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.Thus the peculiar sentiment we connect with the Mystery of Christmas and with its Festival is by no means arbitrary, but hangs together with the fixing of the Festival of Christmas.At that time in winter which is appointed for the Festival, man, as does indeed the whole earth, gives himself up to the Spirit.He then passes, as it were, through a realm in which the Spirit is near him.The consequence is that at about Christmas-time and on to our present New Year, man goes through a meeting of his astral body with the Life-Spirit, in the same way as he goes through the first meeting, that of his ego with the Spirit-Self.Upon this meeting with the Life-Spirit depends the nearness of Christ Jesus.For Christ Jesus reveals Himself through the Life-Spirit.He reveals Himself through a being of the Realm of the Archangels.He is, of course, an immeasurably higher Being than they, but that is not the point with which we are concerned at the moment; what we have to consider is that He reveals Himself through a Being of the order of the Archangeloi.Thus through this meeting we draw specially near to Christ Jesus at the present stage of development — which has existed since the Mystery of Golgotha — and in a certain respect we may call the meeting with the Life-Spirit: the meeting with Christ Jesus in the very depths of our soul.Now when a man either through developing Spiritual consciousness in the domain of religious meditation or exercises, or, to supplement these, has accepted the concepts and ideas of Spiritual Science, when he has thus deepened and spiritualised his life of impression and feeling, then, just as he can experience in his waking life the after-effects of the meeting with his Spirit-Self, so he will also experience the after-effects of the meeting with the Life-Spirit, or Christ.It is actually a fact, my dear friends, that in the time following immediately on Christmas and up to Easter the conditions are particularly favourable for bringing to a man's consciousness this meeting with Christ Jesus.In a profound sense and this should not be blotted out by the abstract materialistic culture of today — the season of Christmas is connected with processes taking place in the earth; for man, together with the earth, takes part in the Christmas changes in the earth.The season of Easter is determined by processes in the heavens.Easter Sunday is fixed for the first Sunday after the first full-moon after the Vernal Equinox.Thus, whereas Christmas is fixed by the conditions of the earth, Easter is determined from above.Just as we, through all that has just been described, are connected with the conditions of the earth, so are we connected, through what I shall now describe, with the conditions of the heavens — with the great Cosmic conditions.For Easter is that season in the concrete course of the year, in which all that is aroused in us by the meeting with Christ at Christmas, really unites itself with our physical earth manhood.The great Mystery that now brings home to man the Mystery of Golgotha at the Easter Season — the Good Friday Mystery — signifies among other things, that the Christ, who, as it were, has been moving beside us, at this season comes still closer to us.Indeed, roughly speaking, in a sense He disappears into us and permeates us, so that He can remain with us during the season that follows the Mystery of Golgotha — the season of summer — during which, in the ancient Mysteries, men tried to unite themselves to John in a way not possible after the Mystery Of Golgotha.In that respect we are, as we see, the Microcosm, and we are attached to the Macrocosm in a profoundly significant way.There is a continual union with the Macrocosm in the seasons of the year, and this union, being a more inner process in man, is connected with the year's course.Thus does Spiritual Science endeavour gradually to reveal the ideas, the spiritually scientific conceptions, that man may acquire as to the way in which Christ is now able to penetrate and permeate our earth-life, since the Mystery of Golgotha.At this point I feel obliged to make an interpolation which is of importance and which ought to be thoroughly understood, particularly by the friends of Spiritual Science.It ought never to be represented that our attempts at Spiritual Science are a substitute for the life and exercise of religion.Spiritual Science may in the highest sense, and particularly as regards the Mystery of Christ, be taken as a support, as a foundation for the life and exercise of religion; but it should not be made a religion, for we ought to be clear that religion in its living form and living practice enkindles the Spiritual consciousness of the human community.If this Spiritual consciousness is to become a living thing in man, he cannot possibly remain at a standstill, stopping at the merely abstract ideas of God or Christ, but must stand renewed amidst the religious practices and activities (which in different people may take various forms) as something which provides him with a religious centre and appeals to him as such.If this religious sentiment is