Self-responsibility
Yet my Threshold is fashioned out of all the timidity that remains in thee, out of all the dread of the strength needed to take full responsibility for all thy thoughts and actions. As long as there remains in thee a trace of fear of becoming thyself the guide of thine own destiny, just so long will this Threshold lack what still remains to be built into it. And as long as a single stone is found missing, just so long must thou remain standing as though transfixed; or else stumble. Seek not, then, to cross this Threshold until thou dost feel thyself entirely free from fear and ready for the highest responsibility. Hitherto I only emerged from thy personality when death recalled thee from an earthly life; but even then my form was veiled from thee. Only the powers of destiny who watched over thee beheld me and could thus, in the intervals between death and a new birth, build in thee, in accordance with my appearance, that power and capacity thanks to which thou couldst labor in a new earth life at the beautifying of my form, for thy welfare and progress. It was I, too, whose imperfection ever and again constrained the powers of destiny to lead thee back to a new incarnation upon earth. I was present at the hour of thy death, and it was on my account that the Lords of Karma ordained thy reincarnation. And it is only by thus unconsciously transforming me to complete perfection in ever recurring earthly lives that thou couldst have escaped the powers of death and passed over into immortality united with me.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/English/AP1947/GA010_c10.html
I find it simply amazing that this is what the Guardian wants to tell us – nothing more and nothing less than that we will be able to advance once we take full responsibility for ourselves. I am reminded of a wise man telling us of his amazement at his capacity to find the person, the family, the organisation, or the world that was responsible for his experience of reality being how it was; and his even deeper wonder at the liberation that comes when he manages to realise that he and only he is responsible for his experience of reality.
Desire
There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth. * * * To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation. All things are one. And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist, A Fable About Following Your Dream
So – getting in touch with our real desire means getting in touch with the universe. This is one of the hardest things to get our minds round: doing the good, when we are doing it out of our true being, is not unpleasant. In Theosophy, Steiner describes the transition from the Consciousness-Soul, which beholds the good and the true from without, to the Spirit-Self, which brings them forth from themselves. It’s part of the heritage of the battle between Augustine and Pelagius that we in the West are so suspicious of our desire. Of course if we think the only desire is plant-like or animal drive, we’re going to fall short of our potential. Augustine himself says, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” What can this mean except that our deepest desire is for oneness, for communion with God himself?
Quotation on Freedom
[The words of the Guardian of the threshold]
Yet my Threshold is fashioned out of all the timidity that remains in thee, out of all the dread of the strength needed to take full responsibility for all thy thoughts and actions. As long as there remains in thee a trace of fear of becoming thyself the guide of thine own destiny, just so long will this Threshold lack what still remains to be built into it. And as long as a single stone is found missing, just so long must thou remain standing as though transfixed; or else stumble. Seek not, then, to cross this Threshold until thou dost feel thyself entirely free from fear and ready for the highest responsibility.
From Knowledge of Higher Worlds, The Guardian of the Threshold
I am amazed how clearly Steiner sees the Guardian being connected to our freedom. I am reminded of Bruce Irvine speaking of our profound longing to find something outside of us that is responsible for our experiencing reality as we do; and of the terrifying liberation that comes when we realise that we ourselves are responsible for our experience.
Free from Dogma
I just got the report from Floris about sales of Free from Dogma. To date it’s sold 423 copies. This is very gratifying, but I also wonder whether everyone’s read it who needs to. Here’s the table of contents:
Prologue: The Journey from Unity to Community
Introduction: Did Not Our Hearts Burn Within Us?
Theology in becoming ; The modern world
Part 1. The Experience of God
1.Where is Your God Now?
Faith in God after the ‘death of God’ ; God, the ground of
being ; What difference does it make if God created the world?
