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The Rosicrucian
Christianity Lectures
by Max Heindel
(Part 7)
Vril was a force generated within each of the beings of our story; itdid not depend upon outside machinery which cost money and could be had by afavored exclusive few but not by the majority; all without exception possessedthis power from birth to death.
That is certainly a yet higher ideal than even a central powerstation. No need for elevators when everybody levitates at will. No need ofstreet-cars or railways when everybody can move swiftly and easily by his owninherent force; no need of ships when man can move through the air withoutsuch cumbersome contrivances as those which move upon the surface of earthand water, and see how much less resistance he will have to overcome whoflies through the air as the bird does than if forced to depend upon anaeroplane or similar contrivance.
Like all other forces Vril could be used as a means of destruction;it was swift in that also, so exceeding care would naturally be required ofone who used it. He must have self-control in highest degree, for if he wereto give way to temper dire disaster would surely happen. If ever we are touse such a force as that we can see how absolutely essential it will be thatwe be good and kind and make no enemies. Our lives would be in the handsof others to an extent undreamt of now.
When we look within ourselves to see if it is possible that an energyof that description be incipiently growing, we cannot look very far beforewe are forced to recognize the fact that a power having vast possibilitiesin there — Thought-power. Our ideas take shape as mental pictures which weform with great facility and afterwards crystallize into material things inan exceedingly slow and laborious manner as cities, houses, furniture,etc. All that is made by the hand of man is crystallized thought.
Nor should we regard its present slow mode of manifestation fromthought to thing as an indication of its possibilities, or allow the factthat it escapes and eludes us to cause dismay. It has been the same waywith the other forces we have already harnessed to our wheels ofprogress. For countless ages the waves of the ocean have wasted energy inbeating upon the seashore, but now inventors are beginning to harness themas they have coupled the waterfall to the electric dynamo. For a likeperiod the winds swept the land and sea before man learned to use them ascarriers of the commerce of the world by appropriate sailing vessels. Forages steam escaped into the air from the camp kettles of primitive humanitybefore they learned to concentrate its power and use it in the variousindustries. In like manner as the steam escaped uselessly from the kettlesof olden time does the radiant energy of thought escape from humanity oftoday and as the steam was utilized by concentrating it, so may also thissubtler but enormously more potent thought-power be concentrated and used todo the work of man with a facility impossible of imagination even bycomparison with the present forces, for they are merely utilitarian,working in, with and upon already existing things, but thought-power is a creative force.
We know how dangerous the other forces are when harnessedand concentrated. While the steam is escaping from the camper's kettle itcan do no serious hurt. Electricity generated by the friction of a belt orby rubbing a piece of amber is no danger to anyone, but when steam isgenerated in quantities and confined in a steam boiler it may burst its bondsin the hands of an incompetent workman and so may electricity underpressure in a wire kill the one who ignorantly meddles with it. Similarlywe may infer that Thought-power misdirected or ignorantly used would have afar more disastrous effect, because it is a much subtler force. Therefore itis necessary that man should be placed in a school were he may learn to usethis enormous force in a safe and efficient manner. and whether we realize itor not, the wise teachers who work unseen but potently with humanity havealready placed us in this concrete existence, the Physical World. Whether weknow it or not, every day, every hour we are here learning the lesson ofright thought and as we learn it, more and more we shall become creatureslike our Father in Heaven.
Thus we see what a great mistake it is to despise this concrete existence and live in the clouds of hopes and aspirations which have to do with the higher life and the higher worlds to the neglect of our dutiesin the present concrete material life.
It should be equally plain, however, that it is also wrong to confine ourselves to the purely material phase of life to the exclusionof the spiritual side of our nature. Extremes are dangerous. If werecognize the two poles of our being, and endeavor to guide our materialexistence by the light of our spiritual perception we shall learn the lessonsso wonderfully provided for us in the school of experience in a far shortertime than required if we go to either of the extremes.
But man was destined to master the material world to the full; whilehe thought of himself as a Spirit principally and had an absoluteand unswerving faith in the continuity of life; while he knew positivelythat birth follows death as surely as death follows birth, he also feltthat there was endless time to progress in, and therefore made onlyindifferent efforts to develop the resources of the material world.
