The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday we saw what deep content is hidden in the first words of the Gospel of John, and we can summarize our observations by saying: We have seen that the writer of the Gospel of John points to the becoming of the pre-human being in the primeval past, points to how, in the sense of Christian esotericism, everything is traced back to the Word or the Logos, who was already creative during the old Saturnian period, who then became life, and then light, - life, while our earth was passing through its solar state, -- light, while it was passing through the old lunar state. So that which man has become under the influence of divine-spiritual forces and entities in the course of the three planetary states, was permeated by the human ego when the earth had just become our present planet. So that one can say: Like a kind of seed an entity came from the old moon over to earth, consisting of a physical body, emerged from the divine original word, of an etheric or life body, emerged from the divine life, of an astral body, emerged from the divine light. The light of the ego itself was kindled within this entity during its earthly existence. This threefold corporeality: physical body, etheric body and astral body, became capable of speaking within itself the “I am”, so that in a certain way we can call the development of the earth the development of the “I-am”, the self-consciousness of man. And this “I-am”, this ability of full self-consciousness, only emerged slowly and gradually in the course of the development of earth humanity. We must realize how the development of earth humanity was, insofar as the I, the full self-consciousness, slowly and gradually came into existence in it.

[ 2 ] There was a time in our earth development, we call it the old Lemurian time; it is the oldest time in which the human being appeared within the earth existence in the form in which he is present today. For the first time in the ancient Lemurian period there occurred what we call the embodiment of the I, the actual innermost being of man, in the three bodies, the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body. Then came the Atlantean period, when man lived for the most part on the old Atlantean continent, an area of land that today forms the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, which was submerged by the great Atlantean flood, the memory of which has been preserved in the Flood legends of almost all peoples. Man then embodied himself, according to his innermost nature, in successive incarnations up to the present day during the post-Atlantean period. Our souls were actually embodied for the first time in the Lemurian period in a tripartite entity consisting of a physical body, etheric body and astral body, as we have come to know them. What preceded this is to be left for later consideration. - We must therefore go far back when we consider the course of development, and man develops only slowly and gradually to his present existence. What do we in occultism call “our present existence” in the spiritual scientific sense?

[ 3 ] We call our present existence a state of consciousness such as man has today from the morning, when he wakes up, until the evening, when he falls asleep. There man sees the things around him through his outer physical senses. From the evening, when he falls asleep, until the morning, when he wakes up, he does not see the things around him. Why is this so? We know that it is so because in today's developmental conditions during the daytime the actual inner man, that is, the ego and the astral body, are in the physical body and etheric body on the physical plane, that is, in the physical world. There the astral body and the ego can make use of the physical sense organs, hear and see out into the world and perceive physical things. From the evening, when a person falls asleep, until the morning, when he wakes up, the ego and the astral body are outside the physical world, on the astral plane. There they are separated from physical eyes and physical ears, they cannot perceive what is around them. This state, such a change in the human being between day waking and night sleeping, has only developed slowly and gradually. This was not yet the case when man first underwent physical embodiment in ancient Lemurian times. Then man was only inside his physical body for a very short time of the day - by no means as long as today - according to his ego and astral body. But because the human being was outside his physical body for a longer period of time, and only entered the physical body awake for a shorter time, life during the Lemurian period was still quite different. The fact that man was completely unconscious during the night, when he was not dreaming, came about very slowly and gradually. Consciousness during the day and night was still distributed quite differently during the Lemurian period. People still had a dull clairvoyant consciousness. When they were outside the physical body in the spiritual world at night, they perceived the spiritual world around them - even if not as clearly as people today see physical things during the day. We must not simply compare this perception with today's dreams. Today's dream is only like a last vestigial remnant of this ancient clairvoyance. However, people perceived such images back then, just as they do today in dreams; but these images had a very real meaning. Let us realize what these images meant.

