War: What is it good for?

     

"Wisdom is crystallized pain."  — Rudolf Steiner

Getting drafted in 1969 forced me to wrestle with the problem of evil — specifically: How could something this bad happen to me?

“War is waged by men; not by beasts, or by gods. It is a peculiarly human activity. To call it a crime against mankind is to miss at least half its significance; it is also the punishment of a crime.” —Frederic Manning

Paul Fussell:

That month away from the line helped me survive for four weeks more but it broke the rhythm and, never badly scared before, when I returned to the line early in March I found for the first time that I was terrified, unwilling to take the chances that before had seemed rather sporting. My month of safety had renewed my interest in survival, and I was psychologically and morally ill prepared to lead my platoon in the great Seventh Army attack of March 15, 1945. But lead it I did, or rather push it, staying as far in the rear as was barely decent. And before the day was over I had been severely rebuked by a sharp-eyed lieutenant-colonel who threatened court martial if I didn’t pull myself together. Before that day was over I was sprayed with the contents of a soldier’s torso when I was lying behind him and he knelt to fire at a machine gun holding us up: he was struck in the heart, and out of the holes in the back of his field jacket flew little clouds of tissue, blood, and powdered cloth. Near him another man raised himself to fire, but the machine gun caught him in the mouth, and as he fell he looked back at me with surprise, blood and teeth dribbling out onto the leaves. He was one to whom early on I had given the Silver Star for heroism, and he didn’t want to let me down.

As if in retribution for my cowardice, in the late afternoon, near Ingwiller, Alsace, clearing a woods full of Germans cleverly dug in, my platoon was raked by shells from an .88, and I was hit in the back and leg by shell fragments. They felt like red-hot knives going in, but I was as interested in the few quiet moans, like those of a hurt child drifting off to sleep, of my thirty-seven-year-old platoon sergeant—we’d been together since Camp Howze—killed instantly by the same shell. We were lying together, and his immediate neighbor on the other side, a lieutenant in charge of a section of heavy machine guns, was killed instantly too. My platoon was virtually wiped away. I was in disgrace, I was hurt, I was clearly expendable—while I lay there the supply sergeant removed my issue wristwatch to pass on to my replacement—and I was twenty years old.

I bore up all right while being removed from “the field” and passed back through the first-aid stations where I was known. I was deeply on morphine, and managed brave smiles as called for. But when I got to the evacuation hospital thirty miles behind the lines and was coming out of the anesthetic from my first operation, all my affectations of control collapsed, and I did what I’d wanted to do for months. I cried, noisily and publicly, and for hours. I was the scandal of the war. 

Source: http://harpers.org/archive/1982/01/0024716

In Memoriam

  

   

Karma and Pentecost : Necessity and Freedom

     

from "To Althea, from Prison"

by Richard Lovelace:

Stone Walls do not a Prison make,

Nor Iron bars a Cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an Hermitage.

If I have freedom in my Love,

And in my soul am free,

Angels alone that soar above,

Enjoy such Liberty.

Ex Deo Nascimur
In Christo Morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus

 

"Of what value is knowledge if it is not a living power in our life? Wisdom must be such a living power. The goal is not mere knowledge of the divine: it is the divinization of the human being."

 

Whitsun Verse:

Where knowledge through the senses ends

There stands the gateway

Which alone opens

Living reality to our soul's being;

The soul creates the key

When it grows strong within itself

In the struggle which the forces of the world

On their own ground wage

With human powers,

When by its own strength it drives away

The sleep which cloaks the powers of knowledge

At the limit of the senses

In spiritual sight.

— Rudolf Steiner

Wo Sinneswissen endet,
Da stehet erst die Pforte,
Die Lebenswirklichkeiten
Dem Seelensein eröffnet;
Den Schlüssel schafft die Seele,
Wenn sic in sich erstarket
Im Kampf, den Weltenmächte
Auf ihrem eignen Grunde
Mit Menschenkräfte führen;
Wenn sic durch sich vertreibt
Den Schlaf, der Wissenskräfte
An ihren Sinnesgrenzen
Mit Geistesnacht umhüllet.

Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland

June 4, 1924

When we consider how karma works we always have to bear in mind that the human ego, which is the essential being of man, the inmost being of man, has as it were three instruments through which it is able to live and express itself in the world. These are the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. Man really carries the physical, etheric, and astral bodies with him through the world, but he himself is not in any one of these bodies. In the truest sense he is the ego; and it is the ego which both suffers and creates karma.

Now the point is to gain an understanding of the relationship between man as the ego-being and these three instrumental forms — if I may call them so: the physical, etheric, and astral bodies. This will give us the foundation for an understanding of the essence of karma. We shall gain a fruitful point of view for the study of the physical, the etheric, and the astral in man in relation to karma if we consider the following.

The physical as we behold it in the mineral kingdom, the etheric as we find it working in the plant kingdom, and the astral as we find it working in the animal kingdom — all these are to be found in the environment of man here on Earth. In the cosmos surrounding the Earth we have that universe into which, if I may so describe it, the Earth extends on all sides. Man can feel a certain relationship between what takes place on the Earth and what takes place in the cosmic environment. But when we come to Spiritual Science we have to ask: Is this relationship really so commonplace as the present-day scientific conception of the world imagines? This modern scientific conception of the world examines the physical qualities of everything on the Earth, living and lifeless. It also investigates the stars, the Sun, the Moon, etc.; and it discovers — indeed it is particularly proud of the discovery — that these heavenly bodies are fundamentally of the same nature as the Earth.

Such a conception can only result from a form of knowledge which at no point comes to a real grasp of man himself — a knowledge which takes hold only of what is external to man. The moment, however, we really take hold of man as he stands within the Universe, we become able to discover the relationships between the several instrumental members of man's nature — the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body — and the corresponding entities, the corresponding realities of being, in the Cosmos.

In regard to the etheric body of man, we find spread out in the Cosmos the universal Ether. The etheric body of man has a definite human shape, definite forms of movement within it, and so on. These, it is true, are different in the cosmic Ether. Nevertheless the cosmic Ether is fundamentally of like nature with what we find in the human etheric body. In the same way we can speak of a similarity between what is found in the human astral body and a certain astral principle that works through all things and all beings out in the far-spread Universe.

Here we come to something of extraordinary importance, something which in its true nature is quite foreign to the human being of today. Let us take our start from this. (A drawing is made on the blackboard). We have, first, the Earth; and on the Earth we have Man, with his etheric body. Then in the Earth's environment we have the cosmic Ether — the cosmic Ether which is of the same nature as the etheric in man. In man we also have the astral body. In the cosmic environment too there is Astrality. Where are we to find this cosmic Astrality? Where is it? It is indeed to be found, but we must first discover — what it is in the Cosmos that betrays the presence of cosmic Astrality; what it is that reveals it. Somewhere or other is the Astrality. Is this Astrality in the Cosmos quite invisible and imperceptible, or is it, after all, in some way perceptible to us?

In itself, of course, the Ether too is imperceptible for our physical senses. If I may put it so, when you are looking at a small fragment of Ether, you see nothing with your physical senses, you simply see through it. The Ether is like an empty nothingness to you. But when you regard the etheric environment as a totality, you behold the blue sky, of which we also say that it is not really there but that you are gazing into empty space. Now the reason why you see the blue of the sky is that you are actually perceiving the end of the Ether. Thus you behold the Ether as the blue of the heavens. The perception of the blue sky is really and truly a perception of the Ether. We may therefore say: In that we perceive the blue of the sky we are perceiving the universal Ether that surrounds us.