Therefore it was necessary that he should forget for a time thedoctrine of rebirth and think of the life he was living as the only one sothat he might concentrate all his efforts on making the most of hisopportunities for material advancement. The way that was accomplished hasbeen described in the earlier lectures and more fully in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception.
Thus Western humanity gradually attained higher and higher levels of material development,during Earth-life, and as the life in heaven between incarnations is anoutcome of a previous life and a preparation for the next, where we buildout future bodies and our future country under the direction of the greatCreative Hierarchies as described in Lecture No 6., we have gradually built our present highly organized bodies; our rich and beautiful country with its magnificent natural resources, its propitious climate, etc., and are thusenjoying the fruits of our work in previous existences in heaven and on Earth.
The relative plenitude and material prosperity of the Western World is destined to cause the nausea of satiety, to drive it's populace to a realization of the worthlessness of material things, to cause them to turn anew to thespiritual, and in the degree that new inventions and better means of distribution make life easier, will the desire for the higher life overrule the desire for worldly success.
The West's concentration upon material things, and it's consequent worldly success, has gradually given such an impetus in the material direction than the Western World is forgetting it's spiritual nature as a superstitious fallacy exploded by scientific facts.
The West's "scientific" ultra-materialistic attitude and thought works destructively on Western lands, and there is a connection between materialism and seismic and other disturbances.
In The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception a section has been devoted to thedescription of the different layers of the Earth, so far as that is allowed —
— and possible without initiation. Suffice it here to say that there arenine such layers of different thicknesses and that the core forms a tenthpart. This is the seat of the consciousness of the Earth-Spirit.
It is a fact that is patent to the esoteric investigator that this Earth-Spirit feels all we do. When in the autumn the harvester mows down the ripened grain, there is a feeling of pleasure, of joy in havingbrought forth, a feeling akin to that felt by the cow when milk is takenfrom its bursting udders by its offspring. When flowers are plucked it isthe same, but when trees or plants are pulled out by the roots the Earth-spirit experiences pain, for the plant kingdom is to it what the hair is toour body.
The Earth-Spirit is not affected by our acts alone, however; it feels our mental attitude as well. There is one particular layer in the Earth that reflects our passions, feelings, and emotions in a most startlingmanner, and causes them to react upon us as storm, flood, and earthquake.
Materialism causes volcanic eruptions, and the more spiritual conditions prevail, the more such cataclysmic events will cease to startle the World.
That is a statement hard to verify by the ordinary man, and would not have been made, were it not possible to give at leastcirc*mstantial evidence of its verity. This evidence is derived from a studyof the trend of thought at the times when the eruptions of Vesuvius haveoccurred. The list of the cataclysms which have taken place in our erabegin with the eruption which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, where Plinythe Elder perished A.D. 79; then, 203, 472, 512, 652, 982, 1036, 1158, 1500,1631, 1737, 1794, 1822, 1855, 1872, 1885, 1891, 1906.
There have been 18 eruptions in 1900 years. The first half (nine) occurred in 1600 years, during the time of the so-called "dark ages," when man was ignorant and superstitious enough to believe in God and even in elves, fairies, and such foolishness.
Since the advent of modern science has brought enlightenment into the Western World, demonstrated the superfluity of God, and taught us that we are the highest intelligence in the cosmos, "that the brain is a gland which secretes thoughts as the liver secretes bile," "that we talk with thesame force that we use to think," and much more of the same nature,these cataclysmic reactions have been correspondingly numerous. There havebeen nine eruptions during the 300 years since modern science has labored forour enlightenment as against the other nine catastrophes which occurred inthe "dark ages" in 1600 years. The first six occurred in the firstthousand years of our era, the last five within a period of 51 years. If wenumber the strides taken by science in the last century, and particularly inthe last sixty years, the inference is obvious that as materialism increasesthe volcanic eruptions become more numerous; the more it spreads the morepoints on the Earth will become affected.
