Gautama Buddha on Mars

Rudolf Steiner, December 18, 1912:

Friends have expressed the wish that I should speak today on the subject of the lecture here a year ago,  when it was said that the initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz took place in very special circumstances in the thirteenth century, and that since then this individuality has worked unceasingly throughout the centuries. Today we shall hear more about the character and the person of Christian Rosenkreutz as we study the great task which devolved upon him at the dawn of the intellectual age in order that provision might be made for the future of humanity.

Anyone who makes his mark in the world as a leading occultist, like Christian Rosenkreutz, has to reckon with the conditions peculiar to his epoch. The intrinsic nature of spiritual life as it is in the present age developed for the first time when modern natural science came upon the scene with men like Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, and others. Nowadays people are taught about Copernicus in their early schooldays, and the impressions thus received remain with them their whole life long. In earlier times the soul experienced something different. Try to picture to yourselves what a contrast there is between a man of the modern age and one who lived centuries ago. Before the days of Copernicus everyone believed that the Earth remains at rest in cosmic space with the Sun and the stars revolving around it. The very ground slipped from under men's feet when Copernicus came forward with the doctrine that the Earth is moving with tremendous speed through the universe. We should not underestimate the effects of such a revolution in thinking, accompanied as it was by a corresponding change in the life of feeling. All the thoughts and ideas of men were suddenly different from what they had been before the days of Copernicus. And now let us ask: What has occultism to say about this revolution in thinking?

Anyone who asks from the standpoint of occultism what kind of world conception can be derived from the Copernican tenets will have to admit that although these ideas can lead to great achievements in the realm of natural science and in external life, they are incapable of promoting any understanding of the spiritual foundations of the world and the things of the world, for there has never been a worse instrument for understanding the spiritual foundations of the world than the ideas of Copernicus — never in the whole of human evolution. The reason for this is that all these Copernican concepts are inspired by Lucifer. Copernicanism is one of the last attacks, one of the last great attacks made by Lucifer upon the evolution of man. In earlier, pre-Copernican thought, the external world was indeed maya, but much traditional wisdom, much truth concerning the world and the things of the world still survived. Since Copernicus, however, man has maya around him not only in his material perceptions, but his concepts and ideas are themselves maya. Men take it for granted nowadays that the Sun is firmly fixed in the middle and the planets revolve around it in ellipses. In the near future, however, it will be realized that the view of the world of the stars held by Copernicus is much less correct than the earlier Ptolemaic view. The view of the world held by the school of Copernicus and Kepler is very convenient, but as an explanation of the macrocosm it is not the truth.

And so Christian Rosenkreutz, confronted by a world conception which is itself a maya, an illusion, had to come to grips with it. Christian Rosenkreutz had to save occultism in an age when all the concepts of science were themselves maya. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Copernicus' Book of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres appeared. At the end of the sixteenth century the Rosicrucians were faced with the necessity of comprehending the world system by means of occultism, for with its materially conceived globes in space the Copernican world-system was maya, even as concept. Thus towards the end of the sixteenth century one of those conferences took place of which we heard here a year ago in connection with the initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz himself in the thirteenth century. This occult conference of leading individualities united Christian Rosenkreutz with those twelve individualities of that earlier time and certain other great individualities concerned with the leadership of humanity. There were present not only personalities in incarnation on the physical plane but also some who were in the spiritual worlds; and the individuality who in the sixth century before Christ had been incarnated as Gautama Buddha also participated.

The occultists of the East rightly believe — for they know it to be the truth — that the Buddha who in his twenty-ninth year rose from the rank of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha had incarnated then for the last time in a physical body. It is absolutely true that when the individuality of a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha he no longer appears on the Earth in physical incarnation. But this does not mean that he ceases to be active in the affairs of the Earth. The Buddha continues to work for the Earth, although he is never again present in a physical body but sends down his influence from the spiritual world. The Gloria heard by the shepherds in the fields intimated from the spiritual world that the forces of Buddha were streaming into the astral body of the child Jesus described in the St. Luke Gospel. The words of the Gloria came from Buddha, who was working in the astral body of the child Jesus. This wonderful message of peace and love is an integral part of Buddha's contribution to Christianity. But later on too, Buddha influences the deeds of men — not physically, but from the spiritual world — and he has cooperated in measures that have been necessary for the sake of progress in the evolution of humanity.

In the seventh and eighth centuries, for example, there was a very important center of initiation in the neighborhood of the Black Sea, in which the Buddha taught, in his spirit body. In such schools there are those who teach in the physical body; but it is also possible for the more advanced pupils to receive instruction from one who teaches in an ether-body only. And so the Buddha taught those pupils there who were capable of receiving higher knowledge. Among the pupils of the Buddha at that time was one who incarnated again a few centuries later. We are speaking, therefore, of a physical personality who centuries later lived again in a physical body, in Italy, and is known to us as St. Francis of Assisi. The characteristic quality of Francis of Assisi and of the life of his monks — which has so much similarity with that of the disciples of Buddha — is due to the fact that Francis of Assisi himself was a pupil of Buddha.

It is easy to perceive the contrast between the qualities characteristic of men who like Francis of Assisi were striving fervently for the spirit and those engrossed in the world of industry, technical life, and the discoveries of modern civilization. There were many people, including occultists, who suffered deeply at the thought that in the future two separate classes of human beings would inevitably arise. They foresaw the one class wholly given up to the affairs of practical life, convinced that security depends entirely upon the production of foodstuffs, the construction of machines, and so forth; whereas the other class would be composed of men like Francis of Assisi who withdraw altogether from the practical affairs of the world for the sake of spiritual life.

It was a significant moment, therefore, when Christian Rosenkreutz, in the sixteenth century, called together a large group of occultists in preparation for the aforesaid conference, and described to them the two types of human beings that would inevitably arise in the future. First he gathered a large circle of people, later on a smaller one, to present them with this weighty fact. Christian Rosenkreutz held this preparatory meeting a few years beforehand, not because he was in doubt about what would happen, but because he wanted to get the people to contemplate the perspectives of the future. In order to stimulate their thinking he spoke roughly as follows: Let us look at the future of the world. The world is moving fast in the direction of practical activities, industry, railways, and so on. Human beings will become like beasts of burden. And those who do not want this will be, like Francis of Assisi, impractical with regard to life, and they will develop an inner life only. Christian Rosenkreutz made it clear to his listeners that there was no way on Earth of preventing the formation of these two classes of men. Despite all that might be done for them between birth and death, nothing could hinder mankind being divided into these two classes. As far as conditions on the Earth were concerned it is impossible to find a remedy for the division into classes. Help can only come if a kind of education could be brought about that did not take place between birth and death but between death and a new birth.

Thus the Rosicrucians were faced with the task of working from out of the supersensible world to influence individual human beings. In order to understand what had to take place, we must consider from a particular aspect the life between death and a new birth.

Between birth and death we live on the Earth. Between death and a new birth man has a certain connection with the other planets. In my Theosophy you will find Kamaloka described. This sojourn of man in the soul world is a time during which he becomes an inhabitant of the Moon. Then one after the other, he becomes an inhabitant of Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and then an inhabitant of the further expanses of heaven or the cosmos. One is not speaking incorrectly when one says that between two incarnations on the Earth lie incarnations on other planets, spiritual incarnations. Man at present is not yet sufficiently developed to remember, while in incarnation, his experiences between death and a new birth, but this will become possible in the future. Even though he cannot now remember what he experienced on Mars, for example, he still has Mars forces within him, although he knows nothing about them. One is justified in saying: I am not an Earth inhabitant, but the forces within me include something that I acquired on Mars.

Let me consider a man who lived on Earth after the Copernican world outlook had become common knowledge. Whence did Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and others acquire their abilities in this incarnation? Bear in mind that shortly before that, from 1401 to 1464, the individuality of Copernicus was incarnated as Nicholas of Cusa, a profound mystic. Think of the completely different mood of his docta ignorantia. How did the forces that made Copernicus so very different from Nicholas of Cusa enter this individuality?

The forces that made him the astronomer he was came to him from Mars! Similarly, Galileo also received forces from Mars that invested him with the special configuration of a modern natural scientist. Giordano Bruno too brought his powers with him from Mars, and so it is with the whole of mankind. That people think like Copernicus or Giordano Bruno is due to the Mars forces they acquire between death and a new birth.

