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In each of the four sacred Festivals celestial Beings flood earth's ethers with divine radiance, and at these holy times Compassionate Ones come into physical incarnation to guide mankind to the Temple Sanctuaries of Cosmic Light.
We have said that the commemoration of the equinoctial and solstitial Festivals originated in the beginnings of the human race. Thus we note that Rama of India, one of the first Avatar messengers to come to mankind, received his illumination on the night of the Winter Solstice; and through its power he healed all who came to him. He also created sacred ceremonials to commemorate this hallowed time which he called "Holy Night". The date of Rama's incarnation is lost in the mist of civilization's dawning, but his work is not and never will be lost.
The Winter Solstice was observed in Rome as the Feast of Saturnalia, with a mystic marriage dramatizing the marriage of Cyrbele (earth) and Attis (the Sun). The ceremonial emergence of the two principals from the bridal chamber represented the new birth (Initiation) of the mystae from the cave sanctuary of the Mother Goddess; it took place amid the rejoicings of Friends and Companions, those who had passed through a similar experience.
In Egypt the Winter Solstice was celebrated with stately ceremonials and vivid pageantry, elaborate homage being rendered to the divine Mother Isis and her newrborn son Horus. The mystae emerged from the inner shrine chanting: "The Virgin has brought forth. The Light is waxing."
Holy Night in Greece was greeted by songs in the key of Capricorn to the accompaniment of a flute. When the cock crowed, Neophytes descended with lighted torches to an underground chapel and paid reverence to the image of a Babe who bore on brow, hands, knees and feet a shining cross of gold. Seven times the Babe was carried in a processional around the Inner Temple, then back to its underground sanctuary while the chorus chanted: "At this hour today Kore (the virgin) bore Aeon" (the new age or year).
Hippolytus rightly states that the celebration of the Nativity at the Winter Solstice was based on "the plan of the ages".
While the Rite belongs to time immemorial, the Feast at Christ mastide had its earliest observance at the beginning of post-Atlantean civilization. The prototype of our Christmas tree was a "celestial Sun tree". It was in the rarified atmosphere of Aryana that the Sun first rose clear, and man at that time was still able to perceive its correlative spiritual aspect in the shafts of spiritual light with which transcendant Ones were suffusing the earth. People likened these shafts of light to a mighty tree with outspreading branches. There is still a tradition in India — the pioneers of India were the first race of the post-Atlantean Epoch — that in the "center of the earth stands the tree of the Sun, which at sunrise shoots forth from the earth: as the Sun ascends towards the zenith it grows up into the air until its topmost branches reach the Sun when at noonday he stands high in the heavens: and diminishes with declining day till at the set of the Sun it sinks back into the earth." In some form or other, legends of such a World Tree are to be found in almost every country, and its origin is always to be traced to this mystic Light Tree.
It was consistent with the "plan of the ages" that the Christ Mass be celebrated on the holy night of the Winter Solstice, when Jesus, the Lord of Love, descended to earth to bring to man the new Christ Mystery wherein he is shown how to develop within himself this living Tree of Life: shown also how to impress upon his body, through love and service, the golden symbols of the Grecian Babe.
It was of this same mystery that St. Paul spoke when he said, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Paul was not referring to bruises and stripes inflicted upon his physical body by his persecutors, as our orthodox friends interpret his words to mean: he was referring rather to the marks, or signs, of the Tree of Light and its starry ornaments, lighted within his aura by the Risen Christ whom he met on the way to Damascus. It was this light body or Star Body which he later described as the body celestial: and it is always this Star Body or celestial body which bears the marks of the Christ, sometimes superimposing them upon the terrestrial body in a stigmatization visible to all.
Paracelsus states that every constellation of the heavens is within man. "The Sun is in the heart," he writes, " (and the) other planets of the solar system are within the brain."
On Holy Night when the Temple doors are open and altar lights agleam; when the hymn of Capricorn is heard amid the chime of Christmas bells ringing from the depths of space, the Neophyte who is esteemed "worthy and well qualified" by reason of the Christ Birth within himself learns the true meaning of the Christ Mass, the Feast of the Interior Light.
Powerful streamers of spiritual force play through the earth from Holy Night until the twelfth night thereafter, and many and wondrous are the inner plane activities during this interval. In early centuries of the Christian era, the Church concluded its esoteric midwinter observances on this mystic Twelfth Night with the Rite of Baptism, one of its most exalted Initiations. Modern Neophytes who have earned illumination know that during this sacred interval it is possible to enter into intimate communion with divine Beings.