only deep enough, and finds means of stimulating the soul, it will soon feel a longing — a real longing — for the very ideas that can be developed in Spiritual Science.If Spiritual Science may be said to be a support for a religious life, as, objectively speaking, it certainly is — subjectively the time has come today when we may say that a man with true religious feelings is driven by these feelings to seek knowledge.For Spiritual consciousness is acquired through religious feeling and Spiritual knowledge by Spiritual Science, just as knowledge of nature is acquired by Natural Science.Spiritual consciousness leads to the impulse to acquire Spiritual knowledge.It may be said that an inner religious life may today subjectively drive a man to Spiritual Science.A third meeting is that in which a man approaches the Spirit-Man, which will only be developed in the far future and which is brought near to him by a being belonging to the Hierarchy of the Archai.We may say that the ancients were sensitive to this, as are even the people of the present day, although the latter, in speaking of such things, no longer have a consciousness of the deeper truth of the subject.The ancients felt this meeting as a meeting with that which permeates the world, and which we can now hardly distinguish in ourselves or in the world, but in which we merge in the world as in an unity.Just as we can speak of the second as a meeting with Christ Jesus, so can we speak of the third as a meeting with the Father-Principle, with the Father, with that which lies at the foundation of the world, and which we experience when we have the right feeling for what the various religions mean by `the Father.' This meeting is of such a nature that it reveals our intimate connection with the Macrocosm, with the Divine-Spiritual Universe.The daily course of universal processes, of world processes, includes our meeting with our genius: the yearly course includes our meeting with Christ Jesus: and the course of a whole human life, of this human life of ours, my dear friends — which can normally be described as the patriarchal life of seventy years — includes the meeting with the Father-Principle.For a certain time, our physical earth-life is prepared — and rightly so — by education — at the present day to a great extent unconsciously, yet it is prepared; and most people experience unconsciously, between the ages of twenty-eight and forty-two — and though unconsciously, yet fully appreciated in the intimate depths of the soul — the meeting with the Father-Principle [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Thus the peculiar sentiment we connect with the Mystery of Christmas and with its Festival is by no means arbitrary, but hangs together with the fixing of the Festival of Christmas.At that time in winter which is appointed for the Festival, man, as does indeed the whole earth, gives himself up to the Spirit.He then passes, as it were, through a realm in which the Spirit is near him.The consequence is that at about Christmas-time and on to our present New Year, man goes through a meeting of his astral body with the Life-Spirit, in the same way as he goes through the first meeting, that of his ego with the Spirit-Self.Upon this meeting with the Life-Spirit depends the nearness of Christ Jesus.For Christ Jesus reveals Himself through the Life-Spirit.He reveals Himself through a being of the Realm of the Archangels.He is, of course, an immeasurably higher Being than they, but that is not the point with which we are concerned at the moment; what we have to consider is that He reveals Himself through a Being of the order of the Archangeloi.Thus through this meeting we draw specially near to Christ Jesus at the present stage of development — which has existed since the Mystery of Golgotha — and in a certain respect we may call the meeting with the Life-Spirit: the meeting with Christ Jesus in the very depths of our soul.Now when a man either through developing Spiritual consciousness in the domain of religious meditation or exercises, or, to supplement these, has accepted the concepts and ideas of Spiritual Science, when he has thus deepened and spiritualised his life of impression and feeling, then, just as he can experience in his waking life the after-effects of the meeting with his Spirit-Self, so he will also experience the after-effects of the meeting with the Life-Spirit, or Christ.It is actually a fact, my dear friends, that in the time following immediately on Christmas and up to Easter the conditions are particularly favourable for bringing to a man's consciousness this meeting with Christ Jesus.In a profound sense and this should not be blotted out by the abstract materialistic culture of today — the season of Christmas is connected with processes taking place in the earth; for man, together with the earth, takes part in the Christmas changes in the earth.The season of Easter is determined by processes in the heavens.Easter Sunday is fixed for the first Sunday after the first full-moon after the Vernal Equinox.Thus, whereas Christmas is fixed by the conditions of the earth, Easter is determined from above.Just