~Kinjal Gorakh
Greetings friends, Thank you for being part of this journey of reflection from “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference
Here is part 1 – part 2 – part 3
Today (& most everyday) I am asking: What is the role of karma in healing?
We have explored this question many times throughout the Corona Crisis which is still gripping the world, steething underground in the deep places where we hold fear, hatred & doubt – Right now it feels like a low grade fever, not enough heat to burn away what does not serve – a simmering fire that breeds anxiety without the power of transformation.
I think about how when I was a child we were given ‘baby aspirin’ whenever our temps rose. Remember that stuff – tastes like a chalky creamsicle. We loved it. But I wonder if because of this suppression of fever we created generations of people who are now suffering chronic illnesses because they were not able to burn off the hereditary overlay, the ‘sins of the fathers’, during the appropriate phase in childhood.
Dr. Ursula Flatters mentioned that we can’t just treat the symptoms, because sometimes they signal disease – & sometimes they are a sign of a healing response.
We must practice living thinking – the living thinking of the Angels. To think away the physical. The foundation is based on concentration, a building up of the imagination, inspiration & intuition, unselfish study, communing with nature, & to be able to see life as it is, not only as we want it to be – To enter the field of karma consciously takes uprightness & morality. The best self-knowledge is to know yourself in relation to others.
From Sergei Prokofieff: “…The encounter with the living being AnthropoSophia in the spiritual world stands in the most intimate inner connection to the threefold path of study. For on this path, we try to develop faculties of thinking, feeling and will that are not bound to the senses and which we can take with us into the spiritual world into which we enter every night. By this means we were enabled to awaken in this world and perceive the living being AnthropoSophia. Thus, these two things belong together: what manifests itself exoterically as study has its esoteric counterpart in one’s gradual approach in the spiritual world to the being AnthropoSophia and to one’s direct encounter with her. In this way, study becomes the first stage of initiation. For, like all subsequent stages, it leads to a supersensible encounter with a spiritual being.
The next step will be that we try to open up what has been experienced in the night to the light of day, so as to raise this spiritual encounter to our waking consciousness. This can, however, be achieved only by dint of extensive meditation. The endeavor to become a true representative of the supersensible being AnthropoSophia on the Earth must always be felt to be an important condition for such an encounter. Thus, we may be sure that sooner or later we shall also experience this being with full consciousness, and this will be for us like a real meeting with a spiritual teacher here on Earth. From this moment onwards the being AnthropoSophia will herself be our guide in the spiritual world; and in every question pertaining to our life and actions we shall be able to seek her advice. In the following words Rudolf Steiner describes this direct and personal relationship which then becomes possible with this being who stands so close to humanity: ‘AnthropoSophia is in herself an invisible human being, who goes amongst visible human beings, and towards whom we have the greatest conceivable responsibility…, who must indeed be regarded as an invisible human being, as someone with a real existence, who should be consulted in all life’s individual actions,… to whom we are responsible in every moment of our lives… It is absolutely necessary that everything that happens is to be viewed in consultation with the human being AnthropoSophia… as a living being… So that is what is necessary: true seriousness in our following of that invisible human being, of whom I have just spoken.’
If we have established such a relationship to the living being AnthropoSophia, we shall soon notice that our whole life changes, because we have found our spiritual teacher. The wonderful thing is that the being AnthropoSophia leaves us absolutely free in everything. But if it is our will to follow this being, she leads us on the path described of above to the knowledge of esoteric Christianity. For her most important task today is to lead human beings in the sense of the Time-Spirit to becoming conscious of the great cosmic-earthly mysteries of the living Christ.” ~The Heavenly Sophia, and The Being AnthropoSophia ~Sergei Prokofieff – Steiner quotes: Feb 3, 1913. The Essence of Anthroposophy; Dec 25, 1923 Dornach
This passage by S.O.P. & R.S. is my fav.
I related to many of Dr. Ursula Flatters’s stories of how she has come to be able to do her work in the world. She spoke of being a new doctor joining a clinic with a new group of colleagues – She saw them sitting together & knew she ‘recognized them’ & felt that surley they would ‘see’ her too…but they didn’t. They weren’t able to meet her as she would have liked –
And so I ask: Is it a matter of the time not being right? Or a clue pointing to our own weakness getting in the way? How can we objectively map our relationships?
To become free – to be worthy of answering the call of the Manichean future, we have to sacrifice the unconscious demands we place on others.
It was interesting to hear Dr. Marion Debus remind us that if we wish for things to be different, then we cannot be co-creators with the creator gods. But if we say YES, to all we are facing, we conquer fear! – Then courage & trust bring healing, & understanding will come in time.
Each illness is an experience at the Threshold – it is our task to make this experience conscious. Health of soul & body work together but must be treated separately. Often an illness is the result of the soul getting stuck in the body – The diagnosis looks at how they mix – how is the levity – & how is the gravity – working?
The arts often reveal this, giving a living picture. More on this soon.
Healer Know Thy Self – Not “I” but Christ in me…
~hag
29 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waxing gibbous moon is passing in front of the Teapot, an asterism in the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer. ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
“We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings“. ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Today os the Feast Day of St. Martha, sister to mary Magdalene & Lazurus – “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Saint Martha is mentioned in three Gospel passages: Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-53, and John 12:1-9, and the type of friendship between her and her siblings, Mary and Lazarus, with the Lord Jesus is evident in these passages. In the gospel of Luke, Martha receives Jesus into her home and worries herself with serving Him, a worry that her sister Mary, who sat beside the Lord’s feet “listening to Him speak,” doesn’t share. Her complaint that her sister is not helping her serve draws a reply from the Lord who says to her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” The overanxiousness she displays in serving is put into the right context by Jesus who emphasizes the importance of contemplating the Divine before all things.
Yet she is seen next in John, outside the tomb of her brother Lazarus who had died four days earlier, as the one who receives the Revelation from the Lord that “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
When asked by the Lord if she believed this she said to Him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world,” displaying her great faith which is confirmed by Jesus’ subsequent raising of her brother Lazarus from the grave.
In the third and last instance, we see Martha, again in John, at a house in Bethany where Jesus was reclining at table with her brother Lazarus after he had raised him from the dead. During dinner, John’s Gospel tells us, “Martha served.” She is revealed here performing the same task as when we first saw her, but now her service is infused with her faith, and the brevity of the description suggests the silence and peace in which she serves as opposed to the nervous anxiety she displayed earlier. Martha, whom we have seen serving, in Luke, and then believing, earlier in John, is now seen expressing her belief in the action of serving the Lord.
Saint Martha is the patron of housewives, servants, waiters and cooks.
Legend relates that Martha then went to Tarascon, France, where a monster, the Tarasque, was a constant threat to the population. The Golden Legend describes it as a beast from Galatia; a great dragon, half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than a horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent, that dwelt in a certain wood between Arles and Avignon. Holding a cross in her hand, Martha sprinkled the beast with holy water. Placing her sash around its neck, she led the tamed dragon through the village.
