Love is Moral

Greetings friends on this Full Cold Moon of December also called: the Moon Before Yule, or the Long Nights Moon – The Celts called it the Oak Moon – Tonight Bella Luna ‘occults’ Mars (see below)

Ludo Sevcik

We’ve been exploring an interesting side of the soul forces as revealed by Rudolf Steiner in FAITH, LOVE, AND HOPE – GA 130. We started with Sheaths of Virtue; then we worked a bit with The Karma of Hope. In The 2nd Light of Advent we looked at the connection to the time of Advent. In “A Become” we stepped into the opportunity afforded us in this season to take on the “Trials” spoken about in Steiner’s “How to Know Higher Worlds”.

Today let’s go deeper into what Steiner gives us around the Virtue of Love.  As a background, as well as a look into the future, we are introduced to the idea that Love can only occur when we are able to embody morality. We see this thru the example of the successor of Gautama Buddha, incarnated in the personality of Jeshu ben Pandira, who lived about a hundred years before Christ.

Standing as we are today it’s easy to recognize that being clever intellectually doesn’t always have an equal degree of morality. And yet for the future to unfold in health, if humanity is to progress, morality must be added.

Morality which means being in right relationship, is a product of Love. If we are to advance in our evolution, our thinking must be imbued with heart. Steiner gives the example that according to the reckoning of karma, if a person is intelligent without being moral, in their next incarnation they will be stunted “with an intelligence that is crippled, so that immorality and stupidity coincide”. Steiner is clear that immoral people may be clever but they are really not able to think for themselves – they are easy prey for the adversarial beings to work thru them. “For immorality has a crippling effect upon intelligence. In other words, we are approaching the age when morality and what has now been described for the sixth post-Atlantean epoch as the shining into the ego-soul of the love-forces of the etheric body, point essentially to forces having to do with harmonizing those of intelligence and morality.

In working with the Rosicrucianism implicit in Spiritual Science we know that the meaning of the Earth comes from the sacrifice of Christ – as the Being of Love.

Many High Beings prepared the way for this ‘Turning Point in Time’. In this lecture Steiner introduces us to Jeshu ben Pandira. “There have been, & will continue to be, frequent incorporations of the individuality who appeared as Jeshu ben Pandira, until he rises from the rank of Bodhisatva to that of The Maitreya Buddha. According to our reckoning of time this will be in about 3,000 years, when a sufficient number of people will possess the above-mentioned faculties, and when, in the course of a remarkable incarnation of the individual who was once Jeshu ben Pandira, this great teacher of mankind will have become able to act as interpreter of the Mystery of Golgotha in a very different way from what is possible to-day.”

The depth of the Mystery of Golgotha can only be understood thru the harmony of morality, & intelligence in the etheric streams of the human heart, so that it can be out-pictured in the astral of the social sphere. If humanity can achieve this we will see the coming of a “Golden Age” in the 6th Cultural Epoch. If not we will head straight for the “War of All Against All” unprepared.

“…Through the dawning of the age of love, conditions for the age of morality must be prepared.”

May we use this Advent time, this time of preparing, to create a manger in our hearts for the light of Love to be born.

~hag

7 December 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bella Luna in her Fullness will occult Mars, (pass directly in front of Mars) in the horns of the Bull, around 9:30 pm CST.

An excerpt from Jonathan Hilton: Occultations of planets by the Moon are not rare, however this is unique in that it is a Full Moon, which means it is happening when the Sun, in Scorpion, is opposite Mars and Moon. Mars is now exceptionally bright in the night sky, two times brighter than the brightest star, Sirius, so that even in the light of the Full Moon we will be able to see the bright reddish Mars disappear behind the Moon with the naked eye. The current brightness of Mars is because it is now retrograde in the heavens, meaning it is approaching closer to the Earth, which happens every two years.

How might we begin to understand this event out of astrosophy? First, we should consider that we are in the time of Advent. For most of every Advent season in our age, the Sun is passing through the stars of the Scorpion. It then steps into the arrow and bow of the Archer for the last week of Advent, and passes through the stars of the Archer for the Holy Nights. This is a significant imagination to carry during Advent. In Scorpio we have the memory of the Fall of the human being and the lower astral nature which can be transformed into Spirit Self.

Mars and the Full Moon tonight opposite the Sun in Scorpio can in many ways bring to our awareness a deeper consequence of our descent into matter. Mars joins this Full Moon bringing with it the fullness of what Mars has given to humanity. Mars represents the completed first half of Earth evolution. Mars also carries the memory of the previous incarnation of the Earth as Ancient Moon, when the astral body was bestowed on the human being and during which Lucifer rebelled against the higher Sun beings, a pre-figuring of his activity during Earth evolution as described in the story in Genesis. Mars is the god of war. Mars represents that sphere which has given the human being the capacity to separate the self and to confront and master the external world of the senses. Mars is all about “ME!”, the centric I am.