[ 4 ] In ancient times, when man lived in day-consciousness for a short part of the 24 hours, which was much shorter than today, he could only see the outer physical bodies very dimly, as if shrouded in a mist. It was only very slowly that physical things were seen as they are today. During the day, man then saw the first hints of the physical bodies, shrouded in mist, just as today, when you walk through the streets in the evening on a foggy day, you see the lanterns surrounded by mist as if by a kind of aura of light. This is only apparent, but this is how man first saw the physical bodies appear around him. And when he fell asleep, he did not sink into unconsciousness, but during sleep consciousness images appeared, images in colors and shapes. There was then a world around man against which the most vivid dream world of today is but a faint misty echo. These images signified the soul and spirit in the environment.

[ 5 ] So when man at the beginning of his earthly career approached a creature that was harmful to him during his night walk, he did not see it as it is seen today - that is, not a lion approaching him as a lion figure - but he saw a picture of color and form rising up, and that instinctively showed him: There is something harmful to you, it is eating you and you must avoid it. These were real images of the spiritual-soul that was going on around the human being. Everything spiritual was seen in the night, and very slowly and gradually the development took place in such a way that the human being immersed himself in his physical body for longer and longer periods of time, the night became shorter and shorter, the day lasted longer and longer. And the more man settled into his physical body, the more the nocturnal clairvoyant images disappeared, the more the present day consciousness emerged. But we must not forget that a real, genuine self-consciousness, such as man is supposed to attain during his earthly existence, can only be attained through immersion in the physical body. Man did not feel himself as an independent being in the past, but as a member of the divine-spiritual entities from which he sprang. Just as the hand feels itself to be a member of the organism, so man, when he still had a dim clairvoyance, felt himself to be a part of the divine-spiritual consciousness, the divine ego. Man would not have said of himself “I-am”, but “God is - and I in him”.

[ 6 ] Now, however, as we shall understand more and more, a very special mission was reserved for the earth, which had passed through three earlier stages in its development than Saturn, the sun and the moon. Do not believe that the planetary states can be considered side by side in such a way that one planet is equal to the other. There can be no question of a mere repetition of what has already existed in divine creation. Every planetary existence has a very specific task. Our earth has the mission that the beings who are to develop on it must train the element of love to its highest development. Love is to permeate the earth completely when the earth has reached the end of its development. - Let us realize what this means: The earth is the planetary state for the development of love.

[ 7 ] We say in spiritual science that the earth was preceded by the old moon. This old moon also had a mission as a planetary stage. It did not yet have the task of training love, it was to be the planet or the cosmos of wisdom. Before our earthly state, our planet went through the stage of wisdom. A simple, one might say logical observation can illustrate this for you. Look around you in nature among all its beings. Do not look at them with your mere intellect, but with the powers of your heart and mind, and you will find wisdom expressed in nature everywhere. This wisdom which is spoken of here is meant in such a way that it underlies everything like a kind of spiritual substance. Look at everything you want in nature. Take a piece of thigh bone, for example, and you will see: It is not a solid mass, but a fine, reciprocating series of beams arranged into a marvelous framework. And if you investigate the law according to which they are constructed, you will find that the law is followed according to which the greatest strength is developed with the least amount of material in order to support the upper body of the human being. Our art of engineering is not yet ready to construct such an elaborate framework as the all-pervading wisdom has built. Man will only have such wisdom later. Divine wisdom permeates the whole of nature; human wisdom will only be added gradually. In the course of time, human wisdom will achieve inwardly what divine wisdom has secreted into the earth.

[ 8 ] But in the same sense that wisdom has been prepared on the moon so that it is now found everywhere on earth, love is being prepared on earth. If you could look back clairvoyantly to the old moon, you would see that there was not such wisdom in all things then; you would find some things still unwise. Only through the whole development of the moon did wisdom imprint itself on things, and when the moon was finished in its development, everything was so permeated by it that wisdom was everywhere in it.