At first contact, we see through the Ether. It allows us to do so; and yet, it makes itself perceptible in the blue heavens. Hence the existence for human perception of the blue of the sky is expressed in that we say: The Ether itself, though imperceptible, yet rises to the level of perceptibility by reason of the great majesty with which it stands there in the Universe, revealing its presence, making itself known in the blue of the vast expanse.

Physical science theorizes materialistically about the blue of the sky; and for physical science it is indeed very difficult to reach any intelligent conclusion on this point, for the simple reason that it is bound to admit that where we see the blue of the sky there is nothing physical. Nevertheless men spin out the most elaborate theories to explain how the rays of light are reflected and refracted in a peculiar way so as to call forth this blue of the sky. In reality, it is here that the supersensible world begins already to hold sway. In the Cosmos the Supersensible does indeed become visible to us. We have only to discover where and how it becomes visible. The Ether becomes perceptible to us through the blue of the sky.

But now, somewhere there is also present the astral element of the Cosmos. In the blue sky the Ether peers through, as it were, into the realms of sense. Where then does the Astrality in the Cosmos peer through into the realms of perceptibility? The answer, my dear friends, is this.

Every star that we see glittering in the heavens is in reality a gate of entry for the Astral. Wherever the stars are twinkling and glittering in towards us, there glitters and shines the Astral. Look at the starry heavens in their manifold variety; in one part the stars are gathered into heaps and clusters, or in another they are scattered far apart. In all this wonderful configuration of radiant light, the invisible and super-sensible astral body of the Cosmos makes itself visible to us.

For this reason we must not consider the world of stars unspiritually. To look up to the world of stars and speak of worlds of burning gases is just as though — forgive the apparent absurdity of the comparison, but it is precisely true — it is just as though someone who loves you were gently stroking you, holding the fingers a little apart, and you were then to say that it feels like so many little ribbons being drawn across your cheek. It is no more untrue that little ribbons are laid across your cheek when someone strokes you, than that there exist up there in the heavens those material entities of which modern physics tells. It is the astral body of the Universe which is perpetually wielding its influences — like the gently stroking fingers — on the etheric organism of the Cosmos. The etheric Cosmos is organized for very long duration; it is for this reason that a star has its quality of fixity, representing a perpetual influence on the cosmic Ether by the astral Universe. It lasts far longer than the stroking of your cheek. But in the Cosmos things do last longer, for there we are dealing with gigantic measures. Thus in the starry heavens that we perceive, we actually behold an expression of the soul-life of the cosmic astral world.

In this way an immense, unfathomable life, yet, at the same time, a soul-life, a real and actual life of the soul, is brought into the Cosmos. Think how dead the Cosmos appears to us when we look into the far spaces and see nothing but burning gaseous bodies. Think how living it all becomes when we know that the stars are an expression of the love with which the astral Cosmos works upon the etheric Cosmos — for this is to express it with perfect truth. Think then of those mysterious processes when certain stars suddenly light up at certain times — processes which have only been explained to us by means of physical hypotheses that do not lead to any real understanding. Stars that were not there before, light up for a time, and disappear again. Thus in the Cosmos too there is a “stroking” of shorter duration. For it is true indeed that in epochs when divine beings desire to work in an especial way from the astral world into the etheric, we behold new stars light up and fade away again.

We ourselves in our own astral body have feelings of delight and comfort in the most varied ways. In like manner in the Cosmos, through the cosmic astral body, we have the varied configuration of the starry heavens. No wonder that an ancient science, instinctively clairvoyant, describes this third member of our human organism as the “astral” or “starry” body, seeing that it is of like nature with that which reveals itself to us in the stars.

It is only the Ego that we do not find revealed in the cosmic environment. Why is this? We shall find the reason if we consider how this human Ego manifests here on the Earth, in a world that is in reality threefold: physical, etheric, and astral. The Ego of man, as it appears within the Universe, is ever and again a repetition of former lives on Earth; and again and again it finds itself in the life between death and a new birth. But when we observe the Ego in its life between death and a new birth, we perceive that the Etheric which we have here in the cosmic environment of the Earth has no significance for the human Ego. The etheric body is laid aside soon after death. It is only the astral world, that shines in towards us through the stars, that has significance for the Ego in the life between death and a new birth. And in that world which glistens in towards us through the stars, in that world there live the beings of the higher hierarchies with whom man forms his karma between death and a new birth.

Indeed, when we follow this Ego in its successive evolutions through lives between birth and death and between death and a new birth, we cannot remain within the world of space at all. For two successive earthly lives cannot be within the same space. They cannot be within that Universe which is dependent on spatial co-existence. Here therefore we go right out of space and enter into time. This is actually so. We go out of space and come into the pure flow of time when we contemplate the Ego in its successive lives on Earth.

Now consider this, my dear friends. In space, time is still present, of course, but within this world of space we have no means of experiencing time in itself. We always have to experience time through space and spatial processes. For example, if you wish to experience time, you look at the clock, or, if you will, at the course of the Sun. What do you see? You see the various positions of the hands of the clock or of the Sun. You see something that is spatial. Through the fact that the positions of the hands or of the Sun are changed, through the fact that spatial things are present to you as changing, you gain some idea of time. But of time itself there is really nothing in this spatial perception. There are only varied spatial configurations, varied positions of the hands of the clock, varied positions of the Sun. You only experience time itself when you come into the sphere of the soul's experience. There you do really experience time, but there you also go out of space. There, time is a reality, but within the earthly world of space, time is no reality. What, then, must happen to us, if we would go out of the space in which we live between birth and death and enter into the spacelessness in which we live between death and a new birth? What must we do? The answer is this: We must die!

We must take these words in their exact and deep meaning. On Earth we experience time only through space — through points in space, through the positions of spatial things. On Earth we do not experience time in its reality at all. Once you grasp this, you will say: “Really to enter into time we must go out of space, we must put away all things spatial.” You can also express it in other words, for it is really nothing else than — to die. It means, in very deed and truth: to die.

Let us now turn our eyes to this cosmic world that encircles the Earth — this cosmic world to which we are akin both through our etheric body and also through our astral body — and let us look at the spiritual in this cosmic world. There have indeed been nations and human societies who have had regard only to the spiritual that is to be found within our earthly world of space. Such peoples were unable to have any thoughts about repeated lives on Earth. Thoughts about repeated lives on Earth were possessed only by those human beings and groups that were able to conceive time in its pure essence, time in its spaceless character. But if we consider this earthly world together with its cosmic environment, or, to put it briefly, all that we speak of as the Cosmos, the Universe; and if we behold the spiritual manifest in it, we are then apprehending something of which it can be said that it had to be present in order that we might enter into our existence as earthly human beings; it had to be there.

Unfathomable depths are really contained in this simple conception — that all that to which I have just referred had to exist in order that we as earthly human beings might enter this earthly life. Infinite depths are revealed when we really grasp the spiritual aspect of all that is thus put before us. If we conceive this Spiritual in its completeness as a self-contained whole, if we consider it in its own purity and essence, then we have a conception of what was called “God” by those peoples who limited their outlook to the world of space alone.

