The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
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The Light in Every Thing
The Christed Ego in a Flood of Egotism - Episode 5 in the series "Facing Evil"
As the flood from the dragon’s mouth pours across the world, Patrick and Jonah explore how the Book of Revelation describes the protection of those who remain faithful: the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and a love stronger than self-preservation. Together they reflect on what these mean for our time—the torrent of egotism, the culture of self, and the call to keep the heart open even amid the onslaught. Drawing on the imagery of Michaelmas and the woman’s eagle’s wings, they ask how moral courage, humility, and sacrificial love can help the human being stay buoyant when the flood rises.
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
Good morning, Patrick.
SPEAKER_00:Morning, Jonah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's a beautiful fall morning here in Toronto.
SPEAKER_00:Same thing here. You can see I'm being illumined by the rising sun. Just in case anyone doesn't believe we're meeting in the morning when we say good morning. Right. Now they can see on YouTube the proof. Or just really good lighting.
SPEAKER_01:That's my case. I got the curtains closed in really good lighting.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, you are bright. You are a shining sun, brother. Welcome to everyone to our conversation here on the interwebs and the YouTubes. And wherever you might run across these words at some point in world history, we welcome you to the light in everything.
SPEAKER_01:Where two priests deepen our hearts in conversation and share it with you all about Christ and our life with him. And we'll begin, as we always do, with the Gospel of John in chapter eight. And I'm going to be reading this morning from the Jerusalem Bible translation. When Jesus spoke to his people again, he said, I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark. He will have the light of life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we are in the midst of a series that may go on forever. We'll have to see. Maybe we only do this series. It's so rich and full. But it's uh we're we're giving it the title Facing Evil. And we have begun a path that has taken us a little into some core scripture elements. Um, Jesus' temptation in the desert was a key that we looked at a little bit. We looked at the parable of the wheat and the tares. That's been something we've looked at. We've looked at uh last time in this uh season that we are currently in in the liturgical year, connected to Michael Mus, was also a good alignment to look at this chapter in the book of Revelation on uh chapter 12 that describes an extraordinary birth, a woman, a celestial woman clothed with the sun, the stars above her head, the moon under her feet, in the travails of labor, crying out, crying out in a in a painful process that is leading to a birth, but that there is a power, a seven-headed celestial enemy of this woman and this child, waiting to devour the birth of this hoped-for child, waiting to consume it for itself. And that at its birth, this son is born, destined to have a ruling force within it, with the iron, the power of iron. And it is whisked up to the highest heaven and thereby finds protection. And then we looked at these three different kinds of protections. Who is the child that is rescued up to the highest place, who is destined to rule, who's protected by going up to the throne of God? We looked at this woman who finds protection given to her by God in the desert and given these wings that we talked a little bit about last time. And then the dragon, after trying to get both of them and not succeeding, turns on all of the offspring or seed of the woman who are earthly children of this woman. They're on the earth where this dragon has been cast down. And that's kind of the picture, the last picture that's given. This group of human beings who hold to the law of God and the testimony or the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. They bind themselves to these two powerful things, the moral power, the moral guidance of the divine, and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So that's that mighty picture and that we looked at and from a number of different angles. And I just uh want to just check in with you first before we launch, maybe in some other directions today. Um uh what if there was something that remained with you that you wanted to still touch on or come back to.
SPEAKER_01:Just I I guess I was really also moved by, I think we talked about just this one aspect, and it's nothing that I think we need to dwell on necessarily, but I it came up in my heart when you asked that question. That when you saw the hyperlink of this journey of the woman to flee from the dragon, um, and the help she got was connected to the Exodus picture that you cited with with the whole dynamic of how the Lord helped Moses and helped them flee from the snake, snake-led Egyptian ruler. Um and then this picture that she's given wings, eagle's wings to fly, and and the connection of that, that symbol with moral qualities that come from, of course, witnessing Jesus or witnessing God, but like humility and perseverance and faithfulness to God and hope and love for his mission and all of these things that can be seen as kind of things that lift us up, like wings. I just thought that was an interesting moment in our last conversation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, what are those wings, right?
