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the Way of the Fool
the conscious development of our human character,
and the future* of Christianity - both to be born
out of the natural union of Faith and Gnosis
by Joel A. Wendt
* Regarding the future of Christianity,
here is John 16: 12-15 "I have much more to say to you, but you can't bear it
just yet. But when the other comes, the breath of truth, he will
guide you in the ways of all truth, because he will not speak on his
own, but will speak what he hears and announce to you what's coming.
He will glorify me, because he will take of what is mine and
announce it to you. Everything the Father has is mine: that's why
I said he will take of what is mine and announce it to you"
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Mary Kelly Sutton, MD (anthroposophical doctor and dear friend), without whose support, generosity and hours of conversation, it could not have been written.
Acknowledgments
The list is long, and for this reason you
will find it at the end of this book - one caveat, however: the text
has not been edited by a professional, and is therefore no doubt filled
with matters that might make other writers, editors, teachers of
English and anyone connected with good writing, cringe. For this
torture of the editorially gifted, I apologize.
Table of Contents
Introduction.
Moral Grace
- the theme (song) of the central mystery of the modern age -
first stanza: Shepherds and Kings - a Temporary parting of Ways -
second stanza: the Evolution of Consciousness - the meaning of the historical differences between the time of the Pharaohs (the time of the Old Testament) and our present Age (the Dawn of the Third Millennium)
third stanza: the Church and the Body of Christ - being a discussion of the future of Christianity as that future development appears out of the Evolution of Consciousness.
fourth stanza:
Moral Grace - a first iteration - being an attempt to
describe and name something very many people already instinctively know
Freedom
- the theme (song) of the
real challenge of modern life -
fifth stanza: Three New Ways - being an examination of the profound and surprising interrelationship between the What Would Jesus Do Movement; the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous; and, Rudolf Steiner's book: The Philosophy of Freedom (also known as, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity,) [which stanza also contains, the Shepherd's Tale, the King's Tale and the Healers' Tale]
sixth stanza: in the Absence of the Good - in the Age of Freedom, and in the confusion of the weaknesses of traditional moral authority, what happens when Moral Grace is not present - the Pharmaceutical Industry as an Example
seventh stanza: the Seventh Day of Creation - the problem of freedom seen in the light of the nature of evil, and its relationship to the course of individual human lives (the biography) [which stanza also contains the Fool's Tale (part I)]
eighth stanza:
the Gesture of the History of Civilizations as expressed in both Matter
and Spirit - from whence comes
technology and where is it going, or, the entanglement of the
i-AM in matter, its consequences and its meaning
Love
- the theme (song) of the
deepest hidden potential of the human being -
ninth stanza: the Four Forms of Love - selfless love (Agape); nurturing love (Storge); brother and sisterly love (Phileo); and, erotic and sensual love (Eros).
tenth stanza: the Seventh Day of Creation as an Expression of Love - concerning the role of Divine Love, and human love, in the creation of new social forms, or what we usually call the Fall of one Civilization followed by the Birth of a new one [also contains the Fool's Tale (part II)]
eleventh stanza: entering the Narrow Gate - love as an act of inner husbandry, through the stewardship and discipline of the life of the mind
twelfth
stanza: love and the gift of the word - a demonstration - being a deeper consideration of the relationship
between our inner activity, and our outer acts in speech [also contains
the Fool's Tale (part III)]
Appendices
(some matters requiring a bit of detail,
but which
really didn't belong in the main text)
1) Prayer and Meditation: certain nuances connected to providing the i-AM some rest and time of reflection.
2) Sacrifice of Thoughts: cleaning out the garden of the mind before growing new insights, and other unusual properties of our soul-spirit nexus.
3) Some further thoughts about finding a healthy relationship to the fourth form of love, UnFallen Eros.
4) A few words for those whose faith is in natural science, and/or might consider themselves to be secular humanists.
5) In praise of the virtues of ordinary mind.
6) Confessions.
7) In Joyous Celebration of the Soul Art and Music of Discipleship: some more recent thoughts on the relationship between Shepherds (exoteric Christianity, or Faith) and Kings (esoteric Christianity, or Gnosis).
Epilogue: Concerning the immediate future
End Story: Bicycles: a Children's Christmas Story for Adults
Introduction
This introduction is a bit long, but it
is necessary to touch on a number of preliminary points so as to form a
contextual basis for what is in the main text. At the same time,
the reader should feel that there is nothing here that has to be deeply
learned or memorized. In a way we are just going to travel
through an introduction to the landscape
of ideas to be later encountered in this little book, and you
should just enjoy the view and the visit. The nice thing is that
because this is a book, you can always revisit it in whole or in part
as you need.
There is also a lot of unusual or different content in this book - perhaps for some readers too much. Given that reality (of much unusual content), the reader is urged to take only what seems to be of personal value and to discard the rest. Different concepts will resonate more strongly with different readers. Let that resonance, that spark of personal interest, be your guide.
*
If there is a main point in the introduction, it is this:
My own life experience begins as a ordinary Christian, with all its ups and downs, periods of doubt and periods of secure Faith (the Way of the Shepherds). Yet, in the middle of my life I began to learn about Gnosis (the Way of the Kings), something I hadn't expected or been taught to recognize. I discovered that these Ways were not in opposition to each other, but rather belonged together, the older Way (Gnosis/Kings) complementing and completing the younger Way (Faith/Shepherds). Their separation over 2000 years ago was for a purpose, and the contemporary need for the beginning of their rejoining also has a purpose. That, however, is the longer story this book hopes to illuminate.
*
In writing of the natural union of Faith and Gnosis, I am referring to something which is already ongoing in
the present, in human consciousness, albeit mostly instinctively.
This is a complex matter, and in one sense really takes the whole
book to explain. Here we should just have the idea that Faith -
indirect knowledge of God - is different from mere belief; and, that
direct knowledge of God (Gnosis) can be scientific. This
union of Faith and Gnosis then is also the coming natural integration
of what otherwise seems today to be deeply divided, namely Science
(knowledge - Gnosis) and Religion (Faith).
