Awareness - Life - Form
GA 89
Private instruction, Berlin-Schlachtensee, probably in 1904
Part II: 7. Existence, Life and Conscious Awareness I
What we have to understand exactly are the relationships between the concepts of existence, life and conscious awareness. What are they seen to be in mystic terms? Let us think of a child learning to write and of all the situations connected with the process, each on its own—the teacher, materials put ready in preparation, with the child not present. If we think of this as the first thing which is part of writing, we have the first aspect of existence. Now [let us consider] on their own all the activities, the movements of the hand which the child learns—life seen separate from existence. We then leave the first and second aspects aside and take the one we have when the child has finished with those activities. All we consider now is what has given the child the power to write—conscious awareness. We always have the three aspects of existence, life and conscious awareness.
Let us define these terms exactly, for wrong ideas tend to creep in when people speak of existence (form), life and conscious awareness in theosophy. It is a matter of existence interacting with life, resulting in conscious awareness. Let us now apply the terms we found in yesterday’s lesson [evolution, involution]. If we look at the interaction between existence and life, we find that existence merges into life, life takes it into itself. Anything of a life taken into existence in this way veils itself in involution again, merging into conscious awareness. We are thus able to say that any conscious awareness is evolution of life and existence which are in involution. If we are able to investigate a conscious mind we ask: What kind of life is in involution in this conscious awareness, and what kind of existence in this life?
Let us now take our conscious awareness, the awareness we have now—self-awareness. If we investigate it we will characterize it the way I tried to do in the book [Theosophy], taking up Jean Paul’s thought: self-awareness is—I am I.91humorist. Here reference is made to his description of his first Iexperience, published [in German] in his Theosophie (1. Kap., Abschnitt Leib, Seele, Geist): ‘I’ll never forget something which happened in me and which I have never told anyone; it was the birth of my self awareness, and I am able to state the place and the time. One morning I was standing in the front door, a very young child, looking to the left, where the firewood was stacked, and suddenly the inner vision ‘I am an I’ came to me like a bolt of lightning from heaven; it has remained, luminous, ever since. There I saw my I for the first time and for ever.’ First described [in German] in Wahrheit aus Jean Pauls Leben. Kindheitsgeschichte von ihm selbst geschrieben (3 Hefte in 2 Baenden), Breslau 1826 - 1828; 1. Heft, S. 33.
Let us now look for anything which is in involution in this. The life of this conscious awareness must be in involution. This conscious awareness, which is now self-awareness, must earlier on have been a life in awareness, and this life in awareness is in involution in there. If we leave aside the ‘I am I’—the ‘I’, then this conscious mind is not saying: ‘I’ [am conscious mind] but ‘I am life.’ The conscious mind has only evolved from it. Being at the level of self-awareness we have aware conscious awareness and not living awareness. Before, we had the extant conscious awareness: I am existence.
Let us do a proper translation of this.
‘I am the I’ is easy to translate: the given situation which the human being experiences.
‘I am life’ is something where we need to take a closer look. Doing so we’ll find that we go beyond the mere ‘I’ to the foundation and have to ask ourselves how ‘I am life’ has developed. There must be interaction between existence and life. Existence is in involution within life. If we consider this, we get a concept of the human being himself, for it is the human being before he became I who lives in the concept ‘I am life’. ‘Human’ is general, ‘I’ specific. The human being is in involution within the I, it comes to evolution in the ‘I’. Uttering the words at this lower level [‘I am life’], we have to say: ‘I am a human being’. When we say these words we bring out from the most inward part what has been woven into it in an occult way, and understand what we no longer are but once have been and what is contained in us in a state of involution.
Third statement: ‘I am existence’. Taking this, we must be clear in our minds that this is a sum of external circumstances which have now slipped wholly into the inside, as the inmost core, the third layer, which lies hidden deep down in us.
I am I = what is given today; I am life = [gap]; I am conscious mind: we address the whole outside world on the level of the conscious mind; we have our essence as such, which is our foundation, for before there was no conscious mind and life, but conditions, conditions that came together and became our inmost essence. We must then change the words to ‘I am an element’. For that is the elemental.
We thus have three levels of conscious awareness which we are able to trace within us:
1) I am I
2) I am a human being
3) I am an element.
If we were to go further, the thread of our three concepts would leave us, but it repeats itself all the time. It becomes ‘existence’ again by connecting with others.
