The Life, feeling and the Holy Spirit

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.” John14:6f

We have reached the third prong of this I AM saying; I am the life. There are several words for “life” in the Greek language; this one is zoe. It means the living being, the life force. We would call this force the etheric, yet it is more than etheric; it is our purified etheric which we can call Buddhi or Life Spirit. It is the I AM infused etheric force. This etheric is raised up and spiritualised so that it becomes a living force not bound to the physical. Such a living force overcomes death and the deadly ways of this world.

It is interesting to note that the word “life” is used in all the I AM sayings except the last one; but “I am the vine” speaks about the life source. The fourth I AM saying about the Good Shepherd who lays down his life uses a different word for ‘life’, Psuche which means soul. These are the ways John uses the word life:

1. the bread of life (zoe) 2. the light of life 3. I came that they may have life, 4. The good shepherd lays down his life (psuche) for the sheep. 5. I am the resurrection and the life 6. I am the way, the truth and the life 7. I am the true vine – (the vine is the life source)

Another word for life is pneuma and this word speaks of the Holy Spirit or the holy breath. Since we have been comparing the ‘way’ (Father - will) the ‘truth’ (Son - thinking) and the ‘life’ to the Trinity; the ‘life’ then is the Holy Spirit and feeling.

Now the Holy Spirit is the Counselor and John 14 tells us twice about the Counselor.

On verse 16 “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever”, and then 10 verses later – “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

As we contemplate these ideas we must be aware that we are death beings; the life of our physical body depends on destruction, we kill nature to nourish our body, we kill the oxygen that we breathe and so on. This life that consumes and depletes is “bios” and is related to our body, zoe is about the life of our spirit. Zoe is the life that does not experience death, it is eternal. The I AM is all about eternity. Eternity is not in the far distant future, eternity simply means not to have boundaries. It is the present free of the boundaries of the physical, sense world. That’s what “I am the life” says to us.

While we are trying to experience the reality of this eternity we have the counsellor “to be with you for ever.” And to “to teach you all things, including the things you have forgotten.”

What have we forgotten? The highest initiate who incarnates again as a tiny baby forgets everything. It is interesting to consider Steiner saying that the shepherds and the disciples were high initiates. However, because consciousness had evolved since they were initiates they had to start again. This is reminiscent of the temple steps. Each initiation at each stage of evolution is another step closer to the temple of God. The initiate is always at the forefront of evolution. Today we are no longer in the temple but in modern everyday life striving to evolve our consciousness to the highest possible state for our time. It wouldn’t be right to express the consciousness of another era today; that would be dragging the past into the present which always bears the stamp of Lucifer.

Rev Mario, in his discourses on the Gospel of St Mark, spoke about this also. He said that children often have a major illness around the turn of the seven year cycles. They may lose consciousness for about 3 days – like the temple sleep – in this way they re-experience something of their past initiations. It is as if they are catching up with themselves and can then further develop their consciousness in the current life.

Initiation is not such a mysterious process; it is the integration of our I AM. It means that we are able to pass through the door from earthly life to spiritual life. In the third I AM saying: I am the Door – Christ says, “I (the I AM) came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

These are great gifts that are placed within our reach. All we have to do is to see the giver as he stands before us in his etheric presence. He gave us the symbols of bread and wine so that we could experience the reality of his abundant life. Religious feelings are the greatest life-giver to the etheric body. When our consciousness awakens through the power of the I AM the elements of the communion take on new meaning. The bread becomes our brain and the wine becomes our heart; they become Christ’s substance and essence. Our task is to join the head and the heart; we place the bread in the wine within us so that the lower is conquered and raised up and we know and see the Father.