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I think that was really your guidance for us to look. Well, what is it that allows us to overcome the gravity of the earth in the in a inner in a spiritual or soul way? Yeah, these the moral virtues, yeah. We go in these.
SPEAKER_01:And maybe that's also interesting. Uh, our dear colleague and fellow director Emma Hermann in a class yesterday also pointed to, or on Tuesday pointed to the Michael, the Michaelmas epistle, or or the the liturgy for the festival of our time right now, where Michael II is is lifted up, so to speak. He's not bearing the weight of it all as he as he treads over the chains of the adversary. So there's another picture of this lifting quality that I can feel connected to virtues that we can bring into our hearts that help us lift in our battle with the adversary.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And that seems to match kind of this dynamic in the larger picture of the question of why, why, why are we facing evil and what is evil's role within the household of God's salvific plan and and and the human story? Um this dynamic between something that drags us down from our true potential and purpose, and this other element which would uh whisk us away in a false way, uh, and not have these three levels of our reality. This that all three, that the divine spiritual ruling power that is connected to us is kept protected in the heart of God on the one hand, the child, that the soul is protected, this divine soul, the celestial soul is protected by the earth in the desert realm, and that um the others who are attacked by the uh dragon, then, I believe I want to go back to that spot actually, because if what is their protection that's described actually in Revelation 12? I think there is something there, but I I want to be sure. Um so if we go to Revelation 12 towards the end. Yeah, yeah, so there I see it just says that he's going after them. So it's like it's left in the tension. What will be their protection at that point? He's going after them. And that transition to into chapter 13 then with the rise of the beast. So that that next great drama.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, if I can add something there, I it's also interesting just to in terms of the picture language, this um this kind of flood quality. Um he he he spews out like a river, it says in my translation. Yeah. Vomited water from his mouth like a river after the woman.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the dragon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right. So I mean it says the woman, but you can imagine that this is like a flood, almost i if it feels like it's similar um connecting to maybe a Noah-like flood, but this time from the dragon. Right. You and and I could I could just I could also imagine um in our time that we are also in a flood. But it's not with water, but that image still remains. It's with the internet and all of the just the whole screen internet sub-nature reality has flooded our flooded our consciousness.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So there's the there's a flood of technology, but it's like I want I wonder also if that's a little bit more connected to the beast, but that the dragon is and the beast are in league together, right? And and this is what I want to check in with you, because if what John is doing right, it seems, is taking figures that are from Genesis chapter three, we're introduced to the serpent. And it's a pretty mild figure. We don't hear about seven heads and the crowns, and we don't hear about him trying to devour anybody. He's just having a conversation. He's just talking with this woman in the garden, and he's looking at the trees, and he starts a little deception process and a manipulation of the younger, more naive being because he has this wisdom. He is the wisest or the most intelligent of all the beings, and it stirs to life something in her that wasn't there before. This desire to be like God and to have take something that isn't hers to enhance her own significance, right? And so that what it seems to me that he's saying is there's gonna be a time when that influence from the serpent is not like a little conversation, it's gonna be a flood of egotism.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Just like an absolute outpouring flood, and the earth's gonna be the one to suffer the effects of that flood.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense if you if you uh interpret it in in the terms of egotism. Um and it can also connect to the you could say the platform of of the of the internet world so far, if you look at all the main activity, the highest levels of activity are all to do with egotism, basically. And I'm not I'm not trying to, I mean, hopefully our listeners know us well enough that we're not trying to, we're not promoting being Luddites, or we're not like trying to say that therefore you have to get out of technology, actually, precisely the opposite, that this picture is saying everyone is destined to be flooded. And it's how do we then meet and battle these forces of egotism? How do we find the levity to counterbalance all of the influences that we must meet?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And and that and that brought me back as I looked a little earlier in the passage. There is the protection given to the ones who are on the earth who are going to have to face all of these things. It's mentioned earlier. So it's after the war in heaven, which we looked at. So this battle with uh that Mikael, that the leading spiritual power of the host of heaven, battles the dragon and his angels, casts them out, and then there's this kind of um celebration song of victory.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:In verse 10, then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God. So salvation, power, kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah, his Christ, his anointed one, have come. For the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down. So they're like, okay, but then we hear, but woe to the earth in verse 12, woe to the earth in the sea, because the devil has come down to you, right? So they're oh no, but it says in verse 11, so verse verse 10 and 11 there at the end, the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night, and they, so the the brut, so this is the offspring. This is the group of humans on the earth who have this relationship with the enthroned one in heaven and the woman who gives birth to both them and him. Beautiful. And it says, and they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, so they're bearing witness, and they did not love their life even when they faced with when faced with death. This is the protection.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And it makes so much sense if we really look into that protection, those three elements that you just that the gospel gave, those are the if you if you look at the shadow of those, those are egotistical impulses.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, Jonah, tell us about this. What are the three things again, and what are their egotistical counterparts?