The fourth, then, is union. So that in moving higher we come to the words: I am in union. The I then is like the earlier given situations that united to find their way into life. I-awareness is thus taken up into existence again. In the same way existence has been conscious awareness before. So that the first existence already had an earlier state of consciousness in involution within it. If we now go back from the words ‘I am an existence, an element,’ we come to ‘I am a pre-awareness’. This may also be put as ‘I am a dhyan chohan.’ In Christian esoteric language it is put like this:
I am a god
I am a glory (element)
I am a might (human being)
I am a power (princedom)
Earlier, we called this
All awareness (now pre-awareness)
Life awareness (or plant awareness, i.e. the elemental)
Human-animal awareness or dream consciousness (I am human, humanity awareness)
(now reached) intellectual awareness: (self-awareness).
We thus have the microcosm once more, in its chain.
Let us consider that now the next level breaks through. In union, the I becomes element again.
I am a dhyan chohan = pre-awareness
I am an element = existence
I am a human being = life
I am I = awareness - self-awareness
Existence = psychic awareness
Life = hyperpsychic awareness
Conscious awareness = spiritual awareness
Now self-awareness is raised to existence. What we grasp in our thinking today becomes existence, so that we shall one day have awareness of the whole of humanity in that we make the I cover all human beings. This is then called psychic awareness. The next level will be the one where the I of every other individual comes alive in us—hyperpsychic awareness. At the highest level of all we take the whole world into our conscious awareness: all is in us—spiritual awareness. (Everything that is outside is already inside—divine awareness.)
Let us imagine [demonstrating with a sheet of paper] that the paper is the pre-awareness. Now it narrows down:
1) I am an element
Now it narrows down to something less than that:
2) I am human
Then:
3) I am I
1) The I then itself becomes
2) existence and goes to the outside.
3) It also shines out over life.
4) It shines out over the whole of elemental existence and then comes out again into what it was before.
Recapitulating we find that in the I lies an involution which is as great as we can imagine, so that it contains the complete triad in involution; its essential nature keeps this I completely hidden in the dark. If we examine what entered into this dark element, we find it was life; it brought light into the darkness, shone into it. And before this, existence shone into life, and in existence pre-awareness was in involution. The revelation of pre-awareness is once again the Word.
We are thus able to say: ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Through him everything entered into existence and without him nothing entered into existence. What existed was life in him and the life of the light of mankind. And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not taken hold of it.’
The I must let what it is inside, occult, shine out. Nothing from the outside must harm the I, the I must grow strong. What it has inside must emerge in outer strength. What does it find? The tempter, the serpent which evolved earlier and is twisting and turning out there. The I must overcome the serpent, and now we have to understand that this is the sign that someone has given birth to the living Christ in himself in overcoming the deadly, the tempter, death, the prince of this world.
Mark 16: 17-18. Those who believe will have signs which accompany them. In my name they will cast out demons, and they will speak in new tongues. They will pick up serpents and if they drink any poison it will certainly not hurt them. They will place their hands on sick people and they will be well.
If your eye be single, your whole body will be full of light. (It will let the light pass through).
If, however, you are a rogue, there will be darkness in you. If there is darkness in you, how great, then, must darkness be altogether.92Matthew 6: 22-23.
State before the year 30:
I - superhuman I - Christ
I - human chela I - Jesus : Palestine
I - human chela I - John the evangelist: Alexandria
State after 30: Christ in Jesus; Jesus in John
Sein, Leben und Bewußtsein I
Was wir genau verstehen müssen, sind die Beziehungen zwischen den Begriffen: Sein, Leben und Bewußtsein. Was versteht man mystisch darunter? Denken wir uns ein Kind, das schreiben lernt, und alle Verhältnisse, die sich abspielen während des Schreibenlernens, jedes für sich: den Schreiblehrer, Materialien, womit alles zubereitet wird, nur nicht das Kind dabei. Wenn man sich dies als erstes vorstellt, das zum Schreiben gehört, hat man sich vorgestellt den ersten Aspekt des Seins. Nun [denken wir uns] alle Tätigkeiten, die Handgriffe, die das Kind sich erwirbt, für sich: das Leben abgesondert vom Sein. Nun lassen wir das erste und zweite für sich und nehmen den Aspekt, der sich ergibt, wenn das Kind abgeschlossen hat mit den Tätigkeiten. Es kommt nur in Betracht, was dem Kinde die Gewalt gegeben hat zum Schreiben: das Bewußtsein. — Überall finden wir die drei Aspekte: Sein, Leben und Bewußtsein.