The above is not to be understood to mean that science is detrimental in the eyes of the esotericists; it has its legitimate places as an educator of the human race, but where it divorces itself from religion and becomesmaterialistic, as has been the case in modern times, it becomes a menace tohumanity. There was a time when religion, art, and science were united andtaught in the mystery-temples, even so late as in Greece, but as this is theplane of separateness and specialization, they have been purposely separatedfor a time, in order that they might attain a greater perfection than wouldhave been possible if they had remained united. In due time they will allthree be united again; and then, and only then, will we get perfectsatisfaction through the heart, the intellect, and the senses. The heartwill enjoy the religious ceremonial aspect, the intellect will be satisfiedby the scientific side, and the esthetic side of man's nature will becatered to by the various arts as they will be employed in the temple-serviceof the future.
When man has spiritualized his being under the influence of scientific and artistic religion of the future day he will have learnedself-control and have become unselfishly helpful to his fellow-being; he willthen be a safe guardian of the thought-power, whereby he will be able to formaccurate ideas which will be immediately fit to crystallize into usefulthings. This will be accomplished by means of the larynx, which will speakthe creative word.
All things in Nature were spoken into existence by the word which was made flesh (John 1). Sound or spoken Thought will be our next force in manifestation, a force that will make us creative God-men when through our present schooling we have fitted ourselves to use such an enormous power for the good of all, regardless of self-interest.
Fellowship and
the Coming Race
- Forth from little motes in chaos
We have come to what we are;
No hidden force can stay us,
We shall climb from star to star.
We will break away the fetters
That have bound us heretofore —
For the world today is better
Than it ever was before.
But then, it may be asked, what may be the meaning of the number of passages which in the New Testament speak of "everlasting" salvation and condemnation? The passages are easily understood when properly illuminated by a directory and a knowledge of the esoteric teaching.
In the first place such meaning hinges upon the definition of theword "everlasting." Like all other words in the English Version it istranslated from Greek. The original word is "aionian." By referring toLiddel & Scott's Greek dictionary it will be seen that this word has manymeanings: "An indefinite period of time," "an age," "a lifetime," as forinstance when Paul used it in his Letter to Philemon to whom he returnedOnesimus, a slave who had become converted, with the words: "For perhapshe therefore departed for a season that thou shouldst receive him forever"(verse 15). The word "forever" is a translation of the very same wordaionian, which is rendered "everlasting" in connection with punishment orsalvation, and as Onesimus and Philemon were both moral men the word aionianmust necessarily mean something different from what we usually have in mindwhen we say "everlasting." In the case cited it cannot mean a moreprotracted period than part of a lifetime.
As soon as we understand that this word does not mean eternity, butonly an age of indefinite duration, a period of time which has both beginningand end, these passages appear in a vastly different light; instead ofeverlasting salvation or condemnation — age-lasting salvation or condemnation. What does it mean?
In previous lectures we have heard how man started his evolution inthe present dense condition in the Polarian Epoch where he made the firstattempt at the construction of a body of chemical matter. The quality of thisbody is inertia. In the Bible he is called Adam. The Hebrew word Admahmeans "firm ground" and Josephus' rendering "red earth" is alsoilluminating, for that which was then the human body was formed fromthe same chemical matter which is the firm ground today, but at that time itwas not as solid nor as cool as the earth's crust of today. The Earth wasjust coming out of Chaos then and was in a red glow, later to becomebrilliantly luminous fire mist. In the Hyperborean Epoch that luminosity wasattained and man-in-the-making commenced the construction of his vital body,possessing the power to move the dense body.
In the Lemurian Epoch he evolved a desire body, and desire to giveincentive to action. In the Atlantean Epoch the mind was added to act as abrake on impulse. Cunning is its inherent quality, but in our present FifthEpoch the Ego manifests through the mind, evolving the faculty of reason tosupersede cunning.
Thus, in each of the previous ages a vehicle having a certain facultyor quality has been evolved to a certain stage of completion, just as ina school the children pass onwards from grade to grade year after year,evolving the faculty of reading, of writing, etc., to a certain stage ineach grade.
But there are some who fail in each class every year, there are somewho are "weighed and found wanting" in the requisite attainment ofknowledge necessary for promotion to a higher grade. Therefore they arecondemned to remain in the same class for another year, to gain the necessaryproficiency to enter a new class and obtain more advanced instruction.
Those who have diligently endeavored to master their lessons aresaved from that necessity and are told to "enter into" a new class. They havenot attained once and for all; in the new class there are new lessons tobe learned, and unless each one keeps on in patient and persistent well-doing he will certainly be condemned when the next examination comes.
