The Rosicrucian path of spiritual aspiration is a path of character building.
We seek to develop spiritual powers to aid and serve humanity through healing, education, and other beneficent endeavors. Character building is essential, because it is dangerous to unfold higher powers without the highest
standards of moral character. This sounds lofty and august, with even a potential to pretension. Pretension is unnecessary. Some of the best precepts
can be expressed in simple, everyday language. There are several precepts
this writer uses as reminders in circumstances where he is prone to err. One
of them is “What you do, is what you become.”
Though simple, this principle is helpful to understanding difficult things
which are briefly stated, but not thoroughly elucidated, in The Rosicrucian
Cosmo-Conception and other writings of Max Heindel. He was only one man, he couldn’t say everything. Besides, he tells us he intentionally omitted saying some things, and encouraged us to find them out for ourselves, self-reliance. Some of these things are from the distant past, vague, and hoary, but they still affect us today.
One of these things this writer finds mysterious and intriguing, seems to
have occurred in the Lemurian Epoch, in this revolution of the Earth Period. It is about how, when the solar system was forming, the earth congealed
out of the ethers as a molten chemical ball. Simultaneously, our humanity
was also condensing out of the ethers. The entrance into dense, chemical
matter necessitated something, heretofore unknown, in our involutionary
pilgrimage,. It was gender differentiation. In the more rare, higher worlds,
auto-generation, and almost perpetual maintenance of bodies, was possible.
Auto-generation was not possible here on Earth for us in our, then more
lowly, state of evolution—we are told spiritual adepts can do so now. We had
to divide our energies, and the forms they express through, to create new
forms cooperatively. This is not hard to believe, since we see it in the historical tableau of the remnant evolutionary forms in the plants and animals of
today. Some species are gendered and some are not. The division was not
a matter of cleaving in two, our human forms, as facetiously suggested by
someone in the Symposium by Plato, nor do we have an “another half” in the
world with whom we can unite and become whole, as the fallacious doctrine
of soul mates posits. It was a redirection of more of the etheric energy, that
forms the body, to one etheric pole or the other. Thus two types of bodies
developed extremely slowly on a geological scale of time. The timing is something which is easily misunderstood because it is stated in a few sentences in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception. The reality is that it occurred over many millions of years. even though things can be changed more quickly in rarer states of being, like the ethers, and even more so in the higher worlds. Here in the chemicals changes are glacially slow. The cooling of the earth to its present state—it is still molten not too far beneath the surface—also took place on a geological or astronomical time scale. Fascinating as these, not completely explained, phenomena are, they are not the matter which this writer finds intriguing.
During those many millions of years something else had to have happened.
Something that Max Heindel also did not elucidate thoroughly. It is something this writer finds more difficult to understand. It is that another division
seems to have come about coetaneously, and in parallel, with the separation
of the sexes. It is a division in character. Two distinct temperaments developed in humanity. This separation is different from the separation of the sexes, in one key factor, it is permanent. One can be reborn in a body of either
gender, but if one is a child of fire, or a child of water, one has that temperament in every rebirth. What is difficult for this writer to understand, is the
root of this character differentiation. Max Heindel gave us a mytho-history
according to the Masonic myth, as it relates to the Garden of Eden story. His
rendition agrees with early writings on the subject, such as the Nag Hammadi Library. Neither source addresses one key point. What was it that caused
some to become firelings, and others to become waterlings? This temperament differentiation, which is permanent, had to have developed over eons
of time, just as the separation of the sexes did. It is a long term example of
“what you do, is what you become.” The temptation of the Lucifers was not
a single occurrence, as one might erroneously assume from the Bible story.
It continued over eons, just as the cooling of the earth did, and does today.
The prevalence of sex and violence in the world today, is evidence of their
continued presence—the Lucifers milk us for as much as they can. It is the
initial origin that is difficult to understand. This writer finds it difficult to
believe that some Virgin Spirits are fundamentally different from others. It
is also difficult to accept the notion that the differentiation was random. One
could push the problem back to the Moon Period, when we were animal-like,
and the Lucifers and Angels, were the humanity of the Moon Period. They
were also, prospectively, the mentors of the children of fire and the children
of water, respectively. Perhaps some of us were pets of one, and others of the
other. Even if one accepts such this hypothesis, it doesn’t evade the problem,
the how and why of the separation. As of this writing, it remains a mystery to
this writer. Being a fireling, an unsolved mystery bothers him; it is an unmet
challenge.