Nun wollen wir diese Begriffe genau festhalten, denn wenn man in der Theosophie spricht von Sein (Form), Leben und Bewußtsein, bringt man oft falsche Vorstellungen hinein. Es handelt sich darum, daß das Sein mit dem Leben in eine Wechselwirkung tritt, und das Ergebnis ist das Bewußtsein. Nun wollen wir die Begriffe [Evolution, Involution], die wir in der gestrigen Stunde gewonnen haben, anwenden. Wenn wir die Wechselwirkung des Seins mit dem Leben betrachten, sehen wir, daß das Sein übergeht in das Leben, das Leben nimmt das Sein auf. Was auf diese Weise vom Leben in das Sein aufgenommen wird, hüllt sich wieder in Involution, geht in dem Bewußtsein auf. So daß wir sagen können: ein jedes Bewußtsein ist Evolution eines involvierten Lebens und Seins. Wenn wir ein Bewußtsein untersuchen können, so fragen wir: Welch ein Leben ist in diesem Bewußtsein, welch ein Sein in diesem Leben involviert?
Nehmen wir jetzt unser Bewußtsein, dieses Bewußtsein, das wir jetzt haben - Selbstbewußtsein. Wenn wir es untersuchen, werden wir es charakterisieren, wie ich es versuchte im Buch [«Theosophie»] in Anknüpfung an Jean Paul: Selbstbewußtsein ist — Ich bin Ich.
Nun wollen wir aufsuchen, was darinnen involviert ist: das Leben dieses Bewußtseins muß darinnen involviert sein. Dieses Bewußtsein, das jetzt Selbstbewußtsein ist, muß früher gewesen sein ein Bewußtseinsleben, und dies Bewußtseinsleben ist darin involviert. Denken wir weg von dem: Ich bin Ich - das «Ich», dann sagt dies Bewußtsein nicht: Ich [bin Bewußtsein], sondern: Ich bin Leben. Das Bewußtsein hat sich erst aus ihm entwickelt. Da wir aber auf der Stufe des Selbstbewußtseins sind, so haben wir statt des lebendigen Bewußtseins das bewußte Bewußtsein. Vorher hatten wir das seiende Bewußtsein: Ich bin das Sein.
Wir wollen es uns ordentlich übersetzen.
«Ich bin das Ich» ist leicht zu übersetzen: der gegebene Tatbestand, den der Mensch erlebt.
«Ich bin das Leben» müssen wir näher betrachten. Wenn wir das tun, werden wir finden, daß wir über das bloße «Ich» hinausgehen zur Grundlage und müssen uns fragen, wie hat sich entwickelt: «Ich bin das Leben». Es muß Wechselwirkung sein zwischen Sein und Leben. Sein ist im Leben involviert. Wenn wir dies bedenken, bekommen wir einen Begriff vom Menschen selbst, denn was da lebt in dem Begriff «Ich bin das Leben», ist der Mensch, bevor er Ich geworden ist. «Mensch» ist das Allgemeine, «Ich» das Besondere. Der Mensch ist in dem Ich involviert, kommt zur Evolution in dem «Ich». Sprechen wir auf dieser untern Stufe den Satz aus [«Ich bin das Leben»], müssen wir sagen: «Ich bin ein Mensch.» Sagen wir diesen Satz, so holen wir aus dem Innersten, was okkult in ihm eingewoben ist, und verstehen, was wir nicht mehr sind, sondern einmal waren und was involviert in uns enthalten ist.
Dritter Satz: «Ich bin das Sein». Wenn wir dieses nehmen, so müssen wir uns klarmachen, daß dies eine Summe von äußeren Verhältnissen ist, die nunmehr ganz in das Innere eingeschlüpft sind als der innerste Kern, als die dritte Schicht, die tief in uns verborgen liegt.
Ich bin Ich = was heute gegeben ist; Ich bin das Leben = [Lükke]; Ich bin das Bewußtsein: Wir sprechen die ganze äußere Welt in der Bewußtseinsstufe an; wir haben das Wesen als solches, das uns zugrunde liegt, denn vorher hat es nicht Bewußtsein und Leben gegeben, sondern Verhältnisse, Verhältnisse, die sich zusammengeballt haben und zu unserem innersten Wesen geworden sind. Dann müssen wir den Satz umsetzen in: «Ich bin ein Element». Denn das ist das Elementare.