As in the school for children, so in the school of life, constant endeavor is the price of promotion and in each stage there have been those who have lagged behind .... nevertheless they are all advancing and theywill sometime reach our stage of attainment and we shall have gonehigher — if we continue to be diligent.
Such is the divine plan of advancement, but here as everywhere man has the equally divine prerogative of bringing disorder in nature for a time, and so attach himself to a race that he may resist for ages the effortsof the Great Leaders to help him progress, as we shall see has been thecase with a certain class of Spirits.
Considering the fact that the task of the Fifth Epoch humanity is to evolve reason, we analyze everything, religion included. Religion like all else is in a state of growth and becoming, and as the present workof the Western World is principally along material lines its religiousteachings are not yet so clearly enunciated as in some of the Easternreligions. The result is that some of the investigators scoff at theChristian teachings, and others have been led to foresake the Christianreligion and have adopted Eastern systems.
From the esoteric standpoint that is a retrogression. The Great Recording Angels who have charge of our present evolution give to each nation the religion suited to its stage of growth, and we may rest assured that those Great Intelligences make no mistakes. They have given to us the Biblecontaining both the Jewish and the Christian Religions. One would nothave been enough, both are absolutely necessary to our evolution as we shallsee when we consider the matter thoroughly. When we have done that weshall also find that of all the religious systems in the world, this ispositively the only one suited to the needs of the Western World, the only onewhich is capable of making us "wise into salvation" and enable us to "enterinto" the "new heaven and the new earth"; the coming age and the coming race.
As previously stated, we evolved a dense, a vital, and a desire body during the Polarian, Hyperborean, and Lemurian Epoch, but the Spirit had not yet drawn into its vehicles, it hovered outside much as the Group Spiritsof the animals do, for there was no connecting mind whereby it could linkitself with its vehicles.
In the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch there was a small part of this nascent humanity who were sufficiently advanced so that a germinal mind could be given them and the Spirit could commence slowly to draw into its vehicles. On that account these people were different from all the restof the to-be-human beings of that time, they were the first race, achosen people, selected from the rest on account of special fitness toreceive in germ the mind which was to be evolved during the coming AtlanteanEpoch.
There are no sudden processes in Nature, however; the Spirit did not draw into its vehicles in a day. It took ages, and was not fullyaccomplished until the middle of the Atlantean Epoch. In the meantime themind had also been growing, and for reasons more clearly given in LecturesNo. 13 and 14, it coalesced with the desire body which it ruled, as a sort ofanimal-soul by cunning, using brain rather than brawn to further its ends.
In the Polarian Epoch the Earth was a dark heated mass,"without (definite) form and void." In the Hyperborean Epoch "God said, Letthere be light," and the dark mass became a luminous fire mist. In theLemurian Epoch the contact of the heated fire mist with the cold of outsidespace produced moisture, dense water nearest the fiery core which, beingheated, rushed outwards as steam to be cooled and fall back to the centralsource of heat. Thus "God divided the waters from the waters," the densewater from the steam.
In that manner incrustations commenced to form in the latter part of Lemuria and upon such crust islands man lived in an atmosphere of fire-fog.
In the early Atlantean Epoch the Earth become fully incrusted and from this damp Earth "there went up a mist from the ground and watered the whole face of the earth."
This mist grew less and less dense and its extension above the surface of the Earth diminished gradually until at last it ceased to envelop the human beings, who them began to see the clear atmosphere around them at about the same time that the Spirit had drawn fully into its vehicles.
Again there were some who had advanced further than others and were therefore "a chosen people" to become the forbears of a people "multitudinous as the sands upon the seashore" in a "promised land."
At that time the mist had condensed into water which gradually flooded the valley of Atlantis, situated between the present Europe and America, so it became necessary for "God's people" to migrate and they were led out of the doomed Atlantis, as variously related in he stories of Noahwho first saw the rainbow (for that phenomenon was impossible in the foggyAtlantean atmosphere), and of Moses who led "the chosen people" through thewaters of the Red Sea where Pharaoh or the wicked Atlantean kings perished.