This is an essay about mysteries, one mystery in particular. Different people
view mysteries differently. Not surprisingly, so do the children of fire and the
children of water. Discussing this difference brings us to another of those
character building precepts in prosaic language. It is, “what you are is what
you see.” Each of us sees things differently, because each of us is different.
We are different, because of having had different experiences, through which
we have developed character, “what you have done.” There are some attitudes that are common to groups who share a common background of evolutionary experience. Different attitudes do not necessarily mean one group
is right, and the other wrong. We are all equal in the eyes of God. The fact is,
that the children of fire and the children of water see, and treat, mysteries
differently.
The children of water are more apt to approach things with feeling. It is not
that they are incapable of thinking or questioning, it is just that they feel first,
and foremost. The more profound the mystery, the deeper their feeling. If
the mystery is a spiritual mystery, their inclination is to worship. Sometimes,
in extremity, their view is, that to solve a mystery is to destroy its holiness.
If institutionalized, there is a tendency to make solving a mystery heretical.
The nature of Christ-Jesus, (simply Christ to the waterlings of the Roman
Catholic Church) is a perfect example. The belief that the nature of Christ is
singular, either completely human or completely divine, is the Monophysite
heresy. The belief that the nature of Christ is dual, part human and part divine (the Rosicrucian view), is the Nestorian heresy. To the knowledge of
this writer, there has been no belief of the nature of Christ being more than
dual, but if there were, it would likely be a heresy also. Thus, one cannot believe Christ as being either single or dual, without being a heretic. In short,
one cannot believe anything, without being a heretic. A mystery is not to be
solved. The function of a mystery is inspire holiness, and rouse feelings of
sacredness. If one believes enough, the mystery will be revealed. They act
with reverence.
The children of fire see a mystery as something to be solved, with practical
application if possible. Firelings burn inwardly with interest, when confronted with an unknown. The Mysteries were designed for children of fire. In the
Mysteries, solving a mystery means, being able to live out the meaning of the
Mystery, not merely to think it through. The Mysteries are steps of initiation,
steps of apotheosis. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception addresses fundament life Mysteries: What are we?, Where did we come from?, Where are we
going?, and so on. It gives clear answers to those questions, and the answers
are practical. Moreover, the answers are corroborated, a thing a candidate is
challenged to do also. Self-reliance. The answers given to us, appeal to our
intuition. They do not solve these mysteries, but the clearly tell us how we
can solve them. To do that the answers must be lived out, and we are told
how we can do that. In the modern Christian Mysteries, first and foremost,
we are told to develop love from the heart. We are to balance fire and water
in ourselves. We are to become watery mystics, as well as fiery occultists, in
the imitation of Christ-Jesus, the complete human. The reason Max Heindel
could communicate as clearly as he did with us, is that he was successful in
this endeavor. He became a complete human. When he addressed a mystery,
it was with reverence, not mere intellection.
The Incarnation Mystery is one of the mysteries he addressed. The three year
ministry of Christ-Jesus is the most important period in the history of humanity. The inception of that ministry, is called the Incarnation Mystery. It
is also the inception of an entirely new kind of religion, among other things.
“As a twig is bent, so grows the tree” is a wise, old adage. The start of things
is central, in determining their course and outcome. In spiritual things, especially, the inception must be consistent with the ends and the purpose. One
doesn’t expect grain, if one has sown weeds. If we want to attune ourselves
to, and serve, Christ, it is important to thoroughly understand the Incarnation Mystery.
Before we can delve into this inception, it is important to understand what
is involved in it, and a little of its purpose. This brings us back to the time of
the separation of the sexes and the Garden of Eden Story. As the earth was
forming, our evolution on it, made the separation of the sexes necessary. The
manner in which that separation was accomplished, was not as was divinely
intended. In the Genesis story, Eve was tempted by a serpent (the way
Lucifer appeared to her inner vision.) In order to be tempted, that to which we
are tempted, must be desirable. According to The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, as we were coming into our dense, physical bodies, in the chemical world, our inner vision waned while our sense perception was opening—“and their eyes were opened, and they knew they were naked.” When we began to peer into the outer, material world, we began to see discrete things, with discrete beginnings and ends, which is different from the way things appear in the inner worlds. Among other things, we began to see others losing their bodies in what we call death. At the same time we were gaining outer vision, we began losing our inner vision, which was part of our connection with the Divine. We were beginning to wane in faith. In this there was the possibility of insecurity. The tempters, the Lucifer Spirits, wanted to use us to gain
experience here in the chemicals, something they couldn’t do themselves.