SPEAKER_01:So the blood of the lamb, let's just name them if I if I remember them rightly. The blood of the lamb, witnessing to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:The word of their testimony, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:The word of their testimony. And what was the last one?
SPEAKER_00:And they did not love their life even when faced with death, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And they did not try to preserve their own self even when they're faced with the cross, with the death forces. Yeah, so I mean, if you flip that, I mean, the blood of the lamb is essentially the inner activity of the self to offer itself for the life of others as a as a as a healing activity. Um it's a it's agape force, it's loving sacrificial power. Um and to witness so the opposite of that sacrificial power is to not. And we'll see that later in the beast, in the image of the beast and the lamb. They're both receiving death wounds, but the lamb's opens up and bleeds out for the life of the world, and the beast closes up and says, I'm not gonna sacrifice for the life of the world. I'm not gonna bleed out. So the beast shows us a kind of egotistical gesture of nope, I'm just gonna get bigger armor and better guns. Um, and then the witnessing quality of that is the mind that is able to not just preserve, think it in preserving its own self, but loves and connects to Jesus' mind so much that it that it it lives on that beholding of him and thinking what he's thinking, like it says in our service.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry, go ahead. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, thus thinks in us, in our service. But you were gonna say something.
SPEAKER_00:Well, just I was just repeating in other words what I think I'm hearing you say that that there is a blood that is pulsing with egotism.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I hear you saying, and then there's the blood of the lamb. And it's a blood that is other-oriented. It it wants to actually be poured out as a gift for the life of another.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And then you're saying with the testimony, the word of their testimony is protecting them because the word which is connected to mind. So intelligence, attention, logic, logos, that they're that their minds are not oriented towards themselves because they're witness. That means your attention is some towards someone else. Your your mind is also other oriented. It too is is all is seeking always to reveal another, see another, articulate another, bear witness to another. That's super powerful.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, because it it connects to also some a word that Jesus says in the Gospels, I can't remember the exact place right now. You might. We only speak of what we know. We we only what we what we speak is connected to our mind. What we witness is connected to our mind.
SPEAKER_00:Gospel of John. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right?
SPEAKER_00:We speak of what we know.
SPEAKER_01:We speak of what we know. So there's there's a there's a very important in in witnessing and it's very important connection to the mind and to what we know. And so there's an egotism in the mind.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my lord, yes.
SPEAKER_01:That we have to overcome if we're going to be protected from the adversary.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, some people have been somewhat impressed or moved by our conversation process, you know, try to how we try to listen and speak to one another. And so what that means is I'm constantly over and over again being working to overcome my desire to quickly get it back to me so I can make my point. And to actually be like, no, just no way.