[ 9 ] The inner wisdom first entered man on earth with the ego. But man must develop this inner wisdom little by little. Just as wisdom developed on the moon so that it is now present in things, so love is now developing. It first came into existence in its lowest form, in the sensual, during the Lemurian period. But in the course of the earth existence it will spiritualize itself more and more, until finally, when the earth will have reached the end of its development, the whole existence will be permeated by love as it is today permeated by wisdom - through the work of men, when they will fulfil their task.

[ 10 ] And the earth will pass over into a future planetary state. This we call Jupiter. But the beings who will walk around on Jupiter in the same way as human beings on earth will find the love fragrant in all beings, which they themselves have put into them as human beings during their earthly existence, just as human beings today find wisdom in all things. Then people will also develop love from within themselves, just as people are now gradually developing wisdom. The great cosmic love will then permeate the things that are now beginning their existence on earth.

[ 11 ] The materialistic sense does not believe in cosmic wisdom, but only in human wisdom. If men would look into the course of development with an unbiased mind, they would see that all cosmic wisdom was as far advanced at the beginning as human wisdom will only be at the end of the earth. In the times when people were more precise with designations than at present, the subjective wisdom working in man was called intelligence, in contrast to the objective cosmic wisdom. Man pays no attention to the fact that what he invents in the course of his earthly existence, the divine-spiritual entities have already conquered and implanted in the earth during his moon existence. Let us take an example of this.

[ 12 ] How children are taught in school about the great progress that humans have made, for example, through the invention of paper. Well, the wasps produced paper many thousands of years before; for what the wasps build in their nests consists of exactly the same substance from which human paper is made, and it is produced in exactly the same way, only through the process of life. The wasp spirit, the group soul of the wasps, which is a part of the divine-spiritual substance, was the inventor of paper much earlier. Thus man is actually always groping after the wisdom of the world. In principle, everything that man will invent in the course of his development on earth is already contained in nature. But what man will really give to the earth is love, which will unfold from the most sensual to the most spiritualized kind. That is the task of earth's development. The earth is the cosmos of love.

[ 13 ] But what, we ask, is necessary for love? What is necessary for one being to be able to love another? It is necessary for this being to have its full self-consciousness, to be completely independent. No being can love another in the full sense if this love is not a free gift towards the other being. My hand does not love my organism. Only a being that is independent, that is unbound from the other being, can love it. For this, the human being had to become an I-being. The I had to be implanted in the threefold human body so that the earth could carry out its mission of love through the human being. Therefore you will understand that in Christian esotericism it is said: Just as other forces, most recently wisdom during the lunar existence, have streamed down from the gods, so love streams into this during the earthly existence; and the bearer of love can only be the independent ego, which gradually forms itself in the course of earthly development. But man must be prepared very slowly for everything, including the present nature of his consciousness. Let us suppose that in ancient Lemurian times man had been immersed in his physical body and had already seen the full outer reality. He would then not have been able to implant love at this rapid pace! He had to be gradually led to his earthly mission. Without his full self-consciousness, without his being ready to perceive the objects around him in the light of day, the first lessons of love were unconsciously given to him in his dim consciousness. Thus we see that during all the times when man still had an old, dreamlike clairvoyant consciousness, while the soul was thus outside the body for a long time, love was implanted in man in a dim, not yet self-conscious state. Let us imagine the soul, this man of old, who has not yet reached the height of full self-consciousness.

[ 14 ] Man falls asleep in the evening; but there is no abrupt transition from waking to sleeping. Images emerge, vivid dream images, but they have a living connection with the spiritual world. This means that the human being enters the spiritual world while falling asleep. There the divine spirit instilled the first seeds of all the workings of love into his twilight consciousness. That which is to reveal itself through love in the course of earthly development first flows into man during the night. The God who brings the actual earth mission to earth first reveals himself at night to the dull, old clairvoyant consciousness before he can reveal himself to the bright consciousness of day. Then, slowly and gradually, the times in which man is in the dull clairvoyant state become shorter, the daytime consciousness longer and longer, the auric fringes around the objects become less and less significant, the objects acquire ever firmer boundaries. Previously man had seen the sun and the moon with a mighty halo, everything as if lying in a mass of mist. Only slowly does the whole view become clearer, and solid boundaries appear around things. Man has gradually come to this state. What man sees externally, while the sun illuminates the earth and reveals to him through the visible light the whole earthly existence, minerals, plants and animals, man perceives as the revelations of the divine in the external.

