Rudolf Steiner's Fifth Gospel by John David Ebert

[Soul_of_Shu]

One wonders if it's even possible to sweep anything under the proverbial rug anymore in the www-world of pretty much everything ever written or espoused by anyone of note now instantly available to be deconstructed with 20/20 hindsight upon the tap of a smartphone screen. Rather, it's more likely than ever that anyone with the least bit of know-how can render any such 'rug' about as effective a covering as some diaphanous outfit worn by Lady Gaga.

[AshvinP]

One wonders if it's even possible to sweep anything under the proverbial rug anymore in the www-world of pretty much everything ever written or espoused by anyone of note now instantly available to be deconstructed with 20/20 hindsight upon the tap of a smartphone screen. Rather, it's more likely than ever that anyone with the least bit of know-how can render any such 'rug' about as effective a covering as some diaphanous outfit worn by Lady Gaga.

Exactly. Everything you ever wrote on social media is enshrined in stone for anyone with an agenda to dig up. Thoughts you didn't even know you had are captured by AI algorithms through your browsing, searching and viewing habits. Forgiveness and redemption are not optional under these circumstances, they are absolutely necessary. Otherwise we are all toast. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind".

[Lou Gold]

Thanks to a prod from SoS, I viewed the discussion more fully. Racism -- and OMG what about indigenous people generally? OK, I guess I reject any ideology that asserts progressive hierarchical development, a cultural artifact that I see as widespread amongst colonial conquering civilizations in general.

[Cleric K]

David,

(before anyone decides I'm confrontational - I affirm that I'm writing this with nothing but warmth of heart! )

Our measurement of others' soul development is based on our yardstick. And this yardstick is we ourselves. In other words, we compare others to ourselves. But our yardstick should be ever evolving. In your own words:

Personal discernment and contextual decision-making is always necessary: Life’s multidimensionality and the multi­modality of our interconnectedness and interdependence make it such that the [even] best of descriptions will not fully inform you, and the [even] best of guidelines will not indicate exactly what will and what won’t be constructive in relation to others around you, at least not for certain. And even when you are sure of what’s what and what would be best, either because of your own limitations or the positions and actions taken by differing others, you will often find you aren’t able to successfully implement what you think would be the consummate course of action. In such case, identifying and executing the most creative practicable alternative will be epitome of wisdom.

Thus we should never stop in one place and decide that we now have the right judgment for everything. We should continuously try to transcend our limitations - because each one of us has them. It would be foolish to think that we've attained perfection.

What we are here [in this thread] pointing out - and that was the reason to speak about higher stages of consciousness (beyond intellectual) - is that even with the best of wishes to live in peace and harmony, love and joy, we remain at the surface of life. Even if we create heaven on Earth and live as loving and joyful human beings, if we stay at our current level of consciousness, we still perceive the sensory realm and think, feel and will against it.

Your philosophy includes many things about the beyond, soul journeys, post-incarnational careers. To be honest, I'm much more reluctant to embrace ideas presented as this. Why? Because they are unverifiable. Every thing comes from trance states, mediumistic states, hypnotic states, dream states, psychedelic states, etc. It is based on visionary experience divined by the intellect. I'm not saying that it's impossible to attain to true things in these ways but I see it as gambling to take such ideas and experiment with them. It's a bet. And almost without exception, these ideas are of such character that their validity can be confirmed only beyond the gate of death (or after some other expected future event - First Contact, Planetary Ascension, 2012, etc.).

I know that you have strong intuition, a sense of truth but this is still a feeling that is being trusted or not by thinking. Imagine that a malicious spiritual being shuffles your feelings a little and makes it such that a particular direction is felt as sympathetic to you. At the surface of consciousness you'll think that your sniff-sense guides you in the best of directions but you don't know what that mischievous being has in mind.

Now if you say that this is nonsense, that it's impossible such a thing to happen to you, that you can trace the origins of each thought, opinion, prejudice, sympathy and antipathy, I'll beg you to think twice. It's exactly when we believe ourselves to be invulnerable that we are the easiest target for someone coming from behind - because we were so relaxed that it never occurred to us check around our shoulder once in a while.

