The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday we saw what profound meaning is hidden in the first words of the Gospel of John, and we can summarize our reflections by saying: We have seen that the author of the Gospel of John alludes to the evolution of the pre-human being in the distant past, alluding to how, in the sense of Christian esotericism, everything is traced back to the Word or the Logos, which was already creative during the ancient Saturn era, which then became life, and then light, — into life while our Earth passed through its solar stage, — into light while it passed through the ancient lunar stage. Thus, that which, under the influence of divine-spiritual forces and beings, became human in the course of the three planetary stages was, just as the Earth had become our present-day planet, permeated by the human “I.” So one can say: Like a kind of seed, a being came from the ancient Moon to Earth, consisting of a physical body, arising from the divine Primordial Word; an etheric or life body, arising from divine life; and an astral body, arising from divine light. Within this being, during its earthly existence, the light of the “I” itself was kindled. This threefold physicality—physical body, etheric body, and astral body—became capable of uttering the “I am” within itself, so that in a certain sense we can call the evolution of the Earth the evolution of the “I am,” of human self-consciousness. And this “I Am”—this capacity for full self-consciousness—emerged only slowly and gradually in the course of the evolution of humanity on Earth. We must understand clearly what the evolution of humanity on Earth was like, insofar as the “I,” full self-consciousness, came into being slowly and gradually within it.

[ 2 ] There was a time in the evolution of our Earth—we call it the ancient Lemurian era—which is the earliest period in which human beings appeared on Earth in the form in which they exist today. It was during the ancient Lemurian era that what we call the embodiment of the “I”—the very innermost essence of the human being—first manifested in the three bodies: the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. Then came the Atlantean era, during which human beings lived for the most part on the ancient Atlantean continent—a landmass that today forms the bed of the Atlantic Ocean and which was submerged by the great Atlantean flood, the memory of which has been preserved in the flood myths of nearly all peoples. Human beings then incarnated, in accordance with their innermost nature, in successive incarnations right up to the present day during the post-Atlantean era. In fact, our souls, as threefold beings consisting of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body—as we have come to know them—were first incarnated during the Lemurian era. What preceded this shall be left for later consideration. — We must therefore go back a long way when we consider the course of evolution, and human beings have developed only slowly and gradually into their present existence. What do we call “our present existence” in occultism, in the spiritual-scientific sense?

[ 3 ] We call our present existence a state of consciousness—the one a person experiences today from the morning, when they wake up, until the evening, when they fall asleep. During this time, a person perceives the things around them through their external physical senses. From the evening, when they fall asleep, until the morning, when they wake up, they do not perceive the things around them. Why is that? We know this is because, given the current stage of human development, during the daytime the actual inner self—that is, the “I” and the astral body—resides within the physical body and the etheric body on the physical plane, that is, in the physical world. There, the astral body and the “I” can make use of the physical sense organs to listen to and look out into the world and perceive physical things. From the evening, when a person falls asleep, until the morning, when they wake up, the “I” and the astral body are outside the physical world, on the astral plane. There they are separated from their physical eyes and ears; there they cannot perceive what is around them. This state—such an alternation in human beings between waking during the day and sleeping at night—developed only slowly and gradually. It was not yet the case when human beings first underwent physical incarnation in the ancient Lemurian era. At that time, human beings were inside their physical bodies—in terms of their I and astral body—for only a very short period of the day—by no means as long as today. But because human beings spent a longer time outside their physical bodies, entering them only for shorter periods while awake, life during the Lemurian era was, in fact, quite different altogether. The fact that human beings are completely unconscious during the night, unless they are dreaming, developed very slowly and gradually. During the Lemurian era, consciousness was distributed quite differently between day and night. At that time, all human beings still possessed a dim, clairvoyant consciousness. When they were outside their physical bodies at night in the spiritual world, they perceived the spiritual world around them—albeit not as clearly as people today see physical things during the day. We must not simply compare this perception with dreaming today. Today’s dream is merely a final, thoroughly atrophied remnant of this ancient clairvoyance. Admittedly, people at that time perceived images just as they do in dreams today; but these images had a very real significance. Let us try to understand what significance these images held.

