Submitted by Kristina Kaine on Fri, 06/22/2007 - 5:30pm.
Taking the Middle Path
“If on the sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” John 7:23-24
Rev Mario Schoenmaker spoke very powerfully in 1988 about Judgment when he said that the presence (parousia) of Christ will be accompanied by crisis:
“The word judgment in the Greek is krisis, it means that the parousia will produce a krisis. Read Matthew 11:22,24; 2 Thessalonians 1:5; Revelation 14:7. You can say, and truly so, that a crisis is a judgment.” 12.4.1988
We live now with the presence of Christ and this world is certainly in crisis. The crisis is the turning point, for better or worse. Right Judgment is the balancing that must occur if we are to become Christed – when the parousia comes to life in us. So shouldn’t we therefore embrace crisis? Or do we pray: Dear God, please keep crisis away from me, please give me a peaceful life?
Thessalonians is very descriptive:
This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be made worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering-- since indeed God deems it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant rest with us to you who are afflicted, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,2Th:5-7The only way we can withstand the crisis and the affliction is to strengthen our connection with our I AM and to become conscious of the presence of Christ. These are prerequisites to remaining calm in crisis.
Rev Mario also said that we can say that Christ loves us, but he warned that sometimes it is a rejecting love. What do we do to earn Christ’s love? Not by saying simply saying that he loves us. We have to work at it, to continually strive to balance the scales. Through Right Judgment we can enter into Christ’s accepting love.
Our judging must always be tested to see if it is the Right Judgment. Remember how Christ kept asking Peter if he loved him in John 21? Peter got really annoyed, he didn’t see the clue. It wasn’t the ‘yes’ Jesus was after but the work of loving, the deed.
Right Judgment does contain an aspect of all the steps on the Eightfold Path. We shouldn’t speak or act or think without the Right Understanding or the Right Judgment.
At the time of Buddha the path to enlightenment was marked by the aesthetic life. You can’t get into much trouble gazing at your naval all day. Buddha could see that if we engaged with the world we would “set in motion the wheel of the law.” This means invoking karma and in so doing we meet the resistance required to propel us into the spiritual worlds. That was not the task for Buddha’s time, that is the task for now.
On the foundation of the Eightfold Path that lives within our being from past lives we can work with the wheel of the law consciously, through our own volition. We set the pendulum swinging and we allow the pendulum to swing widely enough so that we can visit the extremes; but through Right Judgment we take the middle path. For example, we experience the anger but we don’t express it. We feel pain but we don’t scream. We show our tears to God and our smile to the world as Buddha did.
So we really need to get our hands dirty in life, not shrink back and escape the opportunities presented to us. The days of cloisters or temples are gone; life is now the initiation temple. When we engage fully in the crises that life presents we strengthen our spiritual muscles. Then we are able to generate within ourselves the greatest of all expressions; love and forgiveness.
Right Judgment can also be called Right Intention. It requires our will. Right Understanding is about wisdom, cognition; Right Judgment is about our intention, and our commitment to higher values, to ethical and mental improvement.
Buddha distinguishes three types of right intention: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
Thoughtfulness is the hallmark of Right Judgment. In Right Judgment we stop and think; everything we do is intentional. We can enter a crisis and not lose ourselves in the swirling emotion, but calmly deal with the experience. Not withdrawing, nor forcing our way through, but exercising love and forgiveness; these are the gifts of The Christed One.
I am growing to deeply
I am growing to deeply appreciate these contributions. I find myself saving them until the right moment. Again, this talks directly to my lived experience in the here and now.
There has recently been the most passionate call to action of Anthroposophists posted on this site. For some reason I connect Kristina's contributions with this call. Somehow she is helping us to find our path.
Thank you,
S.
POF/Gospel of John
Indeed - I second that - this post is most helpful,well thought out and well written...
I especially like the idea of connecting with our I Am and becoming conscious of the presence of Christ as a means for dealing with crisis...which we all experience everyday to some extent, whether we acknowledge it or not.
I am curious as to how Kristina suggests to experience the presence of Christ...
I find that (following Joel's suggestions from his website) meditating on a section of POF, followed by a slow meditative reading of a passage from the gospel of John to be helpful.