And this is what we are talking about. That's what the Philosophy of Freedom is about - it's a never-ending process of making more and more of what is unconscious - conscious. Only in this way we can become more and more free of prejudices, opinions, inclinations, etc.
It is only a small step for one who has trodden this path, to be able to step out of the thinking ego altogether and experience his ordinary self coming together from the astral world. It is here that we can really learn something about the souls of the departed, the beings that guide the happenings around us and so on. All this we perceive in lucidity of consciousness, compared to which our ordinary state seems like a faint dream. And all this can be achieved in fully methodological way, through honest and patient work. It is a path of development. The path is disclosed and explained in the greatest details.
(it should be noted that the fact that we have attained to higher experiences, does not mean that we have encompassed the totality of our being. If anything, the higher experiences show us how little we experience of ourselves in every moment, and how much is happening in semi-automatic way for us. This is such a chilling experience that it only motivates us to double, triple, quadruple our efforts on the work of our character. Otherwise one can fall into the trap of pride and the consequences are devastating.)

We are living in Plato's cave. For a very long time we have been only divining with the shadows on the wall. But for more than a century, what has been for the longest time restricted only to the Initiates within the Mysteries and kept in deepest secrecy, has been bestowed to humankind because the time has become ripe for this. The path has been revealed. It is now up to everyone to take his own Initiation in hands and make himself a worker on the Divine field. This does not mean that everyone should become a seer, just as not everyone should become a shoemaker. But those who do, have the duty to share their knowledge of the invisible worlds because only from there we can learn in what direction we should be guiding our evolution. Because the gods have already withdrawn. They had the task to bring us to self-consciousness. From this point we are entering adulthood and should be taking our development in own hands.

It's possible that the above sounds quite fantastic to you. If I've been able to feel you perspective so far, you view the Earth as a sandbox, where we come to learn and play, to love and be joyful, but can then go in quite different directions. But fully self-conscious spiritual perception reveals that we are much more entangled with our Solar environment than New Age materials present it to be. In other words, individual evolution is fully within the context of planetary and solar evolution. In this sense, the idea that one can just take his "I", leave the Solar system and go elsewhere is dismissed by higher cognition. We are evolving as one great Solar organism made of free individual beings.

I'm not saying the above to convince you, nor anyone else reading this. Such things are never to become the object of blind faith. But nevertheless, it at least shows that there are also other ways of acquiring spiritual knowledge, besides ancient texts and modern channeling.

Now I leave it to you to decide which looks more credible - divination with shadows or putting effort to walk out of the cave and behold the Sunlight directly.

If you dismiss the second way as impossible, if you believe that it is only beyond the gate of death that one can perceive these things - that is a belief. No one is asking you to change it but you can also, at least from popular interest, keep track of what individuals that have worked on higher development, can say about their findings.

As always - I'm writing all this with best of intentions and nothing but Love <3
All I aim is to put our discussion here into a wider context so that we can trace where differences in views originate from.

I respect your philosophy because who can deny we are much in need of Love in this world?
But it does not hurt to have an open mind for routes that lead even deeper.

[Lou Gold]

We are living in Plato's cave. For a very long time we have been only divining with the shadows on the wall. But for more than a century, what has been for the longest time restricted only to the Initiates within the Mysteries and kept in deepest secrecy, has been bestowed to humankind because the time has become ripe for this. The path has been revealed. It is now up to everyone to take his own Initiation in hands and make himself a worker on the Divine field. This does not mean that everyone should become a seer, just as not everyone should become a shoemaker. But those who do, have the duty to share their knowledge of the invisible worlds because only from there we can learn in what direction we should be guiding our evolution. Because the gods have already withdrawn. They had the task to bring us to self-consciousness. From this point we are entering adulthood and should be taking our development in own hands.

