The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday, from a certain perspective, we sought to grasp the place in world history of the moment in time in which the Mystery of Golgotha occurs. We attempted to do this by considering two significant leaders of humanity, Buddha and Socrates, both of whom preceded the event of the Mystery of Golgotha by several centuries. In doing so, we noticed how Buddha represents something like the significant culmination of an evolutionary current. There he stands, this Buddha, in the sixth to fifth century before the Mystery of Golgotha, proclaiming what has since become known as the profoundly significant teaching, the Revelation of Benares, as it were summarizing and in a certain way renewing what had been able to flow into human souls over millennia of ancient prehistory, and proclaiming it in a manner that it simply had to be proclaimed half a millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha, and as it had to be proclaimed to those peoples, those races, for whom the teaching was most suitable precisely in this form. The extent to which Buddha represents the great culmination of a world-historical current becomes even more apparent when one considers his great predecessor, who in a certain sense already recedes into the twilight of human development: Krishna, the great Indian teacher, who in a very different sense still appears to us as the culmination of millennia-old revelations.

[ 2 ] Krishna can be placed a few centuries before the Buddha; but that is not the point right now. The main point is: the more one allows oneself to be influenced by what Krishna is and what the Buddha is, the more one realizes that, from a certain perspective, the Buddha’s message appears in an even brighter light in Krishna and, in the case of the Buddha—as we shall characterize shortly—is, in a certain sense, ultimately complete.

[ 3 ] Krishna—this name truly encapsulates something that has shone forth throughout the spiritual evolution of humanity over many, many millennia. And when one delves deeply into all that which could be described as the revelation, as the proclamation of Krishna, then one looks up to the sublime heights of human spiritual revelation, in the face of which one has the feeling: With regard to what resounds from the revelation of Krishna, with regard to everything contained within it, there can scarcely be any further progress or elevation. What resounds from Krishna’s revelation is supreme in its own kind. Of course, we summarize in the person of Krishna much that is distributed among many revelators. But it is also the case that everything that was gradually communicated over the course of millennia and centuries before him to those who had to become the bearers in his time was renewed, summarized, brought to a conclusion, and revealed to his people in him, in Krishna. And if one considers the way in which the divine and spiritual worlds, the relationship of the divine and spiritual worlds to humanity, and the course of world events are spoken of through the words of Krishna; if one considers the spiritual level to which one must elevate oneself if one wishes to penetrate the deeper meaning of the teachings of Krishna, then perhaps there is, in a certain sense, only one thing in the course of humanity’s later development that can be compared to it to some extent.

[ 4 ] Regarding Krishna’s revelation, one may say: In a certain sense, it is a secret teaching. Why a secret teaching? It is a secret teaching simply because few people can acquire the inner aptitude to ascend to the spiritual heights necessary to understand these things. There is no need to lock away or seal off the things Krishna revealed through external means so that they remain secret; for they remain secret for no other reason than that very few people rise to the level necessary to understand them. No matter how widely one distributes revelations such as those of Krishna among the people, no matter how one places them in everyone’s hands, they remain secret. For the means of bringing them out of the secret teachings is not to distribute them among the people, but for the souls to ascend so that people may unite with them. This is why such things hover at a certain spiritual height and then speak in a way that represents a kind of spiritual climax. Whoever receives the words that come from such revelations must by no means believe that he knows such revelations, even if he is a scholar of the twentieth century. One understands it completely when it is said from many quarters today that there is no secret teaching; one understands it because often those who claim such things have the words and thereby believe they have everything. But the secret-teaching aspect lies in the fact that they do not understand what they have.