But the acquisition of the kind of powers which lead from one triumph to another is due to the fact that Mars had a different influence in those times from what it exercised previously. Mars used to radiate different forces. The Mars culture that human beings experience between death and a new birth went through a great crisis in the Earth's fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was as decisive and catastrophic a time on Mars in the fifteenth and sixteenth century as it was on the Earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Just as at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha the actual ego of man was born, there was born on Mars that particular tendency which, in man, comes to expression in Copernicanism. When these conditions came into force on Mars, the natural consequence would have been for Mars to continue sending down to Earth human beings who only brought Copernican ideas with them, which are really only maya.

What we are seeing, then, is the decline of the Mars culture. Previously, Mars had sent forth good forces. But now Mars sent forth more and more forces that would have led men deeper and deeper into maya. The achievements that were inspired by Mars at that time were ingenious and clever, but they were maya all the same.

So you see that in the fifteenth century you could have said Mars' salvation, and the Earth's too, depended on the declining culture of Mars receiving a fresh impulse to raise it up again. It was somewhat similar on Mars to what it had been like on the Earth before the Mystery of Golgotha, when humanity had fallen from spiritual heights into the depths of materialism, and the Christ Impulse had signified an ascent. In the fifteenth century the necessity had arisen on Mars for the Mars culture to receive an upward impulse. That was the significant question facing Christian Rosenkreutz and his pupils; how this upward impulse could be given to the Mars culture, for the salvation of the Earth was also at stake. Rosicrucianism was faced with the mighty task of solving the problem of what had to happen so that, for the Earth's sake, the Mars culture should be brought once more onto an ascending path. The beings on Mars were not in a position to know what would bring about their salvation, for the Earth was the only place where one could know what the situation on Mars was like. On Mars itself they were unaware of the decline.

Therefore it was in order to find a practical solution to this problem that the aforesaid conference met at the end of the sixteenth century. This conference was well prepared by Christian Rosenkreutz in that the closest friend and pupil of Christian Rosenkreutz was Gautama Buddha, living in a spirit body. And it was announced at this conference that the being who incarnated as Gautama Buddha, in the spiritual form he now had since becoming Buddha, would transfer the scene of his activities to Mars. The individuality of Gautama Buddha was as it were sent by Christian Rosenkreutz from the Earth to Mars.

So Gautama Buddha leaves the scene of his activity and goes to Mars, and in the year 1604 the individuality of Gautama Buddha accomplished for Mars a deed similar to what the Mystery of Golgotha was for the Earth.

Christian Rosenkreutz had known what the effect of Buddha on Mars would signify for the whole cosmos, what his teachings of Nirvana, of liberation from the Earth, would signify on Mars. The teaching of Nirvana was unsuited to a form of culture directed primarily to practical life. Buddha's pupil, Francis of Assisi, was an example of the fact that this teaching produces in its adepts complete remoteness from the world and its affairs. But the content of Buddhism, which was not adapted to the practical life of man between birth and death, was of great importance for the soul between death and a new birth. Christian Rosenkreutz realized that for a certain purification needed on Mars the teachings of Buddha were preeminently suitable.

The Christ Being, the essence of divine love, had once come down to the Earth to a people in many respects alien, and in the seventeenth century Buddha, the prince of peace, went to Mars — the planet of war and conflict — to execute his mission there. The souls on Mars were warlike, tom with strife. Thus Buddha performed a deed of sacrifice similar to the deed performed in the Mystery of Golgotha by the bearer of the essence of divine love. To dwell on Mars as Buddha was a deed of sacrifice offered to the cosmos. He was as it were the lamb offered up in sacrifice on Mars, and to accept this environment of strife was for him a kind of crucifixion. Buddha performed this deed on Mars in the service of Christian Rosenkreutz. Thus do the great beings who guide the world work together not only on the Earth but from one planet to another.

Since the mystery of Mars was consummated by Gautama Buddha, human beings have been able during the period between death and a new birth to receive from Mars different forces from those emanating during Mars' cultural decline. Not only does a man bring with him into a new birth quite different forces from Mars, but because of the influence exercised by the spiritual deed of Buddha,, forces also stream from Mars into men who practice meditation as a means of reaching the spiritual world. When the modern pupil of Spiritual Science meditates in the sense indicated by Christian Rosenkreutz, forces sent to the Earth by Buddha as the redeemer of Mars stream to him.

Christian Rosenkreutz is thus revealed to us as the great servant of Christ Jesus; but what Buddha, as the emissary of Christian Rosenkreutz, was destined to contribute to the work of Christ Jesus — this had also to come to the help of the work performed by Christian Rosenkreutz in the service of Christ Jesus. The soul of Gautama Buddha has not again been in physical incarnation on the Earth, but is utterly dedicated to the work of the Christ impulse. What was the word of peace sent forth from the Buddha to the child Jesus described in the Gospel of St. Luke? ‘Glory in the heights, and on the Earth — peace!’ And this word of peace, issuing mysteriously from Buddha, resounds from the planet of war and conflict to the soul of men on Earth.

Because all these things had transpired it was possible to avert the division of human beings into the two distinct classes, consisting on the one hand of men of the type of Francis of Assisi, and on the other of men who live wholly as materialists. If Buddha had remained in direct and immediate connection with the Earth, he would not have been able to concern himself with the ‘practical’ people, and his influence would have made the others into monks like Francis of Assisi. Through the deed of redemption performed by Gautama Buddha on Mars it is possible for us, when we are passing through the Mars period of existence between death and a new birth, to become followers of Francis of Assisi without causing subsequent deprivation to the Earth. Grotesque as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that since the seventeenth century every human being is a Buddhist, a Franciscan, an immediate follower of Francis of Assisi for a time, while he is on Mars. Francis of Assisi has subsequently only had one brief incarnation on Earth as a child; and he died in childhood and has not incarnated since. From then onwards he has been connected with the work of Buddha on Mars and is one of his most eminent followers.

We have thus placed before our souls a picture of what came to pass through that great conference at the end of the sixteenth century, which resembles what happened on Earth in the thirteenth century when Christian Rosenkreutz gathered his faithful around him. Nothing less was accomplished than that the possibility was given of averting from humanity the threatened separation into two classes, so that men might remain inwardly united. And those who want to develop esoterically despite their absorption in practical life can achieve their goal because the Buddha is working from the sphere of Mars and not from the sphere of the Earth. Those forces which help to promote a healthy esoteric life can therefore also be attributed to the work and influence of Buddha.

In my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment I have dealt with the methods that are appropriate for meditation today. The essential point is that in Rosicrucian training, development is such that the human being is not torn away from the earthly activities demanded of him by his karma. Rosicrucian esoteric development can proceed without causing the slightest disturbance in any situation or occupation in life. Because Christian Rosenkreutz was capable of transferring the work of Buddha from the Earth to Mars it has become possible for Buddha also to send his influences into men from outside the Earth.

Again, then, we have heard of one of the spiritual deeds of Christian Rosenkreutz; but to understand these deeds of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries we must find our way to their esoteric meaning and significance. It would be good if it were generally realized how entirely consistent the progress of theosophy in the West has been since the founding of the Middle European section of the Theosophical Society. Here in Switzerland we have given lecture cycles on the four Gospels. The substance of all these Gospel cycles is potentially contained in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact, written twelve years ago. The book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment describes the Western path of development that is compatible with practical activities of every kind. Today I have indicated that a basic factor in these matters is the mission assigned to Gautama Buddha by Christian Rosenkreutz, for I have spoken of the significant influence which the transference of Buddha to Mars made possible in our solar system. And so stone after stone fits into its proper place in our Western philosophy, for it has been built up consistently and in obedience to principle, and everything that comes later harmonizes with what went before. Inner consistency is essential in any world conception if it is to stand upon the ground of truth. And those who are able to draw near to Christian Rosenkreutz see with reverent wonder in what a consistent way he has carried out the great mission entrusted to him, which in our time is the Rosicrucian-Christian path of development. That the great teacher of Nirvana is now fulfilling a mission outside the Earth, on Mars — this too is one of the wise and consistent deeds of Christian Rosenkreutz.

In conclusion, the following brief practical indication will be added for those who aspire to become pupils of Christian Rosenkreutz.

A year ago we heard how the knowledge of having a certain relationship to Christian Rosenkreutz may come to a man involuntarily. It is also possible, however, to put a kind of question to one's own destiny: ‘Can I make myself worthy to become a pupil of Christian Rosenkreutz?’ It can come about in the following way: Try to place before your soul a picture of Christian Rosenkreutz, the great teacher of the modern age, in the midst of the twelve, sending forth Gautama Buddha into the cosmos as his emissary at the beginning of the seventeenth century, thus bringing about a consummation of what came to pass in the sixth century before Christ in the sermon of Benares.