Just wondering what meditations/exercises you use, Kristina
thanks
J
St. John
Hello all - If I may place writings here from Jan van Ruysbroek, the Flemish Christian mystic, in appreciation of Kristina's writings and to everyone here best regards. Caryn.
The Father dwells in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and all creatures dwell in Both. And this eternal life and being, which we have and are in the eternal Wisdom of God, is like unto God. For it has an eternal immanence in the Divine Essence, without distinction; and through the birth of the Son it has an eternal outflowing in a distinction and otherness, according to the Eternal Idea.
For we know well that the bosom of the Father is our ground and origin, in which we begin our being and life. And from our proper ground, that is from the Father and from all that lives in Him there shines forth an eternal brightness, that is, in the Son, the Father knows himself and all that lives in Him; for all that He has, and all that He is, He gives to the Son save only the property of Fatherhood, which abides in Himself.
And this is why all that lives in the Father, unmanifested in the unity, is also in the Son actively poured forth into manifestation; and the simple ground of our waylessness, but the brightness without limit which streams forth from it, this reveals and brings forth with the Conditioned the hiddeness of God.
And all those men who are raised up above their created being into God-seeing life are one with this Divine brightness.
*
Taking the middle path response
Kristina,
From this recent writing a few comments:
-"We experience the anger but we don’t express it."- The anger we experience should not just be ignored, perhaps we do not express it in a negative retaliatory way, but we can use the anger in a positive way to better understand ourselves, to better understand the other. Keeping anger inside without any understanding only causes illness. Should not one try and bring some light to one's anger and release it with understanding through art, through work in service with others, or through inner work bringing understanding to what we are experiencing.
-"We feel pain but we don't scream."- What exactly does that mean? If you are a human being and suffering great pain, the scream is a natural release.
-"We show our tears to God and our smile to the world as Buddha did."- Did not Buddha accomplish redemption for his karma through love? If God knows our inner heart, is there truth in a smile to the world that hides tears?
I enjoy reading your journals, wakes up the imaginative forces.
Cheers,
patri
Buddha & The Christ
Hi, Rudolf Steiner spoke about this on the 20th June 1912 -
Earthly and Cosmic Man
20th June 1912
We must reach the vantage-point of the true Buddhist who says that the Individuality in the Buddha was that of a “Bodhisattva” who was born as the son of King Suddhodana, rose in his twenty-ninth year to the rank of Buddha, thereby attaining a height whence he need no longer return to a body of flesh. That, therefore, was the final incarnation of the Bodhisattva Individuality who does not reincarnate in the era following the founding of Christianity.
Contemplating the Buddha we see a very special mission in the universe devolves upon an Individuality as sublime as the Buddha. The Individuality who became the Buddha had been sent from the hosts of Christ on the Sun to the 'Venus men' before they came to the Earth; the Individuality of the Buddha, therefore, had been sent forth by Christ from the Sun to Venus, as His emissary. This Individuality came to the Earth with the Venus men and had thus reached such an advanced stage of development that through the Atlantean, on into the Post-Atlantean era, he was able to attain to the rank of Buddhahood before the coming of Christ. He was in very truth a Christian before the time of Christ. We know, too, that later on he revealed himself in the astral body of the Jesus-Child of St. Luke's Gospel — since he need no longer return in a body of flesh. United as he is with the Christ Stream.
Thank you all for these
Thank you all for these thoughtful responses.
I learned to experience Christ through my thinking. I think about an image of Christ, and as my teacher said, Christ will inhabit that image. I also imagine him speaking to me, for instance, if I need to be peaceful I hear him say to me, "Peace be with you." It is a fruitful exercise to imagine Jesus is speaking to us when ever we read his words in the bible, especially the Gospel of St John. For me also, the slow meditative reading of Steiner's words assist me to experience my I AM so that I am better prepared to be a vessel for the living Christ Impulse.
Patri, bearing our pain silently is very important - Steiner speaks of it often. Jesus is the supreme example of this - have you ever hit your finger with a hammer? Imagine having nails hammered into your hands and feet!
"And all those men who are raised up above their created being into God-seeing life are one with this Divine brightness." - thanks for that powerful quote Caryn.
K
Great stuff
Thanks for the reply Kristina, the quote is wonderful isn't! As your writings are too - I agree whole heartily; I find meditative reading very inspiring - it is almost as if the words come alive in a transcended sort of way!
Love
Caryn