These peoples — at any rate in their wisdom-teachings — had come to feel: The Cosmos is woven through and through by a divine element that is at work in it, and we can distinguish from this divine element in the Cosmos that which is present, on the Earth in our immediate environment as the physical world. We can also distinguish that which, in this cosmic, divine-spiritual world reveals itself as the Etheric, namely that which gazes down upon us in the blue of the sky. We can distinguish as the Astral in this divine world that which gazes down upon us in the configuration of the starry heavens.

If we enter as fully as possible into the situation as we stand here, within the Universe, as human beings on this Earth, we shall say to ourselves: “We as human beings have a physical body: where, then, is the Physical in the Universe?” Here I am returning to something which I have already pointed out. The physical science of today expects to find everything which is on the Earth existing also in the Universe. But the physical organization itself is not to be found in the Universe at all. Man has in the first place his physical organization: then in addition he has the etheric and the astral. The Universe on the other hand begins with the Etheric. Out there in the Cosmos the Physical is nowhere to be found. The Physical exists only on the Earth, and it is but empty fancy and imagination to speak of anything physical in the far Universe. In the Universe there is the Etheric and the Astral.

There is also a third element within the Universe which we have yet to speak about in this present lecture, for the Cosmos too is threefold. But the threefoldness of the Cosmos, apart from the Earth, is different from the threefoldness of the Cosmos in which we include the Earth.

Let these feelings enter into our earthly consciousness: the perceiving of the Physical in our immediate earthly dwelling-place; the feeling of the Etheric, which is both on the Earth and in the Universe; the beholding of the Astral, glistening down to the Earth from the stars, and most intensely of all from the Sun-star. Then, when we consider all these things and place before our souls the majesty of this world-conception, we can well understand how in ancient times, when with the old instinctive clairvoyance men did not think so abstractly but were still able to feel the majesty of a great conception, they were led to realize: “A thought so majestic as this cannot be conceived perpetually in all its fullness. We must take hold of it at one special time, allowing it to work on the soul in its full, unfathomable glory. It will then work on in the inner depths of our human being, without being spoilt and corrupted by our surface consciousness.” — If we consider by what means the old instinctive clairvoyance gave expression to such a feeling, then out of all that combined to give truth to this thought in mankind in olden time there remains to us today the institution of the Christmas Festival.

On Christmas Night, man, as he stands here upon the Earth with his physical, his etheric, and his astral bodies, feels himself to be related to the threefold Cosmos, which appears to him in its Etheric nature, shining so majestically, and with the magic wonder of the night in the blue of the heavens; while face to face with him is the Astral of the Universe, in the stars that glitter in towards the Earth. As he realizes how the holiness of this cosmic environment is related to that which is on the Earth itself, he feels that he himself with his own Ego has been transplanted from the Cosmos into this world of Space. And now he may gaze upon the Christmas Mystery — the new-born Child, the Representative of Humanity on Earth, who, inasmuch as he is entering into childhood, is born into this world of Space. In the fullness and majesty of this Christmas thought, as he gazes on the Child that is born on Christmas Night, he exclaims: “Ex Deo Nascimur — I am born out of the Divine, the Divine that weaves and surges through the world of Space.”

When a man has felt this, when he has permeated himself through and through with it, then he may also recall what Anthroposophy has revealed to us about the meaning of the Earth. The Child on whom we are gazing is the outer sheath of That which is now born into Space. But whence is He born, that He might be brought to birth in the world of Space? According to what we have explained today, it can only be from Time. From out of Time the Child is born.

If we then follow out the life of this Child and His permeation by the Spirit of the Christ-Being, we come to realize that this Being, this Christ-Being, comes from the Sun. Then we shall look up to the Sun, and say to ourselves: “As I look up to the Sun, I must behold in the sunshine Time, which in the world of Space is hidden. Within the Sun is Time, and from out of the Time that weaves and works within the Sun, Christ came forth, came out into Space, on to the Earth.”

What have we then in Christ on Earth? In Christ on Earth we have That which coming from beyond Space, from outside of Space, unites with the Earth.

I want you to realize how our conception of the Universe changes, in comparison with the ordinary present-day conception when we really enter into all that has come before our souls this evening. There in the Universe we have the Sun, with all that there appears to us to be immediately connected with it — all that is contained in the blue of the heavens, in the world of the stars. At another point in the Universe we have the Earth with humanity. When we look up from the Earth to the Sun, we are at the same time looking into the flow of Time.

Now from this there follows something of great significance. Man only looks up to the Sun in the right way (even if it be but in his mind) when, as he gazes upwards, he forgets Space and considers Time alone. For in truth, the Sun does not only radiate light, it radiates Space itself, and when we are looking into the Sun we are looking out of Space into the world of Time. The Sun is the unique star that it is because when we gaze into the Sun we are looking out of Space. And from that world, outside of Space, Christ came to men. At the time when Christianity was founded by Christ on Earth, man had been all too long restricted to the mere Ex Deo Nascimur, he had become altogether bound up in it, he had become a Space-being pure and simple. The reason why it is so hard for us to understand the traditions of primeval epochs when we go back to them with the consciousness of present-day civilization is that they always had in mind Space, and not the world of Time. They regarded the world of Time only as an appendage of the world of Space.

Christ came to bring the element of Time again to men, and when the human heart, the human soul, the human spirit unite themselves with Christ, then man receives once more the stream of Time that flows from Eternity to Eternity. What else can we human beings do when we die, i.e. when we go out of the world of Space, than hold fast to Him who gives Time back to us again? At the Mystery of Golgotha man had become to so great an extent a being of Space that Time was lost to him. Christ brought Time back again to men.

If, then, in going forth from the world of Space, men would not die in their souls as well as in their bodies, they must die in Christ. We can still be human beings of Space, and say: Ex Deo Nascimur, and we can look to the Child who comes forth from Time into Space, that he may unite Christ with humanity. But since the Mystery of Golgotha we cannot conceive of death, the bound of our earthly life, without this thought: “We must die in Christ.” Otherwise we shall pay for our loss of Time with the loss of Christ Himself, and, banished from Him, remain held spellbound. We must fill ourselves with the Mystery of Golgotha. In addition to the Ex Deo Nascimur we must find the In Christo Morimur. We must bring forth the Easter thought in addition to the Christmas thought. Thus the Ex Deo Nascimur lets the Christmas thought appear before our souls, and in the In Christo Morimur the Easter thought.

We can now say: On the Earth man has his three bodies: the physical, the etheric, and the astral. The Etheric and Astral are also out there in the Cosmos, but the Physical is only to be found on the Earth. Out in the Cosmos there is no Physical. Thus we must say: On the Earth — physical, etheric, astral. In the Cosmos— no physical, but only the etheric and the astral.

Yet the Cosmos too is threefold, for what the Cosmos lacks at the lowest level, it adds above. In the Cosmos the Etheric is the lowest: on the Earth the Physical is the lowest. On Earth the Astral is the highest; in the Cosmos the highest is that of which man has today only the beginnings — that out of which his Spirit-Self will one day be woven. We may therefore say: In the Cosmos there is, as the third, the highest element, the Spirit-Selfhood [Manas].

Now we see the stars as expressions of something real. I compared their action to a gentle stroking. The Spirit-Selfhood that is behind them is indeed the Being that lovingly strokes — only in this case it is not a single Being but the whole world of the Hierarchies. I gaze upon a man and see his form; I look at his eyes and see them shining towards me; I hear his voice; it is the utterance of the human being. In the same way I gaze up into the far spaces of the world, I look upon the stars. They are the utterance of the Hierarchies — the living utterance of the Hierarchies, kindling astral feeling. I gaze into the blue depths of the firmament and perceive in it the outward revelation of the etheric body which is the lowest member of the whole world of the Hierarchies.