This union is taking place in the
individual consciousness (soul), and requires of us that we faithfully
observe (be scientific about) our own consciousness in order to come to
knowledge of its real nature. What should not be overlooked,
however, is that this union of Gnosis and Faith, or Science and
Religion is really an Art - the Art of conscious (intentional)soul life
or character development.
For a starting point, here is some apt
wisdom from the middle-East: cultivate your thought for thought will become speech;
cultivate your speech for speech will become deeds; cultivate your
deeds for deeds will become character; and cultivate your character,
for character will become destiny.
By the Way of the Fool, I mean to use the term Fool in the same manner as has the anonymous author of Meditations
on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, wherein the Arcanum (the Meditation on) The
Fool is also called Amor,
or Love. This is what then gives this Way its Christ-based
texture, being an act of Love. By using the term human character, I also mean to suggest that this Way, while it has
kinship with Buddhist Enlightenment, is yet different - the Path of
Love being a further evolution of the Path of Compassion [Christ being Essence rather than Being - the goal of the Buddha
at one time]. Since the former is a facet of God becoming human
(for a time), and the latter a facet of the human moving in the
direction of becoming only pure Being
- disappearing into the Source, then the activity - the Teaching of the
Way of Love in human evolution - appears in human history progressively subsequent to the Teaching of the Way of Compassion.] .
This being the case, we should also notice there is a difference
(as well as a relationship) between Compassion and Love, which is why
we have to also consider the term initiation as well as the term
enlightenment.
Without going too far into the matter,
from a certain point of view it is possible to speak of depth spirituality (spiritual practices requiring serious meditation
practice and other acts of intentional self-development) as needing to
be called enlightenment in the East (Asia), initiation in the Center (Europe) and character development in the West (the Americas). With enlightenment we are raising the individual up into spiritual heights.
With initiation we are using the individual to bring down cosmic wisdom
from these same heights. With the development of earthly
character, we are seeking the moral integration of the individual as a member of all communities, both
visible and invisible. The author of this book is after all an
American, and this causes a certain perspective to arise, and a certain
given nature to be in effect.
And, speaking of Buddhism...there is a
kind of technical problem. In a very real sense there is more
than one kind of Buddhism, just as there is more than one kind of
Christianity. In the Cultural West, especially America, these
various versions of Buddhism have made a deep penetration, not all of
which has been to the good. Let us call the more healthy versions
depth Buddhism, and the less healthy (superficial)versions pop-Buddhism
(we can make a similar distinction as regards Christianity - there are depth
aspects and merely pop aspects). Part of the
effort in this book then, is to help the reader distinguish between the
superficial versions of spiritual practice and the depth
versions, as well as to become awake to certain distinctions between
depth Buddhism and depth Christianity.
Now I don't mean to suggest, by the use of the term superficial, any particular human failing. Rather, as we all know, some people only go to Church on Sunday, and others are so devoted to religious practice that they enter a convent or a monastery. This also we all know, for not only is this a teaching in many religious and philosophical texts, it is also a lesson of life: as you sow, so shall you reap. Those who take their religious practice more seriously than others will find inner riches that others cannot yet reach and discover.
The core of the character development
aspect is, however, tied up with the problem of morality - in a manner
that is not easily approached from a traditional frame of reference.
A real focus of this book then is about how we can come to trust
our individual and independent moral judgment (outside of tradition),
and the meaning of that search for both our personal biographies and
the general condition of the world - something that is not a small
topic in any event.
*
The image on the cover is a weaving of seed beads (an artistic effort inspired by the use of such beads by Native America Peoples), which I created around 1977.
Much the same way that cover design is
created out of many many small colored beads, so is the design of this
book created out of individual words - lines of dark upon a page - a
mosaic of ideas set free in trust for the reader to make of it what he
or she will. I am grateful to whomever takes the time to let into
their soul this small offering. Thank you.
*
The words that follow in this small book
then, and the thoughts which seek to live through them, are derived
from the whole of my life. This means that in certain respects I
am a very lucky human being - I have been Graced with a rather
remarkable series of teachings, most of them out of life experience.
But of my own story, my biography, I will write only
occasionally, in the light of the following observation.
Who I am, and what of the truly human I have become (we are not born fully human, but must seek it and become it), is mostly due to all the people I have met in life. I have had the great fortune to encounter at almost every turn wise and loving people. Yes, there have been all the usual personal struggles, even including addiction, but all the ordinary human suffering that I have experienced has been far out weighed by the Grace of a very wise Providence, who placed in my life's path a sequence of teachers and life teachings for which I am not only very grateful, but upon whom I am completely dependent. The best in what I write is born in them, while the worst will be due to my own failings.
All the same, to receive such treasures
into ones soul and spirit is clearly not meant to be for me alone.
It is, in fact, an aspect of age (I was halfway through my 64th
year when the major portions of this book were being written, and I am
66 at the writing of these current revisions) that creates a need to
pass on what has been learned, knowing that it was by such a sharing
from others that ones own life was greatly enriched.
At a certain point in my life, while
reflecting on the nature of these riches entrusted to me, I wrote of
what it was like to receive them using the following words: "Listening to the World Song". Here then, in this book, is a portion of what I
heard - the Story Sung to me by the World Itself, concerning the human
adventure that is each individual's biography, as that biography is
held within a most wise and loving embrace - an embrace which was once
called Divine Providence, and which today we might call: Earthly Human Existence. The meaning of this Earthly Human Existence will be
the principle thought-picture, in this landscape of ideas, to be
brought forward at the end of the main body of the book.
I should also confess that a great deal
of what I write about this Way of the Fool (Love) is based
upon direct personal experience. Very little is just the
repeating of ideas gained from the reading of books, or the shared
wisdom of people I have met. Always it has been my practice to
test pragmatically any suggestion of others as regards spiritual or
inner work. This being the case I have in the main only spoken
from experience, although I frequently quote sources especially the
teachings of Christ as contained in the Gospels. Of all that has
been tested in practice by the way, it is Christ's teachings that have
been the truest, the deepest, and the most practical.