If this picture, with its whole import, stands vividly before the soul, if a man feels that something streaming from this great and impressive picture wrings from his soul the words: O man, thou art not merely an earthly being; thou art in truth a cosmic being! — then he may believe with quiet confidence: ‘I can aspire to become a pupil of Christian Rosenkreutz.’ This picture of the relationship of Christian Rosenkreutz to Gautama Buddha is a potent and effective meditation.

And I wanted to awaken this aspiration in you as a result of these considerations. For our ideal should always be to take an interest in world happenings and then to find the way, by means of these studies, to carry out our own development into higher worlds.

Related post: http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-crucifixion-of-buddha-on-mars-in.html

Source: http://www.webcitation.org/5vleIRrvp

The goal of yoga: to become Anthroposophia

Rudolf Steiner:  "It is the mission of the Anthroposophical movement to create, first of all, the conditions which make understanding of Christ possible on the physical plane, and then the power to behold Him."


Hebrews 12

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. 

Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. 

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 

But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 

For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; 

And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. 

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: 

Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; 

Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. 

For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. 

For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 

And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: 

(For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: 

And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) 

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 

To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. 

See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: 

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. 

And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 

For our God is a consuming fire.

Related posts:

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/11/aum-gold-13-ways-of-looking-at-my-guru.html

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/01/per-aspera-ad-astra.html

Rejoice! 35 years at the Himalayan Institute

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/07/rejoice-35-years-at-himalayan-institute.html

The goal of yoga: "that we might be partakers of his holiness"

Hebrews 12

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. 

Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. 

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 

But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 

For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; 

And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. 

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: 

Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; 

Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. 

For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. 

For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 

And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: 

(For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: 

And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) 

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 

To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. 

See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: 

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. 

And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 

For our God is a consuming fire.

Related posts:

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/11/aum-gold-13-ways-of-looking-at-my-guru.html

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/01/per-aspera-ad-astra.html

Rejoice! 35 years at the Himalayan Institute
http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/07/rejoice-35-years-at-himalayan-institute.html

The Buddha Stream and the Second Coming of Christ

Rudolf Steiner, Milan, Italy, September 21, 1911:

In this lecture I want to speak of certain facts which belong essentially to the ethical and moral domain and help us to understand the mission of Spiritual Science in our time.

We are all deeply convinced of the great truth of reincarnation, of repeated earthly lives, and we must realize that this repetition has its own good purpose in the Earth's evolution. To the question ‘Why do we reincarnate?’ — occult research gives the answer that our experiences differ in each of the epochs during which we are reborn on the Earth. In incarnations immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe the experiences of the human soul were entirely different from those undergone in later pre-Christian epochs and in our own age.

I need only briefly mention that in the times directly after the Atlantean catastrophe, souls were endowed with a certain elementary clairvoyance in the bodies they then inhabited. This clairvoyance, once a natural faculty in man, was gradually lost, mainly as a result of the conditions prevailing during the Græco-Roman epoch of culture. Since then, man has developed in such a way that great progress has been achieved on the physical plane, and during the course of the present post-Atlantean epoch clairvoyance will gradually be reacquired.

We are living in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of culture, the ancient Indian being the first, the ancient Persian the second, the Babylonian-Chaldean the third, the Græco-Roman the fourth; the sixth and seventh epochs will follow our own. And then another great catastrophe will befall the Earth and humanity, as was the case at the end of the Atlantean epoch.

Occult research is able to indicate the characteristic trend of human evolution in each of these post-Atlantean epochs of civilization — including the fifth, sixth, and seventh. The essential characteristic of our present fifth epoch is the development of intellect, of reason. The main characteristic of the sixth epoch will be that very definite feelings regarding what is moral and what is immoral will arise in the souls of men. Delicate feelings of sympathy will be aroused by compassionate, kindly deeds, and feelings of antipathy by malicious actions. Nobody living at the present time can have the faintest conception of the intensity of these feelings.

The sixth epoch will be followed by the seventh, when the moral life will be still further deepened. Whereas in the sixth epoch man will take pleasure in good and noble actions, in the seventh epoch the natural outcome of such pleasure will be a moral impulse, that is to say there will be a firm resolve to do what is moral. There is a great difference between taking pleasure in a moral action and the doing of it. We can therefore say: our own epoch is the epoch of intellectualism; the essential characteristic of the following epoch will be aesthetic pleasure in the good, aesthetic displeasure in the evil; and the seventh will be characterized by an active moral life.

At the present time only the seeds of what will become part of mankind in future epochs are contained in the human soul, and it can be said that all these aptitudes or predispositions in man — intellectual aptitudes, predispositions leading to feelings of sympathy or antipathy aroused by certain actions, to moral impulses — all these are related to the higher worlds. Every moral action has la definite connection with the higher worlds. Our intellectual aptitudes have a supersensible connection with the astral plane. Our sympathies and antipathies for the good or the evil are connected with the sphere of Lower Devachan; and the domain of moral impulses in the soul is connected with Higher Devachan. Hence we can also say: In our present age it is mainly the forces of the astral world that penetrate into and take effect in the human soul; in the sixth epoch it will be the forces of Lower Devachan that penetrate more deeply into the soul; and in the seventh, the forces of Higher Devachan will work with special strength into humanity.

From this it is understandable that in the preceding fourth post-Atlantean epoch (the Græco-Roman) it was the forces of the physical plane that exercised the strongest influence upon the soul of man. That is why Greek culture was able to produce such wonderful sculptures, in which the human form was given such magnificent expression on the physical plane. Conditions in that epoch were therefore especially suitable for men to experience the Christ on the physical plane in a physical body. In our own, fifth, epoch which will last until the fourth millennium, souls will gradually become able, from the twentieth century onwards, to experience the Christ Being in an etheric form on the astral plane, just as in the fifth epoch Christ was visible on the physical plane in a physical form.

In order to understand the nature of development in the sixth epoch of culture, it is well to consider what will be the characteristic qualities of the soul in future incarnations. Today, in our intellectual age, intellectuality and morality are practically separate spheres in the life of soul. It is quite possible nowadays for a man to be very clever and at the same time immoral, or vice versa — to be deeply moral and anything but clever.

In the fourth epoch the future juxtaposition of morality and intellectuality was prophetically foreseen by a certain people, namely the Hebrews. They endeavored to bring about an artificial harmony between morality and intellectuality, whereas among the Greeks such harmony was more a natural matter of course. Today we can learn from the Akashic Chronicle how the leaders of the ancient Hebrew people strove to establish this harmony between intellectuality and morality. They wore symbols, of which they had such profound understanding that if they concentrated their gaze upon them and made themselves receptive to their influences, a certain harmony could be established between what was good in a moral sense and what was wise. The priests of the ancient Hebrew people wore these symbols on their breastplate. The symbol for morality was called Urim; the symbol of wisdom, Thummim.

[According to the footnote in the German text of this lecture, Urim = Glanz (Radiance or Lustre) and Thummim = Wahrheit (Truth). Most English books of reference give “lights” and “perfections” as the interpretations, while acknowledging uncertainty. The Septuagint translates them as “manifestation” and “truth”. There is no unanimity as to whether the objects in question can be reliably identified, but the biblical references suggest that they were precious stones. Some scholars suppose that they were the twelve stones of the breastplate of the High Priest. What seems to be certain is that on these objects were engraved the names of the twelve tribes and that the High Priest used them as an oracle in order to ascertain the will of God. (See among other biblical references: Exodus 28, 9-30; Leviticus 8, 8.) Robertson Smith wrote in The Old Testament in the Jewish Church: “In ancient times the priestly oracle of Urim and Thummim was a sacred lot; for in I Sam. xiv:41 the true text, as we can still restore it from the LXX., makes Saul pray, If the iniquity be in me or Jonathan, give Urim; but if in Israel, give Thummim. This sacred lot was connected with the ephod, which in the time of the Judges was something very like an idol.” See in the Moffatt translation of the Bible I Sam. xiv. 18-43. — Note by D.S.O. and M.K.]

If a Hebrew priest wanted to discover whether a certain action was both good and wise, he made himself receptive to the forces of Urim and Thummim; the result was that a certain harmony between morality and intellectuality was induced. Magical effects were produced by means of these symbols and a magical link established with the spiritual world.

Our task now is to achieve in future incarnations through inner development of the soul the effect that in earlier times was produced by means of these symbols.

Let us think once again of the phases of evolution through the fifth, sixth, and seventh post-Atlantean culture-epochs in order to grasp how intellectuality, aestheticism, and morality will come to expression in men's life of soul.