2. The Experience of God
The Trinity — a doctrine born of experience ; The fourth
century ; The image of God ; The image as archetype
3. The Wounded Healer
Superhero ; Christ the hero ; The hope of the Messiah
4. Truly God and Truly Man
Understanding the extremes ; Son of Man ; … you are still
asleep …
5. The Holy Spirit
Grasping the Spirit ; Human and holy ; Koinonia ; The
Spirit of evolution
6. Evil Cries Out for Its Redemption
‘Evil evil’ ; Rebellion and redemption
Part 2: The New Community
7. The Icon of the New Community
The Christian Community ; The community of the second
coming
8. The Way into the New Community
The way into the self ; The journey home ; Life as a
journey ; The Sacramental Consultation ; Forgiveness ;
The divine pedagogy
9. The Act of Consecration of Man — the Celebration of theNew Community
The meal ; Letting go and letting come ; The sun amongst
the seven sacraments
10. The Biographical Path in the Community of Christ
Baptism ; Confirmation ; Membership ; Taking leave of
the earthly community ; Celebrating community of life
11. The Structuring of the Community
Community and congregation
Epilogue: The Future Hope
Endnotes
Sources and References
And here’s a taster, the Prologue:
The beginning is one — single — a unity. Everything is infolded. The whole multitude of things — animals and atoms, stars and galaxies, all the experiences and thoughts of human beings and angels — exist as pure potential within God. Time is not yet. Space is infolded. Then God’s fullness overflows in a free deed of pure, creative love.
The world around us with all its abundance, its fullness and variety of separate, individual things — it all springs forth from this ground. Stones and plants; animals; human beings; angels and other heavenly powers — all pour forth from God in overflowing generosity. Science tells the story of the simplest atoms that condensed to become the elements, nebulae, stars; that seeded galaxies. All the glory of the night sky issues forth from this vast outpouring of energy. And that is only a story about the outside of what happens. The inside is pure, self-bestowing love.
Every human soul, every feeling, every breath — all of it is inside God as potential before it pours out into existence. Unimaginable variety comes from this single origin. So great is God’s love that it allows what has been created to stretch so far from God that it becomes other than God. World exists over against God, separate from God, even opposed to God — and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not grasped it. Ranks of spiritual beings — God’s hands and feet, his limbs, eyes and ears — work on the world, shining down their thoughts, drawing the world to evolve towards higher perfection.
A creature made in God’s image walks on the earth, a creator in becoming, bearing the seed of God’s word, godlike already in naming and understanding, in finding and giving meaning.
In the beginning human beings worship the multitude of spiritual beings that they experience within and behind all that is — the hands and feet, eyes and ears of God. The ancient Jewish people are the forerunners with the hard task of understanding that there is one central being at the heart of everything; one unifying principle that underlies all of creation with all its manifold details and glories. The worship of this God allows human beings to become unitary beings themselves. I believe in one God — one almighty divine being.
With the coming of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit, God reveals himself as one in three and three in one. At Whitsun, many tongues of flame emerge from the one central flame. Each individual human being can become a bearer of Holy Spirit. The splitting and splintering of humanity that started at the Tower of Babel, symbol of human beings’ growing separation on their journey, is overcome. At Whitsun, the apostles’ words resonate in the souls of those who hear them, regardless of whether they understand them with their minds. The very beings of those who hear them vibrate in unison as the words recall their common origin in the spirit.
A new unity is born — not a simple oneness, but community, the place of common life, of common work and striving. This is ekklesia, the assembly of those called out to perform a service for the world. They overcome the great divisions that splinter humanity — in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, man nor woman, slave nor free, says Saint Paul (Galatians 3:28). In their celebration they rejoice in a new joining of heaven and earth, a foreshadowing of the fulfilment when God will be ‘all in all’ (1 Corinthians 15:28). They celebrate their vocation as human beings: to join together in a new community with creation — with all human beings — with the divine world.