Now we may draw near to a still further realization. We look out into the far Cosmos which goes out beyond earthly reality, even as the Earth with its physical substance and forces goes down beneath cosmic reality. As in the Physical the Earth has a sub-cosmic element, so in Spirit-Selfhood the Cosmos has a super-earthly element.

Physical science speaks of a movement of the Sun; and it can do so, for within the spatial picture of the Cosmos which surrounds us we perceive by certain phenomena that the Sun is in movement. But that is only an image of the true Sun-movement — an image cast into Space. If we are speaking of the real Sun it is nonsense to say that the Sun moves in Space; for Space itself is being radiated out by the Sun. The Sun not only radiates light; the Sun creates Space itself. And the movement of the Sun is only a spatial movement within this created Space. Outside of Space it is a movement in Time, What seems apparent to us — namely, that the Sun is speeding on towards the constellation of Hercules — is only a spatial image of the Time-evolution of the Sun-Being.

To His intimate disciples Christ spoke these words: “Behold the life of the Earth; it is related to the life of the Cosmos. When you look out on the Earth and the surrounding Cosmos, it is the Father whose life permeates this Universe. The Father-God is the God of Space. But I make known to you that I have come to you from the Sun, from Time — Time that receives man only when he dies. I have brought you myself from out of Time. If you receive me, you receive Time, and you will not be held spellbound in Space. But you find the transition from the one trinity — Physical, Etheric, and Astral — to the other trinity, which leads from the Etheric and Astral to Spirit-Selfhood. Spirit-Selfhood is not to be found in the earthly world, just as the Earthly-Physical is not to be found in the Cosmos. But I bring you the message of it, for I am from the Sun.”

The Sun has indeed a threefold aspect. If one lives within the Sun and looks down from the Sun to the Earth, one beholds the Physical, Etheric, and Astral. One may also gaze on that which is within the Sun itself. Then one still sees the Physical so long as one remembers the Earth or gazes down towards the Earth. But if one looks away from the Earth one beholds on the other side the Spirit-Selfhood. Thus one swings backwards and forwards between the Physical and the nature of the Spirit-Self. Only the Etheric and Astral in between are permanent. As you look out into the great Universe, the Earthly vanishes away, and you have the Etheric, the Astral, and the Spirit-Selfhood. This is what you behold when you come into the Sun-Time between death and a new birth.

Let us now imagine first of all the inner mood of a man's soul to be such that he shuts himself up entirely within this Earth-existence. He can still feel the Divine, for out of the Divine he is born: Ex Deo Nascimur. Then let us imagine him no longer shutting himself up within the mere world of Space, but receiving the Christ who came from the world of Time into the world of Space, who brought Time itself into earthly Space. If a man does this, then in Death he will overcome Death. Ex Deo Nascimur. In Christo Morimur. But Christ Himself brings the message that when Space is overcome and one has learned to recognize the Sun as the creator of Space, when one feels oneself transplanted through Christ into the Sun, into the living Sun, then the earthly Physical vanishes and only the Etheric and the Astral are there. Now the Etheric comes to life, not as the blue of the sky, but as the lilac-red gleaming radiance of the Cosmos, and forth from the reddish light the stars no longer twinkle down upon us but gently touch us with their loving effluence.

If a man really enters into all this, he can have the experience of himself, standing here upon the Earth, the Physical put aside, but the Etheric still with him, streaming through and out of him in the lilac-reddish light. No longer now are the stars glimmering points of light; they are radiations of love like the caressing hand of a human being. As we feel all this — the divine within ourselves, the divine cosmic fire flaming forth from within us as the very being of man; ourselves within the Etheric world and experiencing the living expression of the Spirit in the Astral cosmic radiance — there bursts forth within us the inner awakening of the creative radiance of Spirit, which is man's high calling in the Universe.

When those to whom Christ revealed these things had let the revelation sink deep into their being, then the moment came when they experienced the working of this mighty concept, in the fiery tongues of Pentecost. At first they felt the falling away, the discarding of the earthly-Physical as death. But then the feeling came; This is not death, but in place of the Physical of the Earth, there now dawns upon us the Spirit-Selfhood of the Universe. “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.”

Thus may we regard the threefold nature of the one half of the year. We have the Christmas thought —Ex Deo Nascimur; the Easter thought — In Christo Morimur; and the Whitsun thought — Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.

There remains the other half of the year. If we understand that too, there dawns on us the other aspect of our human life. If we understand the relationship of the physical to the soul of man and to the superphysical — which contains the true freedom of which man is to become a partaker on the Earth — then in the interconnection of the Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun festivals we understand the human freedom on Earth. As we understand man from out of these three thoughts — the Christmas thought, the Easter thought, and the Whitsun thought — and as we let this kindle in us the desire to understand the remaining portions of the year, there arises the other half of human life which I indicated when I said: “Gaze upon this human destiny; the Hierarchies appear behind it — the working and weaving of the Hierarchies.” It is wonderful to look truly into the destiny of a human being, for behind it stands the whole world of the Hierarchies.

It is indeed the language of the stars which sounds towards us from the thoughts of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide; from the Christmas thought, inasmuch as the Earth is a star within the Universe; from the Easter thought, inasmuch as the most radiant of stars, the Sun, gives us his gifts of grace; and from the Whitsun thought, inasmuch as that which lies hidden beyond the stars lights into the soul, and lights forth again from the soul in the fiery tongues of Pentecost.

Enter into all this, my dear friends! I have told you of the Father, the Bearer of the Christmas thought, who sends the Son that through him the Easter thought may be fulfilled; I have told you further how the Son brings the message of the Spirit, so that in the thought of Whitsun man's life on Earth may be completed in its threefold being. Meditate this through, ponder it well; then for all the descriptive foundations I have already given you for an understanding of karma, you will gain a right foundation of inner feeling.

Try to let the Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun thoughts, in the way I have expressed them to you today, work deeply and truly into your human feeling, and when we meet again after the journey which I must undertake this Whitsuntide for the Course on Agriculture — when we come together again, bring this feeling with you, my dear friends. For this feeling should live on in you as the warm and fiery thought of Pentecost. Then we shall be able to go further in our study of karma; your power of understanding will be fertilized by what the Whitsun thought contains.

Just as once upon a time at the first Whitsun Festival something shone forth from each one of the disciples, so the thought of Pentecost should now become alive again for our anthroposophical understanding. Something must light up and shine forth from our souls. Therefore it is as a Whitsun feeling, to prepare you for the further continuation of our thoughts on karma, which are related to the other half of the year, that I have given you what I have said today about the inner connections of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide.

Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19240604p01.html#Xote01

Whitsun: The Festival of Freedom and Eternity

     

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  — John 8:32

Ex Deo Nascimur       In Christo Morimur       Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus

Rudolf Steiner, Hamburg

Whitsunday, May 15, 1910

As awakeners of ancient memories, festivals turn our thoughts and feelings to the past. Through what they signify they awaken in us thoughts that link us to all that our souls held holy in distant ages. But other thoughts also are roused through the understanding of the content of these festivals, thoughts which turn our eyes to the future of mankind, which, for us, means the future of our own souls. Feelings are awakened which lend us the enthusiasm to live on into the future, and inspire our wills with strength so to work that we may grow ever more and more adequate for our future tasks.

