Shame

Read John 13:1-15 When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. John13:12-15

Christ Jesus is our model of perfection. We are not fully human until we can be like him. Our purpose is to dedicate our life to this goal. The Christ Impulse is the real air that we must breathe. We must feel ourselves held underwater, unable to breathe, until we gasp for the Christ Impulse.
We cannot be satisfied with our own achievements, our own effort, unless we “do all things in him who strengthens us” (Php 4:13). Our soul is the battleground where Christ and the Archangel Michael meet the forces of resistance. These adverse forces do not want us to be like the washer of the feet. They whisper to us that we are destined for greater things than that. They give us all the excuses we need to justify our behaviour. They puff us up and make us proud of all our achievements.
In our effort to purify our soul, we must be able to recognise that all our efforts fall short. The teacher, by washing our feet, gives us the example. No matter how hard we try there will always be room for improvement; Right Effort recognises this and is not defeated by it. When we are truly able to see our efforts in the light of spiritual perfection we will blush, we will experience deep shame. While Adam and Eve were still in paradise, at one with perfection, they were not ashamed: “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.” Gen 1:25
Because we left paradise we were given the experience of shame to remind us to go home. How many people think that spiritual achievements are met with an experience of joy? Far from it, the deeper our spiritual experience the more we recognise how far we are from perfection. Then we will be ashamed of both our achievements and our failures, for both of these falls short of perfection. It follows that our ability to feel shame is directly related to our experience of the Christ Impulse within us.
This experience of shame literally rings a bell in the spiritual worlds. The heavenly hosts were alerted to this signal in the Garden of Eden. Now, when we feel shame, they draw close because they know that through our own effort we are returning home. While we do not feel shame they stand back waiting for us to make the Right Effort.
Right Effort then becomes the path of balance where we purify ourselves. This purification of the soul is the weaving of the wedding garment which the soul must wear for her marriage to the higher self.
In the foot washing scene Christ demonstrates the humility that we must mimic if we are to follow him. He is pointing to the intense shame that we must feel for our own imperfections. If we make mistakes, if we offend others, if we don’t wash the feet of our fellow travellers, we must experience the shame. Our instincts, our ego, will have us withdraw from feeling the shame.
Therefore we need to meet this shame with courage. We cannot be defeated by our imperfections; we must draw on the strength of Christ to endure the real experience of shame. Right Effort means that we do not withdraw from the imperfections of our soul; that we persevere by remembering the example of the foot washing.
In verse 8 we get a sense of the agony of shame when Peter says: “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.”
The trouble is that the experience of shame is like a burning fire – this fire is revealed when we blush. The flush of shame is caused by the blood surging to the surface. Blood, the vehicle of the “I”, points to the fact that shame is the signal from our “I” calling us to perfection.
If we are to work with our “I” then we must be resigned to bear pain and suffering. The searing pain of shame will be a sign that we have achieved the foot washing humility that Christ said we must experience; otherwise we have no part in him.
Some of these ideas can be found in Macrocosm and Microcosm, Lecture 3 by Rudolf Steiner.