[ 15 ] What then, in the sense of Christian esotericism, is that which becomes visible in the bright consciousness of day, of which the earth is composed in its broadest extent? It is a revelation of the divine powers, an outer material revelation of the inner spiritual! If you look out at the sun or at what you find on earth: It is a revelation of the Divine-Spiritual. This divine-spiritual in its present form, as it underlies everything that appears to the bright consciousness of day, the invisible world behind this whole visible world of day, that is what Christian esotericism calls the “Logos” or the “Word”. For just as man can ultimately express the Word in himself, so everything, the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, the mineral kingdom, first came into being from the Logos. Everything is an embodiment of this Logos. And just as your soul works invisibly within you and creates a body for itself externally, so in the world every soul creates an external body that suits it and reveals itself through some physical thing.

[ 16 ] Where then is the physical body of the Logos, of which the Gospel of John speaks and which we want to become more and more aware of today? Where is the physical body of the Logos? This outer physical body of the Logos first appears most purely in the outer sunlight. Sunlight is not merely material light. For the spiritual view it is just as much the dress of the Logos as your outer physical body is the dress for your soul. If you relate to a person in the same way that the majority of people relate to the sun today, you cannot get to know the other person; you would relate to every person who has a feeling, thinking, willing soul in such a way that you do not presuppose a soul-spirituality in him, but merely scan a physical body and believe that it could then also be made of paper-mache. But if you want to penetrate to the spiritual in the sunlight, then you must look at it in the same way as when you get to know the inside of a person from the physical side. Just as your body relates to your soul, so the sunlight relates to the Logos. In the sunlight a spiritual flows towards the earth. This spiritual is, if we are able to grasp not only the solar body but also the solar spirit, this spirit is the love that flows down to earth. Not only does the physical sunlight awaken the plants, so that they would have to wither if the physical sunlight did not affect them, but with the physical sunlight the warm love of the deity streams down to earth; and people are there to absorb and develop the warm love of the deity. Deity within themselves, to develop it and to reciprocate it. But they can only do this by becoming self-aware ego beings. Only then can they return the love.

[ 17 ] When people first began to dwell in their day life, at first only for a short time, they could hear nothing of the light that at the same time ignited love. The light shone into the darkness, but the darkness could not yet comprehend anything of the light. And if this light, which is also the love of the Logos, had not been revealed to man other than through the brief hours of daylight, man would not have understood this light of love. But in the dim clairvoyant dream consciousness of those ancient times, love did flow into man. And now we look beyond existence to a great mystery of the world, of our earth, to an important mystery.

[ 18 ] Let us understand that the guidance of the world for our earth was such that for a time love flowed into man in an unconscious way through a dim clairvoyant consciousness and prepared him inwardly for the reception of love in the full bright consciousness of day. - We have seen that our earth has gradually become the cosmos that has to carry out the mission of love. The earth is illuminated by today's sun. Just as man inhabits the earth and gradually acquires love, so other, higher beings inhabit the sun, because the sun has arrived at a higher stage of existence. Man is an inhabitant of the earth, and to be an inhabitant of the earth means to be a being who acquires love during his time on earth. A sun dweller in our time means a being that can ignite love, that can let love flow in. The inhabitants of the earth would not be able to develop love, would not be able to absorb it, if the inhabitants of the sun did not send them mature wisdom with rays of light. As the light of the sun streams down to earth, love develops on earth. This is a very real truth. The beings who stand so high that they can radiate love have made the sun their showplace.