Taurus is also a constellation that is connected to our taking up of the material world, our descent into the weight of the Bull on the Earth. It carries the memory of the ancient Egyptian cultural age, the age of the pyramids, the heavy temples grounded on the Earth, yet with their tips oriented to the stars, just as the heavy earthy bull has horns tuning it into the stars. Yet Mars and Taurus are also both deeply associated with speech, with the Word. So, Mars carries the “sharp sword” of the word.

In our current times, I think we have all experienced the complete separation of the word from truth in so much of what we hear today. The word as lie, as tool of manipulation. The full story of Mars is the story of the Word becoming Flesh, losing its divine origin, its connection to the logos. Yet, since the event of Christ’s incarnation and resurrection, the Earth has begun its new development towards spiritualization out of the new Sun ego in us. Thus, Mars is undergoing a transformation, but only through the conscious working of human beings to restore the logos to the word. This is the long process of the Flesh becoming Word, through the new I AM force of Christ in the world.

For students of Rudolf Steiner, the deed of the Buddha in the healing process of Mars can be considered, which brought to the unruly, aggressive Mars sphere a step towards redemption and transformation. Rudolf Steiner speaks about how without this deed of Buddha, humans descending to incarnation through the Mars sphere would have been permeated with materialism and aggression. This cosmic deed of Buddha can be an inner practice of the human being as the eight-fold path which develops the Mars chakra.

Mars as well as Taurus also carry a future picture of the incarnation of the next Maitreya Buddha who will bring to humanity the full power of the creative Word as a force of goodness, as a moral force. ~ Jonathan Hilton, Astrosophy.com

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

43 BC – Cicero murdered

1941 – Japanese “surprise attack” on Pearl Harbor brings the USA into the 2nd World War

Holiday Market at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 
4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
10 December 2022 – from 11 am – 4 pm

Handcrafted gifts, décor & toys
Featuring Live Music, Puppetry & Candle Dipping!!!

If you would like to be a vendor contact Elizabeth Kelly 
eilisaineariadne@gmail.com

Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ in the memo for your payment

To register & receive the Zoom code email your receipt of payment to the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg hag@rschicago.org

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

 Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.

This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social.  Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.

During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’

Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing.  She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.

3 thoughts on “Love is Moral

  1. The Golden Rule of Spiritual Development is to work simultaneously on both Knowledge and Being:

    “Once the student has found the beginnings of spiritual vision by means of such exercises, he may proceed to the contemplation of man himself. Simple phenomena of human life must first be chosen. But before making any attempt in this direction it is imperative for the student to strive for the absolute purity of his moral character. He must banish all thought of ever using knowledge gained in this way for his own personal benefit. He must be convinced that he would never, under any circumstances, avail himself in an evil sense of any power he may gain over his fellow-creatures. For this reason, all who seek to discover through personal vision the secrets in human nature must follow the golden rule of true spiritual science. This golden rule is as follows: For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character”.

    https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/English/RSPC1947/GA010_c02.html

    Character development is a precise science in its own right. It forces us to follow the dictates of conscience, which is Michael’s voice intruding in a way that allows us to still be free. To know that Michael is the agent behind this is huge. We want to transform the world in beneficial ways. This is the strong message of Reverse Ritual.

      1. I feel the same way. Rudolf Steiner first spoke about Jeshu ben Pandira in Leipzig on November 4, 1911, and herein he gives an important clue as to how the successorship of the Maitreya Bodhisattva proceeds. Nearly every 100 years, the Bodhisattva incarnates, and did so in the personage of Jeshu ben Pandira one hundred years before Christ. This would seemingly predict an incarnation of the Bodhisattva at the time of Christ. This, in fact, did occur when John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness for the repentance of sins and the baptism in water for the separation of the Etheric Body.

        As the centuries since the time of Christ proceeded, it became evermore evident that Christ would have to reappear in a different form than occurred at the River Jordan. Steiner here encapsulates the progression:

        “The successor to the Gautama-Buddha-Bodhisattva was that individuality who incarnated a hundred years before Christ as Jeshu ben Pandira, as a herald of the Christ in the physical body.

        He is now the Bodhisattva of humanity until he in his turn advances to the rank of Buddha after 3,000 years, reckoned from the present time. In other words, he will require exactly 5,000 years to rise from a Bodhisattva to a Buddha. He who has been incarnated nearly every century since that time, * is now also already incarnated, and will be the real herald of the Christ in etheric raiment *, just as he prophesied the physical appearance of the Christ.

        And even many of us will ourselves experience the fact that, during the 1930’s, there will be persons — and more and more, later in the century — * who will behold the Christ in etheric raiment *.

        Spiritual Science exists to prepare for this and everyone who works at the task of Spiritual Science shares in making this preparation.

        The manner in which humanity is taught by its Leaders, but especially by a Bodhisattva who is to become the Maitreya Buddha, changes greatly from epoch to epoch”.

        https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA130/English/RSP1984/19111104p01.html

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