It is with this backward and forward vision that we become able to describe, in the deeper sense of the word, the nature of the Whitsun festival. What it signifies for Western humanity is put before us in a mighty picture which speaks to the very depths of our soul. It is a picture we all know well. The Founder and Inaugurator of Christianity, after having accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha, dwelt for a time among those who were able to perceive Him, in that bodily form which He assumed after the Mystery of Golgotha. The events which followed that period are brought before our souls in a most significant series of pictures. In a mighty vision, known as the Ascension, His closest disciples visibly beheld the dissolution of that bodily form which He had assumed. Then ten days later there followed what is expressed for us in another picture, speaking powerfully to all hearts which have the will to understand it. The disciples of Christ are gathered together, those who were the first to understand Him. Deep in their hearts they feel the mighty impulse which through Him has entered into the evolution of humanity, and, after the promise given to them of the happenings they were to experience in their very souls, they are waiting in utmost expectation, gathered together in deepest devotion on the Day of Pentecost, the time-honoured festival of their people. First there takes place that which is presented in the picture of the “rushing mighty wind.” Through this their souls are lifted up into higher vision. They are summoned as it were to turn their gaze on what is yet to come to pass, on what will await them when, with the fire-impulse they have received into their hearts, they live on this earth in incarnation after incarnation in the future.

There is next portrayed before us the picture of the “tongues of fire” which descend upon the head of each of the disciples, and here another tremendous vision reveals to them what the future of this Christ Impulse is to be. For gathered together, and beholding in spirit the spiritual world, these men, who were the first to understand the Christ, feel as if they were not speaking to people near to them in space or in time: they feel their hearts borne far, far away, among the different peoples of the earth-sphere, and they feel as if something lives in their hearts which is translatable into all languages, and which can be brought to the understanding of the hearts of all men. In this mighty vision of the future of Christianity which rises before them, these first disciples feel themselves as though surrounded by future disciples out of all the peoples of the earth, and as if they will, one day, have the power to proclaim the Gospel in words that will be understandable, not only to those directly near to them in time and space, but to all who live on the earth as human beings conscious of their destiny. This it was which was born out of the first Christian Pentecostal festival as the inner content of soul and feeling of these earliest disciples of Christ.

Let us now consider the interpretation of these pictures in their deepest esoteric Christian meaning. — The Spirit, also rightly named the Holy Spirit — for so he is — sent his forces down to the earth in the first descent to the earth of Christ Jesus. He next manifested himself when Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist. Now, once again, this same Spirit, in another form, in the form of many single, shining, fiery tongues, descended upon each single individual of the first Christian believers.

We are told about this Holy Spirit at the Whitsun festival in a quite special way, but we must get clear in our minds the meaning of the words “Holy Spirit,” as they are used in the Gospels. In the first place, how was the Spirit usually spoken of in ancient times, the times preceding those of the Gospel? In olden times the Spirit was spoken of in many connections, but in one connection particularly. Through the new knowledge which Spiritual Science gives us, we are enabled to say that when a man passes through birth into his existence between birth and death, the body in which the individuality is incarnated is determined in two ways. Our bodily nature has actually a double function to fulfil: it makes us a human being, but it also makes us members of this or that people, this or that race or family. In the ancient times which preceded Christianity, little as yet was experienced of what can be called world-wide humanity, of that feeling of human fellowship which in ever greater measure has lived in human hearts only since Christianity was proclaimed, and which says to us: Thou art fellow-man with all the human beings of the earth! On the other hand, that feeling was all the stronger which makes each man a member of a particular people or tribe. This indeed is expressed in the age-long religion of the Hindus in their belief that only one who is such through his blood, can be a real Hindu. In many directions — despite exceptions to the principle — this was also firmly held by the old Hebrew people before the coming of Christ. According to their view, a man belonged to his people only because his parents, themselves belonging to it and so blood-related, had placed him into it. But they were also always familiar with another feeling, which was more or less felt by all peoples in olden times, namely, that one was a member of one's family, a member of one's own folk, and nothing more. The further we go back into antiquity the more intense this feeling is, the more the human being feels himself as a member of his folk, and not in any way as a single individual. Gradually, however, there awoke the feeling of oneself as a single human being, a single human, individuality with individual human qualities. Thus these two principles were felt to be present in the outer nature of man: membership of a people, and awareness of oneself as a single personality.

Now the forces inherent in these two principles were ascribed in a different way to the two parents. The principle by virtue of which one belonged more to one's folk, by virtue of which one was related to the general race-community, was ascribed through heredity to the mother. When men felt according to this idea, they said of the mother: “In her the Spirit of the folk holds sway. She was filled with the Spirit of the folk and has passed on to the child the qualities common to her people.” But of the father it was said that he was the bearer and transmitter of the principle which gave rather the individual, personal characteristics of the human being. Thus it could be said when a man came into the world through birth — and this was also the view of the old Hebrew people in pre-Christian times — that he was an individual personality through the forces of his father. The mother, however, through that which was special in her whole nature, was felt to be filled with the Spirit which held sway in the folk, and this she had handed on to the child. Thus it was said of the mother, that the Spirit of the folk dwelt in her, and it was in this connection that the Spirit was spoken of who sent his forces down out of spiritual realms into humanity — that he let his forces stream down into the physical world, into humanity, by way of the mother.

Through the Christ Impulse, however, a new conception had come — a conception which said that this Spirit of which men had previously spoken, this Spirit of the folk, was to be replaced by one which, though certainly related to it, worked at a far higher level, a Spirit which is related to the whole of mankind, as the earlier Spirit had been related to a particular people. This Spirit was to be given to man and to fill him with the power to say: “I feel I belong no longer only to a part of humanity, but to the whole of it; I am a member of the whole of mankind, and will become a member of it ever more and more!” This force, which poured a universal human quality over the whole of mankind, was attributed to “the Holy Spirit.” Thus the Spirit which was expressed in the force which flowed from the folk into the mother was raised from ‘Spirit’ to ‘Holy Spirit.’

The One who was to bring mankind the power to develop this universal human nature ever more and more in earthly life, could dwell — as the first Being of this nature — only in a body bequeathed through the power of the Holy Spirit. This the mother of Jesus received in the Annunciation. In the Gospel of St. Matthew we hear of the consternation of Joseph, of whom it is said that he was a ‘righteous’ man. This word was used in the old sense, and meant that he was one who could only believe that any child of his would be born out of the Spirit of his people. Now he has discovered that the mother of his child is filled, is penetrated through and through (for this is the right meaning of the original word in our language), by the power of a Spirit that was not merely a folk-Spirit, but the Spirit of universal humanity! And he did not feel that he could live with a woman who might one day bear him children, when there dwelt in her the Spirit of humanity as a whole and not the Spirit he held to in his righteousness. Accordingly he wished as it says, to put her away privily. It was only when he also had received a communication out of the spiritual world, that he received the strength to decide to have a son by that woman who was penetrated and filled with the power of this Holy Spirit.

Thus we have seen that this Spirit was creatively at work, first of all in letting its forces stream into human evolution in relation to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, and again in the mighty act of the Baptism in the Jordan. Thus we now understand what the power of the Holy Spirit is: it is the power which will raise each man ever more and more above all that differentiates and separates him from others, and makes him a member of the whole of humanity on the earth, a power which works as a bond of soul between each and every soul, no matter in what bodies they may be.