Cleric, I really appreciate the cogent ways you articulate your views and I agree with much that you say. However, it seems to me that it is during adolescence that the temptations of freedom and taking one's development into one's own hands are greatest and most reckless. The initiatory rite of passage into adulthood is more about learning self-limits and serving sacred purpose and future generations. The so-called 'civilizations' of conquest and colonization of the mind have a way of writing history to make their ways a paragon of progress. Yeah, I know that Jaspers has given us a notion of an Axial Age that birthes the great religions and philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Sophism, etc. One wonders that there are no Sub-Saharan or American civilizations represented for their diversely different types of greatness? Of course, I can go on and on and on but no one does it better than Wade Davis:

[AshvinP]

We are living in Plato's cave. For a very long time we have been only divining with the shadows on the wall. But for more than a century, what has been for the longest time restricted only to the Initiates within the Mysteries and kept in deepest secrecy, has been bestowed to humankind because the time has become ripe for this. The path has been revealed. It is now up to everyone to take his own Initiation in hands and make himself a worker on the Divine field. This does not mean that everyone should become a seer, just as not everyone should become a shoemaker. But those who do, have the duty to share their knowledge of the invisible worlds because only from there we can learn in what direction we should be guiding our evolution. Because the gods have already withdrawn. They had the task to bring us to self-consciousness. From this point we are entering adulthood and should be taking our development in own hands.

Cleric, I really appreciate the cogent ways you articulate your views and I agree with much that you say. However, it seems to me that it is during adolescence that the temptations of freedom and taking one's development into one's own hands are greatest and most reckless. The initiatory rite of passage into adulthood is more about learning self-limits and serving sacred purpose and future generations. The so-called 'civilizations' of conquest and colonization of the mind have a way of writing history to make their ways a paragon of progress. Yeah, I know that Jaspers has given us a notion of an Axial Age that birthes the great religions and philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Sophism, etc. One wonders that there are no Sub-Saharan or American civilizations represented for their diversely different types of greatness? Of course, I can go on and on and on but no one does it better than Wade Davis:

I only see two options here - either a) the 'ethnosphere' (Wade Davis) is degrading rapidly because that is how the spiritual evolutionary process proceeds, or b) it's all 'random' and therefore human individuals were in total control of which parts of the ethnosphere advanced and which parts declined. If it's option A, then that is the Reality we need to come to conscious terms with, no matter how distasteful it may seem, just as we come to terms with our own evolution from adolescence to adulthood. If it's option B, then we are left with a whole host of predicaments which we can no longer control, and the only possible ray of hope is a few people starting a colony on Mars, no doubt the most wealthy, high status people among us. Am I missing an option? I would also point out that under option A, the "colonial conquering civilizations" of the West are, by all accounts, also in a 'terminal decline' phase.

That's my 2 cents, but I eagerly await Cleric's response, as I am sure it will shed a much brighter light on this situation.

[Lou Gold]

We are living in Plato's cave. For a very long time we have been only divining with the shadows on the wall. But for more than a century, what has been for the longest time restricted only to the Initiates within the Mysteries and kept in deepest secrecy, has been bestowed to humankind because the time has become ripe for this. The path has been revealed. It is now up to everyone to take his own Initiation in hands and make himself a worker on the Divine field. This does not mean that everyone should become a seer, just as not everyone should become a shoemaker. But those who do, have the duty to share their knowledge of the invisible worlds because only from there we can learn in what direction we should be guiding our evolution. Because the gods have already withdrawn. They had the task to bring us to self-consciousness. From this point we are entering adulthood and should be taking our development in own hands.