[ 4 ] In ancient times, when human beings lived in daytime consciousness for only a short portion of the 24-hour day—a portion much shorter than it is today—they could see the external physical bodies only very dimly, as if shrouded in mist. The ability to see physical things as we do today developed only very gradually. During the day, people back then saw the first glimmers of physical bodies, shrouded in mist—just as you do today when you walk through the streets on a foggy evening and see the streetlights surrounded by mist, as if by a kind of aura of light. This is, of course, only an illusion, but this is how people first saw physical bodies appear around them. And when they fell asleep, they did not sink into unconsciousness; rather, images emerged during their sleep consciousness—images in colors and forms. Around them was a world compared to which even today’s most vivid dream world is but a faint, misty echo. These images represented the soul and spirit present in their surroundings.

[ 5 ] So when, back then, a human being at the beginning of his earthly journey approached a creature harmful to him during a nighttime walk, he did not see it as it is seen today—that is, not a lion approaching him in the form of a lion—but rather he saw a picture of colors and shapes rising up, and this instinctively showed him: There is something harmful there that will devour you, and you must avoid it. These were actual images of the spiritual-soul aspects unfolding around the human being. All spiritual and soul-related phenomena were perceived at night, and very slowly and gradually, development proceeded in such a way that human beings spent increasingly longer periods immersed in their physical bodies; the night grew shorter and shorter, while the day grew longer and longer. And the more human beings settled into their physical bodies, the more the nocturnal clairvoyant images faded away, and the more today’s daytime consciousness emerged. But we must not forget that a true, genuine self-consciousness—such as human beings are meant to attain during their earthly existence—can only be attained through immersion in the physical body. Human beings did not formerly feel themselves to be independent beings, but rather as members of the divine-spiritual beings from whom they sprang. Just as the hand feels itself to be a part of the organism, so did human beings, when they still possessed a dim form of clairvoyance, feel themselves to be a part of the divine-spiritual consciousness, the divine “I.” Human beings would not have said of themselves, “I am,” but rather, “God is—and I am in Him.”

[ 6 ] But now, as we will come to understand more and more, the Earth—which had gone through three earlier stages of development than Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon—was destined for a very special mission. Do not believe that the states of the planets can be viewed side by side in such a way that one planet is equivalent to another. There can be no question of a mere repetition of what has already existed in divine creation. Every planetary existence has a very specific task. Our Earth’s mission is for the beings who are to develop upon it to cultivate the element of love to its highest degree. Love is to permeate the Earth completely when the Earth has reached the end of its evolution. — Let us be clear about what this means: The Earth is the planetary stage for the development of love.

[ 7 ] In spiritual science, we say that the Earth was preceded by the ancient Moon. This ancient Moon also had a mission as a planetary stage. Its task was not yet to develop love; rather, it was to be the planet or cosmos of wisdom. Before our Earthly state, our planet went through the stage of wisdom. A simple—one might say logical—consideration can illustrate this to you. Look around at nature among all its beings. Do not view them with your mere intellect, but with the powers of your heart and soul, and you will find wisdom everywhere, expressed in nature. This wisdom, of which we speak here, is understood to underlie everything like a kind of spiritual substance. Consider whatever you wish in nature. Take, for example, a piece of thigh bone; there you will see: it is not a solid mass, but a delicate, crisscrossing series of beams arranged into a marvelous framework. And whoever investigates the laws by which it is constructed will find that it follows the principle whereby the greatest strength is developed with the least amount of material, in order to support the human torso. Our engineering has not yet advanced far enough to construct such an artful framework as the all-pervading wisdom has built there. Humanity will not possess such wisdom until later. Divine wisdom permeates all of nature; human wisdom is only gradually coming to join it. Over time, human wisdom will inwardly attain what divine wisdom has hidden within the earth.

[ 8 ] But just as wisdom was prepared on the Moon so that it is now found everywhere on Earth, so too is love being prepared on Earth. If you could look back clairvoyantly at the ancient Moon, you would see that not everything possessed such wisdom back then; you would still find some things lacking in wisdom. It was only through the entire course of the Moon’s evolution that wisdom became imprinted upon things, and when the Moon had completed its evolution, everything was so permeated by it that wisdom was present in all things.