They directed our attention to the possibility of insecurity, and played on
it. In our new found insecurity, they led us to believe that by using sex, we
could generate new bodies for others in cooperation with others—the seed of
altruism was planted then—and we could work around death. What they told
us was true, but it was not the whole truth. The whole truth included the fact
that the generative activity had to be used in harmony with cosmic laws, or
it would introduce discord in us, and in the cosmos, which it has. As is often
the case with misbehavior, one thing led to another, and soon we had a panoply of sins, including terribly destructive magic—we learned how to destroy
forms as well as generate them. Insecurity is ruled by Saturn, but it is not the
only thing ruled by Saturn. There is also selfishness. Our first sin was disobedient misuse of the creative force, but the motive behind it was selfish, we
wanted immortality. Selfish desire is hardening, and the creative force is is
potent. Though subtle, it is potent, as any magician who uses it can vouch. It
is the force that creates, sustains, transforms and dissolves the creation. Our
selfishness had dire consequences, immediate and long term, over eons. We
hardened ourselves and the earth, to such an extent, that there was danger
of bringing our participation in the creation, to a halt, to say nothing of what
it would have done for other participants in the creation. Something had to
be done.
Anything done to heal us, and the earth, had to be done in harmony with with
the laws of the Universal Spirit, which permeates everything in the evolutionary creation. Though “closer than hands and feet”, as Max Heindel loved
to say, it does not work directly. It works in states of being, called “worlds”
in the Rosicrucian philosophy, through divine creative beings, called Hierarchies. The worlds, and everything in them, are alive. There is nothing dead
in the creation. This life, in varying grades of consciousness, has spiritual
character. There are beings within beings, within beings, …, within the One;
each with its own nature and function. The chain of life stretches from the
least elemental, or particle, to the One. The One, in our creation, is clothed
in a threefold spirit consisting of Divine Spirit, Life Spirit and Human Spirit.
Each of these states of being, has its own set of qualities. One set of qualities is, in simple: will, love-wisdom, and activity, respectively. These states
of being (which are beings themselves) have personifications, to represent
them. The personifications are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, also
respectively. Together they are called the Godhead. They act in harmony as
one. It is one of these personifications that is germane to the Incarnation.
The cosmos, in which we are extremely fortunate to participate, is an elaborate, evolutionary, creation. It is far too elaborate for a brief essay. This
writer is assuming that readers of this essay are, at least modestly familiar,
with the workings of the evolutionary creation. If you are not, please read
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, part two. The following is as brief as this writer can state it. The creation takes place in “periods” in time, “globes” in space and “revolutions” of consciousness through the periods and globes. The whole of the creation is manifest in “worlds” of the one substance, gradated along the spirit-matter pole. All is manifest in the time-space pole of potential. There are seven periods. During each, seven globes are manifested by spirit, passing into and out of matter: three descending globes, three ascending, and the deepest is half descending and half ascending. The periods, themselves, follow this pattern of analogously descending into and ascending out of matter. In each of the periods there are seven revolutions of
consciousness through the seven globes in an analogous pattern. Thus, the
fourth revolution, in the fourth globe, in the fourth period, is the deepest that
the creation descends into matter. It is our present location in the creation.
Even in this abbreviated statement, the variety of conditions is amazing.
Waves of Virgin Spirits participate in the evolutionary creation. They are
phased off. We humans began in the first period; our current animals, began
in the second period; and so on. There are seven stages of development: mineral-like, plant-like, animal-like, human-like, angel-like, archangel-like, and
Lords of Mind-like. There are beings in the stages beyond our current human
stage. Beings in those advanced stages, such as our current angels, began
in a previous creative manifestation. There are other, still higher, creative
hierarchies that participate, or have participated, in the creation in different
ways. Considering all of these things is enough to challenge almost any human mind. All in all, “what you do is what you become” has almost unlimited
expressions.