At the same time, the reader should be
able to find here a few indications (stories) describing how a certain understanding came to me
during the course of my biography. Let me here give an example of
the kind of story that I will tell:
In about the year 1979, I was working as a dishwasher in a small restaurant near Lake Merritt in Oakland California. The owner was an unusual and passionate gay man, given to all manner of human excesses coupled with a remarkable generosity. Human beings, somewhat in the nature of stray cats, would come to his attention and he would help them with jobs and money. I was one such stray cat.
One morning when I got to work there was an older gentleman standing in that part of the kitchen where I worked at washing dishes and certain other tasks. The owner, Patrick, had apparently brought this man to the restaurant in order to give him some work. My guess is that Patrick had wanted to give the man money, but the older gentleman being of another generation, his pride probably demanded that he work for this gift. Just to round out the reader's picture of this gentleman - he was tall (a little over six feet) and thin, with short gray hair, and a couple days gray stubble on his unshaven face. He was wearing a threadbare dark blue suit and a white shirt with no tie. He was not dressed for working in a kitchen.
I was introduced to this gentleman upon getting to work and told that he would be doing some tasks. But breakfast was a busy time and I soon was very active, as were all the rest of the employees. As I ran around doing what was expected, the gentleman stood quietly and silently out of the way. Concerned, I asked him if he would like some coffee while he waited, to which he replied: "Yes. Please." I then retrieved a cup from that place where it was produced and which he could not have seen or known he could use. When I handed him the cup he said: "Thank you, I am twice warmed."
I had never
heard this form of speech before, and my facial expression became
clearly quizzical. This he immediately noticed, and then said:
"The hot coffee warms my body, but the kindness of your act warms my
soul."
Such are the lessons with which we are
surrounded in our biographies.
*
A couple more introductory points....
As most everyone knows there are many
translations of the Gospels and other Old and New Testament texts.
Where a particular author has used a text, I will quote it as
used. Where there is a certain reference I need to make, I will
quote from a beautifully bound Bible that I found on sale at a
Monastery, which calls itself the: Catholic
Family Edition of the Holy Bible and was
published in 1953 by John J. Crowley & Co., Inc. of New York.
Where the Gospels in particular are being quoted I will do
something in addition, namely quote the same passage as published in
the book The Unvarnished Gospels by Andy
Gaus. There is a reason for this.
When the Gospels were first written down
(they were oral traditions before being written), they were written in
Greek, the language of scholarship in that Age. As time passed,
and the religion that is Christianity arose, translators began to adapt
the original Greek and to change it to accord with various established
doctrines. So in our time we don't get what was actually written
of the Gospels in their original form in Greek, but rather official
versions and later interpretations that change the original text to
make it consistent with the by then established doctrine. By
adding a translation faithful to the original Greek, it is my hope to
aid the reader to see that perhaps something of the true Mystery has
been sacrificed over the centuries in order to force the text to
conform to someones later invented dogma.
Just to give an example, here is a quote from the preface to The Unvarnished Gospels, which preface was written by one George Witterschein:
"To my eye the most startling
difference between this version and all others I know occurs in the
famous Prologue to John's Gospel. Everyone has heard it: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God
and the Word was God." Now one of the first things I noticed upon
reading this passage in Greek was that it doesn't say "the Word was with God." It says"...and the Word was towards God," or "...was going towards God."
Which is another matter altogether. If the Word
was in motion towards God, instead of being literally and plainly
identical with God, then St. John is introducing the notion of
development (or process, or progression) within the divine nature, as
the explanation for the origin of the created universe! "Movement toward " implies a separation that is in process of being
overcome. The movement of the Word towards God can then be seen
as history: the history of the created universe, going back to its very
beginning, is one of overcoming a separation from God, of a process of
reunification."
{Where I have quoted from The Unvarnished Gospels, this
quote will appear in the text below, in bold and italics - that is in this form.}
One small caveat...The
Unvarnished Gospels is not perfect.
Choices were made and not all those choices were wise.
A reader now awake to this problem will probably want to look to
the Internet or other sources for the further considerations of any
difficult or seemingly ambiguous passages.
*
With reference to modern Biblical scholarship, a field full of worthy effort, I must make some small comments. We have, of course, a long pursuit of the historical Jesus by the world of scholars, some believers and some not. Documents are studied, languages are mastered, papers written and conferences held. In spite of all the valiant efforts made, I do not believe this activity has any hope of finding the truth of who Jesus was, and what those events of 2000 years ago meant then, mean today and will mean on into the future.
True knowledge of this kind comes in only
one way - the practice of the teachings in the Gospels. The essence of
what is to be learned is not found in any text, whether it is the Four
Gospels themselves, the supposed book of Q, or the newly discovered
Gospels of Mary and of Thomas. This essence is only found through
the trials in life that come from struggling to follow in the footsteps
of the Teacher. This knowledge only comes from doing, not from mere belief, reading, study or contemplation
of any text - even the many texts which I will cite below.
Let me come at this again, from a
slightly different direction...
Consider the Gospels of Mary Magdalene
and Thomas, which some today find remarkable, especially since these
two seem to emphasize the teachings of Jesus in ways more familiar to
that kind of spirituality we have been hearing from the Eastern Ways,
such as various forms of Buddhism (such as Zen) or the equally indirect
teachings found in the Sufi Tales. There is a similar enigmatic
quality to these newly discovered Gospels, and a kinship to various
kinds of Gnostic teachings. For those of us made sensitive to
this kind of spirituality, and who have also become hardened or
resistant to the confused religious beliefs of many traditional Christians, there has come to live
in us a hunger for something other than the traditional interpretations
of what the Four Gospels mean.
Consider then the possibility that there
is nothing essentially inconsistent between the Four Gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John, and the Gospels of Mary and Thomas, or the
teachings of the Gnostics. Suppose, once we enter the realm of doing and not just reading and having beliefs, the light that
inspires all spirituality and all religion begins to shine. This
is a light that shines in and through us, and once alight will itself
illuminate in a new way the Four Gospels themselves, and give rebirth
and resurrection to our understanding of the meaning of the Incarnation.