[ 9 ] Inner wisdom first entered human beings on Earth with the “I.” However, human beings must develop this inner wisdom gradually. Just as wisdom developed on the Moon so that it is now present in all things, so love is now developing. It first came into being in its lowest form—the sensual form—during the Lemurian era. In the course of Earth’s existence, however, it will become increasingly spiritualized, until finally, when the Earth reaches the end of its evolution, the whole of existence will be permeated by love, just as it is today permeated by wisdom—through the actions of human beings, when they fulfill their task.

[ 10 ] And the Earth will transition into a future planetary state. We call this Jupiter. But the beings who will walk about on Jupiter just as humans do on Earth will likewise find love radiating from all beings—the love they themselves, as humans, instilled during their earthly existence—just as humans today find wisdom in all things. Then humans will develop love from within themselves, just as humans are now gradually developing wisdom. The great cosmic love will then permeate the things that are now beginning their existence on Earth.

[ 11 ] The materialistic mind does not believe in cosmic wisdom, but only in human wisdom. If people were to look into the course of evolution with an unbiased mind, they would see that all cosmic wisdom was, in the beginning, as advanced as human wisdom will be only at the end of the Earth. In times when terminology was even more precise than it is today, the subjective wisdom at work within human beings was called “intelligence,” in contrast to objective cosmic wisdom. Human beings pay no attention to the fact that what they invent in the course of earthly existence was already attained by the divine-spiritual beings during the Lunar era and implanted on Earth. Let’s take an example of this.

[ 12 ] How children are taught in school about the great progress humans have made—through the invention of paper, for example. Well, wasps were already producing paper many thousands of years earlier; for what wasps build in their nests consists of exactly the same substance from which human paper is made, and it is produced in exactly the same way—simply through the process of life. The wasp spirit—the group soul of the wasps, which is part of the divine-spiritual substance—was the inventor of paper long before humans. Thus, humanity is actually always lagging behind the wisdom of the worlds. In principle, everything that humanity will invent in the course of Earth’s evolution is already contained within nature. But what humanity will truly give to the Earth is love, which will unfold from its most sensuous to its most spiritual form. That is the task of Earth’s evolution. The Earth is the cosmos of love.

[ 13 ] But what, we ask, is necessary for love? What is required for one being to love another? For this to happen, that being must possess full self-awareness and be completely independent. No being can love another in the full sense of the word unless that love is a free gift to the other being. My hand does not love my body. Only a being that is independent—that is detached from the other being—can love it. For this to happen, human beings had to become “I”-beings. The “I” had to be implanted into the threefold human physical body so that the Earth could fulfill its mission of love through human beings. Therefore, you will understand why Christian esotericism states: Just as other forces—most recently wisdom during the Lunar period—flowed down from the gods, so love flows into the Earth during the Earth period; and the bearer of love can only be the independent “I,” which gradually takes shape in the course of Earth’s evolution. But human beings must be prepared for everything very slowly, including their present state of consciousness. Let us suppose that, even in the ancient Lemurian era, human beings had been fully immersed in their physical bodies; they would have already perceived the full outer reality at that time. They would not have been able to instill love within themselves at such a rapid pace! They first had to be gradually guided toward their earthly mission. Without having yet attained full self-awareness, without having yet reached the stage of perceiving the objects around him in clear, waking consciousness, he was unconsciously given his first lessons in love within his twilight state of consciousness. Thus we see that throughout the ages, while human beings still possessed an ancient, dreamlike clairvoyant consciousness—that is, while the soul was for a long time outside the body—love was instilled in them in a twilight state, one not yet marked by self-awareness. Let us picture him clearly before the soul—this human being of ancient times, who has not yet reached the height of full self-consciousness.