[ 5 ] There is one thing, I said, that can be compared to this. Namely, what can be associated with the name of Krishna can be compared to what resonates in three later names that are, in a certain sense, close to us; only it appears before us in a completely different way, in a conceptual way, in a philosophical way. It is everything that in more recent times is associated with the three names Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. With regard to their esoteric nature, the teachings of these three men can already be compared to some extent with other “esoteric teachings” of humanity. For although one may ultimately possess the teachings of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, no one will deny that they have remained, in the broadest sense of the word, true esoteric teachings. They have truly remained esoteric teachings. There are few people who are willing to take any kind of stance on the things these three men have written. Out of a certain—one might say—philosophical courtesy, people in certain philosophical circles speak of Hegel again today, and when something like what has just been said is expressed, one is told that there are, after all, people who engage with Hegel. However, when one considers what these people produce and what they contribute to the understanding of Hegel, one comes all the more to the view that for these people, Hegel has remained a true secret teaching. But in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, what shines toward us from the East through Krishna reappears in an abstract, conceptual way, and it takes something special to notice the similarity; a very specific constitution of the human soul is required. One would like to speak frankly about what is required for this.

[ 6 ] When a person who today believes himself to be enjoying—I won’t say an average education, but rather a higher education—picks up some philosophical work by Fichte or Hegel, he begins to read and believes he is reading something that is merely a continuation of conceptual development. And most people would probably agree that one cannot really get very excited about it when, for example, one opens Hegel’s *Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences*, where the discussion begins with “Being,” then moves on to “Non-being,” “Becoming,” “Existence,” and so on. One might then hear it said: Someone has simply concocted something in the highest conceptual abstraction; that may be quite nice, but it gives me nothing for my heart, for my soul, for my warmth. I have met many people who, after reading just three or four pages of this very work by Hegel that I have in mind, quickly closed the book again. There is one thing one is reluctant to admit: that perhaps the reason one cannot warm to it, why one cannot go through life’s struggles that lead one from hell to heaven, lies with oneself. One does not like to admit that. For there is a possibility, in what people call “abstract concepts” in these three works, to go through entire life struggles and not only to feel the warmth of life, but to feel the entire ascent from the utmost coldness of life to the utmost warmth of life. One can sense how these things are written directly with human blood, not merely with abstract concepts.

[ 7 ] One may compare what shines forth from Krishna with this so-called latest phase of human evolution toward spiritual heights; yet there is a significant difference. What we encounter in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel—these most mature thinkers of Christianity—is what we encountered in the pre-Christian era, as it had to be at that time, in Krishna. For what is this revelation of Krishna? It is something that could never return again afterward, something that must be accepted at its highest level because it cannot be surpassed in its kind. And whoever has an understanding of these things only then gains a concept, an idea of the strength of the light of the spirit that shines upon us when we allow such things to take effect upon us—things connected with the culture from which Krishna emerged. One must simply allow these things to take effect upon oneself in the right sense. If one—to take just a few examples—allows words such as these to take effect in the right way, words that belong to the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna speaks to hint at his own nature, then one arrives at certain insights, feelings, and sensations that we shall characterize later. Thus says Krishna (in the tenth canto):

“I am the Spirit of becoming, its beginning, its middle, and its end. Among all beings, I am always the noblest of all that has come into being. Among spiritual beings, I am Vishnu; among the stars, I am the sun; among the lights, I am the moon; among the elements, I am fire; among the mountains, I am the lofty Meru; among the waters, the great ocean of the world; among the rivers, the Ganges; among the multitude of trees, the Asvattha; I am the ruler, in the true sense of the word, of humans and all beings that live there; among the serpents, I am the one who is eternal, who is the very foundation of existence.”

[ 8 ] And let’s take another example from the same culture, which we find in the Vedas:

“The devas gather around the throne of the Almighty and ask devoutly who he is. Then he—the Almighty, that is, the God of the World in this ancient Indian sense—replies: ‘If there were another besides me, I would describe myself through him. I have been from eternity and shall be for all eternity. I am the first cause of all things, the cause of all that is in the west, east, north, and south; I am the cause of all that is in the heights above and in the depths below. I am everything; I am older than all that exists. I am the ruler of rulers. I am Truth itself, I am Revelation itself, I am the cause of Revelation. I am Knowledge, I am Piety, and I am Justice. I am almighty.”