Wir haben also diese drei Stufen des Bewußtseins, die wir in uns verfolgen können:
1. Ich bin Ich
2. Ich bin ein Mensch
3. Ich bin ein Element.
Wenn wir weitergehen, würde uns der Faden unserer drei Begriffe verlassen, aber er wiederholt sich immer. Es wird wiederum «Sein», indem es sich mit andern verbindet.
Das vierte ist also die Vereinigung. So daß wir, wenn wir aufsteigen, zum Satze kommen: Ich bin in der Vereinigung. Dann verhält sich das Ich wie die früheren Tatsachen, die sich vereinigt haben, um sich ins Leben hineinzufinden. Das Ich-Bewußtsein wird also wieder ins Sein aufgenommen. Ebenso war das Sein früher schon Bewußtsein. So daß in dem ersten Sein ein früheres Bewußtsein schon involviert ist. - Wenn wir jetzt zurückgehen vom Satze: Ich bin ein Sein, Element, kommen wir zum Satz: Ich bin ein Vorbewußtsein. Dieses Vorbewußtsein kann man auch so ausdrücken: Ich bin ein Dhyan Chohan. In der christlichen Esoterik wird es so ausgedrückt:
Ich bin ein Gott
Ich bin eine Herrlichkeit (Element)
Ich bin eine Macht (Mensch)
Ich bin eine Gewalt (Fürstentum)
Wir haben früher dasselbe genannt:
Allbewußtsein (jetzt Vorbewußtsein)
Lebensbewußtsein (oder Planzenbewußtsein, d. i. das Elementare)
Mensch-Tierbewußtsein oder Traumbewußtsein (Ich bin Mensch, Menschheitsbewußtsein)
(jetzt erreicht) intellektuelles Bewußtsein: (Selbstbewußtsein).
So haben wir noch einmal den Mikrokosmos in seiner Kette.
Denken wir, es bricht jetzt durch die nächste Stufe, In der Vereinigung wird also das Ich wieder zum Element.
Ich bin ein Dhyan Chohan = Vorbewußtsein
Ich bin ein Element = Sein<
Ich bin ein Mensch = Leben
Ich bin Ich = Bewußtsein - Selbstbewußtsein
Sein = psychisches Bewußtsein
Leben = hyperpsychisches Bewußtsein
Bewußtsein = spirituelles Bewußtsein
Nun wird das Selbstbewußtsein ins Sein erhoben. Was wir also heute ergreifen im Denken, wird zum Sein, damit wir einst das Bewußtsein haben von der ganzen Menschheit, indem wir unser Ich hinüberkappen über alle Menschen. Dies nennt man dann das psychische Bewußtsein. - Die nächste Stufe wird diejenige sein, wo das Ich eines jeden andern in uns Leben wird: das hyperpsychische Bewußtsein. - Auf der allerhöchsten Stufe nehmen wir die ganze Welt in unser Bewußtsein auf: Alles ist in uns: spirituelles Bewußtsein. (Alles was draußen ist, ist schon drinnen: göttliches Bewußtsein.)
Stellen wir uns vor [es wird mit einem Papierblatt demonstriert]: die Papierfläche ist das Vorbewußstsein. Nun engt es sich ein:
1. Ich bin ein Element
Nun engt es sich ein in etwas, was schon weniger ist:
2. Ich bin Mensch
Dann:
3. Ich bin Ich
1. Das Ich wird dann selbst
2. Sein und tritt nach außen.
3. Es überstrahlt auch das Leben.
4. Es überstrahlt das ganze elementare Dasein und kommt dann wieder hinaus in das, was es war.
Rekapitulieren wir, so finden wir, daß im Ich eine denkbar starke Involution liegt, daß es die vollständige Trias involviert enthält; sein Wesen enthält dies Ich vollständig verborgen im Finstern. Prüfen wir, was in dieses Finstere hineingekommen ist, so war es das Leben, es hat erhellt diese Finsternis, es schien hinein. Und vorher schien in das Leben hinein das Sein, und in dem Sein war involviert das Vorbewußtsein. Die Offenbarung des Vorbewußtseins ist nun wieder das Wort. - So daß wir sagen können: «Im Anfang war das Wort, und das Wort war bei Gott, und ein Gott war das Wort. Dasselbe war im Anfang bei Gott. Alle Dinge sind durch dasselbe gemacht, und ohne dasselbe ist nichts gemacht was gemacht ist. In ihm war das Leben, und das Leben war das Licht der Menschen. Und das Licht scheinet in die Finsternis, und die Finsternisse haben es nicht begriffen.»