[ 14 ] A person falls asleep in the evening; but there is no abrupt transition from wakefulness to sleep. Images emerge—vivid dream images—that nevertheless have a living connection to the spiritual world. This means that, as the person falls asleep, they become immersed in the spiritual world. There, in their twilight consciousness, the divine Spirit instills the first seeds of all loving activity. What is to be revealed through love in the course of Earth’s evolution first flows into human beings during the night. The God who brings the true earthly mission to Earth first reveals Himself at night to the dim, ancient clairvoyant consciousness before He can reveal Himself to the bright consciousness of the day. Then, slowly and gradually, the periods during which human beings are in this dim, clairvoyant state become shorter, daytime consciousness grows longer, the auric halos around objects become increasingly insignificant, and objects acquire ever more definite boundaries. Previously, human beings saw the sun and the moon surrounded by a powerful halo, everything appearing as if shrouded in a mass of mist. Only slowly does the entire vision clear, and distinct boundaries begin to appear around things. The person has gradually arrived at this state. What the person sees externally—while the sun shines upon the earth and, through visible light, reveals to them the entire earthly existence, including minerals, plants, and animals—the person perceives as the manifestations of the Divine in the external world.

[ 15 ] What, then, in the context of Christian esotericism, is that which becomes visible in clear daytime consciousness—the very substance of which the Earth is composed on a vast scale? It is a revelation of the divine forces, an outer, material revelation of the inner spiritual! When you look out at the sun or at what you find on Earth: it is a revelation of the divine-spiritual. This divine-spiritual in its present form—which underlies everything that appears to clear daytime consciousness, the invisible world behind this entire visible world of the day—is what Christian esotericism calls the “Logos” or the “Word.” For just as human beings can ultimately utter the Word within themselves, so, in the beginning, everything—the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the mineral kingdom—arose from the Logos. Everything is an embodiment of this Logos. And just as your soul reigns invisibly within you and creates a body for itself outwardly, so too does every spiritual entity in the world create for itself a suitable outer body and reveal itself through some physical form.

[ 16 ] Where, then, is the physical body of the Logos of which the Gospel of John speaks and which we seek to bring more and more into our consciousness today? Where is the physical body of the Logos? This outer physical body of the Logos appears in its purest form, first and foremost, in the light of the sun. Sunlight is not merely material light. To spiritual perception, it is just as much the garment of the Logos as your outer physical body is the garment for your soul. If you relate to a human being in the same way that the majority of people today relate to the sun, you cannot come to know that other human being; for you would approach every human being who possesses a feeling, thinking, and willing soul in such a way that you do not presuppose anything soul-spiritual in them, but merely feel your way around a physical body and believe that it might just as well be made of papier-mâché. But if you wish to penetrate to the spiritual in sunlight, then you must regard it as you would when getting to know a person’s inner being through their physical form. Just as your body relates to your soul, so does sunlight relate to the Logos. In the sunlight, a spiritual force flows toward the Earth. This spiritual force—if we are able to grasp not only the body of the Sun but also the Spirit of the Sun—is love, which flows down upon the Earth. Not only does physical sunlight awaken the plants—so that they would wither away if physical sunlight did not act upon them—but along with the physical sunlight, the warm love of the Deity flows down to Earth; and human beings are here to receive, develop, and reciprocate the warm love of the Deity. But they can do this only by becoming self-aware “I”-beings. Only then can they reciprocate that love.

[ 17 ] When people first began, in the early days, to dwell only briefly in their daily lives, they could perceive nothing of the light that simultaneously kindled love. The light shone into the darkness, but the darkness could not yet comprehend the light. And if this light—which is at the same time the love of the Logos—had not been revealed to humankind in any other way than through the brief hours of the day, humankind would not have comprehended this light of love. Yet, even in the dim, clairvoyant dream-consciousness of those ancient times, love still flowed into humankind. And now let us look beyond existence to a great mystery of the world, of our Earth—a profound mystery.

[ 18 ] Let us consider, so to speak, that the guidance of the world for our Earth was such that, for a time, love flowed into human beings unconsciously through a twilight-like clairvoyant consciousness, preparing them inwardly to receive love in full, bright, daytime consciousness. - We have seen that our Earth has gradually become the cosmos that is to carry out the mission of love. The Earth is illuminated by the present-day Sun. Just as human beings inhabit the Earth and gradually assimilate love, so do other, higher beings inhabit the Sun, because the Sun has reached a higher stage of existence. Human beings are inhabitants of Earth, and to be an inhabitant of Earth means to be a being who assimilates love during their time on Earth. A solar inhabitant in our time means a being who can kindle love, who can allow love to flow in. Earth dwellers would not be able to develop love or receive it if the sun dwellers did not send them mature wisdom along with the rays of light. As the light of the sun streams down upon the Earth, love develops on Earth. This is a very real truth. The beings who stand so high that they can radiate love have made the sun their domain.