SPEAKER_01:My brother. Yeah. It's a skill and it's and it's part of the protection.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And the third, the third protection faced with their own mortal death. Someone is threatening to take your life, they did not love their life even when faced with death. And I just want to double check on the Greek word there. It's actually agape. Towards your own suche. Ah, there you go. Life. So this this deepest love that seeks union, seeks total union with the other, should not be towards my own sushi, even though it's exactly what gets the deepest egotism gets activated when someone threatens my life. Meaning self-preservation, the just the deep, like way down, so much so, like, even like the deepest materialists, when they try to explain the world with something as, you know, simplistic as a Darwinistic explanation of evolution, so that, well, we don't think there's any meaning in the world, except it seems very clear we cannot explain the story, that there is the desire inside of creatures to preserve themselves. They can't get away from that because you observe it, you see that cells and amoeba and animals are working to preserve and perpetuate their existence.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So you find a kind of will at the ground of reality that is self-oriented and self-desired, desirous of continuing in its existence. So so again, the blood of the lamb seems then to be so protective, it gets right down to that deepest layer of egotism. Even when you threaten to take my life, I will stay true to my witness. Yeah, and I will be oriented to the lamb.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. And I yeah, just to emphasize that, you could you could also know the blood of the lamb as a kind of inner psychological sacrifice, like we're doing right now, trying to hear one another, letting go of our maybe our points and hearing the other, trying to do that. That's a kind of working with the blood as well. But then it says, you know, didn't love your life. So it's really pointing to actual death, existential death. Yes, which which can be understood as a deeper, more serious, ultimate level.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Where even you're willing to die, and it I couldn't help it, and I know I've mentioned this before, but my kids have been so interested, and and therefore I've gotten interested in this in this movie, this K-pop demon hunters.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Where at the climax of the redemptive moment, one of the main characters shows this Christ impulse by sacrificing him his own life and existence for the redemption of the other main character. And that sacrifice actually gives redemptive power to her and the community that protects them from the evil one. So I mean, it's it's also interesting how these things live, even if they're I'm sure I imagine that the writers are not conscious of that connection to this archetype, but they might be.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, oh, the ones who wrote the K-pop demon hunting.
SPEAKER_01:Wrote the K-pop, but it nevertheless, if you have the eyes to see, of course, you can see it.
SPEAKER_00:Of course.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. That is the and it it's the it's the deepest lie of the enemy. To give us the impression that the preservation of our being will be achieved by hardening the and um trying not to die. Oh man. Right? It's like the deepest deception.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, okay. I think that's beautiful. It it's it it for some reason today it just deeply touches me. But let's also and I know we've talked about this before, let's also recog I mean that's I mean that's so amazingly challenging.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my lord, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Right? Because there there's such I mean we grow up trying to preserve ourselves on the playground, you know, defend ourselves. I mean there's so much force um connected to self-preservation.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And here the the incredible upside down, inside out reality is that the medicine and the weaponry and the protection is to trust and open yourself and let go of that self-protection and witness to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you can feel it's like, well, does that mean become I become some kind of mushy pushover that, you know, and I don't establish myself in a war as a warrior of strength. Let's say there are so some who would be feeling that that's a possibility. But then you realize actually to stand up and say, I'm with the Lamb in this world, and then to bear witness to that way of life and his calling means to call upon yourself at a greater degree. The forces that desire to destroy you and establish a different kingdom on this earth. And so to be to have them come at you and then to still say, No, I'm with the Lamb, this is the true nature of our humanity. The way you are proposing these things to human beings, as if they could satisfy all their desires as a self and be fulfilled, following, as we'll see, the beast and the whore of Babylon into ultimate pleasures and ultimate powers. That is the death of our soul. That is the ruin of our humanity. And to stand and say that and know, if I say that, that's my death sentence. That takes the highest level of courage because I can't control what you will do with me, but I can control who I stand with and die for and die with.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's that's that becomes the new power. And it's it's it's a it's not it's not weak at all.
SPEAKER_01:Not weak at all, but it can appear weak to a certain lens that we all carry. And it's the lens of the of the beast. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That that where might makes right and uh power traditional forms of power are so this is super powerful, these three, because it seems to me that one way you could read what this is showing is illumined when we take the spiritual anthropology of anthroposophy into account. And now I want to go to a next question with you on this. Right, right. Good. Because I think what you can see here is well, what does egotism look like in different parts of who I am?