It is of this same Holy Spirit that we are now told that at the Whitsun festival it streams, through another revelation, into the individualities of those who first accepted Christianity. In the Baptism by John there stands before us the picture of the Spirit as the dove; now, however, another picture appears, the picture of the fiery tongues. It is in a single dove, a single form, that the Holy Spirit manifests itself in John's Baptism: it is in many single tongues that it manifests itself at the Pentecostal festival. And each of the single tongues brings inspiration to an individual, to each of the individualities of the first disciples of Christianity.

What meaning, then, for our souls, has this Whitsun symbol? After Christ, the bearer of the universal-human Spirit, had completed His work on the earth, after He had suffered the last earthly sheaths of His being to disperse into the universe and His whole sheath-nature had departed as a single entity into the spiritual being of the earth, then, did it first become possible that, in the hearts of those who first understood the Christ Impulse there should arise the power of speaking about the Christ Impulse, of working in the significance of the Christ Impulse. As regards its manifestation in its outer sheaths, the Christ Impulse had vanished at the Ascension into the undivided totality of the spiritual world: ten days later it came forth again out of the hearts of the single individualities of its first followers. And because the same Spirit which had worked in the power of the Christ Impulse now reappeared in multiple form, the first disciples of Christianity became the bearers and preachers of the Christ message.

Thus at the very beginning of Christian history was set up the powerful sign of this event, which says to us: “Just as the first disciples received each one the Christ Impulse into themselves, just as it was granted to them to receive it in the form of tongues of fire inspiring their own souls, so can you men, all of you, if you bestir yourselves to understand the Christ Impulse, receive its power, individualised, into your own hearts, the power which can develop in you ever more and more, which can become for you ever more and more complete.” — An all-embracing hope can well forth for us out of this sign, which was thus set at the starting-point of Christianity. The more a man perfects himself, the more can he feel that the Holy Spirit speaks out of his own inner being, in the measure that his thinking, feeling and willing are permeated by this Holy Spirit, which through its manifold division is also an individual Spirit in each single human individuality in which it works.

In regard to our future growth therefore, this Holy Spirit is for us men the Spirit of development into free manhood, into the free human soul. The Spirit of freedom holds sway in that Spirit which poured itself out over the first understanders of Christianity in the first Christian Pentecostal festival, the Spirit whose most significant characteristic was indicated by Christ Himself: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” Man can become free only in the spirit. So long as he is dependent on that bodily nature in which his spirit dwells, so long does he remain its slave. He can become free, only when he finds himself again in spirit, and from out of the spirit becomes lord over that which is in him. “To become free” presupposes the discovery of oneself as a spirit within oneself. The true spirit in which we can make this discovery is the universal human spirit, which we recognise as the Pentecostal power of the Holy Spirit entering into us, and which we must bring to birth in ourselves and allow to come to manifestation.

Thus the Whitsun symbol is transformed for us into the most powerful of our ideals, the free development of the soul of man into a self-enclosed, free individuality. They had some dim feeling of this who, through inspiration, and not, of course, in clear consciousness, had to do with appointing for the Whitsun festival its special day in the year. This outer ordering is in itself remarkable; for whoever cannot detect an all-ruling wisdom even in the fixing of a festival day understands very little of the world. Let us consider from this point of view the three festivals: Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun. As a Christian festival Christmas falls on a particular day in the year; it has been fixed once and for all for a particular day in December, and every year we celebrate Christmas on the selfsame day. It is otherwise with the Easter festival. Easter is a movable feast, which is determined by the constellations in the heavens; it falls on the first Sunday after the full moon which follows the Spring equinox. For this festival we must direct our gaze into the heights of heaven, where the stars go on their way and proclaim to us the laws of the cosmos. Easter is a movable feast, just as in each human individuality that moment is movable in which, in order to become free from the ordinary human lower nature, there awakens the power of the higher man, with a higher consciousness. Just as in one year Easter falls on this day, in another year on that, so with each man, according to his past and the strength of his endeavour, the moment comes sooner or later in which he becomes aware: “I can find the power in myself to let a higher man arise out of me.”

Christmas, however, is an immovable festival. It is the festival where man has left behind him in the course of the year the waxing and waning of nature, the joy of nature's upwelling, streaming forces. Man now beholds nature in a state of sleep, into which she has carried down within herself the force of the seeds. The world of nature has withdrawn herself, with all the birth-forces within her. When to the external world of sense the revelation of these forces is at its lowest; when the earth herself shows how at a given time her spiritual forces withdraw in order to wait for the coming year; when outer nature is at her most silent; then it is, in the Christmas festival, that man must let the thought rise in him that he may hope that he is not only united with the earthly forces, which now at this Christmas time are silent, but also with forces which are present not only on earth but also in spiritual realms. This hope must rise up in his soul because he has seen the earth as it were sink into sleep; it must well up out of the deepest, inmost part of the soul itself, and then it will become spiritual light, when outer physical nature is at its darkest. Through the symbol of the Christmas festival man must thus remind himself that, in the first place, he is just as much bound with his ego-forces to his earth-body, as that which reveals itself around him is bound to the yearly life of the earth. In keeping with the falling asleep of the earth, which takes place at the same time each year, the Christmas festival is also placed at the same time, so that at that time man shall remember that while he is bound to a body, yet he is not condemned to be united only with this, but may hope to find the power to become a free soul within himself. What we see as the meaning of the Christmas festival will thus remind us, both of our connection with the body and also of our hope to free ourselves from this body.

It depends, however, on our own efforts, whether it is earlier or later that we unfold those powers for which we may hope, and which lead us up again into the spiritual, heavenly world. To this thought the Easter festival must bring us. The Easter festival reminds us that we have not only at our disposal those forces which the body gives us, and which are themselves, of course, divine-spiritual forces, but it also reminds us that as men we can raise ourselves above the earth. Hence it is the Easter festival that speaks to us of that force which sooner or later must be brought to its awakening in us. Easter, as a movable festival, is determined according to the constellations in the heavens. So man must waken the recollection of what he can become, by turning his gaze to the sky so as to see how he can be freed from earthly existence, how he can lift himself above all such existence. In the force which comes to us in this way lies the possibility of inner freedom, of inner release. When we feel inwardly that we can raise ourselves above ourselves, we shall then strive to achieve this ascent in all reality; we shall then have the will to make our inner man free, to pull him clear, as it were, from his bondage to the outer man. We shall, of course, be dwelling in the outer man, but we shall be fully conscious of our inner spiritual power, we shall be conscious of the inner man.

Furthermore, it depends upon this moment, at which, in this inner Easter festival, we grow aware that we can free ourselves, whether we also attain to the Whitsun festival, when we may fill the spirit, which has found itself within itself, with a content that is not of this world, but of the spiritual world. This content comes to us out of the spiritual world, and this alone can make us free. It is the spiritual truth of which Christ said: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” It is for this reason that the Whitsun festival is dependent on the Easter festival, because it is a consequence of the Easter festival. Easter is determined according to the heavenly constellations; Whitsun is an event which must follow it as a necessary result, after the lapse of a certain number of weeks.

Thus, even in the way in which the times for these festivals are determined, we see, on deeper reflection, an all-ruling wisdom; we see that these festivals are of necessity placed just where they are in the course of the year, and that each year they bring before us what, as men, we have been and are — and what we can become. When we know how to think of these festivals in this way, then they become for us festivals which unite us with all that is past, and they become an impulse implanted in humanity to carry it forward into the future.