[ 19 ] When the Moon had completed its evolution, there were seven such principal beings who had reached the stage where they could radiate love. Here we touch upon a profound mystery revealed by esoteric science. - At the beginning of Earth’s evolution, there was the infant-like human being, who was to receive love and was ready to receive the “I”; and on the other hand, there was the Sun, which separated itself and ascended to a higher existence. On this Sun, seven principal spirits of light were able to develop, who were at the same time the giving spirits of love. Only six of them took up residence on the Sun; and what physically flows toward us in the light of the Sun contains within itself the spiritual forces of love of these six spirits of light—or the six Elohim, as we find them in the Bible. One separated and took a different path for the salvation of humankind; he chose not the Sun but the Moon as his dwelling place. And this one of the spirits of light, who voluntarily renounced a solar existence and chose the moon, is none other than the one whom the Old Testament calls “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.” This one, who chose the moon as his abode, is the one who, from the moon, poured mature wisdom upon the Earth and thereby prepared the way for love.

[ 20 ] Now take a look at this mystery that lies behind all things. The night belongs to the moon, and it belonged to the moon to a much greater extent in those ancient times, when human beings could not yet receive the power of love from the sun, when they could not yet receive this power of love in direct light. At that time, they received the reflected power of mature wisdom from the moonlight. It flowed to them from the moonlight during the time of nighttime consciousness. That is why Yahweh is called the Ruler of the Night, who prepared humanity for the love that was to arise later during full daytime consciousness. Thus we look back on the ancient era of humanity, when the spiritual process took place—a process symbolized only by the celestial bodies—where you have the sun on one side and the moon on the other.

[ 21 ] During the night, at certain times, the moon sends us the reflected power of the sun. It is the same light that comes to us from the sun. Thus, in ancient times, Yahweh or Jehovah radiated the power of mature wisdom, the power of the six Elohim, and during the hours of nighttime sleep, He poured this power into human beings, preparing them so that they would later be able to gradually receive the power of love during their waking consciousness.

[ 22 ] The drawing is intended to symbolically illustrate to the waking human being where the physical body and the etheric body are dependent on the Divine, and where the “I” and the astral body exist on the physical plane within the physical and etheric bodies; there, the entire human system is illuminated from without by the sun. You now know that the night was much longer and had a much greater effect on people in ancient times. During the night, the astral body and the “I” are outside the physical and etheric bodies; the “I” is entirely in the astral world, and the astral body is drawn from the outside into the physical body in such a way that, in its entirety, it remains embedded in the spiritual-divine. In this state, the sun cannot shine directly upon the human astral body and kindle the power of love within it. Instead, the moon, which reflects the sunlight, acts through Yahweh or Jehovah. The moon is the symbol of Yahweh or Jehovah, and the sun is nothing other than the symbol of the Logos, who is the sum of the other six Elohim. This drawing—which you may study and meditate upon—is intended to suggest this only symbolically. And as you reflect on it, you will discover the profound truths of the Mystery it depicts: that for a long time, through Yahweh, the power of love was implanted in human beings unconsciously via their nocturnal consciousness. In this way, humankind was prepared so that, little by little, it could receive the Logos—the power of His love—on its own. How was this possible? How could this have happened? — Now we come to the other side of the mystery.

[ 23 ] We have said that human beings were called to self-aware love on Earth. They therefore needed a guide, a teacher, during their bright, daytime consciousness—one who would present himself in such a way that they could perceive him. Only during the night, in twilight consciousness, could love be instilled in him. Gradually, however, something had to come about—something that would occur with full reality—that would enable human beings to see the very essence of love itself externally, physically. How could this come about? This could only come about through the essence of divine love—the Logos—becoming a being on Earth—a physical being on Earth, as human beings on Earth could perceive through their senses. Because human beings developed the ability to perceive through their external senses, God—the Logos—had to become a sensory being Himself. He had to appear in a physical body. This happened through Christ Jesus, and the historical appearance of Christ Jesus means nothing other than that the powers of the six Elohim, or of the Logos, became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth at the beginning of our era—that they were truly present in the visible world through him. That is what matters. That which lies within the sun as inner power—the power of the love of the Logos—took on a physical human form in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. For just as with any other external object or being, God had to appear to human beings on Earth in a corporeal form in order for them to perceive Him through their sensory consciousness. What, then, is this being who appeared to us at the beginning of our era as Christ Jesus? It is nothing other than the embodiment of the Logos, the six other Elohim, preceded in preparation by the one, the God Yahweh. And this one figure of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the Christ or the Logos was incarnated, therefore brings what previously flowed down to Earth only from the sun—what is contained only in sunlight—into human life, into the very history of humanity itself: “The Logos became flesh.” This is what the Gospel of John emphasizes most of all.