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:You know, why have three things? Because it seems to me that there is an overcoming to do at different layers. The third layer seems obvious. We're talking about egotism that is actually in our body. There is a self-orientation to my body. By living in a physical body, I am here, I'm not you. I consume the world to sustain my body, and I think myself is my body. Yeah. Therefore, when someone goes to attack my body, I protect my body. And this is all good as an identification process with the body. But it's not saying that the body is my ego, but that the ego wraps itself up and integrates into the body. And so the body has egotism in it too, as well. So to overcome the level of egotism at the level of the body, which would lead to the resurrection, a new body that is freed of egotism, that is then to get to this place of they loved, they did not love their life even when faced with death. Love their life, meaning being self involved in utter self-love.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Even at the level of the body, they overcome egotism. And so it seems then the next layer up would be the life force in the human being. What in anthroposophy is called the etheric body, the life forces, and that's connected to thinking. Yeah. That's connected to the word that permeates everything, that shapes and forms things, the formative forces element, the mind and attention. Their witness is permeated by their minds, are now permeated by a selflessness oriented towards Christ.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I can also see that connected to the mind and the feeling and the willing, kind of like the soul realm.
SPEAKER_00:All three as a soul realm.
SPEAKER_01:Also all three as a soul realm, connected, of course, to the life, you know, the etheric, if we're using the words of the labels of anthroposophy. Um, and it's interesting in our service, as we learn to be able to really come into a real experience and witnessing and say in our in our mass and our consecration service that he's thinking in us, we first have to empty our mind, unite our feeling with him, not just have our own self-feeling, and turn our open willing to God. So that we also have this selfless kind of cathartic beginning that expresses overcoming of egoism.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and that for me would be the lamb level.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So the the lamb level for me is is the offering level that prepares the next layer in the service, for example, where we get into speaking about memory. We remember how he took the bread and the blood. We remember, and that's where we say we take this into our thinking, and we're in this incredible sunbright realm of the transfic uh transformation processes. Uh, this, this, this golden divine etheric, the living light, the I and the resurrection and the life, that his life, mind, spirit, which we've prepared because we went through the purification of our thinking, feeling, and willing in the lamb offering processes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And now we can right.
SPEAKER_00:And now we can receive that because we're prepared. Yes, because what what is it that makes the soul forces purified? They have to be an offering. They have to be an offering. They have to be an offering. When they're a gift, then they become purified.
SPEAKER_01:Makes it, yeah, totally. 100%.
SPEAKER_00:So that's one way I think we could see there, these are these three lower elements of ourselves, let's say, not yet actually our ego, our physical body, our life body, and our soul forces, all infected with egotism.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And who are the who are the seed of the woman who can overcome the the attack of the enemy? Those who can permeate all of their all of themselves with the selfless power of the Lamb in their soul, in their minds, even all the way to their bodies. But what about this ego? What about this ego? So this is where I want to turn to you to help us because I think there is so much confusion here. And I think there is so much confusion here, because this is the question we have to wrestle with right now.
SPEAKER_01:And you that's a good point, right? I like that because it honors that confusion. Yes. It's saying, actually, the confusion is is understandable and meant to be because that's the level where we're working right now.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We're trying to understand, wait a minute. And I think, I think it's good that you point that out, that it's um challenging because so many, so much of our of our c culture and anthrosophical world, and also in the world of the Christian community, usually pictures our ego as simply and merely a kind of divine spark. I'll put it that way.
SPEAKER_00:An emanation from the divinity. Yeah, just a little part of it.
SPEAKER_01:A little part of God. Yeah. And that is not just limited to our circles, anthroposophical circles.
SPEAKER_00:Not at all. I just watched Deepak Chopra this morning talking all about this other perspective. Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01:Right? It it has its roots in in ancient, ancient Vedantic uh Eastern mysteries. It has its roots in ancient history, because it's also in many ways true. The ego is a kind of emanation from God, from the divine, from the Elohim. And we have all received that.
SPEAKER_00:However, what can come to light if one's really careful with looking at anthroposophical Christology, anthroposophical um what would you call it, anatomy or um Yeah, this the spiritual anthropology of the human being that is illuminated and permeated by the light of Christ and anthrosophy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you if you're really careful with the study and not relying on assumptions from uh from various uh cultures, um you can you can see very clearly that Rudolf Steiner describes in Occult Science in World of the Senses, World of the Spirit, that the ego, this divine emanation, actually also is infected by the fall and the forces of the adversary. He even calls it an infection, like an illness. So every all three of all four of our members, not just the astral body, which is normally considered that which infects the ego, but all four of our members are kind of tinged with a sickness, an element um that one can find traces of in Genesis, and one can certainly find in the gospel itself in various various ways.