Cleric, I really appreciate the cogent ways you articulate your views and I agree with much that you say. However, it seems to me that it is during adolescence that the temptations of freedom and taking one's development into one's own hands are greatest and most reckless. The initiatory rite of passage into adulthood is more about learning self-limits and serving sacred purpose and future generations. The so-called 'civilizations' of conquest and colonization of the mind have a way of writing history to make their ways a paragon of progress. Yeah, I know that Jaspers has given us a notion of an Axial Age that birthes the great religions and philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Sophism, etc. One wonders that there are no Sub-Saharan or American civilizations represented for their diversely different types of greatness? Of course, I can go on and on and on but no one does it better than Wade Davis:

I only see two options here - either a) the 'ethnosphere' (Wade Davis) is degrading rapidly because that is how the spiritual evolutionary process proceeds, or b) it's all 'random' and therefore human individuals were in total control of which parts of the ethnosphere advanced and which parts declined. If it's option A, then that is the Reality we need to come to conscious terms with, no matter how distasteful it may seem, just as we come to terms with our own evolution from adolescence to adulthood. If it's option B, then we are left with a whole host of predicaments which we can no longer control, and the only possible ray of hope is a few people starting a colony on Mars, no doubt the most wealthy, high status people among us. Am I missing an option? I would also point out that under option A, the "colonial conquering civilizations" of the West are, by all accounts, also in a 'terminal decline' phase.

That's my 2 cents, but I eagerly await Cleric's response, as I am sure it will shed a much brighter light on this situation.

Or, option 'c' where a co-creative diversity of spirit and matter is the 'homeostatic' checks-and-balances mechanism for maintaining a verdant garden in the benefit of all beings and future generations who arrive here to receive the gifts and learn the lessons of a glorious earthy school.

I would also point out that under option A, the "colonial conquering civilizations" of the West are, by all accounts, also in a 'terminal decline' phase.

Yup, and they may very well be replaced in the next phase by "colonial conquering civilizations" of the East. Surely, if Genghis Khan offers lessons, dominance defaults to those who can more effectively organize collective power. One of the unresolved questions is whether this will be a hierarchy or a network? Most likely it will be a shape-shifting multicultural mix.

[AshvinP]

Cleric, I really appreciate the cogent ways you articulate your views and I agree with much that you say. However, it seems to me that it is during adolescence that the temptations of freedom and taking one's development into one's own hands are greatest and most reckless. The initiatory rite of passage into adulthood is more about learning self-limits and serving sacred purpose and future generations. The so-called 'civilizations' of conquest and colonization of the mind have a way of writing history to make their ways a paragon of progress. Yeah, I know that Jaspers has given us a notion of an Axial Age that birthes the great religions and philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Sophism, etc. One wonders that there are no Sub-Saharan or American civilizations represented for their diversely different types of greatness? Of course, I can go on and on and on but no one does it better than Wade Davis:

I only see two options here - either a) the 'ethnosphere' (Wade Davis) is degrading rapidly because that is how the spiritual evolutionary process proceeds, or b) it's all 'random' and therefore human individuals were in total control of which parts of the ethnosphere advanced and which parts declined. If it's option A, then that is the Reality we need to come to conscious terms with, no matter how distasteful it may seem, just as we come to terms with our own evolution from adolescence to adulthood. If it's option B, then we are left with a whole host of predicaments which we can no longer control, and the only possible ray of hope is a few people starting a colony on Mars, no doubt the most wealthy, high status people among us. Am I missing an option? I would also point out that under option A, the "colonial conquering civilizations" of the West are, by all accounts, also in a 'terminal decline' phase.

That's my 2 cents, but I eagerly await Cleric's response, as I am sure it will shed a much brighter light on this situation.

Or, option 'c' where a co-creative diversity of spirit and matter is the 'homeostatic' checks-and-balances mechanism for maintaining a verdant garden in the benefit of all beings and future generations who arrive here to receive the gifts and learn the lessons of a glorious earthy school.

Well that sounds nice, but I mean 'options' which can explain where we are now, not where we think everyone ought to be.

I would also point out that under option A, the "colonial conquering civilizations" of the West are, by all accounts, also in a 'terminal decline' phase.

Yup, and they may very well be replaced in the next phase by "colonial conquering civilizations" of the East. Surely, if Genghis Khan offers lessons, dominance defaults to those who can more effectively organize collective power. One of the unresolved questions is whether this will be a hierarchy or a network? Most likely it will be a shape-shifting multicultural mix.