[ 24 ] And the writer of the Gospel of John must have attached the greatest importance to this very fact. For it is true: After some of the initiated disciples of Christ had understood what was at stake, others also came forward who could not fully grasp it—who, to be sure, fully understood that everything material, everything that confronts us in the physical world, is based on a soul-spiritual foundation; but what they could not grasp was that, in a single human being, the Logos itself was once incarnated in a way that was physically visible to the physical-sensory world. They could not understand that. This is what distinguishes what we encounter in the early Christian centuries as “Gnosis” from true esoteric Christianity. The author of the Gospel of John pointed this out in strong terms: No, you must not regard Christ as a supersensible, invisible being that underlies all material reality, but you must emphasize that the Word became flesh, that it dwelt among us! That is the subtle difference between esoteric Christianity and the original Gnosis. Gnosticism recognizes Christ just as esoteric Christianity does, but only as a spiritual being, and sees in Jesus of Nazareth, at most, a human messenger more or less bound to this spiritual being. It wishes to cling to the Christ who remains invisible. Esoteric Christianity, on the other hand, has always been in the spirit of the Gospel of John, which stood on the firm ground of the Word:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (1:14)

[ 25 ] And the one who was there in the visible world is a true embodiment of the other six Elohim, the Logos!

[ 26 ] Thus, the Earth mission—that which was to come of the Earth through the events in Palestine—has only now truly taken root in the Earth. Everything before that was preparation. How, then, should Christ, who dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, primarily describe himself?

[ 27 ] He had to define himself, above all, as the great bringer and enabler of the self-aware, free human being. Let us summarize this living teaching of Christ in a few brief, paradigmatic sentences. Then we must say: The Earth exists to give human beings full self-awareness, the “I am.” Before that, everything was merely preparation for this self-awareness, for the “I am”; and Christ is the one who provides the impulse so that all human beings—each as an individual being—can experience the “I am.” Only now has the powerful impulse been given that propels humanity on Earth forward with a mighty surge. We can see this by comparing Christianity with the teachings of the Old Testament. In Old Testament teaching, human beings did not yet fully experience the “I Am” within their own personalities. They still retained a remnant of what remained from the ancient era of dreamlike consciousness, when human beings did not feel themselves as a self but as a member of the divine being, just as animals are still members of the group soul today. Human beings emerged from the group soul and have progressed toward an individual, independent existence in which each person feels the “I Am.” And Christ is the force that has brought human beings to this free “I Am” consciousness. Let us consider this once in its full inner significance.

[ 28 ] The Old Testament believer did not yet feel as self-contained in his individual personality as the New Testament believer. The Old Testament believer did not yet say within his personality: “I am an ‘I.’” He felt himself to be part of the entire ancient Jewish people and experienced the “collective national ‘I.’” Let us vividly place ourselves in the consciousness of such an Old Testament believer. Just as the true Christian feels the “I am” and will gradually learn to feel it more and more, so the Old Testament believer did not feel the “I am.” He felt himself to be a member of the entire people and looked up to the group soul, and when he wanted to express this, he said: My consciousness reaches up to the father of the entire people, to Abraham; we—I and Father Abraham—are one. A shared “I” encompasses us all; and only then do I feel secure in the spiritual substance of the world, when I feel myself resting within the substance of the entire people. — Thus the Old Testament believer looked up to Father Abraham and said: “I and Father Abraham are one. The same blood flows through my veins as through Abraham’s veins.” — And he felt Father Abraham to be the root from which every single Abrahamite sprang forth as a branch.