Whereas in the present fifth epoch, intellectuality can remain unimpaired even if no pleasure is taken in moral actions, in the sixth epoch it will be quite different. In the sixth epoch, that is, from about the third millennium onwards, immorality will have a paralyzing effect upon intellectuality. The mental powers of a man who is intellectual and at the same time immoral will definitely deteriorate, and this condition will become more and more pronounced in the future evolution of humanity. A man who has no morals will therefore have no intellectual power, for this will depend entirely upon moral actions; and in the seventh epoch, cleverness without morality will be non-existent.

At this point it will be well to consider the nature of moral forces in individual souls in their present incarnations. How is it that in our phase of evolution a human being can become immoral? It is because in his successive incarnations man has descended more and more deeply into the physical world and has therefore been impelled more and more strongly toward the world of the senses.

The more forcefully the impulses belonging to the descending phase of evolution work upon a soul, the more immoral it tends to become. This fact is confirmed by a very interesting finding of occult research. You know that when a man passes through the gate of death, he lays aside his physical and etheric bodies and for a short time has a retrospective view of his past life on Earth. A kind of sleep then ensues and after a few months, or perhaps years, he wakens on the astral plane, in Kamaloka. Then follows the life in Kamaloka, when the earthly life is lived over again in backward order, three times as quickly.

At the beginning of life in Kamaloka a very significant experience comes to every individual. In the case of most Europeans — or, speaking generally, of men belonging to modern civilization — this experience takes the following form: at the beginning of life in Kamaloka a spiritual Individuality shows us everything we have done out of selfish motives in the last life, shows us a kind of register of all our transgressions. The more concretely you picture this experience, the better. At the beginning of the Kamaloka period it is actually as though a figure were presenting us with the register of our physical life. The important fact — for which, naturally, there can be no further proof because it can be confirmed only by occult experience — is that the majority of men belonging to European civilization recognize Moses in this figure. This fact has always been known to Rosicrucian research since the Middle Ages and in recent years it has been confirmed by very delicate investigations.

You can gather from this that at the beginning of his life in Kamaloka man feels a very great responsibility toward the pre-Christian powers for having allowed himself to be drawn downwards, and it is an actual fact in occult life that it is the Moses Individuality who demands reckoning for the wrongs committed in our time.

The powers and forces which draw man upwards again to the spiritual world fall into two categories: those which draw him upwards on the path of Wisdom, and those which draw him upwards on the path of Morality. The forces to which intellectual progress is mainly due all proceed from the impulse given by a great Individuality of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch who is known to you all, namely Gautama Buddha. It is a remarkable discovery of spiritual investigation that the most penetrating, most significant, thoughts conceived in our present epoch have proceeded from Gautama Buddha.. This is all the more remarkable inasmuch as until the days of Schopenhauer — therefore by no means long ago — the name of Gautama Buddha was almost unknown in the West. This is very understandable, for when Gautama Buddha was born as the son of King Suddhodana, he rose from the rank of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha, and to become a Buddha means that the Individuality concerned does not incarnate again on Earth in a body of flesh. The Bodhisattva Individuality who became Buddha five or six centuries before the beginning of the Christian era has not since incarnated, nor can he incarnate, in a physical body.

But instead he sends down his forces from the higher worlds, from the supersensible worlds, and inspires all bearers of culture who are not yet permeated by the Christ Impulse.

Consciousness of this truth was demonstrated in a beautiful legend written down by John of Damascus in the eighth century and well known throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. It is the legend of Barlaam and Joshaphat, which relates how he who had become the successor of Buddha (‘Joshaphat’ is a phonetic variation of ‘Bodhisattva’) received teaching from Barlaam about the Christ Impulse. The legend, which was subsequently forgotten, tells us that the Bodhisattva who succeeded Gautama Buddha was instructed by Barlaam and his soul was fired by the Christian Impulse. This was the second impulse which, in addition to that of Buddha, continues to work in the evolution of humanity. It is the Christ Impulse, and is connected with the future ascent of humanity to Morality. Although Buddha's teaching is in a particular sense moral teaching, the Christ Impulse is not teaching but actual power which works as such and to an increasing degree imbues mankind with moral strength. [I Corinthians IV, 20.]

In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch the Christ Being who descended from cosmic heights had first to appear in a physical body. In our fifth epoch the intense consolidation of intellectual forces will make it possible for man to behold the Christ as an etheric figure. This is even now beginning in our century. From the thirties to the forties of this century onwards, individuals will appear who have developed in a way that will enable them to see the etheric form of Christ, as at the time of Jesus of Nazareth they saw the physical Christ. And during the next three thousand years the number of those able to behold the etheric Christ will steadily increase, until in about three thousand years, reckoning from the present time, there will be a sufficient number of human beings on the Earth who will need no gospels or other such records, because in their own life of soul they will have actual vision of the Christ.

We must therefore clearly understand that in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch men were only capable of beholding the physical Christ; He therefore came in a physical body. In our own epoch and on into the third millennium, they will gradually grow capable of beholding the etheric Christ. He will never come again in a physical body.

If we bear in mind the fact that when a man of the present age who unites himself more and more deeply with the Christ Impulse passes into Kamaloka and is called to account by a figure personifying a moral force — by Moses — we shall understand how a transformation of the Moses figure can be brought about. For what does Moses show us when he confronts us with the register of our sins and transgressions? He shows us what stands on the debit side of our karma. For a soul of our epoch it is of great significance that through the inspiration of Buddha the doctrine of karma can be comprehended, but that the reality of the working of karma after death is revealed to us by the Old Testament figure of Moses.

As the influences of the supersensible Christ pervade the souls of men to an ever-increasing extent, the figure of Moses will be transformed after death into that of Christ Jesus. This means that our karma is linked with Christ, that Christ unites with our karma.

It is interesting to realize that in the teachings of Buddha karma is an abstract matter, having an impersonal character. In the future incarnations of men, as Christ comes into ever closer connection with karma, it will acquire the quality of being, of potential life.

Our earlier stages of evolution, our lives in the past, may be related to the words: Ex Deo nascimur.

If we direct our development in such a way that after death instead of Moses we meet Christ, with whom our karma is then united, this is expressed in the Rosicrucian Christianity that has existed since the thirteenth century by the words: In Christo morimur.

Just as Buddhahood can be attained only on the physical plane, the qualification for meeting Christ in death can likewise be acquired by the human soul only on the physical plane. A Buddha is first a Bodhisattva, but he rises to the rank of Buddha during a physical incarnation and it is then no longer necessary for him to return to the Earth. Understanding of Christ in the sense just explained can be acquired only on the physical plane. Hence during the next three thousand years men will have to acquire in the physical world the power to behold the supersensible Christ, and it is the mission of the Anthroposophical Movement to create, first of all, the conditions which make understanding of Christ possible on the physical plane, and then the power to behold Him.

In the age when Christ works in the world of men as the etheric Christ it matters not whether we are living in a physical body or between death and a new birth if on the physical plane we have acquired the power to behold Him. Let us suppose, for example, that because of his earlier death a man had no opportunity of beholding Christ in his present etheric form. Nevertheless, if during his life in the physical world such a man had acquired the necessary understanding, vision of the Christ would be possible for him between death and rebirth. A man who keeps aloof from spiritual life and acquires no understanding of Christ will remain without such knowledge until he can acquire it in his next incarnation.

What has just been said will indicate to you that as humanity lives on through the fifth, sixth, and seventh epochs of civilization the Christ Impulse will gain increasing power on the Earth. We have heard that in the sixth epoch intellectuality will be impaired through immorality. The other aspect is that a man who has paralyzed his intellectual faculty as a result of immorality must turn to Christ with all the greater strength in order that Christ may lead him to morality and imbue him with moral strength.

What I have told you has been investigated particularly closely by Rosicrucians since the thirteenth century but it is a truth that has at all times been known to many occultists.

If it were to be asserted that there could be a second appearance of Christ on Earth in a physical body, according to occultism that would be equivalent to stating that a balance works more efficiently if it is supported at two points instead of at one. In very truth the three years' duration of Christ's life on Earth in the body of Jesus of Nazareth constitutes the fulcrum of Earth evolution; and just as there can be only one point at which the beam of a balance is attached, so too there can be only one fulcrum of Earth evolution.

The teaching of moral development is not the same as the impulse for such development.