Depends where in the 'East'. Russia makes some sense to me, not so much China. The technological developments in the latter have been few and far between, and when they do happen, they must be attributed to an ancient Emperor to gain any traction. It's a very Epimethean situation over there. It seems to me we can't necessarily extrapolate the 'lessons' of the distant past into the near future under option A.

[Lou Gold]

Or, option 'c' where a co-creative diversity of spirit and matter is the 'homeostatic' checks-and-balances mechanism for maintaining a verdant garden in the benefit of all beings and future generations who arrive here to receive the gifts and learn the lessons of a glorious earthy school.

Well that sounds nice, but I mean 'options' which can explain where we are now, not where we think everyone ought to be.

No 'should' or 'ought' or 'want' in this -- only an option similar to the actual/factual ways that mycelia are the basis of a huge interwoven system called a 'forest'.

[Cleric K]

(sorry in advance for the length of the post. I keep on trying to write short but it simply doesn't work )

Cleric, I really appreciate the cogent ways you articulate your views and I agree with much that you say. However, it seems to me that it is during adolescence that the temptations of freedom and taking one's development into one's own hands are greatest and most reckless. The initiatory rite of passage into adulthood is more about learning self-limits and serving sacred purpose and future generations.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Now I'm thinking why from your perspective it seems that I'm speaking of something else. My only guess is that the word 'freedom' is to blame. If freedom is understood as the exhibit of unrestrained behavior, blind pursuit of satisfaction of desires - yes, that's exactly what leads to reckless behavior in adolescence. But this is not freedom in the higher sense. When I act erratically, I'm not free because all my actions are compulsory, I don't know why I act the way I do - my stubborn organic nature acts for me, I only identify with the actions. I'm not free if at the sight of a beautiful girl I become so aroused that this excitement turns into action and I commit a crime. I'm simply a slave to my unrestrained desire - I don't have a choice, I'm not free.

Let's try to approach the idea of freedom in the higher sense. Wade Davis has traveled far and wide, and finally became rightfully fascinated with the incredible diversity of expressions of the human spirit. All these experiences culminate in him in the idea "it is our duty to preserve and cherish the ethnosphere!".
Now you watch Davis and you (I don't know the exact meaning of the word but it sounds as something you would say ) grok his idea.

What is an idea? 2 + 2 = 4 is an idea. Now everyone who read this expression has experienced his or her own and unique thought form that captured the idea. Most commonly it's the verbalization of the symbols in our mind, with our own unique inner voice. Now the thought form is unique to ourselves but everyone here experienced the same idea. I don't care who has what philosophical understanding of what idea is - whether it is simply neuronal firings, whether it is a metaphysical entity, etc. The immediate and simplest fact is that all of us who read the expression, experienced the same idea. If that was not the case communication would be impossible. It is only because we strive to experience the same ideas, that we can understand each other at all. Clearly, sometimes the same word can capture different ideas in different people. That's why we try at this moment to reach the same idea of freedom, so that we can understand each other.

Back to Davis. Now you experience the same idea as him. The big question is, do you feel as this idea has been forced to you and you need to comply or you simply resonate with it? I'll bet it's the latter. There's something within your being that fully aligns with that idea. Your being lives in certain understanding of existence and the idea aligns, resonates with that understanding. Can we trace more concretely the origins of this understanding? I don't want to speak instead of you but nevertheless, I'm quite confident that you would say that at the core of this understanding is the idea that we are all One. When you look at the world through the eyes of this idea you feel the sacredness of every plant, every pebble, every animal, every human being.

But not everyone has reached this idea. Even if everyone can understand it abstractly it takes much more than that to live the idea, to allow all our thoughts, feelings and actions become the living expression of the idea. What is it that prevents others to experience this idea with all their being? Many things, lack of knowledge, egoistic desires, etc.