Das Ich muß nach außen scheinen, was es innerlich, okkult ist. Kein Äußeres darf dem Ich schaden, das Ich muß kraftvoll werden. Was es innerlich in sich hat, muß in äußerer Kraft hervortreten. Was findet es? Das, was sich früher evolviert hat, den Versucher, die Schlange, die da draußen sich windet. Das Ich muß die Schlange überwinden, und nun müssen wir uns klar sein, daß dies das Zeichen dafür ist, daß jemand den lebendigen Christus in sich geboren hat, wenn er das Tödliche, den Versucher, den Tod überwindet, den Fürst dieser Welt.
(Markus 16, 17-18): Die Zeichen aber, die da folgen werden denen, die da glauben, sind die: In meinem Namen werden sie Teufel austreiben, mit neuen Zungen reden, Schlangen vertreiben, und so sie etwas Tödliches trinken, wird es ihnen nicht schaden; auf die Kranken werden sie die Hände legen, so wird es besser mit ihnen werden.
So du im Innern Licht bist, wird dein Auge einfältig sein. (Es wird das Licht durchlassen.)
So du aber ein Schalk bist, wird in dir Finsternis sein,
So aber in dir Finsternis ist, wie groß muß denn die Finsternis überhaupt sein.
Zustand vor dem Jahre 30:
Ich-übermenschliches Ich- Christus
Ich - menschliches Chela Ich - Jesus: Palästina
Ich - menschliches Chela Ich - Johannes der Evangelist: Alexandrien
Zustand nach 30: Christus in Jesus; Jesus in Johannes
Worauf es ankommt im Testament, sind die hinter dem Worte stehenden Tatsachen; in den andern heiligen Büchern sind es die Lehren. (Im Alten Testament handelt es sich im Verhältnis zum Neuen um eine Involution. Es ist der Makrokosmos im Verhältnis zum Mikrokosmos.)
Being, Life, and Consciousness I
What we need to understand precisely are the relationships between the concepts of being, life, and consciousness. What is meant by this in mystical terms? Let us imagine a child learning to write, and all the circumstances that occur during the process of learning to write, each on its own: the writing teacher, the materials with which everything is prepared, but not the child itself. If we imagine this as the first thing that belongs to writing, we have imagined the first aspect of being. Now [let us think of] all the activities, the movements that the child acquires, in isolation: life separated from being. Now let us leave the first and second aside and take the aspect that arises when the child has finished with the activities. The only thing that comes into consideration is what gave the child the power to write: consciousness. — Everywhere we find the three aspects: being, life, and consciousness.
Now let us define these terms precisely, because when one speaks in theosophy of being (form), life, and consciousness, one often introduces false ideas. The point is that being interacts with life, and the result is consciousness. Now let us apply the concepts [evolution, involution] that we gained in yesterday's lesson. When we consider the interaction of being with life, we see that being passes into life, life takes up being. What is taken up in this way by life into being envelops itself again in involution, passes into consciousness. So we can say: every consciousness is the evolution of an involuted life and being. When we examine a consciousness, we ask: what kind of life is involved in this consciousness, what kind of being is involved in this life?
Let us now take our consciousness, this consciousness that we now have — self-consciousness. When we examine it, we will characterize it as I attempted to do in the book [Theosophy] in connection with Jean Paul: Self-consciousness is — I am I.
Now let us seek what is involved in it: the life of this consciousness must be involved in it. This consciousness, which is now self-consciousness, must have been a conscious life in the past, and this conscious life is involved in it. Let us think away from that: I am I — the “I,” then this consciousness does not say: I [am consciousness], but: I am life. Consciousness first developed from it. But since we are at the stage of self-consciousness, we have conscious consciousness instead of living consciousness. Before, we had being consciousness: I am being.
Let's translate it properly.“I am the I” is easy to translate: the given fact that man experiences.