Lets add here a nuance much discussed in
traditional Christianity, and this is the distinction between works
and grace, for in emphasizing doing
I appear to suggest that works are superior to grace.
It is possible to read many arguments about this problem - are we saved by grace and by faith alone, or are works necessary too. In framing the question this way, something else is added, namely the idea of being saved. However, when I wrote above about doing, what I said essentially was that true knowledge comes only from doing. I was not speaking about being saved. At this point I only want to suggest that there are subtle matters involved, and that this problem of the relationship of knowledge, doing, being saved, grace, faith, gnosis, and belief are worthy of a great deal of thoughtful attention, and ought not in any case be just left aside as matters of mere doctrine and dogma. They must be examined, and made whole with experience.
*
One of the aspects of human nature that
has become somewhat lost and confused to modern human beings,
particularly in the Cultural West, concerns the role of the imagination
in our understanding of existence. I will speak more in the main
text about the imagination in certain specific instances, but here I
just wanted to point to the problem, and also just point at the depths
that can be considered, for example in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
(not as well known as they should be) remarks on primary and secondary
Imagination, from Chapter XIII of his Biographia
Literaria:
"The Imagination then, I consider either as primary
or secondary. The primary Imagination I hold to be a living
power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in
the finite mind of the eternal act of creation of the infinite I Am.
The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former,
co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the
former in the kind of its agency and differing only in degree, and in
the mode of its operation . It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates,
in order to re-create; or where this process is rendered impossible,
yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It
is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially
fixed and dead."
Then there is Coleridge's distinction
between these and Fancy:
"Fancy, on the contrary, has no other counters to play
with, but fixities and finites. The Fancy is indeed no other than
a mode of Memory emancipated from the order of time and space; while it
is blended with, and modified by that empirical phenomenon of the will,
which we express by the word Choice. But equally with the
ordinary memory the Fancy must receive all its materials ready made
from the law of association."
The imagination, as you might now be able
to see, is not well understood in general today, but I will be trying
to bring it more to the fore in the book below where I am going to tell
some stories - in some cases what I explicitly call Tales.
Ordinarily we think of such (Tales)
as fanciful feats of the imagination, and no more real than comic
books. Such is also the view of many concerning Religion, or at
least the reality of the Divine Mystery - what some see as just another
fanciful myth.
Each of us will have to decide the truth
of such things for ourselves. All the same, the reader should
know that the author of these words knows the imagination in a most
intimate fashion, and as something of far greater depth and reality
than the merely fanciful. Our inwardness is joined to another
Inwardness, and the boundary world between our personal mystery and
that far greater Mystery is the imagination. Yes, the world
of the imagination is prone to illusion and fancy, but that comes from
our approach to it, not from its own nature. If we approach it
from a particular direction, as explorers and adventurers - knowing we
enter a place of mystery and awe - then the imagination becomes what it
truly is meant to be - a light-filled bridge between ourselves and the
Divine.
In the imagination we make our first baby steps away from mere sense experience, and turn inward, into realms of mystery and enchantment (something all good authors of the arts of fiction and poetry well understand). Even science travels here, although it has masked its journeys in such sterile (bloodless) terms as hypothesis and theory.
For example, Quantum Theory, the Big Bang
and the Theory of Evolution are products of the human imagination,
albeit falsely treated by many scientists, and even more by the general
public, as known facts.
All the same, with the undisciplined imagination there is darkness
there as well as light - a little illustration, that is, a story:
A man's wife travels into the city with some girlfriends. In the evening, on their way from dinner at their hotel to the theater, the man's wife becomes separated from her friends for a moment and is mugged.
Later, on the train coming into the city to see his wife at the hospital (she may not live), the man closes his eyes and drifts on the sea of his mind. He imagines life without her, and part of him would like that, would like to be free of her shadow side, the side that wants things he can't understand or give, and which often treats him in a way he does not feel he deserves. So he imagines life without her, and the freedom from the necessary pains of relationship and marriage.
After a time someone coughs, which wakes him from his
day-dreaming while riding the sea of his mind, and he now feels guilty.
How could he want her dead, she who bore his children, and gave
herself to him in so many ways over so many years?
We know these dark dreams. We
know that the fanciful and the imaginary are not easily controlled.
There is no logic there of the cold, hard and certain kind.
The imagination is of the blood and the heat, which is full of
life yes, but like life is dark as well. We are right to fear its
siren songs. If we swim in these waters without proper care, we
can end up mad, or in prison, the victim of our own unbridled passions,
or lost in illusions.
This is why some like science and
technology. Not so messy these cool, smooth and controllable
things (as long as we pretend that hypothesis and theory are not of the imagination). Not like love, or
attachment or other matters of the blood and of the heart. That
is the true danger of the imagination - not that it is fanciful, but
rather because it is too real.
About science...
The intersection between religion and
science is part of this book, but as everyone knows that subject is so
huge that I'd have to write a half dozen books to even begin. In
this book - the
Way of the Fool - it should be said that
the process of inner development (Gnosis) referred to here is
completely empirical and objective. The only difference is that
instead of studying the outer sense world, the neophyte scientist of the spirit begins by studying his or her own mind.
In addition, as we know, science and
religion seem to express two completely opposed paradigms or views of
the nature of reality. This book then is also a paradigm - a story
- that seeks to include the essential aspects of both views and hopes
to suggest there can be expressed here a viable (though brief)
synthesis. This paradigm of synthesis will also have qualities
that for
the reader are hypothetical and theoretical.
This book is then, in the same way that the theory of evolution
is a picture in the imagination, something which seeks to explain what is behind known facts. The paradigm expressed
here in this book will explain (again briefly, and as
part of a greater whole) the future integration of science and religion
(through the art of character development) that can be thought by a
mind that has come to know itself empirically and objectively. If
we can learn to understand our own consciousness out of the scientific
spirit, then that understanding - that science of insides - penetrates and changes all the other facts we believe
we understand on the basis of our science of outsides (scientific
materialism), such that religion and art themselves take on new meaning.
