 At the turning point of time The cosmic spirit-light stepped Into earthly evolution; Night darkness Had ended its reign; The bright light of day Streamed into human souls; Light That warms The poor shepherd hearts Light That enlightens The wise kings’ heads. |
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Light divine, Sun of Christ, Warm Our hearts — Enlighten Our heads,
So that good results From what Our hearts beget, What we By thinking Forcefully will to do.
Foundation Stone Meditation, Rudolf Steiner |
‘Near, yet far, he spies another
In the spiral trap of Hera,
Milky star-way, whereupon is
Resting Perseus. Calls Orion:
‘”I have a plan to rout Olympus,
Woo the nymphs and plunder treasure,
Somehow try to storm Zakynthos,
Free the slaves and take my measure.”
‘“Maybe you – and then your brother –
Have some cause to join up forces?
Unified, we’d hold the weather,
This would bring immortals chaos?”
‘Half a sound is made by Perseus –
Just a calm, sub-sonic murmur –
Tone of one who’s done his duty:
‘Starman, you’re a cosmic learner’.
‘Peace is what we need in heaven –
This is all the wise are teaching –
Why not heed the words the water
Gave; why raise the fires against it?
Still the starman shuns his prison,
Rues the day his will was rendered
Helpless, though the sun has risen.
Never shall his soul surrender.
‘When his memory serves him rightly,
Thoth the ancient speaks: “Osiris!
Fare thee well? The bits and pieces
Are as one; she loves thee, Isis.
How might I now be of service?”
Asks the one with dispensation.
“I could write it as I heard it,
So to speak, unite the nations?”
‘Lord Osiris, King of Egypt,
Smiles at this and kisses Isis.
‘See, my love, he’ll keep the remit,
Make our endless story timeless!’
‘‘Thoth, now, phrase the hidden secrets –
Thoth the priest, the Master builder –
Write the way.’ The sun-mind keeper,
Brings to light what Earth held deeper.
‘‘One as three, my eye is opened;
One in mind. The light of living
Looks more lovely now, than ever.
Solomon is wise and giving.
‘‘As we break the day with sun shine,
Let the past be past, Apollo.
Warm the seed of this: The grapevine;
Let the bread of life be swallowed.
Beyond the three types of memory – mechanical, logical and moral – there is still the kind of memory that we have designated as “vertical or revelatory memory.”
It is not a memory of the past in the sense of the horizontal line: today, yesterday, the day before, etc, but rather in the sense of the vertical line: here, higher, still higher, etc. It is a “memory” which does not link the present to the past on the plane of physical, psychic and intellectual life, but which links the plane of ordinary consciousness to planes or states of consciousness higher than ordinary consciousness.
It is the faculty of the “lower self” to reproduce the experience and knowledge of the “higher self” or, if you like, the faculty of the “higher self” to imprint its experience and knowledge upon the consciousenss of the “lower self”. It is the link between the “higher eye” and the “lower eye”, which renders us authentically religious and wise, and immune to the assaults of sceptism, materialism and determinism.
It is this also which is the source of certainty not only of God and the spiritual world with its hierarchical entities but also of the immortality of our being and reincarnation, wherever it is a matter of reincarnation. “Dawn is the friend of the muses” and similar popular proverbs, such as “the morning hour has gold in its mouth” or “morning is wiser than the evening”, relate to the benefits of vertical memory from which one benefits in the morning, after the return of consciousness from the plane of “natural ecstasy” or sleep.
Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XIII, Death
Truly, our life is guided – from the other side of it, so to speak – with a far greater wisdom than is ours in guiding it from this side. Often in later life we meet a human being who becomes of extreme importance in our life. When we think back: How did we live until the moment when we met him?
Then our entire life seems like the very pathway to the meeting. It is as though we had tended every step, that we might find him at the right moment – or that we might find him at all, at a certain moment.
We need only ponder the following: Think, my dear friends, what it signifies for fully conscious human reflection. Think of what it means to find another human being in a given year of life, thenceforth to experience, work or achieve – whatever it may be – in common with him.
Think what it means, what emerges as the impulse that led up to it, when we reflect on this quite consciously. When we begin to think: How did it happen that we met him? It will probably occur to us that we first had to experience an event with which many other people were connected, for otherwise the opportunity would not have arisen for us to meet him in this life. And, that this event might happen, we had to undergo still another event….and so on.
We find ourselves in the midst of the most complex chain of circumstances, all of which had to occur, into all which we had to enter, so as to reach this or that decisive experience. And now we may perhaps reflect: If the task had been set us – I will not say at the age of one, but let us say at the age of fourteen – to solve the riddle consciously: to bring about in our fiftieth year a decisive meeting with another human being; if we imagine that we had to solve it consciously, like a mathematical puzzle – think what it would involve!
Consciously, we human beings are so appallingly stupid, whereas what happens with us in the world is so infinitely wise, when we take into account such things as these. When we begin to think along these lines, we become aware of the immense intricacy and deep significance in the workings of our destiny or karma. And this all goes on in the domain of the human kingdom. All that thus happens to us is deep in the unconscious life. Until the moment when a decisive event approaches us it lies in the unconscious.
Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Esoteric Studies, Vol. 1