We must take a closer look at “I am life.” When we do so, we will find that we go beyond the mere ‘I’ to the foundation and must ask ourselves how “I am life” developed. There must be interaction between being and life. Being is involved in life. When we consider this, we gain an understanding of the human being itself, for what lives in the concept “I am life” is the human being before it became “I.” “Human being” is the general, ‘I’ is the particular. The human being is involved in the “I,” evolves in the “I.” If we utter the sentence [“I am life”] at this lower level, we must say: “I am a human being.” When we say this sentence, we draw from our innermost being what is occultly woven into it, and understand what we are no longer, but once were, and what is involved in us.
Third sentence: “I am being.” When we take this, we must realize that this is a sum of external circumstances that have now slipped completely into the innermost core, as the third layer, hidden deep within us.
I am I = what is given today; I am life = [Lükke]; I am consciousness: we address the entire external world at the level of consciousness; we have the essence as such, which underlies us, for before there was no consciousness and no life, but circumstances, circumstances that have accumulated and become our innermost essence. Then we must translate the sentence into: “I am an element.” For that is the elementary.
So we have these three levels of consciousness that we can pursue within ourselves:
1. I am I
2. I am a human being
3. I am an element.
If we continue, we would lose the thread of our three concepts, but it always repeats itself. It becomes “being” again by connecting with others.
The fourth is therefore union. So that when we ascend, we come to the statement: I am in union. Then the I behaves like the earlier facts that have united to find their way into life. The ego consciousness is thus taken back into being. Likewise, being was already consciousness in the past. So that in the first being, a previous consciousness is already involved. - If we now go back from the sentence: I am a being, an element, we come to the sentence: I am a pre-consciousness. This pre-consciousness can also be expressed as follows: I am a Dhyan Chohan. In Christian esotericism, it is expressed as follows:
I am a God
I am a glory (element)
I am a power (human being)
I am a force (principality)
We have previously referred to the same thing:
All-consciousness (now preconsciousness)
Life consciousness (or plant consciousness, i.e., the elemental)
Human-animal consciousness or dream consciousness (I am human, human consciousness)
(now attained) intellectual consciousness: (self-consciousness).
So once again we have the microcosm in its chain.
Let us think that it is now breaking through to the next level. In union, the I becomes an element again.
I am a Dhyan Chohan = preconsciousness
I am an element = being<
I am a human being = life
I am I = consciousness – self-consciousness
Being = psychic consciousness
Life = hyperpsychic consciousness
Consciousness = spiritual consciousness
Now self-consciousness is elevated to being. So what we grasp today in thought becomes being, so that we may one day have consciousness of all humanity by extending our ego over all people. This is then called psychic consciousness. - The next stage will be the one where the ego of everyone else becomes alive in us: hyperpsychic consciousness. - At the highest stage, we take the whole world into our consciousness: everything is within us: spiritual consciousness. (Everything that is outside is already inside: divine consciousness.)
Let's imagine [demonstrated with a sheet of paper]: the surface of the paper is preconsciousness. Now it narrows:
1. I am an element
Now it narrows into something that is already less:
2. I am a human being
Then:
3. I am I
1. The I then becomes itself
2. Being and steps outward.
3. It also outshines life.
4. It outshines the whole elemental existence and then comes back out into what it was.
If we recapitulate, we find that there is a conceivably strong involution in the I, that it contains the complete triad involuted; its essence contains this I completely hidden in darkness. If we examine what entered into this darkness, it was life; it illuminated this darkness, it shone into it. And before that, being shone into life, and in being was involved preconsciousness. The revelation of preconsciousness is now again the Word. — So that we can say: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. The same was with God in the beginning. All things were made through it, and without it nothing was made that has been made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it."
The I must shine outwardly what it is inwardly, occult. No outward appearance may harm the I; the I must become powerful. What it has within itself must emerge in outward power. What does it find? That which evolved earlier, the tempter, the serpent, writhing out there. The ego must overcome the serpent, and now we must be clear that this is the sign that someone has given birth to the living Christ within themselves when they overcome the deadly, the tempter, death, the prince of this world.
(Mark 16:17-18): And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.If you are light within, your eye will be single. (It will let the light through.)
But if you are a rogue, there will be darkness within you,
But if there is darkness within you, how great must the darkness be?
State before the year 30:
I-superhuman I-Christ
I-human chela I-Jesus: Palestine
I-human chela I-John the Evangelist: Alexandria
State after 30: Christ in Jesus; Jesus in John
What matters in the Testament are the facts behind the words; in the other holy books, it is the teachings. (The Old Testament is an involution in relation to the New Testament. It is the macrocosm in relation to the microcosm.)