As food for thought on this, consider the
implied relationship of these concepts (as lived) : truth, beauty,
goodness / science, art, religion / reason, imagination, devotion.
Or seen another way: truth - science - reason / beauty - art -
imagination / goodness - religion - devotion.
And finally (at long last)...
Mostly this book is descriptive, that is
a synthesis of experienced observations, and not an analysis of
abstract facts, or again it is the result of many years of: Listening to the World Song.
Which is why we come back to character...this book is written mostly to help people understand
(explain) their interior life better, and the relationship of that
interior life to the elements of their biography. How the reader
chooses to act, in the light of this new understanding, will become an
aspect of their character, and thus, their destiny. We are, after
all, artists in the co-creation of our lives, thus the Navajo blessing,
which I now address to my reader: May you walk in Beauty.
**************************
and now, finally, to the main text of
the Way of the Fool...
Moral Grace
- the theme (song) of the central mystery of the modern age -
first stanza
Shepherds and Kings
- a Temporary
parting of Ways -
We have been told that attending the
birth of the Christ Child, besides the immediate family, were two
different groups of human beings, the Shepherds and the Kings.
This element of the story is worthy of deeper study.
These were times of oral culture, and the
Gospels, in spite of all our other uses for them, were originally
stories. This is how wisdom was shared among the common people in
that time, and in fact for most of history. We moderns with our
written literature, and television and videos, have lost sight of the
more essential, more human element. It is really the oral stories
that we share among us as human beings that brings forward wisdom and
human knowledge. Yes, we have all kinds of modern ways, including
the Internet, but the wise reality of life always comes down to our
tales, shared from one to another (c.f. Le Guin's The Telling). At the time of the Gospels few could read, and
most learned all that was learned through being told via speech
(remember the story of the miracle of Pentecost?). With this in
mind then, let us recall the Gospels in the more true way - as wise
tales.
We might also keep in mind, that contrary
to some modern scholarship, it is also very likely that the disciples
of Christ to whom the Four Gospels are attributed, were in fact the
creators of those stories. In an oral culture, these
stories would have been memorized once originally told, and frequently
quite accurately at that. No one would dream of retelling such
stories and adding embellishments. To do so would dishonor
the original speaker, and the story itself; as well as violate the
trust of the listeners. Whether they were told in Greek, or not,
we do not know. All we really know is that when first written down, they were rendered into Greek (the language of
scholarship in that Age), which has now been translated for us in The
Unvarnished Gospels into idiomatic English.
To really appreciate this, we should
imagine ourselves around a hearth, in the evening. The traveler,
who is now our guest, has had his feet washed (he has walked far to
visit us), been fed and allowed to rest. This is the best way to
receive the Gospels - orally, yet in the closeness of family.
All we have to do is read the opening
lines, and the story nature of the Gospels is clear. For example,
Mark 1:1 says: "The
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God". {The
Beginning of the Good Word of Jesus The Anointed, Son of God} Or, Matthew, after laying out the line of
genealogy peculiar to his Gospel (a quite different genealogy from
Mark), says in 1:18: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.". {The birth
of Jesus the Anointed was like this:}
These are classical forms for the
beginning of a story. I am, by the way, not suggesting anything
about the truth or not of these stories, but rather pointing to
something else. These stories are not meant to be the dry
recitation of facts, but have behind them the intention to render into
words what for the speakers was rooted in the experience of a most sublime mystery.
What this means for us is that there is
nothing superfluous in these stories. Every detail was placed
there for a purpose, and nothing was intended to be simple filler, or
any excess of exaggeration or fancy. And, given that what is
being rendered in the Gospels concerned what the story tellers
conceived as the greatest of Holy Mysteries, we cannot pass by any
element of the story without considering its possible wider meaning.
Nor should we, as is done far too
frequently today, render these Mysteries into rigid meanings and
certainties. The Gospels are meant to evoke Life in our souls, to
enliven us and inspire us, not to kill what lives there with cold
intellectual concepts and arid doctrines inviolate for all time.
We should try to hear them as we once heard them when we were
little children (lest
ye become again little children...), out of a
natural feeling of awe and mystery.
With the picture of the Shepherds and the Kings attending the birth of the Christ Child, we come upon a much overlooked aspect of these Gospel stories - an aspect that can tell us a great deal about our time, and the future. Those, who know the nature of humanity's deep and wise stories, know that just such little details often reflect Archetypes, which when properly appreciated lead us to what are otherwise hidden, or at least less obvious, meanings and truths.
Christ Himself taught frequently using
the image of the Shepherd and his flock, which fact ought to suggest
that it is of no little moment that the birth of Jesus was known to two
quite different classes of human beings. Yet, about Kings, Christ
tells no parables. Moreover, the Shepherds who attended the Birth
in this story knew of the Birth in one way, and the Kings who attended
knew in another. This difference is itself important.
The Kings are described as following a
star (Matthew 2: 7-12), which led them to Bethlehem and the Birth, to
actually seeing the Christ Child. The Shepherds, on the other
hand, experienced an announcement from an Angel, and from this they
then traveled to the place of birth (Luke: 2:8-20).
We can, for example, understand that for
the ancient peoples of this time, a star was part of the vault of
heaven, and not, as we are taught today, a mere object in the sky, no
different from the Sun, and certainly having no being or consciousness.
So in the story, when it was taught that the Kings followed a
star, it was understood that they followed a sign from heaven.
We have here then two ways of coming to
knowledge of the Birth, and these two ways effected two quite different
groups of human beings. The Kings were knowledgeable and wise
(able to understand and follow a sign),
and the Shepherds meek and ordinary. The Kings knew something on
their own out of a wisdom tradition, and the Shepherds had to be told
by an Angel in order to know.
Who were the Kings?
Part of our history of those days has
been forgotten, and it certainly was true that as the early Church grew
into prominence, it went on the attack against the various Mysteries
that had preceded Christianity. Today we call these prior
Mysteries: paganism; and, some treat them as if they were the superstitious
ravings of lunatics. But this is a false revision of the true
history of those days.
