The Pure Teaching
The exalted Master’s pure teaching, imparted only to his true followers, went well beyond the doctrines of an ethical nature which he preached to all people, and those sayings taken later from the writings of ‘heathen’ sages and put into the exalted Master’s mouth. –
This pure teaching was not the fruit of his thinking nor did he attain it in the pious rapture of ecstasy.
What he had to impart to the few true followers who were to comprehend the ‘mystery of the kingdom of God’ came from the treasure of wisdom in the possession of the spiritual community to which he belonged.
He gave shape in his own way and in his own language to this ancient, holy wisdom: – attainable within himself, only apprehended in highly awakened experience, by each of those who are members of the spiritual community in this earthly life. Each one of those who has ‘knowledge through self-transformation’ can only give account of the same truth in pictures and language which are his own; even though in these pictures and language much may reappear that is ancient in character.
Thus he initiated the pupils who could follow him into the innermost of being and conveyed to them an idea of God which differed so essentially from the public doctrine of the priests.
He spoke to people who had not been highly educated and were satisfied when he said of the First Light, which itself speaks as the First Word:
‘GOD IS SPIRIT: AND THEY THAT WORSHIP HIM MUST WORSHIP THE TRUTH IN THE SPIRIT.’
What he tirelessly sought to show his true followers was the way to reach the kingdom of the spirit, in which there are ‘many habitations’ – many kinds of possible experience – depending on the level of perception to which the human spirit, once awoken, may rise.
When the Master speaks of the ‘Kingdom of God’, the meaning is not always the same!
It is true that he says that the Kingdom of Heaven is within man, but he also says that no man can ‘see’ the Kingdom of God who has not been ‘born anew’. Confusion can only be avoided here if one knows that on one occasion he is only speaking of the nature of the human spirit which has the latent possibility of experience through which he can attain the certainty of the kingdom of the spirit, yet without the ability of experiencing himself consciously in the highest regions of spiritual worlds in the way he does here on earth during his earthly life, – and, on another occasion, of the highest goal of the human spirit: that is, to attain a new form of life, – after this earthly life – and perhaps after a long preparation in the spiritual world, in which he can then experience himself, consciously and actively, within the deepest interior of the spiritual realm. –
We must keep in view here different, successive states.
The first is the awakening of the human spirit from his sleep within the earthly beast. Through this awakening from the night of unknowing he intuitively feels that he is not of this earth: that he originates from a realm of life where life is formed according to other laws than those in this earthly world of appearance. –
From this arises the second state, the striving towards the First Light, from which’ ultimate origin, guided step by step through the hierarchically ordered life of the spirit, the life of the human spirit finds itself in eternal being.
This striving towards the First Light can find fulfilment during earthly existence when a ‘spiritual spark’, a ray of First Light – conducted through all the hierarchical levels of spiritual life – creates a spiritual organism within the human spirit from the powers of this human spirit, through which the human spirit finds itself united with this divine ‘spiritual spark’ or ‘ray’ of First Light, which he then recognises as his ‘living God’.
Now he has gained fullest certainty of those things which previously he only felt intuitively; he is conscious of his life in the spirit and from the spirit!
Still he is not at all capable of entering, consciously and actively, that high spiritual realm from which he once released himself through the inclination of his own will in that ‘fall’ from the elevated light, the ‘fall’ that has bound him to this earthly world of appearance. –
Something else is needed for this; even when, after the earthly death of his body, he no longer wears the temporal shape of this earth and finds himself conscious and living in the nether regions of spiritual life in a spiritual form, yet that supreme, innermost spiritual realm of appearance – the ‘Kingdom of God’ in the highest sense – will remain closed to him until he is ‘born anew’ within it: begotten again from spiritual seed – from the primeval waters of life in the spirit.
‘Birth’ into the earthly world of appearance is the fruit of the procreation of beastly life. This alone enables consciousness and action in this earthly world of appearance.
Whoever is not born into it, can not enter it in any other way: – it is not open to him, even though he knew of it.
In the same way, no human spirit cannot enter any of the spiritual worlds of appearance – and all that lives in the realm of the spirit is only apprehended by itself as spiritual appearance – unless he is born into it.
Originally the human spirit in that innermost ‘kingdom of God’ is propagated by God, eternally ‘born’. But it left behind the spiritual, God-born organism, to use this image, in the innermost realm of the spirit, where it merged once more with the power of the Godhead, so that an individual ‘rebirth’ must occur if the human spirit is one day to find itself conscious and active in that ‘kingdom of God’.