SPEAKER_00:Right. I mean, in the in in some ways, much of the salvific language that is saving how what needed to be saved.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_00:What is it that was at risk at being of being lost or you know, uh this is a multi-layered thing, of course, but it it most certainly is also the self of the human being. And that I think I'm hoping we can can dive deeper in this. So, Jonah, how in the world did this divine ego reality so so let's well let's take one second. So those those of our listeners and and watchers who go, well, now they're talking about Indian stuff. What does that have to do with the Bible or whatever? But there in the Bible also when we hear the mystery of God's name. What is God's name? God's name is connected to the secret of egohood. I am in chapter three of Genesis. This this mystery, not Genesis, sorry, Exodus, talking to Moses, the burning bush, this mystery of God's innermost nature. God, God is an God is the divine self. And so if you have a self, then there is an intimate relationship to the divine self. And there, of course, we're in the mystery of made in the image of God. There is, if that's true, then it's a complete image. God has utterly an utterly free self, an independent creator selfhood. No one is determining it except itself, God's self, self-determined. That's a that's a that's a divine idea. And then why would it ever come about that if there is something of that mystery spark in every human being, how that could ever be fall, or how how could something godlike fall? What happened? Right.
SPEAKER_01:So um so I mean, we we can start with since you brought up anthroposophical spiritual anthropology, we can start with how Rudolf Steiner describes that. And I think it's informative because it it it has a real strong descriptor of the sickness elements in the ego, and that is at the very first member of our being, and we have uh in this picture four members the physical body, the life body, the soul, thinking, feeling, willing, and the self. But he says before, before the before or or to begin the fall, the self was like a witness being. It perceived its thinking and feeling and willing and its body like an object in the room, like this lamp here, this, oh, my thought has arisen. And kind of like what much of psychotherapy tries to do with you when you're in psychotherapy, to try to just witness without reacting to whatever comes up in your soul and describe it. That's a way to kind of feel into what this original state of the eye was. It was a witness to its being. And Rudolph Steiner describes that Lucifer comes along and says he does it in a kind of humorous um play drama description. He says, Lucifer comes along and says, hey, human being, it's boring just hanging out and witnessing yourself all the time. It's too boring. I'm gonna give you two powers. I'm gonna give you two powers. One, you can so that you can dive into yourself and really experience a lot more. I'm gonna give you one power that's that helps you identify with your thinking, feeling, and willing. So we can see that very clearly. I can have the experience. I am angry or I am tired.
SPEAKER_00:This is my opinion.
SPEAKER_01:This is my thought. And if you attack my thought, you're attacking me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, you're attacking me.
SPEAKER_01:So I can be what we would call over-identified, overly bound up with something that's actually not originally meant to be me, but just a rising set of forces. Yeah, like I would look, oh, this lamp. Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Or the weather. Look at it. It's raining now. Oh, now isn't it right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Like um, you know, like a little baby, even with its body, will be startled with its if it hits its head, right? Because it's it hasn't yet identified this is me. It's like this, what is this weird thing that just hit me? So that that even in the normal biography of a human, that process of identity uh identifying with what is not you is a very important process. But that was given by Lucifer to the ego as a potential to prepare for the fall. And then he said, I'm gonna give you another thing, another power. And that is you won't drown in that, you won't lose yourself ever. I'm gonna give you egotism. So no matter how much you over-identify and kind of lose yourself in the what is not you, you'll always feel yourself. But you may, but you're gonna, it doesn't say you're gonna feel your authentic self. It just says you're always gonna feel self.