[ 9 ] And when, within this culture—as this ancient document describes—the question is asked about the cause of everything, the answer is given:

[ 10 ] “This is the cause of the world—it is fire, it is the sun, and it is also the moon; so too is it this pure Brahman, this water, and this supreme being among all creatures. All moments and all weeks and all months and all years and all centuries and all millennia and all millions of years have come forth from it, have come forth from its radiant personality, which no one can comprehend—neither above, nor below, nor anywhere in the circumference, nor in the center, where we stand.”

[ 11 ] Such words echo to us from those ancient times. We surrender ourselves to these words. What must we feel toward these words when we consider them with an open mind? Certain things are stated in them. We have seen that Krishna says something about himself; we have seen that things are said about the God of the world and about the cause of the world. From the tone of the insights as they are expressed here, things have been said that have never been expressed more grandly or more significantly; and one knows that they could never be expressed more grandly or more significantly. That is to say, something has been placed within human development that must remain as it is, that must be received as it is, that has reached a conclusion. And wherever people have thought about these things later on, they may have believed, according to the methods of later times, that they could grasp this or that in clearer terms, modify it in one way or another, but they have never expressed it any better because of that, never. And if anyone were to attempt to say anything better about these very things, it would be presumptuous.

[ 12 ] Let us first consider the passage in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna, so to speak, characterizes his own essence. What is he actually characterizing? It is quite remarkable how he speaks. He speaks of being the Spirit of all that has come into being, of being Vishnu among the celestial spirits, the sun among the stars, the moon among the lights, fire among the elements, and so on. If we were to rephrase this so that we have it in a formula, we could say: Krishna describes himself as the essence, as the essence in all things, such that the essence is him, that it represents the purest, most divine nature everywhere. So wherever one penetrates behind things and seeks what their essence is, one arrives at the essence of Krishna in the sense of this passage. Take a number of plants of the same species. Seek the essence of this species, which is not visible but expresses itself in the individual visible forms of the plants. What lies behind them as their essence? Krishna! But we must not merely conceive of this essence as identical with a single plant; rather, we must conceive of it as the highest, purest form; so that everywhere we have not only what the essence is, but this essence everywhere in its purest, noblest, highest form.

[ 13 ] So what is Krishna actually talking about? Nothing other than what human beings, when they look within themselves, can recognize as their true nature; but not the nature they present in ordinary life, rather the nature that lies behind the ordinary manifestation of the human being and the human soul. He speaks of the human essence that is within us, because the true human essence is one with the universe. It is not, for example, a form of knowledge that behaves selfishly in Krishna; it is that which, in Krishna, seeks to point to the highest in the human being—that which may see itself as identical and one with what lives as the essence in all things.

[ 14 ] Just as we speak today when we have something else in mind, so Krishna speaks of what he has in mind for his culture. When we look into our own being today, we first perceive the “I,” as described in the book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. We distinguish this ordinary “I” from the higher, supersensible “I,” which does not appear in sensory consciousness, but which appears in such a way that it is not only within us but is simultaneously poured out over the essence of all things. So when we speak of our higher “I,” of the higher being dwelling within the human being, we are not speaking of that of which the human being usually says “I am,” even though it has the same sound in our language. In Krishna’s mouth, it would not have had the same sound. He speaks of the human soul-being in the sense of the conception of that time, just as we speak of the “I” today.