The “doing” has options—that is what freedom is about. In the human stage,
when involution is completed, and self-consciousness is awakened as a culmination of involutionary experience. Since the Self, that is awakened, is divine—it is also a threefold spirit in the “image of God”—it has divine creative
freedom. Also, since it is divine, it usually works harmoniously within the divine plan. In the Lemurian epoch our humanity elected unwittingly to act inharmoniously. Our premature, and half ignorant, acts caused us to fall more
deeply into matter, harden the matter, and lag from the intended evolutionary pace—we have been out of step, and behind the beat, so to speak. The fact
that it is possible to lag, also means that it is possible to exceed the intended
rate of development, and soften instead of hardening. Thus, during the human stage of any life wave, when creativity is awakened, one can work ahead
in evolutionary progress. Exceeding in the work of the creation is called following the path of initiation; it is the express route.
The verb “to initiate” means to start. With regard to the Mysteries, it means
to start the upward path of evolution after the grand turnaround at the end
of involution. An initiate is someone who has taken the first step on that
path. Initiation is not ceremonial, and the steps are not arbitrary. The steps
are based on the structure of the evolutionary creation. The structure that is
designed to bring us from deep unconsciousness to divine, creative, self-consciousness. Experience in the revolutions of consciousness through the periods and globes, and their many subdivisions, have inculcated in us, the qualities necessary to become creative beings. We have been carefully brought
through the necessary experiences to cultivate potential powers by divine
beings, co-creators, who have gone before us. In the Rosicrucian philosophy
they are called creative hierarchies. With each initiation, specific states of
consciousness are reached, and one awakens specific creative powers. The
first nine initiations are called the lesser Mysteries. They bring one to the
consciousness to be reached by non initiated humanity at the end of the current period, when our humanity will have gone as far as it can while still
remaining humans, and not being demigods. The greater Mysteries are the
four great initiations that take the initiate through the three periods beyond
the current Earth period, to reach the goal of the creation. Someone who has
passed through all of the initiations is called a “Highest Initiate.” A Highest
Initiate lays aside the lowest three vehicles to be able to function three steps
deeper in the spiritual worlds in order to serve in a more far reaching capacity. The lowest functioning vehicle of a Highest Initiate is in the same realm as
the highest functioning vehicle of the normal humans of the life wave. For the
Lords of Mind that vehicle is Divine Spirit, for Archangels it is Life Spirit, for
the Angels it is abstract thought, and for our humanity it is concrete thought.
A Highest Initiate shares its higher consciousness with the normal life wave
members, through that common consciousness. The individual among the
Highest Initiate class who has served the creation most, and who most represents the intent for its life wave, is called the Highest Initiate.
Among other things, the Highest Initiated represents the quality of the common shared vehicle of its life wave to the Godhead, and becomes the personification of that quality, in the Godhead, empowered to speak for It. The
Highest Initiate of the current Lords of mind represents the will of the Godhead in Divine Spirit, and is called the Father. The Highest Initiate of the
current Archangels represents the love-wisdom of the Godhead of Life Spirit,
and is called the Son, or Christ. The Highest Initiate of the current Angels
represents the activity quality of the Godhead in Abstract Thought, and is
called the Holy Ghost, or Jehovah.
“What you are is what you see.” Christ, the Son, representing the second attribute of the Godhead, saw our tragic situation as something to be redeemed.
A singular Highest Initiate always acts within character. The character of
Life Spirit is to love. In the fullness of that divine love, Christ offered to “preserve” our life wave by being its “savior.” Coming from Life Spirit, it was not
an act of ego, because Life Spirit is beyond ego, in altruism. In the altruism
of Life Spirit, loving is done for the sake of love. As St . John’s Gospel states
it in perfect simplicity, “and grace for grace.”
Christ offered to come to us, to save us from ourselves, i.e., to get beyond
our petty selves, and out of egoism, with its devastating effects. Christ was
to bring to us the most purposeful Life of Life Spirit, and also a great charge
of the highest kind of love in the desire world, by means of the most perfect
desire body of his life wave, whose specialty was the desire body, just as our
specialty is the dense, physical body. This meant Christ had to take up functioning in the desire world, which he had sacrificed to become a Highest Initiate. A major sacrifice, and another mystery beyond the scope of this essay.
Sacrifice is in the nature of a Highest Initiate, especially of a Highest Initiate
of the archangelic life wave. Thus, there was no problem in the willingness
to do this.
There were problems in the accomplishment of this sacrifice, such as “how to
do it?,” how being one of those basic questions of the Mysteries. Christ could
not just appear to us as an Archangel. Few would have had the clairvoyance
to see Christ, and those who could didn’t likely need a savior anyway because
of their state of advancement. Besides, to appear to us as an archangel, would
be to influence us from without. Influence from without is involutionary, this
had to be evolutionary. Christ had to influence from within us. This meant he
had to become one of us.