as we, through all that has just been described, are connected with the conditions of the earth, so are we connected, through what I shall now describe, with the conditions of the heavens — with the great Cosmic conditions.For Easter is that season in the concrete course of the year, in which all that is aroused in us by the meeting with Christ at Christmas, really unites itself with our physical earth manhood.The great Mystery that now brings home to man the Mystery of Golgotha at the Easter Season — the Good Friday Mystery — signifies among other things, that the Christ, who, as it were, has been moving beside us, at this season comes still closer to us.Indeed, roughly speaking, in a sense He disappears into us and permeates us, so that He can remain with us during the season that follows the Mystery of Golgotha — the season of summer — during which, in the ancient Mysteries, men tried to unite themselves to John in a way not possible after the Mystery Of Golgotha.In that respect we are, as we see, the Microcosm, and we are attached to the Macrocosm in a profoundly significant way.There is a continual union with the Macrocosm in the seasons of the year, and this union, being a more inner process in man, is connected with the year's course.Thus does Spiritual Science endeavour gradually to reveal the ideas, the spiritually scientific conceptions, that man may acquire as to the way in which Christ is now able to penetrate and permeate our earth-life, since the Mystery of Golgotha.At this point I feel obliged to make an interpolation which is of importance and which ought to be thoroughly understood, particularly by the friends of Spiritual Science.It ought never to be represented that our attempts at Spiritual Science are a substitute for the life and exercise of religion.Spiritual Science may in the highest sense, and particularly as regards the Mystery of Christ, be taken as a support, as a foundation for the life and exercise of religion; but it should not be made a religion, for we ought to be clear that religion in its living form and living practice enkindles the Spiritual consciousness of the human community.If this Spiritual consciousness is to become a living thing in man, he cannot possibly remain at a standstill, stopping at the merely abstract ideas of God or Christ, but must stand renewed amidst the religious practices and activities (which in different people may take various forms) as something which provides him with a religious centre and appeals to him as such.If this religious sentiment is only deep enough, and finds means of stimulating the soul, it will soon feel a longing — a real longing — for the very ideas that can be developed in Spiritual Science.If Spiritual Science may be said to be a support for a religious life, as, objectively speaking, it certainly is — subjectively the time has come today when we may say that a man with true religious feelings is driven by these feelings to seek knowledge.For Spiritual consciousness is acquired through religious feeling and Spiritual knowledge by Spiritual Science, just as knowledge of nature is acquired by Natural Science.Spiritual consciousness leads to the impulse to acquire Spiritual knowledge.It may be said that an inner religious life may today subjectively drive a man to Spiritual Science.A third meeting is that in which a man approaches the Spirit-Man, which will only be developed in the far future and which is brought near to him by a being belonging to the Hierarchy of the Archai.We may say that the ancients were sensitive to this, as are even the people of the present day, although the latter, in speaking of such things, no longer have a consciousness of the deeper truth of the subject.The ancients felt this meeting as a meeting with that which permeates the world, and which we can now hardly distinguish in ourselves or in the world, but in which we merge in the world as in an unity.Just as we can speak of the second as a meeting with Christ Jesus, so can we speak of the third as a meeting with the Father-Principle, with the Father, with that which lies at the foundation of the world, and which we experience when we have the right feeling for what the various religions mean by `the Father.' This meeting is of such a nature that it reveals our intimate connection with the Macrocosm, with the Divine-Spiritual Universe.The daily course of universal processes, of world processes, includes our meeting with our genius: the yearly course includes our meeting with Christ Jesus: and the course of a whole human life, of this human life of ours, my dear friends — which can normally be described as the patriarchal life of seventy years — includes the meeting with the Father-Principle.For a certain time, our physical earth-life is prepared — and rightly so — by education — at the present day to a great extent unconsciously, yet it is prepared; and most people experience unconsciously, between the ages of twenty-eight and forty-two — and though unconsciously, yet fully appreciated in the intimate depths of the soul — the meeting with the Father-Principle [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]