[ 15 ] How is it possible that what Krishna says is so similar to what we ourselves can express as the highest knowledge? This could be because the culture from which Krishna emerged was preceded, in earlier millennia, by humanity’s clairvoyant culture; because people were accustomed, when they looked at the essence of things, to always turn to clairvoyant perception. And one can understand a language such as that which resounds to us here in the Bhagavad Gita if one regards it as the culmination of the ancient clairvoyant worldview, if one is clear about this: At the moment when, in ancient times, a person raised themselves into that intermediate state—which was then common to humanity—between sleeping and waking, he was so immersed in things that it was not, as is the case in sensory perception, that things are here and the human being is outside of them, but rather he was then poured out over all beings, felt himself in all beings, felt himself one with all beings. It was the best of things with which he felt himself one, and his best was in all things. And if you do not start from an abstract feeling and perception, as modern man does, but from the manner of feeling just described, as the ancient human being felt, then you will understand such words as those spoken to us by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. You will understand them if you ask yourself: How did the human being of ancient clairvoyance see himself? — and then realize: Just as what is achieved today through Spiritual Science training, when a person frees their etheric body so that they feel expanded, feel poured out over what is within everything—so was, though not in the same way as it can be today through Spiritual Science training, the natural state of people in ancient times. In such states, which arose as if of their own accord, they felt themselves within the things themselves. And when the revelations were then given form, when what was seen there was expressed in beautiful, magnificent words, then it came to light, for example, as these revelations of Krishna.

[ 16 ] Therefore, one could also say: Krishna told his fellow human beings: As the best among us have seen when they were in transcendental states, as the best have perceived their relationship to the world, that is what I wish to proclaim in words. For the future will no longer find people in this way, and you yourselves can no longer be as the forefathers were. As the forefathers saw it, I will put it into words so that it may remain, because humanity can no longer have it as a natural state. — Expressing in words that were possible at that time what had been bestowed upon humanity over the millennia—these were the revelations of Krishna, so that later generations, who can no longer see them, might have them as revelations of Krishna.

[ 17 ] And we can interpret the other words in the same way. Let us suppose that, in the time when Krishna gave his revelations, a student had approached a wise teacher and asked: “Well, wise teacher, what lies behind the things that only my eyes can see?” The wise teacher would likely have replied: “Behind these things that are now visible only to your outer, physical eyes lies the spiritual, the supersensible. But in ancient times, people in their natural states could still perceive this supersensible realm. And the next supersensible world, which borders our physical one, is the etheric world; they were able to look into it. There lies the cause of all the physical. There people saw what the cause is. Now I can only express in words what was once seen: it is fire, it is the Sun—but not as the Sun now appears, for back then, precisely what the eye now sees was the most invisible to the ancient clairvoyance; the white, fiery sun-ball was the dark, and spreading across all spaces were the sun’s effects, the radiations of the sun’s aura, diverging and converging again in multicolored images, but in such a way that what thus immersed itself in things was at the same time creative light—it is the sun; and so it is also the moon—which has also been seen differently—for in it all is the pure Brahman.

[ 18 ] What is pure Brahman? When we inhale and exhale air, the materialistic person believes that he is inhaling only oxygen along with the air. But this is an illusion. With every breath we inhale spirit, we exhale spirit. What lives in the air we breathe as spirit enters us and flows out from us. And because the clairvoyants of old saw this, it did not appear to them as it does to the materialist, who believes that he is inhaling oxygen. That is a materialistic prejudice. Ancient clairvoyants were aware that what was inhaled was the ethereal element of the spirit, Brahman, from which life comes. Just as it is believed today that life comes from the oxygen in the air, so the ancient human knew that life comes from Brahman; and by taking in Brahman, he lives. The purest Brahman is the cause of our own life.

[ 19 ] And what are the heights of understanding to which this ancient, pure wisdom—this wisdom as ethereal and luminous as light—soars? People today believe they are capable of quite sophisticated thinking. But when one sees how people throw everything into a jumbled mess as soon as they begin to explain something, one has little respect for contemporary thinking, especially for contemporary logical thinking. For I must now enter into—and I will make it as simple as possible—a brief discussion that may seem quite abstract at first glance.