[ 19 ] When the moon had finished its development, there were seven such principal beings who were so far advanced that they could radiate love. Here we touch upon a profound mystery revealed by secret science. - At the beginning of earthly development there is the childlike human being, who was to receive love and was ready to receive the ego, and on the other side there is the sun, which split off and ascended to a higher existence. Seven main spirits of light were able to develop on this sun, which at the same time were the giving spirits of love. Only six of them took up residence on the sun; and that which flows towards us physically in the light of the sun contains within it the spiritual powers of love of these six spirits of light or the six Elohim, as we find them in the Bible. One of them split off and took a different path to man's salvation, choosing not the sun but the moon as his abode. And this one of the spirits of light, who voluntarily renounced the sun and chose the moon, is none other than the one whom the Old Testament calls “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”. This one who chose the moon as his abode is the one who from the moon poured mature wisdom onto the earth and thereby prepared love.

[ 20 ] Now take a look at this mystery that is behind things. The night belongs to the moon, and it belonged to the moon to a much greater extent in those ancient times when man could not yet receive the power of love from the sun, when he could not yet receive this power of love in the direct light. Then he received the reflected power of mature wisdom from the lunar light. It flowed to him from the moonlight during the time of night consciousness. Yahweh is therefore called the ruler of the night, who prepared man for the love that would later arise during the full consciousness of the day. So we look back to the ancient time of mankind, where spiritually the process took place that is only symbolized by the heavenly bodies, where you have the sun on one side, the moon on the other.

[ 21 ] During the night, at certain times, the moon sends us the reflected solar power. It is the same light that comes to us from the sun. Thus back in ancient times Yahweh or Jehovah radiated the power of mature wisdom, the power of the six Elohim, and this power he poured into men during the time of night sleep and prepared them so that they would be able to receive the power of love little by little during the day-waking consciousness.

[ 22 ] The drawing is intended to symbolically indicate the day-waking human being, where the physical body and etheric body are dependent on the divine, and the ego and the astral body are on the physical plane in the physical body and etheric body; there the whole system of the human being is illuminated from the outside by the sun. You now know that the night was much longer and much more effective for man in ancient times. There the astral body and the ego are out of the physical body and the etheric body; there the ego is entirely in the astral world, and the astral body is lowered from outside into the physical body in such a way that it is nevertheless embedded in the spiritual-divine in its whole being. The sun cannot shine directly on the human astral body and ignite the power of love in it. The moon, which reflects the sunlight, works through Yahweh or Jehovah. The moon is the symbol for Yahweh or Jehovah, and the sun is nothing other than the symbol for the Logos, which is the sum of the other six Elohim. Only symbolically this drawing, which you may study, which you may meditate upon, is intended to indicate this. And if you think about it, you will find what profound mystery truths are represented in it: that for a long time the power of love was implanted in man's nocturnal consciousness by Yahweh in an unconscious way. Thus man was prepared so that he himself could gradually receive the Logos, the power of his love. How was this possible? How could this happen? - Now we come to the other side of the mystery.

[ 23 ] We have said to ourselves that man was called to self-conscious love on earth. So he had to have a guide, a teacher during the light of day consciousness, who faced him in such a way that he could perceive him. Only during the night, in the twilight consciousness, could love be implanted in him. Gradually, however, something had to occur, something had to occur with full reality, which made it possible for man to see the essence of love itself physically on the outside. How could this happen? It could only come about through the fact that the being of divine love, the Logos, became a being on earth - a carnal being on earth, such as man could perceive on earth through his senses. Because man evolved to perceive through his outer senses, God, the Logos, had to become a sensory being himself. He had to appear in a fleshly body. This happened through Christ Jesus, and the historical appearance of Christ Jesus means nothing other than that the powers of the six Elohim or the Logos were embodied in Jesus of Nazareth at the beginning of our era - in him they were really there in the world of visibility. That is what matters. That which lies in the sun as inner power, the power of the love of the Logos, took on physical human form in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. For just like another external object, like another being, God had to confront man on earth in bodily form for his sensory consciousness. What, therefore, is this being that confronted us at the beginning of our era as the Christ Jesus? He is nothing other than the embodiment of the Logos, the six other Elohim, who were preceded by the one, the Yahweh-God. And this one figure of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the Christ or the Logos was incarnated, therefore brings into human life, into human history itself, that which previously only ever streamed down to earth from the sun, that which is only contained in sunlight: “The Logos became flesh”. This is what the Gospel of John places the greatest value on.