There are mysteries and sacrifices in how Christ became one of us. We have
peculiar ways of defining ourselves, and accepting someone as one of us. One
self definition for centuries has been “man is rational.” Another has been
“man is mortal.” During the three year ministry of Christ-Jesus, the being
of Christ, and the gifts of Christ, were not completely accepted by us. The
way we accept someone as one of us, lies in the second definition, “man is
mortal.” To accept Christ-Jesus as one of us, we had to kill the body of Jesus
(as though killing Christ), and it had to be by the letting of blood to release
the vital body directly from to blood, to avoid earthbound attachment for
Christ. “What we do is what we become.” This is what we have become. In
the desire for immortality, we have made death a necessity. At first glance,
this sounds too grim and cynical to be an act of grace. It isn’t. It is actually a
sublime acceptance of divine Life, and its wisdom, which we didn’t accept in
the Lemurian epoch. At the fall, we tried to avoid death. One cannot redeem
what one has been trying to avoid. There is much more about the Crucifixion
Mystery, such as the great gift of divine love infused into the desire world
as Christ was released from the body of Jesus, but most of it is beyond the
scope of this essay, which is about the Incarnation Mystery. The Incarnation
Mystery is about how Christ came to incarnate and function as Christ-Jesus.
There are differing views on the Incarnation and its profundity. Some of them
come from outside of Christianity, and those views offer objectivity. Plotinus,
the great Neoplatonist mystic, experienced momentary awakenings in Life
Spirit several times. When Christians approached him, and explained the
Incarnation and three year ministry of Christ-Jesus, he didn’t believe it. To
him it was inconceivable that any human body could withstand continuous
experience of Life Spirit for three years. Max Heindel tells us how the Essenes had to work on the physical body of Jesus to keep it from disintegrating, which it did within three days after the crucifixion. Another, T. Subba Row, a clairvoyant associate of Mme. Blavatsky, claimed that Jesus was the only complete, avatar, incarnation of Vishnu in human form, Vishnu being the counterpart of the Son in the Hindu Trinity.
There is scriptural evidence of the profundity of the Incarnation before,
during, and at the end, of the three years ministry. St. Luke tells us John,
the Baptizer, was the cousin of Jesus, who knew of the coming of Jesus while
still in his mother’s womb. The Gospel of St. John tells us John, the Baptizer,
hailed the arrival of Jesus say “Behold the Lamb of God.” Moments later: I
saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
"And I knew him not.” In both Mathew’s and Mark’s Gospels the people were
“astonished” at his works and questioned whether this was the son of Mary
and Joseph that they knew. When Jesus appeared to the intimate disciples
after the resurrection, they didn’t recognize him, and he had to coax them
into recognition. Clearly, there was something profoundly different during
the incarnation period.
The exact means of the incarnation of Christ into the body of Jesus, is not
recorded anywhere this writer knows of. It is often passed over and most do
not delve into it, they assume they know it. Since it is so important as an initiatory and pivotal moment, it is worth of careful consideration, even if the
investigation may prove fruitless. In this, there seem to be problems, mysteries if you like, for both Christ and Jesus.
“What you do is what you become” can be negated and remain informative. It
then becomes something like “what you don’t do, you can’t become.” Christ,
and the other archangels, went through the human-like stage of evolution
in the Sun Period. In that period the evolutionary creation was not more
dense than the desire world. Their densest vehicles were composed of desire
stuff. The etheric subdivision of the physical world was not manifest until the
Moon Period, and the chemical subdivision was not manifest until the current Earth Period. Christ, and the other Archangels, could not do anything in
worlds that they hadn’t experienced. Thus Christ did not have an etheric vital
body or a dense physical body, nor the means to generate them. To incarnate
he had to borrow what he didn’t have.
Not every vital body and physical body would have been suitable for Christ
to borrow. It required a strong physical and vital body combination, to withstand the intense spiritual vibrations of Christ. Strength does not mean muscle strength. It means a body constituted, organized for and accustomed to
bearing the force of the highest spiritual expressions. The constitution of the
dense physical body had to be pliable to higher forces. Max Heindel tells us
great force, which has built up from past experience, is released in initiation.