[ 20 ] Suppose an animal appears before us that is yellow and has a mane; we call that animal a lion. Now we begin to ask: What is a lion? The answer is: A predator. Now we ask further: What is a predator? Answer: A mammal. We ask further: What is a mammal? Answer: A living being. And so we continue; we describe one thing through another. Most people believe they are being quite clear when they keep asking questions in this way, as indicated here for the lion, for the mammal, for the animal, and so on. When speaking about spiritual matters, even the highest spiritual matters, people often ask in the same way: What is a lion? What is a predator? etc. And where it has become customary to hand in slips of paper and have questions answered at the end of lectures—where the same questions often appear on the slips—there are countless questions such as: What is God? or: What is the beginning of the world? or: What is the end of the world? In truth, many people want to know nothing else but: What is God? What is the beginning of the world? What is the end of the world? They ask about these things just as one asks: What is a lion? and so on.

[ 21 ] People think that what applies to everyday life must also apply to the highest things. They do not consider that it is precisely the highest things that must be characterized by the fact that one can no longer ask such questions. For when one ascends from one thing to another—from the lion to the predator, and so on—one must eventually arrive at something that can no longer be described in this way, where it no longer makes sense to ask: What is this? For when one asks this, one seeks a predicate for the subject. But there must be a supreme being that can be grasped through itself. The question: “What is God?” is completely meaningless in the logical sense. One can trace everything back to the Highest; but no predicate may be ascribed to the Highest, for then the answer would be: “God is…”; but then that by which God is described would have to be the Higher. That would be the most curious contradiction there is.

[ 22 ] The fact that this question is still being asked today testifies to how exalted Krishna appeared in ancient times when he said: “The devas gather around the throne of the Almighty and ask him with devotion who he himself is. To which he replies: ‘If there were another like me, I would describe myself through him.’ But he does not do so; he does not describe himself through another. And so, one might say, we too are led, in devotion and humility like the Devas, before the ancient-holy Indian culture and at the same time admire it in its magnificent logical height, which did not come to it through thinking, but through the ancient clairvoyance, through the fact that people knew immediately: when they reach the causes, then the questioning ceases, because the causes are beheld. There we stand in admiration before what has come down to us from those ancient times, as if the spirits who have handed it down to us wanted to say: There have passed the ages of the world in which human beings looked directly into the spiritual worlds. It will no longer be so in the future. But we want to take note of that to which we can aspire—what was once given to human clairvoyance.

[ 23 ] Thus, in the Bhagavad Gita and the Vedas, we find recorded all those things that we can summarize as culminating in Krishna—something that cannot be surpassed, something that can indeed be seen again through renewed clairvoyance, but can never be fathomed by the abilities acquired by human beings subsequently. Therefore, there is always reason, when one remains within the entire realm of human culture—that is, the culture of the day, the outer culture of the sense world—to say: Within this culture, apart from what can be regained through clairvoyance acquired through proper training, it is never possible to attain within the culture of the day that which is the ancient, sacred revelation that finds its culmination in Krishna. But through its evolution, through Spiritual Science training, the soul can rise up again and attain it once more. What was given to humanity in the normal way—if we may use the term—as was once the case, is not given to humanity for everyday life in states that can be attained naturally. Therefore, these truths descended. If there are some thinkers, such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, who have brought their thinking to the purest possible level, then these things can appear to us again—though not as vividly, not with the immediate personal touch as with Krishna, but in the form of ideas—never again, however, as people perceived them in the old clairvoyance. And from the spirit, as I have often explained, it follows that slowly and gradually in the course of the post-Atlantean era, the old clairvoyance died out.

[ 24 ] When we look back at the first post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the ancient Indian period, we can say: No written records of it exist, for in those days people still looked into the spiritual world. What was revealed to humanity at that time can only be rediscovered through the Akashic Records. That was a high revelation. But gradually humanity descended further and further, and in the second post-Atlantean cultural period, the ancient Persian era, the revelations were still present, but no longer as pure. They were even less pure in the third cultural period, the Egyptian-Chaldean era. We must bear in mind, if we wish to view the circumstances as they really were, that no records exist from these earliest cultural periods—and not only from the peoples after whom they were named. When we speak of ancient Indian culture, we mean a culture from which nothing written has come down to us. With the Proto-Persian culture, it is again the case that no written records have come down to us. For all the written material we have is merely an echo of what has been handed down. It is only from the Babylonian-Chaldean culture onward—that is, from the third cultural period onward—that records are available. But while the ancient Persian culture was unfolding, there was a second period in Indian culture that ran parallel to the ancient Persian one. And as the Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian culture unfolded, a third period had begun in India, and it was only during this time that people began to make records. It is from the late period of this third cultural era that the records originate, such as those contained in the Vedas, which then found their way into outer life. These are the records that also speak of Krishna.