[ 24 ] And the writer of the Gospel of John had to place the greatest value on this very fact. For it is true: After some of the initiated disciples of Christ had understood what it was all about, others appeared who could not understand it to the full extent, - who fully understood that everything material, everything that materially confronts us, is based on a soul-spiritual; but what they could not grasp was that in an individual human being, physically visible to the physical-sensual world, the Logos himself once became incarnate. They could not understand this. This distinguishes what we encounter in the first Christian centuries as “gnosis” from true esoteric Christianity. The writer of the Gospel of John pointed this out in strong words: No, you should not regard Christ as a supersensible, invisible being who underlies all material things, but you should attach importance to the fact that the Word became flesh, that he dwelt among us! This is the subtle difference between esoteric Christianity and the original Gnosis. Gnosticism knows the Christ in the same way as esoteric Christianity, but only as a spiritual being, and at most sees in Jesus of Nazareth a human herald more or less bound to this spiritual being. It wants to hold on to the invisible Christ. In contrast, esoteric Christianity has always been in the spirit of the Gospel of John, which stood on the solid ground of the Word:

"And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.” (1,14)

[ 25 ] And the one who was there in the visible world is a real embodiment of the six other Elohim, the Logos!

[ 26 ] Thus, the earth mission, that which was to become of the earth through the event of Palestine, only really entered the earth. Before that everything was preparation. So what must the Christ, who dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, preferably describe himself as?

[ 27 ] He must preferably describe himself as the great bringer and the animator of the self-conscious free human being. Let us summarize this living doctrine of Christ in short, paradigmatic sentences. Then we must say: The earth is there to give man full self-consciousness, the “I-am”. Before, everything was only preparation for this self-consciousness, for the “I-am”; and the Christ is the one who gives the impulse so that people can all - each as an individual being - feel the “I-am”. Only now is the powerful impulse given that brings people on earth forward with a mighty jolt. We can follow this by comparing Christianity with the teachings of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament teaching, man did not yet fully feel the “I-am” in his own personality. He still had a remnant of what remained of the old time of dreamy consciousness, when man did not feel himself as a self, but as a member of the divine entity, just as the animal is still a member of the group soul today. From the group soul people have gone out, and they have progressed to individual independent existence, which feels the “I-am” in every single person. And the Christ is the power that has brought people to this free “I-am” consciousness. Let us look at this once in its full inner meaning.

[ 28 ] The confessor of the Old Testament did not yet feel as complete in his individual personality as the confessor of the New Testament. The confessor of the Old Testament did not yet say in his personality: “I am an I”. He felt himself in the whole ancient Jewish people and felt the “group-people-I”. Let us put ourselves vividly into the consciousness of such an Old Testament confessor. Just as the real Christian feels the “I am” and will gradually learn to feel it more and more, so the confessor of the Old Testament did not feel the “I am”. He felt himself to be a member of the whole people and looked up to the group soul, and when he wanted to express this, he said: “My consciousness reaches up to the father of the whole people, to Abraham; we - I and father Abraham - are one. A common ego embraces us all; and only then do I feel secure in the spiritual substantiality of the world, when I feel myself at rest in the whole substance of the people. - Thus the confessor of the Old Testament looked up to the father Abraham and said: “I and the father Abraham are one. The same blood flows in my veins as in Abraham's veins. - And the father Abraham he felt as the root from which every single Abrahamite sprang forth as a limb.