[ 29 ] Then Christ Jesus came and said to his closest, most intimate disciples: “Until now, people have judged solely according to the flesh, according to blood ties; for them, that was the awareness that they were part of a higher, invisible connection. But you are to believe in a much more spiritual connection, one that goes beyond blood ties. You are to believe in a spiritual Father-Principle in which the “I” is rooted, one that is more spiritual than the principle that unites the Jewish people as a group soul. You are to believe in that which dwells within me and within every human being, and that is not only one with Abraham—it is one with the divine foundation of the worlds! That is why Christ Jesus emphasized, in the spirit of the Gospel of John:

“Before Abraham was, the ‘I Am’ was!” (8:58)

[ 30 ] My primordial self ascends not only to the principle of the Father, which extends back to Abraham, but is one with that which pulses through the entire cosmos; my spirituality ascends to that level.

“I and the Father are one!” (10:30)

[ 31 ] This is the important word that one must feel; then one will sense the jolt that gripped humanity and advanced human evolution through the impulse provided by the coming of Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus was the great animator of the “I Am.”

[ 32 ] And now let us try to listen a little to what his closest initiates said, how they expressed what was revealed to them. They said: Until now, no single human being of flesh and blood has existed to whom this name, “I Am,” could be ascribed in this way—as the one who was the first to bring the full meaning of “I Am” into the world. And so they called the “I Am” the name of Christ Jesus. That was the name with which the most intimate initiates felt connected—the name they thus understood, the name “I Am.”

[ 33 ] So you must immerse yourself in the most important chapters of the Gospel of John. When you take, for example, the chapter where the words “I am the light of the world!” appear, you must take them literally—quite literally. The “I Am” that appeared in the flesh for the first time there—what is it? It is the same thing that flows into the Earth as the Logos force in the sunlight. Throughout the entire 8th chapter, beginning with verse 12—which is usually titled “Jesus, the Light of the World”—you will find a description of this profound truth regarding the meaning of “I Am.” Read the chapter in such a way that you emphasize the “I” or the “I Am” throughout, and know that the “I Am” was the name to which the initiates felt connected. Then you will understand it; then this chapter will appear to you in such a way that you would have to read it something like this:

“Then Jesus spoke to his disciples, saying: ‘What “I Am” can say to myself is the power of the Light of the World; and whoever follows me will see, in the bright light of daytime consciousness, what those who walk in darkness do not see.’”

[ 34 ] But those who clung to the old belief that the light of love can be implanted in human beings only in a nocturnal manner—those who were called the Pharisees—replied: “You invoke your ‘I Am,’ but we invoke Father Abraham. There we feel the strength that entitles us to act as self-aware beings; there we feel strong when we sink into the common source of the “I,” which leads all the way back to Father Abraham.”

“Jesus said: ‘When one speaks of the “I” in the way that I speak, the testimony is true; for I know that this “I” comes from the Father, from the common source of the world, and to where it returns.’” (8:14)

[ 35 ] And now the important sentence, Chapter 8, verse 15, which you must translate literally as follows:

“You judge everything according to the flesh. But I do not judge the trivial things that are in the flesh.
And when I judge, my judgment is true. For then I am not alone, but I am united with the Father, from whom I came.” (8:15–16)

[ 36 ] That is the meaning of this passage. Thus, you can see references to the common Father throughout. And we will be able to bring the concept of the Father even more clearly before our minds. - Thus, you can see how the phrase, “Before Abraham was, the ‘I Am’ was,” vividly embodies the very essence of Christian doctrine.

[ 37 ] Today we have delved deeply into the words of the Gospel of John—more deeply than we could have if I had interpreted them in a superficial way. We have derived these words from spiritual wisdom, insofar as we have alluded to some important words in the Gospel of John that precisely denote the essence of Christianity. We will see how, precisely by first understanding such core and primordial words of the Gospel, light and clarity will enter into the entire Gospel of John.

[ 38 ] Consider all of this as a teaching that was imparted in the Christian esoteric school, which the author of the Gospel of John recorded—in the manner we will discuss—in order to pass it down to posterity for those who truly wish to penetrate its meaning.

[ 39 ] The next lecture will cover how to take this even further.