[ 25 ] So no one should assume, when speaking of records, that they are referring to the first period of Indian culture. For all that is contained in the documents are records made by the ancient Indians only during the third period, precisely because it was during the third period that the remnants of the ancient clairvoyance gradually faded away. This is what we can gather around the person of Krishna. Therefore, ancient Indian tradition tells us what can be investigated externally. When we examine things at their foundations, everything always corresponds with what can be gleaned from external records. As the third world age drew to a close and humanity had lost what they originally possessed, Krishna appeared to preserve what was in danger of being lost.

[ 26 ] So which world age is tradition referring to when it says that Krishna appeared in the “third world age”? The one we call the Egyptian-Chaldean cultural age. And this Indo-Oriental teaching of Krishna corresponds precisely to what we characterize. When ancient clairvoyance and all the treasures of ancient clairvoyance began to be lost to humanity, Krishna appeared and revealed them in such a way that they could be preserved for later times. In this way, Krishna is the culmination of something great and mighty. And everything that has been said here over the years corresponds completely with what the documents of the Orient also reveal, if one reads them correctly. In this sense, to speak of an “Occidental” and an “Oriental” is pure nonsense; for what matters is not whether we teach in the East or the West using these or those words, but that we speak with understanding of what has been proclaimed. And the more you delve into what has been proclaimed in recent years, the more you will see that it corresponds with all the documents of the East.

[ 27 ] So Krishna stands there as a culmination. Then, a few centuries later, comes the Buddha. In what way, then, is the Buddha—one might say—the other pole of this culmination? How does the Buddha relate to Krishna?

[ 28 ] Let us hold before our souls what we have just described as the essence of Krishna. Great, powerful clairvoyant revelations from primeval times, expressed in such words that future generations can understand them and feel and sense in them the echo of humanity’s ancient clairvoyance—this is how Krishna stands before us. His revelation is something people can accept, something to which they can say: It contains the wisdom about the spiritual world lying beyond the sensory world, the world of causes, of spiritual realities. It is contained in the revelation of Krishna in grand, powerful words. And when one delves into the Vedas, into all that which can ultimately be summarized as the revelation of Krishna, then one can say: This is the world in which the human being is at home, the world that lies beyond the one that eyes see, ears hear, hands grasp, and so on. You, human soul, belong to the world of which Krishna speaks to you.

[ 29 ] How could this human soul itself have felt in the centuries that followed? It could see how these wonderful ancient revelations speak of humanity’s true spiritual, heavenly home. It could then look out at what surrounds it. It saw with its eyes, heard with its ears, grasped things with its sense of touch, and thought about things with its intellect, which never penetrates the spiritual realm proclaimed by the Krishna revelation. And the soul could say to itself: There is the sacred teaching of ancient times, which transmits the knowledge of the spiritual homeland that surrounds us, of that world which we now perceive alone. We no longer live in the spiritual homeland. We have been cast out of that of which Krishna speaks most gloriously.