That force is called soul power in the Rosicrucian philosophy. Soul power,
and a strong vital body, are a consequence of service, of doing things for the
sake of others, or the Universal Spirit. The organization of soul power in the
vital body is accomplished by sustained spiritual practices. The recipient of
the Christ could not be a tyro.
The individual chosen for this mission was Jesus. It was not a spur of the
moment decision. The prophecies for the Messiah in the Old Testament indicate that it was planned for in the distant past. Some say the generations in
the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are records of genetic preparations by the
Essenes for the Incarnation. To the knowledge of this writer, it is nowhere recorded in the physical world who made the choice. Some scripture intimates
that Jesus was the first Adam at the time of the fall, which would be one of
those serendipitous masterstrokes of destiny, analogous in its symmetry, to
the structure of the evolutionary creation. Other possibilities include the Recording Angels, agreement among spiritual adepts skilled in soul body building, or even Christ. This writer does not know and is, for the present, disinclined to speculate. He is content, for now, to know the choice was made, and
that it was successful.
How the Incarnation was accomplished at the baptism by John is the main
subject of this essay. It is important because it was the beginning of the
all-important work of Christ here on Earth. “What we do is what we become,”
and how we do it is as important as what is done. Our acts must be consistent
with our ends.
At the time Christ entered the body of Jesus, the latter was a disciple of high
degree, consequently his life spirit was well organized. Therefore, the lowest
vehicle in which Christ, when He took the vital body and the dense body of
Jesus, was thus furnished with a complete chain of vehicles bridging the gap
between the World of Life Spirit and the dens Physical world.
This is the description given in St. John’s Gospel:
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said,
After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.
And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore
am I come baptizing with water. And John bare record, saying, I saw the
Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I
knew him not: but that one that sent me to baptize with water, the same said
unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on
him, the same is he that which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and
bare record that this is the Son of God.
This seems simple and clear. It is not, at least not to this writer. It is the
mechanical problems (the problems concerning the silver cord and the seed
atoms, for instance) that have much troubled this writer. It is, moreso, the
problems of spiritual ethics that have been most troublesome. It is these issues that this essay is attempting to address.
Various theses have been put forward that pertain to these issues. One is that,
at the baptism by John, the body of Jesus was “overshadowed” by Christ.
This would not contradict the rendition in St. John’s Gospel. It would contradict The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception which is based on many careful,
clairvoyant investigations and corroborations by highly trained and skilled
investigators. It would also elude the purpose of the incarnation, which was
to bring grace directly into our world through a being who had directly experienced this world as one of us. This view would make the Incarnation and
Crucifixion a sham. Some proponents of this view don’t even believe in the
Crucifixion was real, but that the body of Jesus was spirited away at Calvary.
Another thesis is that the “taking” of the body of Jesus was only partial and
impermanent. This would mean that Jesus would still be in his body, which
would mean that the ministry of three years was accomplished by mediumship. Ironically, if true, this would mean that Jesus could not become a member of the Rosicrucian Fellowship, which disallows mediumship for membership. With this view Christ-Jesus casting out the legion of demons would be
self-contradictory hypocrisy. Christ brought us an impulse to evolutionary,
not involutionary, activity. During involution we were controlled from without by other beings; during evolution we control ourselves from within. The
work of Christ could not have been initiated by an act contrary to its purpose.
Others maintain that the “taking” was complete, and continued until the crucifixion. In mysticism there is a word for this. It is called possession. Taking
the body, the product of a long careful evolution, is an extremely serious
breach of spiritual ethics. If true, the fact that the surrender of the body was
voluntary doesn’t change the fact of the action. Submitting to hypnotism
doesn’t make hypnotism less abominable. Neither does the fact that the possessor would have been Christ, erase the fact that the act would have been a
possession. If true, “all that came before me are thieves and robbers” would
have been spoken by another of the same ilk.