Now if you were in position to transform humanity in an instant, what would you do? Would you create a government system that ensures that everyone complies with the rules of preservation of ethno-diversity? Or would you make that all human beings can experience, at least for a moment, the love and joy that you experience when your soul fuses with the Cosmic Spirit? Now we are getting nearer to what freedom is in the higher sense. It is about peeling the sheaths of unconscious, instinctive life one by one. This is a never-ending process. The more we do this, the clearer we see. From this clear perspective we can set sight on our High Ideal and say for ourselves "It is the greatest fulfillment of my soul to experience the unfoldment and profusion of Life. What I do in this way does not benefit only myself but the whole Living Cosmos. I do this not because someone forced me to, not because I've read it in the sacred books, not because I think it's 'right' and everyone should do the same, but because this is what I Love and what I would Love to experience". Now the last part is the most troublesome for most people. We are so used to have definition of what is right and wrong. This is what we do in science too - we try to extract from experiment the rules that tell us how we should live. But in the final run, everyone does what he wants. By freedom we understand that one has to continuously 'clear the view'. Then, if we thus discover an Ideal that stands even higher than our present one, we go after it. We are not free if we have only one choice, as domino pieces in chain reaction. We are not free if we feel the Laws of God as something that we should obey, without understanding why. We are not free if we think that our High Ideal, no matter how beneficial for the whole Cosmos, is somewhere decreed as 'right' and we have the right to force others to accept it.

So I hope that we have now reached common understanding of what it means to reach adulthood. It is not about getting over with the reckless behavior and accepting the ground rules of society, religion, etc. This is also necessary for most but it is still a kind of obedience. This is not an adult but a teenager in straightjacket. He conforms not because he has overcome his desires but because he has accepted the rules. There is a simple test that all of us can make in relation to any desire. When I feel desire for something I can ask myself "do I restrain myself because it will violate the rules of society and religion? In other words, if these rules were not in place, would I joyfully go on to satisfy my desire?" This is a very simple criteria to see for ourselves the true origins of our behavior. We are free only when we have attained to the spiritual height where we can experience the rules as our own. Not because others told me to conform but because they are the natural expression of my Love for the High Ideal.


I would like to say something about the ethnosphere. I agree that we shouldn't interfere with it. We should not deforest the native lands, nor force our language on anyone.

How do we know about these tribes, these cultures? Where did the camera which Davis uses to photograph come from? Where did the airplane with which he travels the world far and wide came from? Where did the printing press for NG and the Internet come from?
I assume that you are now ready to unleash the Divine wrath on me for speaking like that No, I'm not advocating technocracy. I have something completely different in mind.

The question of the races is painful. Let's use the word civilizations instead because in our age it is no longer the case that the white civilization consists of humans of only Caucasian genotypes. Members of all genetic races participate in the Western civilization, so we can't judge by skin color. Furthermore, even the West is no longer only in the west but it is in every country all over the world.

The point is that you, Lou, are in privileged position. And I put the most selfless, loving and humble meaning in that term. I'm not at all speaking of some selfish supremacy here! Think of it in this way. Let's forget technology and races. Now you are in position where you survey the astonishing diversity of cultures and you can say "Look at this astonishing diversity! This marvelous work of the Spirit, expressing itself in the most manifold ways. Developing the most varied practices, rituals, lifestyles so that the Spirit locked into the human bodies can reconnect with Itself." But you can only say that because you, yourself, has gone through all these forms in different incarnations. (speaking only figuratively here) You have experienced what it is to be an Inuit struggling with the frost. You know what it is to be a Native American thankful to the Great Spirit for the game. You know what it is to be a Zulu dancing in a trance state. All this your Spirit knows. You are now standing above it and saying "I can see the same Spirit everywhere - the same Spirit that thinks in me". You are not locked in any one tribal form, their deities, their rituals. You can dip in and out any of them. You are free. You have found in yourself the human universal.