The Whitsun festival in particular, when we understand it in this way, bestows confidence, strength and hope, when we know what we can become in our souls through following those who, as the first to understand the Christ Impulse, made themselves worthy to have the fiery tongues descend upon them. When we understand the Whitsun festival as a festival, not only of that moment, but of the future as well, then there is magically brought before our spiritual eyes the expectancy of receiving the Holy Spirit. But then we must learn to understand this Whitsun festival in its truly Christian sense. We must learn to understand first of all what the mighty tongues, the mighty Whitsun inspiration, said. What was it which sounded forth with trumpet-tones from the ‘rushing mighty wind,’ of which we are told in that picture which is placed before our souls as the Whitsun picture of the first Christian Pentecostal festival? What kind of voices were these which proclaimed in the wondrous music of the spheres: “You have experienced the power of the Christ Impulse, you who are the first to understand. And the power of the Christ in you has become a power of your own souls, in such a way that each one of you, now that the Event of Golgotha has been accomplished, has become able to see the Christ now, in this present time. With such strength has the Christ Impulse worked upon each one of you!”

The Christ Impulse, however, is an impulse of freedom; its true activity does not reveal itself when it takes place outside the human soul. The true working of the Christ Impulse does not appear until it takes place within the individual human soul itself. So it was that those who first understood the Christ felt themselves called through the Whitsun event to proclaim what was in their own souls, what in the revelation and inspiration of their own souls revealed itself to them as the content of the Christ-teaching. In that they were aware that the Christ Impulse had worked in that holy preparation which they had undergone before the Whitsun festival, they felt themselves called, through the power of the Christ Impulse working within them, to let speak the fiery tongues, the individualized Holy Spirit within them, and to go forth and proclaim the Gospel of Christ. It was not simply what Christ had once said to them that those first disciples recognized as words of Christ, not only those words He had already spoken. They recognized as Christ-words that which comes out of the power of a soul which feels the Christ Impulse within itself. [Cf. I Cor. VII, 25 and 40.]

To this end did the Holy Spirit pour itself in individualized form into each single human soul, so that each one might develop the power, in itself, to feel the Christ Impulse. Then for such a soul the word becomes new: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Those, therefore, who are earnestly at pains to experience the Christ Impulse may also feel called on, by what the Christ Impulse arouses in their hearts, to proclaim afresh the word of Christ, even though it may sound forth ever new, ever different in each epoch of mankind. It was not that we might cling to the few words of the Gospels spoken in the first decade of Christianity's foundation that the Holy Spirit was poured down on men: it was poured forth so that for ever the Gospel of Christ may relate new things and again things ever new. As the souls of men progress from epoch to epoch, from incarnation to incarnation, new things must always be spoken for these human souls. Should these souls, advancing from incarnation to incarnation, be told to accept as the proclamation of Christ only the words which were spoken when they were incarnated in bodies contemporary with the temporal appearance of Christ on the earth? Within the Christ Impulse dwells the power to speak to all men, until the end of the time-cycle of the Earth. That this may be, however, there must be added that which makes it possible for the message of Christ to be made known in each age to the ever advancing souls of men, in a way appropriate to them. So when we feel the full strength and power of the Whitsun impulse, we should feel that it is laid on us to listen to the word: “I am with you always, even to the end of the Earth's cycle of time!” And when you fill yourselves with the Christ Impulse you can hear continually through all the ages the Word, stirred into life at the founding of Christianity by the Founder Himself, the Word that Christ speaks in every age because He is with men in every age, the Word which all can hear who have the will to hear it.

Thus we understand the power of the Whitsun impulse as that which gives us the right to regard Christianity as something which is ever growing, always bestowing on us new and again ever new revelations. We know that in the Spiritual Science of today we are proclaiming the Christ-Word itself, ringing through to us from out of the heavenly choirs, and we say to those who would preserve Christianity only in its original form: “We are those who understand the Christ in truth, for we understand the real meaning of the Whitsun festival!”

Whenever we feel ourselves thus called to bring forth ever new wisdom-teaching out of Christianity, we must bring forth just that wisdom which is fitting for men's souls at that stage of their progressive development from incarnation to incarnation. Christianity is endlessly full, endlessly rich; but this endless fullness and richness was not always available to man in the centuries in which Christianity had first to be proclaimed. What presumption it would be to say, even at the present time, that mankind is now mature enough to understand Christianity in its infinite fullness and its infinite greatness! That alone is true Christian humility which says: The scope of Christian wisdom is without end, but the receptivity of man for this wisdom was at first limited; it will become ever more and more complete.

Let us look at the first Christian centuries, right up to our own day. A great and mighty impulse, the greatest ever given in the earthly evolution of man, was given with the Christ Impulse. This is something of which everyone can become conscious who learns to understand the process of the evolution of the Earth. But one thing must not be forgotten: only a small part of what the Christ Impulse contains has been understood up till now. For the past, close on two millennia of Christian development, what was given in esoteric Christianity could be a teaching only for those to whom Christianity was brought, and could not be embodied in outer, exoteric life.

For example, there could not be embodied what can be taught in our present epoch as a Christian truth, namely, the fact of the re-embodiment of mankind, or reincarnation. When we, in Anthroposophy, teach reincarnation today, we are fully conscious, in the light of the Whitsun festival, that reincarnation is a Christian truth which can be made known exoterically today to a humanity which has become more mature, but which could not be made known to the immature souls of the first Christian centuries. Little is done by attempting to show, by citing single instances, that the thought of reincarnation is also to be found in Christianity. One can discover from those opponents of Spiritual Science who call themselves Christian how little is known in exoteric Christianity of reincarnation. The only thing they know is that Spiritual Science teaches something or other about reincarnation, and that is enough for them to say it is Indian or Buddhistic. They little know that it is the living Christ, from out of the spiritual world, who is the living teacher of reincarnation today. People regard reincarnation, as also the doctrine of karma, as things which up till now have not been able to penetrate into exoteric Christianity. But it is little by little, in one age after another, that the fullness of truth which lies in Christianity has had to be given to mankind. With the Christ Impulse itself — which is not a teaching or a theory, but a real force that has to be experienced in the innermost depths of the soul — with this Impulse itself something is actually imparted to us. What is this? It is just when we bring the Christ Impulse into connection with the teaching of reincarnation that we can understand what is given in it.

We know that a few centuries before Christianity began, another teaching, a formal teaching, was given, for the most part in Eastern lands, namely, the teaching of the Buddha. While the power and the impulse of Christianity were spreading from the Near East into the West, the Far East witnessed a widespread expansion of Buddhism. Of this teaching we know that it contained the doctrine of reincarnation. But in what form? For those who know the facts, Buddhism presents itself as the final product of the teachings and revelations which had preceded it. Accordingly it contained in itself all the greatness of antiquity; it put forward something like a final conclusion of the primeval wisdom of mankind in which was contained the doctrine of reincarnation.