Before that the human spirit is only aware of itself and its living God even in the case of the highest development through this earthly life. After the death of the earthly body it finds itself only in those nether spiritual worlds whose organism remained preserved for it in a latent form also after man’s fall into the beastly world of appearance. This latent organism is the only spiritual form of existence which the human spirit still possesses here and can develop through its attitude in earthly life. The author of the ancient message has the Master speak only of this supreme and ultimate goal:
‘EXCEPT A MAN BE BORN AGAIN OF THE WATER IN THE SPIRIT’ – OF SPIRITUAL SEED – ‘HE CANNOT ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD.’
And for emphasis and elucidation he has the Master add:
‘THAT WHICH IS BORN OF THE FLESH IS FLESH; AND THAT WHICH IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT IS SPIRIT.’
This is to eliminate any doubt that the propagation of a real organism takes place; as of the flesh, so too of the spirit…
The only men on this earth who attain this ‘new birth’ in the spirit during their earthly lives and who therefore live and act consciously within the innermost realm of the spirit at the same time as possessing the capability to experience within the earthly world of appearance, are the Luminaries of the First Light, of whom the exalted Master from Nazareth was one. –
Only one belonging to them can say in truth of himself and his brothers:
‘WE SPEAK THAT WE DO KNOW, AND TESTIFY THAT WE HAVE SEEN.’
Or that other saying, inserted afterwards into an episode where it can scarcely be detected:
‘YE WORSHIP YE KNOW NOT WHAT; WE KNOW WHAT WE WORSHIP.’
Like the exalted Master, every Luminary of the First Light must testify:
‘I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE. HE THAT SEES ME SEES THE FATHER’.
For the ‘Father’ in the First Word has no other self-representation on this earth than the Luminary of the First Light whom he has prepared for himself as self-representation, and for whom, while the Luminary still lives in an earthly form, the ‘Father’ has begotten of himself a spiritual form which allows the Luminary to live consciously in the spiritual world of appearance without withdrawing from this earthly world. –
He has truly become the ‘Father’s’ ‘son’ ‘born’ within the First Word! – – –
From his conscious self-experience as spiritual ‘son’ of the eternal spiritual ‘father’ in the First Word: – from his consciousness within the spiritual world of appearance – the Master proclaims the pure teaching.
‘YE BOTH KNOW ME AND KNOW WHENCE I AM; BUT I CAME NOT OF MYSELF’ – my earthly origin entitles me not to teach and speak to you as i do – BUT ‘HE THAT SENT ME IS TRUE, WHOM YE KNOW NOT.’
‘IF I BEAR WITNESS OF MYSELF, MY WITNESS IS TRUE, FOR I KNOW WHENCE I CAME AND WHITHER I GO.’
‘YEA, HE THAT SENT ME IS WITH ME AND DOES NOT FORSAKE ME, BECAUSE I ALWAYS DO WHAT PLEASES HIM.’
And in the incontrovertible certainty that he is within the world around him the only one who knows what is needed for earthly man ‘on his last day’ in this world of appearance to be ready for eternal ‘birth’ in the spiritual world of appearance, he speaks the mighty words:
‘I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. NO MAN COMES UNTO THE FATHER BUT BY ME!’
For the spiritually begotten, which he calls the ‘son’ and as such experiences himself as a Luminary of the First Light, is for every spirit of man the same; in it alone the spirit of man attains intransient life within the world of spirit.
He experiences this life himself and can testify of it:
‘WHAT MY FATHER GAVE UNTO ME IS GREATER THAN ALL; AND NO MAN IS ABLE TO PLUCK IT OUT OF MY FATHER’S HAND.’
But it is not for himself alone that he would be in everlasting life, therefore he says:
‘HE THAT BELIEVES ON ME, BELIEVES NOT ON ME, BUT ON HIM THAT SENT ME.
I AM COME A LIGHT INTO THE WORLD, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVES ON ME SHOULD NOT ABIDE IN DARKNESS.
FOR I HAVE NOT SPOKEN OF MYSELF; BUT THE FATHER WHICH SENT ME, HE GAVE ME A COMMANDMENT, WHAT I SHOULD SAY AND WHAT I SHOULD SPEAK.
AND I KNOW THAT HIS COMMANDMENT IS LIFE EVERLASTING.
WHATSOEVER I SPEAK THEREFORE, EVEN AS THE FATHER SAID UNTO ME, SO I SPEAK.’