In point of fact the Kings were
Priest-Kings, for in those times the ruler-ship of nations and
principalities had often been in the hands of these so-called Pagan
Mysteries. Moreover, these Mysteries practiced disciplines by
which individuals were brought to what is called a state of initiation. A Priest-King, who was an initiate, experienced
directly the sublimity of the Divine. These Mysteries practiced
forms of gnosis - or the direct experiential knowledge of God.
Today, of course, those who consider themselves educated do not believe such a view of ancient times. Even so, it must be understand that the those moderns who harbor such beliefs do not in fact know the truth of this past. It is a kind of negative superstition to assert that something isn't true that we don't really know can't be true. Many assume this, and will often as well hypocritically criticize others for believing in matters that seem outside the scope of being knowable. Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion is one such, for he asserts as not true something he can't prove is not true (not to leave out Sam Harris, and his flawed book: The End of Faith). We will return to this later in the text in considering the deeper implications of fundamentalism (there can be a scientific fundamentalism at the same time there can be a religious fundamentalism).
Now to return to the story
under consideration...
The story tells us indirectly that the
Kings that attended the birth of the Christ Child knew through
initiation (direct gnosis) about the Event in Bethlehem. This is
implied by story of the Star, and the recognition that they were wise and therefore could follow signs (remember, in order to truly understand the story, we have to place our
selves inside the consciousness of the listener of that time).
Thus their knowledge was based, in large part, upon their own
efforts (coupled, of course, with Grace - Grace being an act of the
Divine Mystery reaching down into the human realm). This
supersensible (beyond the senses) knowledge is reflected in the story
by the picture of the Star. The Kings followed their direct
transcendent knowledge - their Star - which then led them to the Birth.
The Shepherds, on the other hand, were
simple and ordinary. Their relationship to the Divine was based
not upon direct personal knowledge, but upon the early soul conditions
of Faith. This then required that they be told through the office of an Angel about this Event.
In this way the Birth was attended by
what is essentially a small class of individuals - namely initiates
(Priest-Kings); and, it was attended by representatives of a much
larger class, namely the ordinary and the lowly - the meek (Shepherds).
Please remember: Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth. Matthew 5:4 {The
gentle are in luck, they will inherit the earth.}
In this way the Gospels tell us the story
that there are two ways of knowing about God. One direct,
personal and immediate, and the other indirect and mediated by another
Being, in this case an Angel. These two Ways we will call here:
Gnosis and Faith. I do not, by the way, refer in my use of the
term gnosis in this book in any way to the Gnostic Religion, but only
use the term to refer to the direct personal experience of the Divine
Mystery.
As most everyone knows the Way of Gnosis
disappeared, and during the Middle Ages, to speak of such things was
considered by the Church to be heresy. The Church, founded on the
rock of Peter, and elaborated by the heart of Paul, became a Church
rooted in Faith. Knowledge of the true meaning in the Gospel
stories of the Kings was deliberately forgotten and then lost.
Only the Way of Faith seems to have remained historically visible.
But not really...
For a certain other fact was written into the stories of the Gospels. Most everyone knows that the Matthew, Mark and Luke Gospels were significantly different from the John Gospel. Biblical scholarship has long recognized these differences, and actually creates a separate category for the first three Gospels, calling them the Synoptic Gospels.
The reason for this is plain, once we
understand the meaning in the story of the two groups who attended the
Birth. The Kings were allied with the old Mysteries, and for
Christianity to develop as a new Mystery, the old had to pass away for
a while into the mists of time.
The result is that we have in
Christianity two Ways. The Way of Faith, or Pauline Christianity
and the Way of Gnosis of Johnine Christianity. The Gospel of John
has contained, since the beginning, knowledge of the Way of Gnosis.
In spite of this, most of Christian history has involved the
coming into being of the assumption that the John Gospel was just a
variation of the other three, with the result that a true appreciation
of what is described in John has been lost. [See, for example, a modern
look at the John Gospel, which rediscovers its original meaning: Becoming
Aware of the Logos:
The Way of St. John the Evangelist, by Georg
Kuhlewind.]
Today, what has been forgotten for two
thousand years is returning (with the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, and the Gospels of Mary and Thomas, for example). The
true meaning of the Gospel story of John has begun to emerge from its
hiding place. Once again there exists knowledge of how to know
God in a personal and direct Way. In reality, this Way was never
truly lost, but mostly had to sacrifice its former preeminence in order
that the Way of Faith could bring forward its gifts, which were new,
and very important for the future.
Consider that Christ said: Blessed are they who have not
seen, and yet have believed. {How lucky
are the ones who never saw but still believed!} John 20:29. The ancient mysteries were mysteries
based upon the gnosis (initiation) of the priests, whose authority then
was accepted by their followers. The Way of Gnosis, the form of
the old Mysteries (with an active and dominant priesthood), had to go
into the background for a time, as part of a long term process which
was to make it possible for human beings to no longer need any kind of
intermediary between themselves and God (many of the patriarchs, kings
and prophets of the Old Testament had direct experiences of the Divine
Mystery - Moses, for example sees the burning bush). All the
same, in the beginning of the history of the Church, a priesthood
remained necessary, but this intermediary priesthood was itself to be
based upon faith, and not any longer upon the old gnosis (initiation).
However, in order to understand in a deeper way why it was
necessary for the Way of Faith to dominate early Christianity, other
considerations must be added.
second stanza
the Evolution of Consciousness
- the meaning of the historical differences between
the time of the Pharaohs (the time of the Old Testament)
and our
present Age (the Dawn of the Third Millennium) -
To understand this next part a little better, let us first examine a question seldom asked: Where was Christ before the events described in the Gospels?
Our Faith is that Christ (the Son) was
sent by the Father to save us - to walk the earth as (or in) a human
being, to eventually be crucified, to die and be buried, and then to be
resurrected. And, in this process to take on the sins (errors) of
the world.
At the same time, Christ certainly existed before this human historical moment. Where then was He? What did He do? Was He known to human beings in some other way?
How did the Magi know of Him? Had
their understanding - their insight, the signs - told them that Christ
was coming? Coming from where?