Both before and since the coming of Christ the profound oc cult significance of the Winter Solstice has been expressed in the great literature of the world. We call to mind particularly Shakes peare's beautiful lines in Hamlet:
For the Neophyte who approaches the holy Rite of the Winter Solstice with dedicated mind and heart, December is a joyous month from first to last. Its happiness and gaiety are a reflection of the immeasureable joy of the inner planes, an intense spiritual bliss which is truly angelic.
As the autumn season was a time of Preparation, the winter solstitial season is a time of Dedication. If the preparatory work has been well done a new life begins for the Neophyte with the birth of the Christ Child within himself. Though the path of Preparation entailed repeated renunciations, the period of Dedication brings full compensation. Each vice uprooted makes way for an implanted virtue, and each sensual pleasure outgrown is replaced by a spiritual bliss.
When the false personality is renounced the Christ Self is born within. After this experience, whereby the Neophyte knows himself to be a true Child of God, he will never again be without the guidance of the inner light. The memory of the Rite by which this birth took place in his consciousness while in the Temple of the Mysteries will remain with him always: for within himself has been erected an altar of silence and inspiration which no cloud can darken, no storm ravage or despoil.
The birth of the Christ Self is accompanied by the songs of Angels, whose jubilant chorusing harmonizes with the soul song of the white-robed one who has thus attained. Light and color make luminous the Temple dome as the music swells during the Christmas night ritual. Truly a Feast of Lights, for the Christ Child can be born only where light shines in darkness.
Since every man is a Christ in the making, everyone is des tined to live through experiences similar to those of Jesus of Naz areth as recorded in the Gospels. Each event of Jesus' life fore shadows events in the career of every human being ,.,ho seeks the development of a Christed consciousness. This does not mean that the mortal career of Jesus will be repeated in exact detail: but it does mean that every man will undergo experiences which corres pond, in terms of his own consciousness, to those of Jesus. The Christ story related in the Gospels has its perfect corollary in the lives of illumined men and women everywhere. Both the Immaculate Conception and the Holy Birth will be demonstrated by each artd all. The Master Jesus is the supreme Way-Shower, and what he did may be accomplished by anyone in the course of time and under spiritual law.
The primary purpose of the New Age Bible Interpretation is so to clarify this truth that whoever reads the sacred text will be brought into closer and more intimate relationship with those three great Initiates, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and by association grow into their likeness.
Bethlehem, City of the Beloved, is the house of God's bread, the manna which comes down from heaven to sustain man's soul. It is also the house where the sacred fire is kept. Symbolically, this means that only after the temple we call man's body has undergone certain preparation can the Christ Consciousness be born within it.
The birth must always occur in a Manger where beasts feed (lower sense life). because there is no room in the Inn (head, or intellect). The race as a whole is still far from possessing that Christ ed mind wherein dwells the spirit of unity by which men seek the good of others as being their own. Those having that mind are so sensitively aware of their unity with all men that they suffer with the suffering of their brothers, even as they rejoice in their joy. Their most severe condemnation of others may be summed up in the words of the Christ: Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.
The Three Wise Men who followed the Christ Star and came to worship the Babe represent for the Neophyte the threefold dedication of body, mind and spirit to the holy Quest, as signified in the gifts they gave to him. At this place the Star typifies the light within the heart of the devotee. Not all Neophytes are at the same stage of development, yet all who are worthy are admitted to the Rite on Holy Night, when the earth is a Temple of Light. There are various steps or stations in the Rite, correlating to the spiritual unfoldment of the Neophytes. Some begin the journey from Jerusalem and travel toward Bethlehem; others go no farther than the Inn; still others come to the Manger where the beasts have been displaced to make room for the Holy Child. Only the very wise have achieved the Star which leads into the presence of the Child and enables them to salute Him as the Light of the World.
To enter into the glories of the Nativity Rite a Neophyte must have freed himself from every thought of separateness. He can harbor no feeling of unkindness toward others. The sweet breath of forgiveness must sweep his heart clean even of the memories of injustices done him, of unfair dealings whereby he has been victim ized. Both petty resentments and great wrongs must be not only forgiven but- forgotten. Were they not expelled from consciousness, their shadow falling over the Sanctuary on Holy Night would veil from him the Mysteries celebrated there.
Reverently meditating upon these sacred events we realize anew how literally true are the poet's inspired words:
— Corinne Heline
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