Some, who hold this view, have quite an elaborate description and explanation. One claims there were two Jesus children with different evolutionary
backgrounds, and different directions of character development. The Essenes community at Qumran of which Jesus and John, the Baptizer, were
members, and which was near the baptismal site, did believe in two Messiahs, one from the line of David, and one from the line of Melchizedek. This writer does not know what is referenced in this theory, though it is likely
that the former Messiah is human, and the latter divine. This claim of two
Jesus children, further states that when one of the children died in youth,
his higher vehicles were amalgamated with those of the other to make a super vehicle capable of withstanding the high vibrations of Christ. This writer
does not know if such a thing is possible. Stock car racers have been known
to use the superior chassis of one vehicle and the stronger engine of another
to make a super race car, but tailor made, live human vehicles seem to be a
much different matter. Nothing is said about the seed atoms and silver cord
is mentioned in this view either. Moreover, in this view Christ took not only
the dense and vital bodies of the composite Jesus, but also the desire body. It
seems incomprehensible to this writer why Christ would take the desire body
of Jesus, when his own was vastly superior, the best in our creative manifestation. One of the gifts of Christ was to charge the desire body of the earth with the desire body that was the highest product of the Sun Period. Perhaps the term “astral body” used by this author, meant something other than the desire body. In any case, this view does not answer the ethical objections of possession either.
Macabre, or morbid, are words that describe another potential solution to
the Incarnation Mystery. This hypothesis avers that the transference of the
dense and vital bodies from Jesus to Christ occurred at the exact moment
that would have been the death of Jesus. It is too farfetched to believe that
the body of Jesus would die of “natural causes” at such an early age. Even if
one does believe this, the body would certainly would not be a fit vehicle to
serve for Christ. This leaves two choices, suicide and murder, or something
like murder, such as involuntary manslaughter. The incarnation of a being
who came to give “life more abundant” could not rightly come through a vehicle of suicide. To consider the other alternative, one must understand baptism as something more than a symbolic rite. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception tells us that in a near drowning, the Ego leaves its body and, in so
doing, sees the etheric panorama, as one does in death. The effect of this
occurrence is that the vital body becomes stratified, just as it does with retrospection. With a stratified vital body, one is a sensitive, someone more drawn
to spiritual things than the average person with an unstratified vital body.
This writer has known two people who had near drowning experiences. One
of them could not keep from listening when this writer spoke about spiritual
things, even when what was stated was counter to his beliefs. In the 1970s,
there was a New Age faddish movement called Rebirthing. Its founder had a
rebirthing experience in his bath tub. It involved sustained immersion. The
theory was that a prolonged immersion experience changed one’s breathing
which, in turn, opened memory, and allowed one to correct errors from the
past with ease, and thus improve one’s psychological health. Something like
that, in a controlled and spiritually knowledgable way, seems to have been
what baptism was about, a controlled near-drowning experience. Before the
time of Christ, one had to be born into a cast of sensitive priests to become
a controlled sensitive. Christ opened the way for anyone to enter the path of
initiation, and John, the Baptizer, was Christ’s foreshadower in more ways
than one. If the baptism by John was knowledgeable and carefully carried
out, Jesus would have become a sensitive, if he wasn’t already. As a sensitive, he would have been susceptible to possession, and the other ways of
having his body “taken” by Christ, which have been elucidated and discarded
above. If the immersion had been too long, the physical body would have
died. This presents no good alternatives. Surely the Incarnation, which had
been planned for centuries, could not have been accomplished by an accident on the part of John. An intentional over-extended immersion is also unthinkable—we do not want to speak of John, the Drowner, as the facilitator
of the work of Christ. In short, there do not seem to be any ethical solutions
in harmony with the purpose of the Incarnation.
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A more imperfect and unclear form of this essay was published in two parts
several years ago. The preceding was most of the first part. The remainder
of the first part was a request for feedback. There was plenty of feedback, because the inflammatory presentation was intended to provoke interest and
thought. It was as though this writer had struck a wasp’s nest—something
he has done in his garden. To be fair and thorough, addressing some of the
responses to the ethical problems seems to be in order.
Most of the responses were of the form “Its alright when higher beings do it.”
This is exactly what we hated so much when we were children, and our parents told us to act in a certain way, while they didn’t. The Gospel Christ said:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come
to destroy, but to fulfill. It is preposterous to think that the author of the new
law of love, would abandon the highest spiritual ethics, or act inconsistently.
“What you do, is what you become.”
One response surprised this writer. It was, in effect, “mysteries don’t have to
be solved.” It was a perfect example of the view of the children of water. In
its way, that is satisfactory for the children of water, but not for the children
of fire.
Other responses were about information. One was “too much information
without understanding is not good for the soul.” This is the view of the children of water in another guise. In its contentment, such an attitude ignores
the fact that understanding is the very thing we are seeking. Another was “we
don’t have enough information.” This writer agrees with this view, especially
with regard to the seed atoms and the silver cord. However, when it comes to
the spiritual ethics of the Incarnation, we do seem to have enough information. It would seem that all that is still required is the pondering that leads
to intuition. Even speculation is acceptable if it opens the way to intuition. A
tentative hypothesis, such as what follows, is a cautious form of speculation.