The chosen people were the original Semites, the fifth of the Atlantean Races. There were no races prior to the one spoken of in the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch. In the Atlantean Epoch there were seven; seven more there will have been before our present Fifth Epoch is ended and therewill be one in the beginning of the Sixth Epoch, which the Rosicrucians callthe "New Galilee," a total of sixteen races.
During Periods, Revolutions, and other Epochs there is such an abundance of time that the Great Leaders manage to get nearly all the spirits in their charge through, but during the periods in which the sixteen racesare born and die, conditions are dense and the time of their rise and fall iscomparatively very brief so that there is grave danger to the Spirits who maybecome fettered and crystallized in the dense race-bodies and fail toprogress. Salvation is therefore to be striven for more earnestly at thistime, for the possibility of condemnation is greater during the Spirits'passage through the sixteen races than at any other time. Thereforeesotericists call these races the sixteen paths to destruction, and they are avery serious concern to the Great Leaders of humanity.
Race pertains to the body, and when a new race is to be bred a Great Leader selects the most likely among the old stock and regulates their marriage relations with a view to produce the right kind of a body for thecoming race. When his "chosen people" marry contrary to his directions,they frustrate his object. In the earlier epochs before man become endowedwith a mind it was easy to lead him, but at the time when the OriginalSemites were "chosen" they had already become sufficiently evolved to resenta curb on their liberty; besides, that curb must not be too strong, for it wasnecessary that they should have a certain amount of free will rather thanremain God-guided automatons. The faithful ones were secluded in Central Asia and there become the forbears of the Fifth Epoch races which have merged thence and are now inhabiting "the promised land," the whole earth as now constituted.
In the coming Sixth Epoch there are to be no races. Universal Brotherhood is to obtain again, and therefore a new "chosen people" must be taken out to usher in the new dispensation; but now man has progressed so farthat no outside influence may be exerted to coerce him, and therefore eachmust choose himself as dictated to from within.
The Christian religion as popularly expounded suffices for the spiritual needs of the great majority of the Western people who are yet working out the material phase of evolution and for those who desire to be among the pioneer nucleus for the coming race it is but necessary to seek and they shall find the esoteric Christianity which will be the universal religion of the Sixth Epoch,superseding the race-religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, etc., asUniversal Brotherhood will supersede races and nations.
As the Lemurians evolved desire through the desire body, theAtlanteans evolved cunning through the mind. We are evolving reason by theactivity of the Ego which is the threefold Spirit acting solely through itsoutermost veil, the Human Spirit, and in the Sixth Epoch the Life-Spirit willimplant and ripen the faculties of intuition and love. Those who aspire to become the pioneers of the coming race must therefore strive to cultivatethese faculties within themselves.
As in former cases, the breeding of a race means generation and at the present time that is performed through passion rather than love. Marriages are made for convenience, a home, or other ulterior considerations.Therefore so many who desire to live the higher life seek to escape marriageand parenthood; which is a great mistake, for of all people these who havebecome imbued with a higher knowledge are the best fitted for the duty ofbringing up children; they can best control passion and perform thegenerative act from love, as a sacrifice laid upon the altar of humanity.
In the coming race the fellowship and this love will also extend to our younger brothers — the animals. Instead of doing as we are at present, hunting, killing, and often tormenting them, we shall care for them andwin their confidence. Thus all the glorious prophecies will come intoeffect. Men will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spearsinto pruning-hooks, they will sit each one under his fig tree and eat thefruit thereof, there will then be peace on earth and good will among men.
It is our privilege to help usher in that glorious age. The age is ready when we are. There is no outside force to bring it about, there is not exterior leader to be expected till a sufficient number have commenced to live Brotherhood. It is vain to look for a second Coming of Christ in any otherway than by making ourselves ready to receive Him, for it has been trulysaid of that coming that "the day and the hour knoweth no man." It may belong or it may be short, there is no fixed time. As we live lives ofselfishness, indulge in passion or vice, we retard His coming, and vice versado we hasten it by living lives of love that lighten the burdens and bearthe sorrows of others. Only when the Christ has been formed within can Hebe perceived without, for —
- Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born
And not within thyself, they soul will be forlorn.
The Cross on Golgotha thou lookest to in vain
Unless within thyself it be set up again.
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Reference: The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures, by Max Heindel (1865-1919)
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