This human community is neither uniform nor exclusive. It is not regimented, ‘churchy’ in any old sense. It celebrates all creativity that is in tune with the abundance of the life and love which is ultimate reality. It seeks for the truth about the journey that we are on, not to prescribe a dogma but to help human beings on their journey. At the heart of the community is celebration and rejoicing. When the prodigal son of the parable returns, the father rejoices. This my son, he says, was lost and is found. He was dead and has come back to life. When human beings find their true vocation in the celebration of community they find themselves again, and pass from death to life.
Facebook profile for Perspectives
I’ve made a profile for Perspectives. I’ve been interested how many Christian Community people, particularly from North America, follow my blog via Facebook, so it seemed logical to create a presence for Perspectives there. If you’re on FB and you’re logged in, you should be able to see it at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Perspectives/184475281586036?v=wall
Obituary of John V. Taylor
I have been reading around Process Theology again, and once more I’m struck by the power and vision of John Taylor’s The Go-Between God. This led me on to reading his obituary for the first time. It’s here. Here’s a taster:
John Taylor, who has died aged 86, was Bishop of Winchester between 1975 and 1985, chairman of the Church of England Doctrine Commission from 1978 until 1985, and one of the great missionaries of his generation. Convinced that Christians should leave their church boundaries to listen and think much harder, he pleaded with a startled General Synod to “go into no man’s land, for the strange meeting, as Wilfred Owen would have described it”.Taylor’s God was cosmic and also worshipped by non-Christians. He felt that there were many, like the novelist George Eliot, who saw that God was to be experienced outside the church.
More on suffering
Among the qualities in the soul which can become basic characteristics of the life-body there are two which have great significance in the encounter with pain and evil. They are courage and compassion; and for long ages Spirits of Movement have fostered them in man. It is not difficult to see how man is ennobled by these qualities; but it is not always understood that they could not arise in him, were pain not present in the world. We need courage to face pain, and compassion to share in the pain of others. And a still greater courage is wanted in order to meet the presence and activity of evil in the right way.
Courage and compassion both run counter to man’s natural and indeed necessary inclinations. We want to avoid pain; were this not so, pain would be ineffective as a warning about harm that threatens our bodies. But courage accepts the likelihood of pain, for the sake of a purpose that is to be achieved. And compassion impels us to share sufferings which it would be possible to avoid. It is natural too for man to wish for a world in which evil was not present. But his service of great purposes would have less meaning, if he did not have to meet enemies on the way. He need not hate these enemies; to them too compassion can extend, when we begin to recognize the origin of evil in suffering, and that to live in evil is a kind of suffering too For evil is obsession, which means a state of siege. The soul may find, for instance, that impulses of jealousy assail it from every side, and that it is unable to move on into any other mood. Hatred for another person can infect all our seeing, all our doing. It is easy to blame someone who is caught in such feelings. But it is much more useful to have compassion for him.
From “Our Spiritual Companions” by Adam Bittleston
Suffering
Here’s a wonderful quote by Rudolf Steiner. He just came out with it as an answer to a question about the meaning of suffering – what must the person who asked the question have thought?
Suffering is a side-effect of higher development. It is the very thing which cannot be dispensed with in attaining knowledge. Human beings will say to themselves one day: What gives me joy in the world – for this I am grateful. However, should I be faced with the choice of retaining my joys or my sorrows, I would have to choose my sorrows; I cannot do without them for the sake of knowledge… There is no development without suffering, just as there cannot be a triangle without angles. When we have attained unity with Christ, we will recognize, that all the suffering that preceded this harmony was the necessary precondition for such unity. Suffering must be there so that unity with Christ can be there; this is an absolute factor in development.
GA 110, Question session 21st April 1910
Leading – crossing the threshold
Otto Scharmer points out, The Indo-European root of the word ‘lead’ and ‘leadership,’ *leith, means ‘to go forth,’ ‘to cross the threshold,’ or ‘to die.’”
Leading means constantly letting go, opening for what wants to come.