Before the Event of Golgotha the Bodhisattva who was the successor of Buddha was present on the Earth in order to prepare for that Event and give teaching to those around him. He incarnated in the personality of Jeshu ben Pandira [See "Jeshu ben Pandira," two lectures given by Rudolf Steiner at Leipzig on November 4 and 5, 1911, and references in his later cycle The Gospel of St. Matthew], one century before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus we must distinguish between the Jeshu ben Pandira-incarnation of the Bodhisattva who was the successor of Gautama Buddha and the incarnation at the beginning of our era of Jesus of Nazareth, who for three years of his life was permeated by the cosmic Being we call the Christ.

The Bodhisattva who incarnated in Jeshu ben Pandira, and in other personalities too, returns again and again, until in about three thousand years from now he will attain Buddhahood and as Maitreya Buddha live through his final incarnation. The Christ-Individuality was on the Earth in the body of Jesus of Nazareth for three years only and does not come again in a physical body; in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch He comes in an etheric body, in the sixth epoch in an astral body, and in the seventh in a mighty Cosmic Ego that is like a great Group-Soul of humanity.

When a human being dies his physical, etheric, and astral bodies fall away from him and his ego passes over to the next incarnation. It is exactly the same with the planet Earth. What is physical in our Earth falls away at the end of the Earth-period and human souls in their totality pass over into the Jupiter condition, the next planetary embodiment of the Earth. And just as in the case of an individual human being the ego is the centre of his further evolution, so for the whole of future humanity the Christ-Ego in the astral and etheric bodies of men goes on to ensoul the Jupiter-existence. We therefore see how starting from a physical man on Earth the Christ gradually evolves as Etheric Christ, as Astral Christ, as Ego-Christ, in order, as Ego-Christ, to be the Spirit of the Earth who then rises to even higher stages together with all mankind.

What are we doing when we teach Spiritual Science today? We are teaching what Oriental wisdom so clearly proclaimed when the Bodhisattva who was then the son of King Suddhodana attained Buddhahood. In those Oriental teachings was expressed the realization that it was the task of the next Bodhisattva — who would eventually become a Buddha — to spread over the Earth the knowledge that would reveal Christ to men in the true light. Thus the Bodhisattva who incarnated in Jeshu ben Pandira and again and again in others became the great Teacher of the Christ Impulse. This is indicated very clearly in the legend of Barlaam and Joshaphat, which tells how Joshaphat (i.e. the Bodhisattva) is instructed by Barlaam, the Christian teacher. The Oriental occult teachings call this Bodhisattva the ‘Bringer of the Good’ — Maitreya Buddha. And we know from occult investigations that in this Maitreya Buddha the power of the Word will be present in a degree of which men of the present time can as yet have no conception. It is possible today through higher clairvoyant perception of the process of world-evolution to discover how the Maitreya Buddha will teach after three thousand years have passed. Much of his teaching can also be expressed in symbolic forms. But today — because mankind is insufficiently mature — it is not yet possible to utter words such as those that will come from the lips of the Maitreya Buddha.

In the Eightfold Path, Gautama Buddha gave the great intellectual teachings of right speech, right thinking, right action, and so on. The words uttered by the Maitreya Buddha will contain a magic power that will become moral impulses in the men who hear them. And if there should be a gospel telling of the Maitreya Buddha, the writer of it would have to use words differing from those used of Christ in the Gospel of St. John: “And the Word was made flesh.” The evangelist of the Maitreya Buddha would have to testify: “And the flesh was made Word.”

The utterances of the Maitreya Buddha will be permeated in a miraculous way with the power of Christ. Occult investigations show us today that in a certain respect even the external life of the Maitreya Buddha will be patterned on the life of Christ. In ancient times, when a great Individuality appeared and was to become a Teacher of humanity, signs indicating this showed themselves in the early youth of the child in question, in special talents and qualities of soul. There is however a different kind of development, in the course of which a complete change in the personality becomes apparent at a certain point in his life. What happens is that when this human being has reached a certain age, his ego is taken out of his bodily sheaths and a different ego passes into his body. The greatest example of this is Christ Jesus Himself, of whom in his thirtieth year the Christ-Individuality had taken possession. All the incarnations of the Bodhisattva who will become the Maitreya Buddha have shown that in this sense his life will resemble that of Christ.

In none of the incarnations of the Bodhisattva is it known, either in his childhood or youth, that he will become a Bodhisattva. Whenever the Bodhisattva becomes Buddha there is evidence that at the age of 30 or 31, another individuality takes possession of his body. The Bodhisattva will never reveal himself as such in his early youth, but in his thirtieth or thirty-first year he will manifest quite different qualities, because another Being takes possession of his body. Individualities who will take possession of the personality of some human being in this way and will not incarnate as children, are, for example, individualities such as Moses, Abraham, Ezekiel.

So too is it in our present century in the case of the Bodhisattva who later on, in three thousand years' time, will become the Maitreya Buddha. It would be so much occult dilettantism to assert that this Being would be recognizable in his early years as the Bodhisattva. It is between his thirtieth and thirty-first years that he first reveals Himself through his own power, without having to be proclaimed by others. He will convince the world through his own power and it would be well to realize that if the Bodhisattva were alleged in some quarters to be revealing himself in a human being under the age of thirty, that very fact would be evidence of the fallacy of such a statement. Claims of the kind have frequently been made. For example, in the seventeenth century a certain individual proclaimed himself to be an incarnation of the Messiah, of Christ. His name was Sabbati Zewi and hosts of people from all over Europe, from Spain, Italy, and France, made pilgrimages to him in Smyrna.

It is certainly true that in our time there is a rooted disinclination to recognize genius in human beings. But on the other hand, mental laziness is very prevalent, with the result that people are only too ready to acknowledge some individual as a great soul, merely on authority. It is important today for Anthroposophy to be presented in such a way as to be based to the smallest possible extent on belief in authority.

Much that I have said today can be substantiated only by means of occult investigation. Yet I beg you not to give credence to these things because I say them, but to test them by everything known to you from history — above all by what you can learn from your own experience — and I am absolutely certain that the more closely you examine them, the more confirmation you will find. In this age of intellectualism, I do not appeal to your belief in authority but to your capacity for intelligent examination. The Bodhisattva of the twentieth century will not rely upon any herald to announce him as the Maitreya Buddha, but upon the power of his own words; he will stand on his own feet in the world.

What has been said in this lecture may perhaps be summed up as follows. —

In our period of evolution, two streams of spiritual life are at work; one of them is the stream of Wisdom, or the Buddha-stream, containing the most sublime teaching of wisdom, goodness of heart, and peace on Earth. To enable this teaching of Buddha to permeate the hearts of all men, the Christ Impulse is indispensable. The second stream is the Christ-stream itself, which will lead humanity from intellectuality, by way of aesthetic feeling and insight, to morality. And the greatest Teacher of the Christ Impulse will in all ages be that Bodhisattva who incarnates again and again and who, in three thousand years from now, will become the Maitreya Buddha. For the statement contained in Oriental chronicles is true: that exactly five thousand years after Gautama Buddha attained Enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, the Maitreya Buddha will incarnate on Earth for the last time.

The succession of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas has no relation as such to the cosmic Being we call Christ; it was a Bodhisattva — not the Christ — who incarnated in the body of Jeshu ben Pandira. Christ incarnated in a physical body once, and once only, for a period of three years. The Bodhisattva appears in every century until his existence as Maitreya Buddha.

The mission of Anthroposophy today is to be a synthesis of religions. We can conceive of one form of religion being comprised in Buddhism, another form in Christianity, and as evolution proceeds the more closely do the different religions unite — in the way that Buddha and Christ themselves are united in our hearts.

This vista of the spiritual development of humanity brings home to us the necessity of the impulse of Anthroposophy as a preparation for understanding the progress of culture and happenings in the great process of evolution itself.




Source: http://www.webcitation.org/5vGyinFuG

The advance from Buddhism to Christianity

"It is really an element of unbelief and paralysis of will, born of a feebleness of spiritual knowledge, that awakens the attraction to Buddhism today."

Rudolf Steiner, from a lecture given March 2, 1911:

We must look back not only to a kind of primeval wisdom but also to primeval feelings and perceptions in man whose clairvoyant powers gave him knowledge of his connection with the spiritual world.

Now, it is easy to understand the possibility of two streams arising in the gradual transition from this ancient clairvoyance of the human soul to our modern intellectual mode of observing the material world. The one stream can be traced among peoples in whom the memories and instincts were preserved, and who felt that through his clairvoyant perception, man was once united with the spiritual world but has descended into the world of the senses. This feeling gradually extended into a general attitude of soul, till it could be said: “We have entered the phenomenal world but this world is maya, illusion.” Only when he was linked with the spiritual world could man know his true being. And so among those peoples who had preserved this dim remembrance of ancient clairvoyant powers there arose a sense of loss, and a certain indifference to their material environment and all that can be apprehended by the intellect.