[ 30 ] Here comes the Buddha. How does he speak of what Krishna referred to as the glories of the world—to human souls who look only at what their eyes can see and their ears can hear? He says: Indeed, you live in this world of the senses. The urge that drives you from incarnation to incarnation has led you into it. But I speak to you of the path that can lead you out of this world and into the world of which Krishna spoke. I speak to you of the path through which you will be redeemed from the world that is not the world of Krishna. — Just as the longing for the world of Krishna resounded in the following centuries through the teachings of the Buddha. In this respect, the Buddha appears to us as the last successor of Krishna, as the successor of Krishna who was bound to come. And if the Buddha had spoken of Krishna himself, how could he have spoken of him? Perhaps by saying: I have come to proclaim to you once more the Greater One who was before me. Turn your minds backward toward the greater Krishna, and you will see what you can attain when you leave the world in which you no longer find yourselves in your true spiritual home. I show you the paths of salvation from the sensory world. I lead you back to Krishna. — That is how the Buddha could have spoken. He just did not use exactly those words. But he did say it in a slightly different form, saying: “In the world in which you live, there is suffering, there is suffering, there is suffering. Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering; not being united with what one loves is suffering; being united with what one does not love is suffering; desiring what one loves and not being able to obtain it is suffering.” And when he taught the “Eightfold Path,” it was a teaching that did not go beyond what Krishna had spoken of, because it was a teaching of what Krishna had given. I have come after him who is greater than I; but I want to show you the ways back to him who is greater than I—these are the tones of world history that echo to us from the land of the Ganges. Now let us go a little further west. Let us once again place before our soul the figure of the Baptist and recall the words that Buddha might have spoken: I have come after him, after Krishna, for he is greater than I; and I will show you the paths back to him from the world in which the divine world is not contained, of which Krishna spoke. Turn your minds back! — And now the figure of the Baptist. How did he speak? How did he express his views, how did he express the truths given to him in the spiritual world? He also pointed to another; but he did not say, as the Buddha might have said: “I have come after him.” Instead, he said: “After me comes one greater than I” (1:7). So says the Baptist. And he does not say: Here in the world there is suffering, and I want to lead you to something outside this world. Instead, he says: Change your mindset! Look no longer backward, but look forward! When the greater one comes, the time will be fulfilled, when the heavenly world will take hold in the world where there is suffering, when that which they lost as revelations of olden times will take hold in human souls in a new way (Matt. 5:2).

[ 31 ] Thus, the successor to Krishna is the Buddha. Thus, the forerunner of Christ Jesus is John the Baptist. Thus, everything is reversed. Thus, the six centuries that elapse between these two events lie before us. Once again we have the two comets with their cores: one, Krishna, with his core representing everything that points backward, and the one who leads humanity backward, the Buddha; and the other comet, pointing forward with its core, Christ, and the one who stands as the forerunner. If you understand Buddha, in the best sense, as the successor to Krishna, and John the Baptist as the forerunner of Christ Jesus, then you have expressed in this formula, in the simplest terms, what was taking place during this period of human development surrounding the Mystery of Golgotha. This is how we must view these things; then we will understand them.

[ 32 ] This is not something that concerns any particular denomination. These are not matters that can be linked to this or that religion in the world; rather, they are facts of world history, quite simply facts of world history. And no one who understands them in their deepest essence can portray them differently, nor will they ever portray them differently. For does this in any way take anything away from any manifestation of humanity? It is strange when it is said here and there that we assign Christianity a higher position than other religions in some way. Indeed, does it matter whether something is “higher” or “lower”? Are not “higher” or “lower,” “greater” or “smaller” the most abstract terms one can use? Are we saying here something that is less in praise of Krishna than what those say who place Krishna higher than Christ? We refrain from using words like “higher” or “lower,” and wish to characterize things in their truth. What matters is not whether we place Christianity higher or lower, but whether anyone can prove to us that we do not characterize the things of Krishna in the correct way. Look for the things that deal with Krishna, and ask yourself whether other sources truly offer anything higher than what we do when we try to convey something about Krishna. The rest is empty verbal quibbling. But the truth comes to light when that sense of truth operates that goes to the essence of things.

[ 33 ] Here, as we characterize the simplest and most magnificent Gospel, we have the opportunity to address the entire cosmic-terrestrial significance of Christ. Therefore, it was necessary to address the magnitude of what came to a conclusion centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, in which the new dawn of humanity’s future broke.