In the pre-Christian Mysteries, knowledge
of the deeds and the meaning of the Son - of Christ before the time of
the Gospels - was available to those who spent a lifetime in religious
instruction such as led them to initiation - to a consciously created condition of gnosis - direct
experience of the Divine Mystery. This
is the secret of the stream of the pre-Christian Mysteries represented
by the Kings (priest-kings) - the Magi - of the Gospel stories.
So, where was Christ before the Birth? This question we will leave aside, only drawing from it that there might well have been those at that time who knew, and who saw.
This initiation wisdom did not disappear after the Incarnation, but instead stepped aside (sacrificed itself) so that Faith could begin to become the force it is meant to become in human souls (as an aspect of the Evolution of Consciousness). Then in the 20th Century the meaning-essence of the initiation wisdom at one time represented by the Kings in the Gospel stories began to return. What does this modern initiation wisdom have to say to us today? As an example, we will now look toward the work of one such human being.
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) is a modern
representative of the stream of mystery wisdom once belonging to the
Kings in the Gospel stories. He was an initiate, and had direct
personal experience of the Divine. While it is not necessary to
take my word here on this, it would be wrong for me to pretend that I
know otherwise. However, what we are going to do here is the same
that we did before with the Gospels. We are going to look at some
of the stories that Rudolf Steiner told. No one is required to
believe Steiner was an initiate - I only tell that part of his story so
the reader will know what are my views as regards his status.
Let us now look at some of what Steiner
taught, not as knowledge to be believed on his authority as an
initiate, but rather as a story, from which we are free to draw our own
conclusions. In our Age, the Kings are no longer meant to
dominate, but rather have joined the rest of us at the shared
common ground of our humanity. In fact, deep initiation in our Age is frequently more of a unusual challenge
than a blessing.
[As a small
aside, let me elaborate the nature of this challenge. It is
unusual, as we would all agree, for individuals to have direct
experience of the Divine. In fact, in the modern scientific age,
to assert that one has known God directly is often considered madness,
for to many in science God is not real, but rather a superstition.
Yet, for people of integrity, to deny their experience is
impossible - in point of fact, it is a violation of conscience.
One must be honest about ones experience in this regard (although
some discretion is natural, and there is seldom reason to stand on the
street corner and assert ones religious importance as some kind of
messenger). In fact, in most cases conscience forbids acting as
if one was more special than others because of these experiences.
This direct experience of the Divine then becomes a kind of
weight, where one must choose between honesty about what has been
learned, and ordinary human humility. It is this weight, and its
difficult moral dilemmas regarding when to speak and about what, that
creates the unusual challenge, which itself tends to separate someone
with this particular challenge from the rest of us. Those, who
speak of their authentic spiritual experiences often face subsequently
some sort of trial (another aspect of the challenge), such as either
being seen as mad, or treated with an excess of deference (a hard, but
necessary aspect of the development of character). At the least,
we need to recognize that in our age, those who say they are having
visions are not seen in the same light as ordinary human beings are
seen. In point of fact and in large part because of this
challenge, Steiner attempted to place his life's work (what he called
Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy) on a scientific foundation.
He hoped, that by showing how people could make empirical such
research and find out for themselves, the previously solitary nature of
authentic spiritual experience could be overcome.]
In addition to Steiner, if one chooses,
there are others that can be looked to for conformation about what I
will write below regarding the Evolution of Consciousness such as is
described in his stories. Here are three such books and authors:
Ernst Lehrs' book, Man or
Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the
Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and Thought; Gottfried Richter's book, Art and
Human Consciousness; and, Owen Barfield's
book, Saving the Appearances: a Study in Idolatry.
The story that Steiner tells is long and
complicated, being an attempt to tell a broad history of the whole of
human and spiritual evolution, from the very beginning of Creation to
modern times, and then beyond into the future. Here we are only
going to look at a very narrow aspect of this much greater story.
In the vocabulary that Steiner creates for telling this long story, he speaks of what he calls "cultural epochs." Our present time is one cultural epoch among seven others, which seven is again embedded in larger periods that might be called Ages. We are only going to examine the middle three cultural epochs of the current Age.
The time of the ancient Hebrews and
Egyptians was in Steiner's words the time of the third cultural epoch
of our modern historical era (Age). This epoch extended from
around 2800 BC until about 700 BC (this latter date roughly corresponds
to the founding of Western Civilization), at which point begins the
fourth cultural epoch that goes until around 1400 AD, after which
begins the fifth cultural epoch of the modern era - or our own time.
Each cultural epoch also corresponds to
the development of some particular inner characteristic of human
consciousness. For the third cultural
epoch, humanity developed what Steiner called the sentient soul; for the fourth, the intellectual soul; and in our time (a period that will last until about
3500 AD), we are developing the consciousness soul.
Now these different consciousness (or soul) developments are just
the names that Steiner gives to aspects of human nature in his stories.
They could be called anything, for it is not the name so much,
but the actual nature and experience of the developing inner quality of
being human that is important. This varies, one stage building
upon another, so that while our physical evolution is mostly at rest
(perhaps even starting to enter a time of decay), our inner spiritual
evolution is potentially always ongoing (it is, however, not automatic,
but requires our participation).
Now what makes Steiner's story even
deeper is that each form of soul development has a corresponding social
form. That is, for the sentient soul development
there is a characteristic set of social relationships as well as
historical conditions; for the intellectual soul
development another set of social arrangements and historical
conditions; and, for the consciousness soul a third
characteristic social structure and historical frame of reference.
The reason this is important is that one
can see in history, as we know it, the proof of Steiner's observations.
Our knowledge of the time of the ancient Hebrews and Egyptians
shows us both the outer social forms, and by implication the inner
nature of human consciousness that went with that period of human
evolution. So also with the fourth and fifth cultural epochs.
Steiner's stories in this regard are not inventions, but rather
much deeper and wiser descriptions of the meaning of these periods of
human history, than those ideas we are taught by our current professors
and teachers.