On the other hand there is a second current, of which the religion of Zarathustra is typical — “We must adapt ourselves to the new world which now enters our consciousness for the first time.” These men did not look back with regret to something that man had lost. On the contrary, they felt impelled to seek and acquire all the powers that would enable them to penetrate and understand the surrounding world of sense. The urge arose within them to unite themselves with the world, not to look back with regret, but to look forward, to be warriors. “The same Divine-Spiritual essence of which we were once a part is also poured into the world immediately surrounding us. It is in this surrounding world that we must seek it. Ours is the task to unite with the good spiritual elements and so help forward the evolution of the world!” This conception is typical of the stream of thought which had its rise in Asiatic regions lying north of the lands where men looked back with sorrow to what man had once possessed.

In India arose a spiritual life which was the natural fruit of this backward-turning gaze to men's former union with the spiritual world. Consider the Sankhya philosophy or the Yoga system and discipline. It was the constant endeavor of the ancient Indian to rediscover his connection with the spiritual world whence he had come forth; he tried to disregard all that surrounded him in the world, to free himself from the links binding him to the world of the senses and by eliminating this world to find again the spiritual realms whence he had descended. Reunion with the world of Spirit, release from the world of sense — this is Yoga.

Only when we see these principles as the fundamental tendencies of Indian spiritual life can we understand the mighty impulse of the Buddha as it flamed up in a last gleam across the evening skies of Indian spiritual life a few centuries before the Christ Impulse was destined to dominate Western thought. We can only understand the figure of Buddha when we contemplate him in this setting. On the soil of India it was possible for a mode of thought and consciousness to arise which gazed at a world in the throes of decline, of a descent from Spirit into maya — the great “Illusion.”

It is also natural that as the Indian looked at the external world with which human life is so closely interwoven, he should have evolved the idea that this descent from Spirit into the world of maya had proceeded stage by stage, as it were, passing from epoch to epoch. We can now understand the deeply devotional mood of Indian culture — albeit a culture representing the glow of sunset — and how the concept of Buddhahood there finds a natural place. The Indian looked back to an age when man was united with the spiritual world; he then descended to a certain level, rose once more and again sank, rose, sank — but in such a way that each descent was deeper than the last.

According to ancient Indian wisdom, a Buddha arises whenever an epoch of decline draws to its close. The last of the Buddhas — Gautama Buddha — was the being who incarnated as the son of King Suddhodana. The Indian, therefore, looked back to former Buddhas, of whom five had already appeared during the time of man's gradual descent from the spiritual world, and who, coming again and again into the world of men, could bring them something of that primordial wisdom whereby they could be sustained in earthly life and not utterly lost in maya. In his descending path of evolution man loses hold of this wisdom, and when it is lost, a new Buddha appears. Of these, Gautama Buddha was the last.

In the course of many earthly lives such a being as a Buddha must previously have reached the level of a Bodhisattva before he can attain to Buddhahood. According to Eastern wisdom, Gautama Buddha was first a Bodhisattva, and as such was born into the royal house of Suddhodana. By dint of inner effort he attained, in his twenty-ninth year, the illumination symbolically described as “sitting under the Bodhi tree.” The wisdom arising from this could then be revealed in the great Sermon of Benares. In his twenty-ninth year, this Bodhisattva rose to the dignity of Buddhahood and was then able, as Buddha, to bring again to mankind a last remnant of the ancient wisdom. And when in the following centuries man again sinks so low that the last remnant of the wisdom brought by Buddha disappears, another Bodhisattva, Maitreya Buddha, who according to Eastern wisdom is expected to appear in the future, will rise to the dignity of Buddhahood.

Legends tell us of all that was enacted in the soul of the last Bodhisattva who was to become Gautama Buddha. Up to his twenty-ninth year he had known only the surroundings of his royal home. Human misery and suffering — all life's sorrows — were hidden from him. He grew up seeing only the joys of life. But the Bodhisattvic consciousness was ever present — a consciousness teeming with the inner wisdom of former earthly lives.

The legend is well-known and we need only consider the main details. We read how Gautama left the royal Palace and saw something he had never seen before — a corpse. At the sight of the corpse he realized that death consumes life, that the element of death enters life with its fruitfulness and power of increase. He saw a sick man — disease eats its way into health. He saw an old man tottering wearily along his way — age creeps into the freshness of youth.

We must of course realize that he who was to become Buddha passed through all these experiences with Bodhisattvic consciousness. Thus he learned that the destructive element of existence has its place in the wisdom-filled process of “being and becoming,” but so deeply was his soul affected that he cried out — so the legend runs — “Life is full of suffering!”

Let us try to enter into the soul of Gautama the Bodhisattva. He possessed mighty wisdom, although he was not as yet fully conscious of this wisdom. In his earlier years he had seen only the fruitfulness of life. Then his eyes fell on the image of destruction, of corruption, and within his soul the feeling arose that all attainment of knowledge and wisdom leads man to increasing life. His soul is then filled with the idea of “Becoming” — a process of perpetual fruitfulness. The idea of fruitful growth proceeds from wisdom. Gazing into the world, what do we behold? Forces of destruction, sickness, old age, death. Knowledge and wisdom cannot surely have brought old age, sickness and death into the world. Something else must have been their cause!

And so the great Gautama felt — because he was not yet fully conscious of his Bodhisattvic wisdom — that man may be filled with wisdom and through this wisdom be filled with ever-fruitful forces of growth, but life reveals decay, sickness, death, and many other destructive elements. Here was a mystery unfathomable even to the Bodhisattva. He had passed through many lives, through incarnation after incarnation had accumulated an ever-increasing store of wisdom, until he had reached a point whence he could survey life from the very heights of existence. Yet when he left the palace, and life in its grim realities stood before him, the meaning of it all did not wholly penetrate his consciousness. The accumulated knowledge and wisdom of earthly lives cannot, in effect, lead to the solution of the ultimate mysteries of existence, for these mysteries lie hidden beyond the region of the life that passes from incarnation to incarnation.

This conception, quickening in the soul of the great Gautama, led him finally to full illumination “under the Bodhi tree.” We may express the results of his wakened consciousness as follows: “We are living in a world of illusion. Life after life we live in this world of maya whither we have passed from a spiritual existence. In this life we may rise in Spirit to infinite merit — yet the wisdom of innumerable lives will never solve the great riddles of old age, of sickness, death.”

He then realized that the doctrine of suffering was greater than the wisdom of a Bodhisattva. In his illumination he knew that all that is spread abroad in the world of illusion is not true wisdom, for even after countless births, outer existence gives us no understanding of suffering, nor can we release ourselves from pain. Outer existence contains something that is far removed from true wisdom. And so it came about that the Buddha saw an element void of wisdom as the cause of old age, sickness and death. The wisdom of this world could never bring liberation; liberation could only proceed from something this world cannot give. Man must withdraw from outer existence and from his repeated births.

From this moment onward Buddha saw that the doctrine of suffering was the principle necessary for the further progress of humanity. Devoid of wisdom was the “thirst for existence,” which seemed to him the cause of the suffering that had entered into the world. Wisdom on the one hand, a meaningless thirst for existence on the other. And so he realized: “Only when man is liberated from the wheel of births can he be led to true redemption, to true freedom, for of itself the highest earthly wisdom cannot save him from suffering.”

Buddha then sought the means whereby man could be led away from the scene of his successive births to a world which we must learn to understand aright, for many fantastic and grotesque ideas have arisen as to the meaning of “Nirvana.” One who has reached a point in life where there is no more a thirst for existence and no desire for rebirth passes into Nirvana. What is the nature of this world?

According to Buddhism, the world of redemption and bliss eludes all descriptions derived from the world sense and space man knows in earthly life. Nothing in the physical world of space points to liberation. All the words man uses to describe the world around him must be silenced; they do not and cannot apply to the world of bliss. It is absolutely impossible to form an idea of the realm entered by one who has been liberated from the necessity for rebirth, for since it has no resemblance to anything in the objective world, it can only be characterized by a negative term — Nirvana. A man enters Nirvana only when everything that connects him with earthly existence has been blotted out.