But how did Buddhism clothe this doctrine in its revelations? In such a way that man looks back at the incarnations which he has passed through, and forward to the incarnations which he has still to experience. That man passes through many incarnations is an entirely exoteric teaching in Buddhism. It is quite wrong to speak of an abstract similarity between all religions. In actual truth, mighty and far-reaching differences exist between them, as, for example, between Christianity, which for centuries harbored no thoughts of reincarnation, and exoteric Buddhism, which lived and moved in such thoughts. In this connection it is entirely useless to put together mere abstractions; rather must one recognize the world of reality. It is an utter certainty for Buddhism that man always returns to the Earth; the Buddhist, however, looks on this in the following way. He says: “Combat the urge to descend into these incarnations, for thy real task is, as quickly as possible, to free thyself from the thirst to go through them, so as to live in freedom from all earthly incarnation in a spiritual realm!” It is thus that the Buddhist regards the sequence of human incarnations, striving to acquire all the forces he can in order to withdraw from these incarnations as soon as possible. One thing Buddhism has not got — and this is plain in its exoteric teaching. It does not contain anything that can be called an impulse strong enough to grow ever more toward human perfection. That would enable the Buddhist to say: “By all means, let the incarnations come! Through the Christ Impulse we can so shape ourselves that we can extract ever more and more from them. Through the Christ Impulse we possess a force which can give these incarnations an ever loftier content. Permeate Buddhism — or what is found in it of the true doctrine of reincarnation — with the Christ Impulse, and you have a new element which gives the Earth a new meaning in the evolution of mankind!”

On the other hand, Christianity has the Christ Impulse, and that as something exoteric. But how has it regarded this Impulse in earlier centuries? Undoubtedly the exoteric Christian sees in it something infinitely perfect, that should live in himself as the great ideal which he himself approaches ever more and more. But how presumptuous it would be for the Christian to think that in a single earthly life he could have enough power to bring to fulfillment the seed which can be kindled into life through the Christ Impulse! How presumptuous it would be for the exoteric Christian to believe that in one life he would be in the position to achieve anything adequate for the unfolding of the Christ Impulse. Accordingly the exoteric Christian says: “We go through the gates of death. Then in the spiritual world we shall have the opportunity to develop further and to unfold the Christ Impulse further in that world.” — And so the exoteric Christian conceives of a spiritual life after death from which there is no return to the Earth.

Does, however, an exoteric Christian, who believes that an existence in a spiritual world is thus added to the life on Earth, understand the Christ Impulse? He does not understand it in the least. For if he did, he would never believe that what the Christ Impulse has to give him can be achieved in a spiritual life beyond death, without any return to the Earth. In order that the Deed on Golgotha could take place, in order that this victory over death could be achieved, the Christ Himself had to descend into this life on Earth; and this indeed He had to do in order to accomplish something which can be experienced and lived through only on our Earth. The Christ came down to Earth because the power of the Deed of Golgotha had to work upon men in the physical body. Hence also the Christ-power can work at first only on men in the physical body. What man has received of the power of the Mystery of Golgotha in the physical body, this can then work further, when he goes through the gate of death. But only as much of the Christ Impulse as man has taken into himself in the life between birth and death works on. Man must strive on to the further completion of that which he has already received, when he comes again to the Earth, and only in his successive earthly lives to come can he learn to understand all that lives in the Christ Impulse. Never could man understand the Christ Impulse, if he lived only once on the Earth. This Impulse, therefore, must lead us through repeated Earth-lives, because the Earth is the place for the discovery of the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha. [i.e. in and through physical consciousness.]

And so Christianity is only complete when one replaces the assumption that one could live out the Christ Impulse in one incarnation, by the other thought, that only through repeated earthly lives can man so perfect himself that he may live out in himself the Christ Ideal. What he has experienced on Earth in connection with it he can then bring up into the spiritual world. But he can only bring as much as he has grasped on the Earth of that Impulse, which itself had to be fulfilled on the Earth, as the most important event of all earthly happenings. Thus we see that the thought which must next be added to Christianity out of spiritual revelation is the thought of reincarnation, born from out of Christianity itself. When we understand this we shall see what it signifies for us today, in the sphere of Spiritual Science, to be conscious that we fashion ourselves out of the Whitsun revelation. It signifies for us that we are right in listening to the revelation, in seeing a renewal of the revelation of that power which was in the “fiery tongues,” which descended upon those who first understood the Christ.

In this way a great deal of what has been said recently in our Movement can come before us today with new meaning. We see the fusion of East and West, of the two mighty revelations of Christianity and Buddhism; we see them flow together in the spiritual. And through the right understanding of the Christian Whitsun thought we can justify the flowing together of these two greatest religions of the Earth today. But it is not through merely external impulses that we can unite these two revelations; that would be to stop at mere theorizing. Anyone trying to take what Christianity and Buddhism have provided up till now and to weld them together into a new religion would not create a new spiritual content for mankind, but only an abstract theory, incapable of warming a single human soul. If this is to happen, new revelations are necessary. And that, for us, is what resounds today as the proclamation of spirit-knowledge — audible, it is true, only to such as have matured themselves in spiritual-scientific schooling: “Let the Christ, who is always with us, speak in us.”

We know that we live in an important time of human evolution: that already before the close of this century new forces will develop in the human soul which will lead man to the unfolding of a kind of etheric clairvoyance, whereby, as if through a natural development, there will be renewed for certain human beings the event which Paul experienced at Damascus; and that in this way, for the heightened spiritual powers of man, Christ will return in an etheric garb. Ever more and more souls will share in what Paul experienced at Damascus. Then it will be seen in the world that Spiritual Science is the revelation, heralding a renewed and transformed truth of the Christ Impulse. Only those will understand the new revelation who believe that the fresh stream of the spiritual life into which Christ poured Himself will remain living for all ages to come. Whoever will not believe that, may preach a Christianity which has grown old. But whoever believes in the Whitsun event and understands it will also bring to mind that what began with the Christian evangel will develop ever farther and farther and will speak to men in ever new tones; that there will always be present the individualized soul-worlds of the Holy Spirit, the fiery tongues, and that in ever-renewed fire and impulse the human soul will be able to live with and live out of the Christ Impulse.

We can believe in the future of Christianity when in very truth we understand the Whitsun thought. And then there comes before us the mighty picture, with a force that works like a force present in the soul itself. Then do we feel the future, as the first understanders felt it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, if only we are willing to make alive in our souls that which knows nothing of the boundaries separating the different parts of humanity and speaks a language which all souls, all the world over, can understand. We feel the thought of peace, of love, of harmony, which lies in the Whitsun thought. And we feel this Whitsun thought enlivening our Whitsun festival. We feel it to be a surety for our hope of freedom and eternity. Because we feel the individualized spirit awakening in our souls, there awakens in us the most significant element of the spirit: the endlessness of the spiritual. Through sharing in the spiritual, man can become conscious of his immortality and his eternity. And in the Whitsun thought we truly realize the power of those primal words which initiate after initiate continued to implant, and which reveal to us the meaning of wisdom and eternity: we feel them as a Whitsun thought, handed on from epoch to epoch, in the words which today for the first time sound forth exoterically:

Being is ranged by Being in the widths of Space,

Being follows on Being in the courses of Time,
Remain'st thou in widths of Space, in courses of Time,
Then art thou, O man, in the passing world alone.
But above them with power thy soul itself upraises
When, divining or knowing, it beholds what passes not;
Beyond the widths of Space, beyond the courses of Time!

Wesen reiht sich an Wesen in den Raumesweiten,
Wesen folgt auf Wesen in den Zeitenläufen.
Verbleibst du in Raumesweiten und Zeitenläufen,
Bist du, 0 Mensch, allein in Gebiete der Vergänglichkeit.
Über sie aber erhebt deine Seele sich gewaltiglich,
Wenn sie erahnend oder wissend schaut das Unvergängliche
Jenseits der Raumesweiten und jenseits der Zeitenläufe!

Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19100515p01.html