For once we recognize this Evolution of
Consciousness, we also realize that modern humanity tends to mistakenly
fancy that consciousness was the same in the past as it is in the
present, and so our modern teachers describe events in ancient times in
such terms as if those peoples thought, saw, and felt in the same way
we do today, when the real historical facts everywhere suggest the
opposite. The ancients were inwardly different, and those differences are precisely why they
believed and thought differently. They were not any more
stupid or superstitious, but rather had different kind of knowledge, belief and understanding exactly because
they had a different form of consciousness, which also means a quite
different life experience. [knowledge, belief and understanding are quite
different modes or conditions of mind, and will become more important
later when we get into practical inner work.]
Again, let me point to the three authors
mentioned above, Lehrs, Richter, and Barfield. Their researches
will fully support what I have pointed out above regarding the
evolution of consciousness - Lehrs through a history of Science,
Richter through a history of Art, and Barfield through a history of
Language.
I am also not going to go into the
details of the
sentient soul, and the intellectual soul, or any of the greater aspects of the stories that
Steiner tells, because the reader of this book, who wants to, can go to
that source and get it all in a much better way (see Steiner's Theosophy, and Occult
Science: an outline). Rather, I want us
here to have a very narrow focus, and to concentrate on what we all see
right in front of us - outwardly in social life and inwardly in
our own soul life. All the same, a little something needs to be
said before going on.
If one wanted to get some sense of the sentient soul development, then a study of Homer's Iliad and The
Odyssey would be in order. With Homer we can get some sense of
how strongly the people of that historical epoch lived in their life of
sensation, and the extent to which outside Ideas/Ideals, such as the
Gods and love and heroism, influenced this life of powerful sensation,
both inner and outer. On the other hand, the intellectual soul development would have as its book marks: Aristotle and
Thomas Aquinas. In this epoch people began to more and more live
more strongly in how their capacity for ideation took hold of
existence, rather than in how much life filled them with sensation.
Oliver Stone's recent film about Alexander the Great gives us a
glimpse of the transition from the time of the sentient soul to the
time of the intellectual soul. There is a great deal more that
could be said, but I will leave that to the other writers I have
mentioned.
The purpose of bringing forward the idea
of the Evolution of Consciousness is to get us to wake up to these
types of changes, and to see that what we experience today is part of a
much larger pattern that can be discovered, if we wish to devote the
time to learning about it. We should also note, in passing, that
the life of sensation is more outward in its soul nature, the life of
the intellect a bit deeper in the soul, and then in the consciousness soul epoch we reach even deeper into our inwardness.
The point here is to recognize that the evolutionary development of
consciousness is taking place with a gesture
such that each progressive stage moves further inward into the depths
of our true being and nature.
These three cultural epochs, being also
part of a much larger set of changes that encompass seven periods in
all - each period lasting about 2100 years, have a special relationship
with each other (if folks are concerned about these number
relationships, just consider that the Creation is Art, and that
music-like whole number relations should not surprise anyone).
The fourth epoch, in which the Christ Events appear at the end of
the first third, is a middle or transitional epoch. While the
third (the time of the ancient Hebrews and Egyptians) epoch and the
fifth epoch (our time) are somewhat mirror images of each other -
social forms, historical processes and cultural structures, that turned
over and inside out in a kind of way during the fourth period. So
we have the third epoch with its social and inner nature, then a
transitional period (the fourth epoch), and then the fifth epoch with
its social and inner nature, that is something of an inversion of the
third epoch.
For example, in terms of social structure
the third epoch was characterized by top down hierarchical social
organizations (priest castes being in charge, whether it was the
Pharaohs of the Egyptians, or the Patriarchs and Kings of the Hebrews).
While the modern epoch is characterized by the end of
hierarchical structures, and the beginning development of bottom up
individualized social forms. In the third epoch, individualism
was not the point, and general soul development the essence, with the
moral order being in the form of laws and rules handed down by the
priests (e.g. Moses and the Ten Commandments), whereas in our time, it
is our individual moral sense of what is right that wants to dominate
and more and more rejects being told what to do by the last remnants of
priest classes.
In Matthew 5:17, as part of the Sermon on
the Mount, Christ explains at one point that: "Do not think that I have come
to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy,
but to fulfill". {Don't
think I came to dissolve the law or the prophets: I didn't come to
dissolve them, I came to fulfill them} Then
later, when He is asked to speak as to which of the Commandments is the
greatest, He explains further this fulfillment in this way, Matthew 22:
37-40 "Jesus
said to him, "This is the greatest and the first commandment.
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with
thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind." And the second is like it,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." On these two commandments
depend the whole Law and the Prophets." {He said
to them, "You are to love your lord God with all your heart and all
your spirit and all your mind. That is the important and first
commandment. The second one is similar: You are to love those
close to you as you love yourself. All the law and all the
prophets hang from these two commands."}
By rendering them (the Law and the
Prophets) into their essence in the admonition to Love God Completely
and Thy Neighbor as Thyself, which when carried out as acts of
individual moral intuition (see later the fourth stanza of this section
of this book, which is more explicit about Moral Grace) brings the Law no longer from the outside inward (from
the outside social community into the inwardness of human beings), but
instead from the inside outward (from the individual moral intuitions
of the human being out into the social community). The Law no longer is to act
upon us, but we are on the way to becoming
(the Evolution of Consciousness) the Law as we act upon each
other. [Yes, this is a very radical idea, but
a lot more in support of it will be written as we go along.]
This change, the Kings of the Gospel
stories understood, for its coming could be seen in the Christ Event
itself. So they followed their in-sight, their star, and offered up their gifts (their Way of
Gnosis) in sacrifice, as symbolized in the story in the images of the
offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
But such gifts could not be completely sacrificed - gnosis did not disappear as a human capacity (although Christ recognized its inherent problem "Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe" John 20:29 {How lucky are the ones who never saw but still believed}, a statement which appreciates that there are still those who do "see", which in modern times, as I said, can be a kind of unusual challenge.). Only its (gnosis's) social influence had to wane. For in the age of the consciousness soul, in the time when individuals were to think for themselves and make their own individual moral judgments, no priests as authorities would any longer be needed. Yet, gnosis itself did not entirely lose its meaning, for what the King