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|  mollybrogan | Feb 7, 8:01am | I have read the Rudolph Steiner teachings for several years now and find them to be mythical and complicated. I feel that whatever organization there is to life is much, much simpler, but I do admire some of his concepts. One of my favorite is his idea that humanity has a soul that influences and evolves along with our individual souls, much like CG Jung's collective unconsciousness. Another is that our awareness unfolds, and humanity evolves due largely to the interplay of opposing forces (the tree of knowledge or good and evil.) The Steiner teachings tell us that in the course of human history, three specific opposing forces have provided our common soul and individual souls with opposition to our perfect nature (the Christ impulse) or the God within us. The dynamic of these forces are such that either we transcend the opposition and realize freedom by reconciling the forces (transcending duality) or we continue to battle.
Lucifer was the first, providing our natural, darker side. He is closely linked to nature and the mechanics of human nature so that the opposition he presents are storms or plagues or the fall of an civilization or the domination of our ego nature. His gift to humanity was free will, obtained in the choice to realize the Christ impulse and to transcend.
Ahriman was the second. His influence was first felt about 4M years ago and is still present today. He is associated with technology and materialism and prevents us from not seeing through the material to the spirit. He is also closely linked to the laws of karma, and keeps us from understanding the process of our freedom from karmic debt. But once the Ahrimanic forces have been reconciled, and we are free from karmic debt, we enter the age of Azuras. The Steiner teachings tell us that humanity is just beginning to enter this age but is still primarily ruled by Ahriman.
Not much is written on the Azuras and to research, I joined the Steiner library in New York, and read several of his books and lectures that hadn't been taken out of the library in several decades. I also joined several discussion groups all over the world, talking to folks who had their own ideas about where Steiner was going with this. The forces of Azuras distract us into looking away from spirituality and convince us that our material experience is reality, not a reflection of our conscious awareness. It tricks us out of taking our objective into the subjective and becoming the creator with it, and believing the reverse is true. The Azuras has both the natural quality of Lucifer and the Ahrimanic qualities of technology and materialism. There is a bit written and much discussed about Steiner's notion that once we give any part of ourselves to the Azuras, it can never be recovered. My (controversial) belief was that Steiner understood that once we transcend duality, mind and soul (karma), our lives and the formation of our experience is more immediately effected by universal laws. Once we consciously understand how to reconcile the opposition and realize our connection with all of life, we are distracted less easily even though the distractions become more dramatic. Ken Wilber would say it hurts more but we suffer less after the One Taste.
What do YOU think? |
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|  gavinski | Feb 13, 4:32am | Hi Molly,
An interesting post. I've often heard about Steiner's teachings but didn't pursue them. As you say - and like many of the westerners, the Theosophists for example, who became interested in Eastern thought before the recent explosion in the 60s - it all sounds a bit too conceptual.
You said that once we start to overcome duality, distractions become more dramatic. In my experience (mostly connected to Buddhist and Hindu thought) when we move a bit further towards understanding of life, we may notice our distractions more. There is a danger here that people on a spiritual path can become more dualistic in their thinking, if it becomes about setting up goals to strive towards. I think the answer lies in realising that acceptance of this moment is the answer. If you are always concerned with the future, and becoming something, always striving, there will always be dualism. Does that answer the question you're asking? |
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| | mollybrogan | Feb 13, 5:26am | | I agree about the goal setting. After a point, the "its" fall away and I AM - or the present tense - remains. Yet to get there, we face opposition in our daily lives and grow as humans. Realizing that, in the moment, it is all us, that we are the opposition and the all of everything takes a bit of practice, doesn't it? |
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| | gavinski | Mar 27, 10:51am | | That is the great contradiction! The key is to practice, I think, but not to care too much about where you are going, not to invest too much in future expectations. A tricky balancing act... |
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