Just as the ‘Father’ comes to self-expression in the ‘son’ during this earthly life, – just as the Luminary experiences himself as the ‘son’ of the eternal ‘Father’, the supreme head of all Luminaries on earth, from whom and in whom each member of this spiritual community lives in absolute union so the ‘Father’, the primeval propagated man of eternity within the First Word, is recognised in his earthly human revelation. – –
‘FOR AS THE FATHER HATH LIFE IN HIMSELF; SO HATH HE GIVEN TO THE SON TO HAVE LIFE IN HIMSELF.’
Just as Moses raised the bronze serpent in the desert so that all who looked upon it in faith behealed, so must the image of the ‘son of man’, the Luminary, be ‘raised’ in earthly man above all else, in faithful awareness of the truth that it is the First Light itself ‘speaking’ in its self-utterance as the First Word the eternal originally propagated spiritual man, who, in his propagation from the light, abides in the First Word and becomes ‘Father’ to the Luminaries, so that through them the human spirit on this earth can hear once more of its original home and of the path leading back to it. –
‘AND AS MOSES LIFTED UP THE SERPENT IN THE WILDERNESS, EVEN SO MUST THE SON OF MAN’ – HE WHO TESTIFIES FROM THE REALM OF THE SPIRIT AND THE TESTIMONY HE
BRINGS – ‘BE LIFTED UP; THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM, SHOULD NOT BE LOST’ – IN THE AEON LONG NIGHT OF UNKNOWING – ‘BUT HAVE LIFE.’
And once more, to show that confirmation is only attained by those who in the same way trust the Luminaries of the First Light, as those who had to trust in the miracle-working serpent of Moses if they wanted to be healed, the author of the ancient message has the Master say these words:
‘WHEN YE HAVE LIFTED UP THE SON OF MAN, THEN SHALL YE KNOW THAT I AM HE, AND THAT I DO NOTHING OF MYSELF’ – AS AN EARTHLY MAN, ACCORDING TO MY HUMAN WILLFULNESS – ‘BUT AS MY FATHER HAS TAUGHT ME, I SPEAK THESE THINGS.’
Again and again it is emphasised that the Luminary of the First Light, in whom is found on earth the supreme capacity for spiritual experience in a man of this earth – who can unite supreme spirituality with the beast – teaches not his own earthly human wisdom, but speaks from the fullness of knowledge revealed to him by the ‘Father’.
‘MY TEACHING IS NOT MINE, BUT HIS THAT SENT ME. IF ANY MAN WILL DO HIS WILL, HE SHALL KNOW OF THE TEACHING, WHETHER IT BE OF GOD, OR WHETHER I SPEAK OF MYSELF.’
Any confirmation of the teaching of the Luminary requires however, that the pupil does not just recognise the immeasurable significance inherent in the fact that a mortal man can testify of the innermost realm of the spirit, but also that he acts according to the spiritual laws which the Luminary has come to reveal, only in accordance and harmony with the ‘will’ of his ‘Father’. –
But the work of the Luminary is not only restricted to this outer world of appearance belonging to the physical senses.
He works as much in the innermost realm of the spirit – in the realm of causes – as on this earth, but also in those nether spiritual worlds entered by a human spirit when he leaves this earth. He testifies to this work with these words:
‘THE HOUR IS COMING AND NOW IS, WHEN THE DEAD (THROUGH ME) SHALL HEAR THE VOICE OF THE SON; AND THEY THAT HEAR SHALL LIVE.’ – FOR THE LUMINARY CAN AWAKE THEM: – HE CAN PREPARE THEM FOR NEW BIRTH IN THE SPIRIT WHICH THE FATHER BRINGS ABOUT. – –
So that no one should believe that he acts, as the ‘son’ of the ‘Father’, according to his own arbitrary will, he says:
‘THE SON CAN DO NOTHING OF HIMSELF, BUT WHAT HE SEES THE FATHER DO, FOR WHAT THINGS SOEVER HE DOES, THESE ALSO DOES THE SON LIKEWISE.
NO MAN CAN COME TO ME, EXCEPT THE FATHER WHICH HAS SENT ME DRAW HIM UNTO ME, THAT I MAY AWAKE HIM AT HIS LAST DAY.’
But no human spirit can attain lasting life within the realm of the spirit unless it believes it will find this life. –
And of this belief alone, which must be confident trust, the Master once spoke with respect to his teaching, which brought all the certainty from the spiritual world down to this earth through the lips of a man:
‘THIS IS THE BREAD WHICH COMES DOWN FROM HEAVEN, THAT A MAN MAY EAT THEREOF, AND NOT DIE.’
This saying was once in the same passage where the following was said:
‘WHO BELIEVES IN ME, FROM HIS BELLY SHALL FLOW STREAMS OF LIVING WATER.’