Now we need to appreciate this deeply. You, Lou, have grown beyond the individual tribal forms of consciousness. That's why you have incarnated where you have. Don't believe me? OK. Imagine that you take few of these tribes and put them in the same sandbox. Are you sure they'll get along easily? Who is going to sacrifice their own rituals and practices in exchange for the ones of the alien tribe? You see, these people identify with their culture. And I'm not saying this as judgment or as if it is a bad thing! Not at all! I'm just pointing out that you are in a different position. Different not in some egoistical, supremacist way - exactly the opposite. You have learned through experience to recognize what is the essential in the human being - the Spirit. You can see the Spirit everywhere. But will the Zulu voodoo people see the same Spirit in the Kogi? It's not that certain.

Think again. Now, from your perspective, would you like to lose all your understandings and live a life as an Inuit? Without being aware that there are other cultures around the globe, focused on your survival. What would your soul gain that it doesn't already know? If we mediate deeply on these things we reach the understanding - this is exactly the grandeur of evolution, of development! We can appreciate the beauty and magnificence of the diverse forms, only when we ourselves leave them and are able to behold them. As long as our Spirit is locked into one such form we are not conscious of any of this! Our form completely formats our conscious experience - our traditions, religion, lifestyle - all of these are the clothes of the Cosmic Spirit through which the experience of the big Me is being filtered. And now we also understand that our current form, even though we are in a higher position and able to behold the many other forms that our Spirit could take, is yet another form. And in this way, we can point our gaze prophetically into the future and see that at some point our Spirit will be looking back on our current state and see how we have been (we are now) locked into a certain culture, with certain understandings and beliefs.

This is the point where man can begin to work consciously on his evolution. And here's why we need Spiritual Science. Consider this: what I have above described could have been seen as highly egoistical by you and other readers. To claim that one rises to higher stages of development? What an arrogance! But this becomes arrogant only when we don't understand our spiritual structure. It is widely considered today, that one, even though being compassionate for others, in the final run works for his own salvation from samsara, expecting to become free of suffering and pain - by leaving the suffering humanity behind. Spiritual perception reveals that this does not stand up to the facts. One can not at all extricate himself from planetary and Solar evolution. What about Gautama Buddha? Allegedly he did it! And that's true. Bodhisattvas really reach the point of last incarnation when they become Buddhas. But Spiritual cognition shows that Gautama Buddha has not at all left the arena of our world. In fact he works with even greater intensity on the human souls. Buddha did not at all disappeared in Nirvana. He doesn't incarnate because he is much more useful for the evolution of humanity by working directly in the souls of men, producing powerful inspirations in them. He can achieve much less if he incarnates into a body. This was only as a side note, food for thought. The real illusion is that man has destiny separate from that of all humanity. Instead, when man liquidates with his own Karma, he takes on the Karma of all humanity and continues working for the whole. This might sound as shocking but one must simply be observant and ask himself "What is it in me that rebels if this is really the truth?" One can learn a lot about himself through such a simple question.

We have to come to clear conception of reality. And this is possible only through direct, spiritual perception. Then we immediately see how this spiritual knowledge in itself becomes a powerful impulse for our moral life. When we have experienced one such idea and have made it flesh of our flesh, an idea such as the preservation of the ethnosphere, shines within us as a direct consequence of our higher understanding. We don't want to preserve the ethnosphere because of some half-understood, vague feeling of pity for the defenseless tribes, but because our Highest Ideal, our Love passes through that sphere. We would never be what we are without this sphere. And now that we have elevated ourselves to perceive it, we immediately become responsible for it. We love all people with all our strength because we feel Cosmic Bliss by giving our life in service to all. Just as the big Me gives His life so that we can have it.

This is the chilling (for some) fact of Spiritual evolution. One does not simply move to higher and higher forms while leaving everything behind. As soon as one leaves given form he becomes responsible for it, just as adults are responsible for their children. Not only that we don't escape the Solar system through our egoistic striving for liberation from samsara but every step in that direction should make us more and more involved in the Great Work that is being done. So far Beings higher than us have been carrying this Work. As we grow and mature, we don't go to satisfy our "higher" egoistical desires but begin to participate consciously and in freedom, out of Love, in the Work on the Cosmic Edifice.