Yet for the Buddhist, Nirvana is no empty void. Rather is it a life of bliss no words can describe. Here we have the root-nerve of Buddhism and an expression of its pervading mood. From the Sermon of Benares where it was taught for the first time, this doctrine of the suffering of life, of suffering and its cause in the “thirst for existence,” permeates all that we know of Buddhism. One thing alone can lead to human progress, and that is redemption from rebirth. And the first step is the following of a path of knowledge which leads beyond earthly wisdom. Treading this path a man will find the means gradually to reach and enter Nirvana. In other words, he may learn so to use his earthly incarnations that he is finally freed from their necessity.

Turning now from this somewhat abstract conception of Buddhism to its fundamentals, we find that such an attitude toward life tends to isolate man; it raises the question of the aims and destiny of his life as an individual personality in the world. How could it be otherwise in a conception of the world built upon such a foundation? It was believed that man had descended from spiritual heights to find himself in a world of maya from which the wisdom of a Buddha now and again can rescue him, as the last Buddha had taught. Such a conception of the goal of all human striving could be characterized in no other way than as an isolating of man from his whole environment, for his earthly embodiments followed a descending path in a descending earthly order.

How did Buddha himself seek illumination? Unless we consider this, we shall never understand Buddha himself, or Buddhism. He sought illumination, as we know, in complete isolation. He went out from his father's palace into solitude. All knowledge gained from previous lives must be silenced in a life of solitude, where he must seek an inner illumination of the soul which shall reveal the mystery of the suffering world. In isolation the Buddha awaits the enlightenment which reveals: The cause of suffering inheres in the thirst for existence and rebirth which burns in every individual soul. The world too thirsts for existence and this is the cause of all the suffering and all the destructive elements in life.

Now, we cannot understand the essential nature of Buddha's illumination and teaching unless we compare it with Christianity. Six hundred years after the appearance of the great Buddha, quite different conditions are present. Man's whole attitude to the world and to his environment has changed. How has it changed? Oriental thought contemplates one “Buddha-epoch” after another. “History” is not a process of descent from a higher to a lower level; rather is it an effort to attain a definite goal, a possibility of union with the whole world, with the past, and with the future. Such is the Oriental conception of history. But the Buddhist stands there isolated and alone and is concerned only with his individual life. In his individual existence he strives for liberation from the thirst for existence and hence from the cycles of his births.

Six hundred years later, the Christian has quite a different attitude. Putting aside prejudices now widely spread in the world, we may describe the Christian conception as follows. In so far as the Christian conception is based on the Old Testament, it points to a primal humanity when man's relationship to the spiritual world was not at all the same as in later times. We read of this in the mighty pictures of the Book of Genesis. The attitude of the Christian to the world is very different from that of the Buddhist. The Christian says: “Wisdom lives within my soul and this wisdom arises from the very nature of the soul. Wisdom, knowledge, and morality — all these arise within me as a result of the way in which I observe the world of sense and coordinate my impressions by means of my reasoning faculties.” But in an older age the constitution of the human soul was altogether different. Something happened then which cannot merely be called, in the Buddhistic sense, a descent from Divine-Spiritual heights into a world of maya, but must be spoken of as the “Fall of man.” The Fall is bound up with the whole of human existence. Man feels that there are forces within him which had their origin in a far-off past and were part of a process which caused the human being not merely to “descend” but to descend in such a way that his relationship to the world was completely changed. If the conditions obtaining before this event had prevailed, man would have been a different being today. The Fall was due to man's own sin, even though he sinned unconsciously.

Thus in Christianity we are concerned not merely with the direct descent of which the Buddhist thought, but with an altered state of things in which the factor of temptation plays an essential part. The Christian who pierces the surface of Christianity into its depths must say that because of an event which happened untold ages ago, the subconscious workings of his soul are different from what they were designed to be. The Buddhist says: — “From a state of union with the Divine-Spiritual world I have been transported into this world of maya and illusion”; the Christian: — “I have descended into this world. If I had descended in the original state of my soul I should everywhere be able to look behind the illusion of physical ‘appearances’ into reality and find the truth. But since another factor has entered into the process of descent I myself have turned this world into illusion.”

The two modes of thought are very different. The Buddhist asks why this world is illusion and is taught that illusion is its very nature. The Christian asks the same question but realizes: “The fault is mine! My powers of cognition and the state of my soul no longer enable me to see the original reality. My actions are not fruitful. I myself have drawn a veil of illusion over the world.” The Buddhist says that the world is in itself the Great Illusion, therefore he must overcome the world, but the Christian feels himself in the world, and in the world he must seek his goal.

When the Christian realizes that Spiritual Science can lead him to the knowledge of successive earthly lives, he can resolve to use them as a means whereby the goal of life may be attained. He knows the world to be full of sorrow and error, because man himself has wandered so far from his primal state that his vision and his actions have changed the world around him into maya. Yet he need not alienate himself from this world in order to enter into blessedness. Rather must he overcome the forces which make him see the world as illusion and thus be led back to his true original nature.

There is a higher man. If this higher man could look upon the world, he would see it in its reality; he would not pass through an existence of sickness and death but a life of health, full of the freshness of youth. A veil has been drawn before this inner man because humanity took part in a certain event in the evolution of the world. Man is not an isolated entity, an individual, nor is thirst for existence responsible for his present state. He is indeed one with all humanity and shared in the original sin of the whole human race.

And so the Christian feels himself bound up with the whole historical course of humanity, realizing as he gazes into the future that he must find once more that higher nature which man's process of descent has veiled. He says: “I must seek not Nirvana but the higher man within me. I must find the way back to my Self. Then will the surrounding world no longer be illusion but reality — a world in which I am able to overcome sorrow, sickness, and death by my own efforts.”

The Buddhist seeks liberation from the world and from rebirths by overcoming the thirst for existence. The Christian seeks liberation from the lower man, seeks to awaken the higher man within, whom he himself has veiled, in order that he may behold the world in its truth. How great a contrast lies here between the wisdom of Buddha and Paul's words: “Not I, but Christ in me!” — words which express a consciousness that places man in the world as an individuality! The Buddhist says: “Man has descended from spiritual heights because the world has urged him downwards; therefore a world that has implanted in him the thirst for existence must be overcome. He must leave this world!” But the Christian says: “It is not the fault of the world that I am as I am. Mine is the fault!”

The Christian stands in the world acknowledging that beneath his ordinary consciousness a power is at work which once gave him a clairvoyant picture-consciousness. Man sinned and lost this spiritual vision. For this he must make amends if he would reach his goal. In later life a man does not feel it unjust that he should suffer from the faults of youthful actions committed in a different consciousness. Equally, he should not feel it an injustice that he should atone in his present state for an act arising out of an earlier consciousness. This former consciousness he no longer possesses, for his intellect and reason have usurped its place. Atonement is only possible when the will arises in man to press forward with his present ego-consciousness to that higher state described in Paul's words: “Not I, but Christ in me!” The Christian should say: “I have descended into conditions other than those ordained for me from the beginning. I must re-ascend — not with the help of the ego I now possess but through a power which can live within me and lead me beyond my human ego. This I can only do if Christ works in me, leading me to behold the world in its reality and not in illusion. The forces which have brought illness and death into the world can be overcome by what Christ fulfils in me.”

The innermost heart of Buddhism only reveals itself when we compare it with Christianity. Then we realize the words of Lessing in his Education of the Human Race: “Is not all Eternity mine?” That is to say: If I use the opportunities of successive embodiments to bring the Christ Power to life within me, I shall reach at last the sphere of the Eternal. This has hitherto eluded me because I have covered myself with a veil.

Reincarnation shines with a new radiance in the sunlight of Christianity and will indeed in the future penetrate Christian culture more and more deeply as an occult truth.

This however is not the point at issue. The point is that the essential attitude of Buddhism makes the world responsible for maya or illusion, while the Christian holds himself, as man, responsible — knowing that the path to redemption lies in his own innermost being. In the Christian sense, redemption is also a resurrection because the ego is raised to a higher Ego whence it has descended. The Buddhist believes in the “original sin” of the world and seeks liberation from the world. The Christian's conception is a historical one, for human life is seen as linked both with an event of a prehistoric past and with a future event through which he may reach a point where his whole life will be illuminated by the Being of Christ.

Thus Christianity does not point to successive Buddhas, recapitulating more or less the same truths through the successive epochs, but to a unique event occurring in the course of human evolution. While the Buddhist pictures his Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree, rising to enlightenment as an isolated individual, the Christian looks to Jesus of Nazareth, into whom the Spirit of the Cosmos descended. The enlightenment of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree — the Baptism by John in Jordan — these two pictures stand clearly before us. Buddha sits under the Bodhi tree in the solitude of the soul. Jesus of Nazareth stands in the waters of the Jordan and the very Spirit of the Cosmos descends into his inner being — the Spirit in the image of the Dove.