He shall of himself continue to propagate the spiritual in the spiritual world of appearance, for here we speak about the ‘body’ of one born in the spirit. – –
And the Master said of the same ‘body’ of one born in the spirit that this ‘body’ was as ‘real’ in the spiritual world of appearance as ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’ in this earthly form of appearance, so that only those who possessed this spiritual body could have conscious life in the spirit.
‘EXCEPT YE HAVE THE FLESH OF THE SON OF MAN AND HIS BLOOD WITHIN YOU, YE SHALL HAVE NO LIFE IN YOU.’
Everything which is found in this passage in the message handed down to us, where the words about the ‘bread’ are mingled with those about the ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’, is a later distortion and deliberate addition.
The saying about the spiritual ‘body’ was found to be well suited to support the new cult, which had arisen from the cultic traditions of mystical religious communities as known all over the east in those days.
Thus the Master’s words were altered in such a way that they seemed to speak of his own, earthly flesh and blood, and not of that which bore his spiritual consciousness in the innermost realm of the spirit, in the way that flesh and blood here on earth bore his earthly consciousness. – –
This particular religious conviction was repeated in many paraphrases in the account while linking it at the same time closely to the sayings about the ‘bread of heaven’ in similar paraphrasing.
Certainly there were several highly enlightened and ‘knowledgeable’ men among those who gave shape to the liturgy and rites of the new cult; however, they had already to take into account what existed and sought by interpretation to give a different meaning to essentially foreign cult material which they found rooted within it.
Some ended up expelled as ‘heretics’, while the interpretation of others was only accepted if it seemed possible without putting into jeopardy those doctrines derived from ancient pagan cults to which the new cult owed its mystical aura.
Yet it is truly no ‘coincidence’ that even today’s preserved text of the message is alone in knowing nothing about the sayings attributed to the Master at the Last Supper, found in the older three accounts which became the foundation of the same cult! – –
How would especially the writer to whom could be attributed the false words of the Master about his earthly flesh and blood: – that his ‘flesh’ was ‘truly meat’ and his ‘blood’ was ‘truly drink’, have recorded with the most solemn emphasis imaginable those words of the paschal meal, had only a single saying, even with a similar meaning, been reported in the falsified passage!
But he knew full well that ideas taken from ancient pagan cults had found a new life in the exalted Master’s name.
– – –
This was the very point where the spiritual comprehension in which he lived and wanted to secure his followers diverged from the teaching and external cult that grew up around the Master’s name; which at the time the author wrote his message could already register many successes since, it was sought to accommodate the Master’s teachings in every way with the mystic cult communities encountered everywhere. – –
The complete ancient message can only be understood if one knows that it was written to show the contrast between the exalted Master’s pure teaching, grasped at that time by only a few, and the new religious opinion, which increasingly fettered the minds. The new religion became widespread not least because it could unite the new with the traditional in such a way that every mystical teaching of the day could find new validity within it.
Since many sayings of the Master which were sacred also to John’s pupils were mingled with the new beliefs, the author intended through his message to protect those wavering within his small spiritual circle from the lurking danger of succumbing to the external cult. –
In the long term his message failed in the purpose it set out to achieve.
The last followers of John’s pupils had to yield to the new external cult. Regarded by the cult’s faithful as ‘heretics’, they went into hiding; scarcely a generation later there was none left who lived within the pure teaching.
When the ancient message fell into the hands of zealots within the new cult, soon enough one or the other found cause to insert into the text, held in good faith to be a work of John the disciple, all those possible additions which made it suitable for reading to the congregation as a doctrinal text.
Reverence for the ‘word of the Scripture’ had in those early days of the new religion less significance than it later acquired.
Far more important were the cult of the new redeemer-god and the defence of the beliefs against Jews and heathens.
Texts were thoughtlessly altered according to the needs of the cult which now sought to interpret anew forms of ancient mystery cults. Just as thoughtless were Jewish and heathen Christians who made up the cultic community, who changed in the accounts whatever seemed to them to be questionable to their erstwhile fellow believers.
In this way they always believed they were helping to spread the ‘true’ faith and were acting according to the intentions of the ancient authors in the end.
It is almost miraculous that, despite all this, traces of the original text remain intact here and there, even though the original sense of very many individual words now appear to mean the opposite.
But those who dig deeper and seek to clear the rubble can still today find the foundations of an old temple in which the pure teaching imparted by the exalted Master, as a Luminary of the First Light to his closest pupils, was once fulfilled.
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