[ 29 ] Then came the Christ Jesus, and said to his nearest intimate initiates: Hitherto men have judged merely according to the flesh, according to consanguinity; which was to them the consciousness that they rested in a higher, invisible connection. But you should believe in a much more spiritual connection, one that goes further than blood relationship. You should believe in a spiritual father ground in which the I is rooted, which is more spiritual than the ground that connects the Jewish people as a group soul. You should believe in that which rests in me and in every human being, and this is not only one with Abraham, it is one with the divine world reason! Therefore, Christ Jesus emphasized in the sense of the Gospel of John:

"Before the Father was Abraham, there was the ‘I-am’ !” (8, 58)

[ 30 ] Not only up to the Father-principle, which reaches up to Abraham, goes my original I, but with that which pulsates through the whole cosmos, the I is one; up to that goes my spirituality.

"I and the Father are one!” (10, 30)

[ 31 ] This is the important word that one must feel; then one will feel the jolt that seized people and brought the development of humanity further through the impulse given by the appearance of Christ Jesus. The Christ Jesus was the great quickener of the “I-am”.

[ 32 ] And now let us try to listen a little to what his most intimate initiates said, how they expressed what was revealed to them. They said: Until now no single carnal humanity has existed to which this name of “I-am” could be ascribed as the one who was the first to bring the whole meaning of “I-am” into the world. And that is why they called the “I-am” the name of Christ Jesus. That was the name in which the most intimate initiates felt themselves united, in the name which they thus understood, the name “I-am ‘.

[ 33 ] So you must delve into the most important chapters of the Gospel of John. So if you take the chapter where it says: “I am the light of the world”, you must take it literally, quite literally. The “I am” that appeared for the first time in the flesh, what is it? The same thing that flows into the earth in the light of the sun as the power of the Logos. Everywhere in the entire 8th chapter, beginning with the 12th verse, which is usually entitled “Jesus, the Light of the World”, you have the paraphrase of this profound truth of the meaning of the “I-am”. Read the chapter in such a way that you emphasize the “I” or the “I-am” everywhere and know that the “I-am” was the name to which the initiates felt connected. Then you understand it, then this chapter appears to you in such a way that you should read it something like this:

"Then spake Jesus unto his disciples, saying, Whatsoever ‘I am’ can say unto himself, this is the power of the light of the world: and he that followeth me shall see in the brightness of the day those things which they that walk in darkness see not. “

[ 34 ] But those who held to the old belief that only in a nocturnal way can the light of love be implanted in man, who were called the Pharisees, answered: “You appeal to your ‘I-am ’, but we appeal to the father Abraham. There we feel the power that entitles us to appear as self-confident beings; there we feel strong when we sink into the common ground of self, which leads up to the Father Abraham."

"Jesus said: If one speaks of the ‘I’ in the sense in which I speak, then the testimony is true; for I know that this ‘I’ comes from the Father, from the common origin of the world, and where it goes again.” (8, 14)

[ 35 ] And now the important sentence, chapter 8, verse i5, which you must translate literally in the following way:

"You judge everything according to the flesh. But I do not judge the vain things that are in the flesh.
And if I judge, my judgment is a true one. For then the I is not for itself alone, but the I is united with the Father, from whom the I comes.” (8, 15-16)

[ 36 ] That is the meaning of this passage. So you see the reference to the common Father everywhere. And we will be able to visualize the concept of the Father even more precisely. - Thus you will see how the words: “Before the Father was Abraham, the ‘I-am’” contain the quintessence of the Christian doctrinal words alive within them.

[ 37 ] We have immersed ourselves today in the words of John's Gospel, more than we could have done if I had interpreted them in an external way. We have derived these words from the wisdom of the Spirit, inasmuch as we have alluded to some important words of John's Gospel which indicate the very essence of Christianity. We will see how light and clarity will come into the whole Gospel of John precisely because we first understand such core and original words of the Gospel.

[ 38 ] Take all this as something that has been taught in the Christian esoteric school, which the writer of the Gospel of John has written down in the way we are going to discuss, in order to hand it down to posterity for those who really want to penetrate its meaning.

[ 39 ] How you can really do this even more deeply will be discussed in the next lecture.