The Buddha deed contained for his followers the message: “Quench the thirst for existence; tear thyself away from earthly existence and follow Buddha to realms which no earthly words can describe!” The Christian realizes that from the Deed of Christ flows redemption from the original sin of man, and he feels: If the influx of the spiritual world behind the physical grows as strong within me as it was in Christ Himself, I shall carry into my future incarnations a force that will enable me to cry with St. Paul, “Not I, but Christ in me!” And so I shall rise to the spiritual world whence I descended.

Deeply moving in this light are the words of Buddha to his intimate disciples: “Page after page I look back upon my former lives as upon an open book; I see how in life after life I built a material body wherein my Spirit dwelt as in a temple. Now I know that this body, in which I have become Buddha, is the last.” And referring to Nirvana, whither he was to pass, he said: “The beams are breaking, the posts are giving way; the material body has been built for the last time and will now be wholly destroyed.”

Compare these words with an utterance of the Christ recorded in the Gospel of St. John. Christ indicates that He is living in an outer body: “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it up again.” Here we have exactly the opposite conception, for it can be thus interpreted: “I shall accomplish a deed that will make fruitful and living all that from God — from primeval humanity — flows into this world and into us.” These words indicate that the Christian, through repeated earthly lives, comes to cry in truth, “Not I, but Christ in me!” We must however understand that the rebuilding of this Temple has an eternal significance in that it points to the inpouring of the Christ Power into all who share in the collective evolution of mankind. There can be no repetition of the Christ Event in the course of evolution. The true Buddhist assumes a repetition of earthly epochs, a succession of Buddhas having each a fundamentally similar mission, but the Christian looks back to the Fall of Man and must point also to a further and unique event — the Mystery of Golgotha and man's redemption from the Fall.

There have been times in the past, and indeed in our own days, when men have looked for a renewal of the Christ Event; but such an expectation can only arise from a misunderstanding of the basic facts of man's historical progress. True history must take its start and pursue its course from a central point. Just as there must be one equilibrating point on a pair of scales, so in history there must be one event to which both the past and the future point. To imagine that the Christ Event could be repeated is as meaningless as to suppose there could be two focal points in a balance. Eastern wisdom speaks of a succession of similar individualities, the Buddhas, and herein lies the difference between the Eastern and the Western conceptions of the universe, for the Christ Impulse is a unique event and to deny this is to deny a historical progress in evolution — that is, to have a false idea of history.

The consciousness that the individual is indissolubly bound up with humanity as a whole, that not mere repetition but a great purpose rules throughout the course of evolution, is Christian in the deepest sense and cannot be separated from Christianity. Human progress inheres in the fact that an older Eastern conception has evolved into a new one. Man has advanced from thinking that the wheels of world-events roll on in an endless repetition to the belief that there is meaning and an onward-flowing significance in the changing events of human existence.

Thus Christianity first gives reality to the doctrine of repeated earthly lives. For now we say that man passes through repeated lives on Earth in order that the true meaning of human life may again and again be implanted in him, each time as a fresh experience. Not only the isolated individual strives upwards, for a yet deeper meaning lies in the striving of humanity as a whole, and we ourselves are bound up with this humanity. No longer feeling himself united with a Buddha who urges liberation from the world, man, gazing at the central spiritual Sun, at the Christ Impulse, grows conscious of his union with One Whose Deed has balanced the event symbolized in the “Fall.”

Buddhism can be best described as the sunset of a mode of thought that was nearing its decline but flamed into a mighty afterglow when Gautama Buddha appeared. This is not to honor the Buddha less; we revere him as the great spirit who once brought to man a teaching pointing to the past, and the sense of union with a primeval wisdom. The Christ Impulse points with the hand of power to the future, and must live with ever increasing strength in the soul till man realizes that not redemption but resurrection — the transfiguration of material existence — can alone give meaning to man's earthly life.

Concepts or dogmas are not the only driving forces in life, though many may feel more drawn to Buddhism than to Christianity. Rather are the essentials such impulses, perceptions, and feelings as give meaning to human evolution. There is indeed something of a Buddha-mood today in many souls, drawing them toward Buddhism. Goethe could not feel this mood, for through his recognition that the Spirit which is the source of the human Spirit permeates also all external things, he could greatly love life. During his first stay in Weimar, freeing himself from all narrowness and prejudice, he closely studied the outer world. He passed from plant to plant, from mineral to mineral, seeking behind all these that Spirit whence the Spirit of man descends, and with this all-pervading Spirit he sought to unite himself.

Goethe once said to his pupil Schopenhauer: “All your splendid conceptions will be at war with themselves directly they pass into other minds.” Schopenhauer's motto can be expressed in his own words: “Life is full of perplexity. I try to make it easier by contemplation.” Trying to find an explanation of the origin of existence he turned naturally to Buddhism, and his ideas assumed a Buddhistic colouring.

In the course of the nineteenth century the different branches of culture yielded such great and mighty results that the human mind did not feel able to assimilate the mass of scientific achievements pouring in from external research. The sense of helplessness grew greater and greater before the overwhelming mass of scientific facts. True, this world of facts tallies in a wonderful way with Spiritual Science, but we see at the same time that thought in the nineteenth century was not equal to coping with it. Man began to realize that his faculties of knowledge could not assimilate all the facts, nor could his mind gauge them. And so he began to seek a philosophy or a world-conception that did not attempt to wrestle with all the facts of the outer world.

In contrast to this, Spiritual Science takes its start from the deepest principles and experiences of spiritual knowledge; it is able to compass and elaborate all the facts brought to light by outer science and to show how the Spirit lives in outer reality.
Now, many people do not like this. So far at least as knowledge is concerned, they draw back from the investigation of the world of facts and strive to reach a higher stage merely in the inner being, by a development of soul. This has led to an “unconscious Buddhism” which has been in existence for some time now. We can find traces of it in the philosophies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

When such people — and they are really unconscious Buddhists — come into contact with Buddhism, their longing for ease makes them feel more readily drawn to this mode of thought than to Spiritual Science. For Spiritual Science deals with the whole mass of facts, with the knowledge that Spirit manifests in them all.

Therefore it is really an element of unbelief and paralysis of will, born of a feebleness of spiritual knowledge, that awakens the attraction to Buddhism today.

The Christian conception of the universe — as it lived in Goethe, for instance — demands that man should not give way to his own weakness and speak of “boundaries of knowledge” but rather feel that something within him can rise above all illusion and lead to truth and freedom. True, a certain amount of resignation is demanded here, but not the resignation which shrinks back before “boundaries of knowledge.” In the Kantian sense resignation means that man is altogether unable to penetrate the depths of the universe. This is a resignation born of weakness. But there is another kind whereby man can say with Goethe: “I have not yet reached the stage where the world can be known in its truth, yet I can evolve to it.” This resignation leads him to the stage where he can bring to birth the “higher man” — the Christ-man. He is resigned because he knows that for the moment he has not reached this highest level of human life. This indeed is a heroic resignation, for it says: “We pass from life to life with the feeling that we exist, and we know as we look toward the future that in the repetition of earthly existence all Eternity is ours.”

And so two great streams of thought can be seen in human evolution. The one is represented by Schopenhauer, who says: “This world with all its suffering is such that we can only know man's real position through the works of great painters. They portray figures whose asceticism brought something like freedom from earthly existence, who are already lifted above terrestrial life.” According to Schopenhauer the greatness of this liberated human being consists in the fact that he is able to look back upon his earthly existence and feel: This bodily covering is now nothing but an empty shell and has no significance for me. I strive upward, in anticipation of the state I shall attain when earthly existence has been conquered and I have overcome all that is connected with it. Herein is the great liberation — when nothing remains to remind me in the future of my earthly existence. Such was Schopenhauer's conception, permeated as he was with the mood Buddhism had brought into the world.

Goethe, stimulated by a purely Christian impulse, looks out upon the world as Faust looks out upon it. And if we in our time rise above external trivialities, though realizing that our works will perish when the Earth has become a corpse, we too can say with Goethe: We learn from our experiences on Earth; what we build on Earth must perish, but what we acquire in the school of life does not perish. Like Faust, we look not upon the permanency of our works but upon their fruits in the eternity of the soul, and gazing at horizons wider than those of Buddhism we can say with Goethe: “Aeons cannot obliterate the traces of any man's days on Earth.” —

“Es kann die Spur von meinen Erdentagen
Nicht in Aeonen untergehen!”







Source: http://www.webcitation.org/5vjAOnm6S