must pass to enter the spirit world. All human forces must flow into the ego, as into a point, and only through this point, through the narrow gate of the ego, can they come forth again, just as world life could only come forth again into the world and communicate itself to it by flowing into the appearance of Christ Jesus.

The I becomes fully formed only through the flowing together of all the powers of man, through the concentration of his whole being on one point. Thereby only the I reaches the true becoming. Thereby the becoming of the I of the human being takes place. All that the Godhead has made of him, all the forces, he lets flow together into one great force; thereby a new thing arises in him, a special thing, a nucleus of being; then the world-ego, the world-life is localized in him, just as the life of the plant is localized in the seed.

Initially it is there only in the germ, but the germ contains all the possibilities of development, since it forms an extract of the world-forces. When man becomes fully aware of this truth, that he is the shell for a spark of God, for a germ of God, then the Christ has been born in him, then he is a conscious guardian of the divine treasure in his own heart, of the world-life, what has sunk into him.

From that moment on he will get all his impulses from this certainty that he lives through the world-life and for the shaping of the world-life in his own inner being. His further development is then a purification of his whole being, a ennoblement, a spiritualization of all his powers, for a temple of God he is, and he wants to work at making this temple of God more and more glorious. He now lives in the beatification of the consciousness that the world life rests in him, in his I, and that it grows and increases in him and will one day fill him completely. He then pours out this world life in every thought, every wish, every word, in his whole being; he communicates it to other beings. He helps to overcome death; he has become the redeemer, liberator of the world. Because what lives in him, he does not want to keep for himself. That would be a stagnation of life; that would mean death. Only by the passing on of the life it is possible that in him the world life generates itself anew. The more he gives of it to the environment, the stronger becomes in him the inexhaustible source of world life. Thus man forms in himself the Christ-appearance; thus all mankind will one day express the Christ, the Word, and every man will then be a sound in this world-word. And when all mankind has thus become an expression of the Christ, then this is the transition to a new stage of world development. Then all the forces that were in the world will have been formed, and now these life forces can be included anew in the center of the world, and there together they will form the plan for a new cosmos, which in a new stage of evolution will flow out from the center just as our present evolution has flowed out from the center of the world. With the completion of our earth evolution only an exhalation of the Godhead is completed. Everything will be included again in the center of the Godhead in order to arise anew at the next exhalation. But nothing that has been formed will be lost. Everything that is, remains in the consciousness of the Godhead. From the consciousness of the Godhead it enters again into life, and the life of the Godhead brings everything to new formation, in order to express in this formation the consciousness of the Godhead.

So the great world-builder builds his world-temple according to the world-plan which slumbers within him; and more and more perfect and more perfect he fashions this world-temple. We are to become co-workers of the master world builder at the world temple. Thus we, too, must bring together in our I all the experiences we have in the world, locate them there, and then transform and use them for the more beautiful shaping of our own being in connection with the development of the cosmos.