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Myth is sometimes a good way for mystical aspirants to work their way into
spiritual truth. In ancient Greek mythology there were the Graeae, the grey
ones. They were sisters who served Athena when she had to be a “sudden destroyer”. Their names were Enyo (warlike), Deino (terrible) and Pemphredo
(wasp or alarm.) Beside being fates of doom, they possessed great wisdom,
like that of Athena. They were revered throughout Greece. Their worship was
so prevalent that some scholars think they are the source of the name Greece
from Graecia. They had fair faces, long swan-like necks, and grey hair from
birth. Some of their beauty was peculiar. They had one eye and one tooth
between them. If one of them wanted to see, she had to have the eye passed
to her. If someone snatched the eye, when it was being passed, they were
without vision. The hero Perseus did so, and held it ransom for wisdom. To
a reader this raises an interesting question, “to whom did the eye belong?”
“None of them” and “all of the” would be equally true answers.
At this point one might ask “how can this possibly relate to the Incarnation
Mystery?” It does, but to see how, we must return to the subject of initiation. The path of initiation is a practice of sacrifice. When one becomes an
initiate one sacrifices normal life for a life of service. One’s consciousness is
expanded, and one does experience supernal glories, but one also becomes
acutely aware of suffering, that an open heart cannot ignore. Service. When
one becomes a Highest Initiate, one sacrifices the use of one’s lowest three
vehicles. This is done to be able to reach deeper into the spiritual worlds,
from, whence one can draw on a power not available without this sacrifice.
This means one sacrifices normal camaraderie with the cohorts of one’s life
wave, friends from the beginning of the creation. What then is the sacrifice
when one becomes the Highest Initiate. Since, when one becomes the Highest Initiate, one becomes a personification of an attribute of the Godhead,
one would think that every vestige of personality would be sacrificed in order
to serve with divine, unbiased objectivity. In this, the members of the Godhead share the works of the One with perfect impartiality.
The works of the members of the Godhead, with regard to humanity, are
both constant and intermittent. The powers of will, love-wisdom and activity are constant in our lives. The functions of generation, preservation and
dissolution of the Godhead are intermittent. The passing of activity from
one Person of the Godhead to another (which is analogous to the passing of
the eye of the Graeae) is beautifully described in the Winter Solstice Service
of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. Another place in the Rosicrucian philosophy
tells us that there was a previous religion of the Son, in Melchizedek, this was
succeeded by the religions of Jehovah, the race religions. Currently, the light
(the eye) is being passed from Jehovah back to Christ, the Son. The individuation, which is the work of Jehovah, has not yet been completed in everyone,
and the altruism of Christ has not yet been firmly established in the hearts
of all. In this transition our humanity is vulnerable, just as the Graeae were
vulnerable when passing the eye. Some cling tenaciously to the separative
religions of Jehovah, others are carrying individuation deep into separative
individualism. Both groups are in peril, but extremely few will be able to resist the love of Christ forever.
But what about the tooth?
Just as the eye represents light, or consciousness, the tooth represents the
hard part of the whole being. In humans it is the dense physical body. Suppose that at the baptism by John, Jesus assumed the status of the Highest
Initiate of our life wave. The Godhead would then become a divine tetrad
instead of the triad of the past—something that was to happen, whether at
the baptism by John, or not. Max Heindel tells us Jesus is the leader of humanity, in any case. The assumption of Jesus to the Godhead at Incarnation
time is likely. If this were true, all of the vehicles of Jesus would belong to the
tetrad, and not exclusively to any one of the tetrad, including himself. Thus
Christ could take the dense and vital bodies which previously belonged to
Jesus, without a breach of spiritual ethics. It would also be a unique activity
which no one outside of the Godhead could copy, since there is only one that
is the Highest Initiate in any life wave.
Is this the answer to the Incarnation Mystery? It is the only answer that this
writer can find that is in complete conformity with spiritual ethics. Nonetheless, this writer is not certain that it is the answer. However, he is content
ponder the mystery, and to continue to serve and to seek until he can know
for certain. We will only know when we live the higher life well enough to
develop the faculty to see for ourselves.
But what about the seed atoms and the silver cord? That is a different part of
the mystery for a different essay, perhaps, by a different writer.
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