SPEAKER_00:You'll you'll have an impression of your selfhood.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So this this is the root of where we get the capacity to project ourselves onto everything. And even have the possibility of becoming uh someone who suffers with, you know, the world revolves around me. Everything is about me and refers to me, and it's all me. Or if you grew up with a parent who projected their own desires and wishes on you. That's another quality of that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um so I think it's I think it's very helpful when we're doing this spiritual spiritual anthropology to first start to think about these root illnesses that that you could say darken the emanation of the God spark. They separate it, they're they're they're still of the same nature, but they they twist it and darken it. It's it's kind of an interesting concept. We've got a piece of the divine, but it's become sick.
SPEAKER_00:So then is you could you could have the understanding maybe why the ancient practices included so many purification practices. So all of the ascetic practices, all of the uh uh the the deep uh work also in the moral realm, in the maturation realm, how can I extract myself from all of these entanglements and come to my pure self, which is from God, that that would be the path that I need to practice purification and increased awareness of my actual divine origin? And then I will be experiencing that I too am an avatar, as Shoka says. We are all actually uh God embodied in things. Yeah. Is that the full story from the Christed scripture anthropology or the the effect of the fall? We've just been dirtied and entangled, and we need a purification and a consciousness raising.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So that that would be very true if it was just about getting back to the original state. Okay, I've gotten tangled up, I just need to get back to this witnessing self. And and that's Deepak Chopra is uh follows that stream, e Kartole, where it's about disentangling and realizing I am God. I have I have that God.
SPEAKER_00:It's a knowledge event, it's a consciousness event. I just simply need to do the work to truly aware, become awake and aware in myself, I am the I am.
SPEAKER_01:I am the I am. So the very helpful thing about the mysteries that anthroposophy reveals, and I would even say also the book of Revelation reveals scripture and yeah, scripture fully reveals it, um, is connected to it's it's not the destiny of the human being to just go back to where we were. The destiny of the human being actually has a fuller destiny. So if I it's very helpful to learn to disentangle yourself and witness yourself. Um, like Eckhart Tole teaches, for example, it's very helpful to learn to overcome that over-identification force and that egotistical force and learn to come into a witnessing. But then it describes it's not just being a witness, it's being a witness of Jesus. So here's here's a new, here's another layer of of the ego, because we see here, and we talked about that, that the ego's full nature actually has been lifted up to the throne of God. In the Christian mysteries, the ego is not fulfilled just as a witness, just as a disentangled one. It actually has that as a as a process, but it also then the adversary is so great that Christ Jesus actually had to take our fullest self and bring it into himself. And we had to then were called to then become whole by witnessing and connecting and worshiping him. So in this picture, there's two stages of ego transformation. One that I learned to disentangle myself from the over-identification.
SPEAKER_00:Or to even maybe you could say, I wonder if you this is this is fair, and the Christian characterization, to witness that I am entangled. Also, right? Like to to just step to get to the point of being able to say, Oh, look at me entangled in all of this uh reality that has no true future.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. And Paul describes this in Romans as the the sin in my members.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, members. He uses that term.
SPEAKER_01:And he's witnessing it. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm full of sin in my members, and the ego is one of my members. And the and the posity path even goes so far as to have that be experienced as an encounter, and a picture being, a beastly being in you that is also your twisted up self. But that's not the end of the journey. But that's essential to even begin, you've got to recognize I'm entangled. Yeah. And then, however, the the the power of the witnessing self can't stop there and determine my witnessing self is God. Otherwise, I get into another problem where I block myself out from communion with something greater than myself. And this is the great problem with the conclusions of the path that Deepak Chopra, for example, is advocating, or Ekhart Tole, is that it's super helpful as a disentangling. But then if I stop there and say, I am God, I block myself from this further protection of witnessing to Jesus and filling myself with his blood.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you can feel if I if I disentangle and then am satisfied in myself, then I'm still in a kind of pure egotism. Yes, I need no one, I need to be in relationship with nothing, I am fulfilled in and of myself by myself. And so, and this gets also expressed, I think, as you know, and sometimes it's so subtle, right? Because this is the battle for the true nature of the ego that we're working on here. It's part of this mystery and a part of the dragon and the beast and this lamb. Why are we focusing on all of this? And what is this facing evil, if not this question of if we are to rescue the self and heal egotism all the way at its root, then the ego itself needs to have love. Amen. And you, if you're in self-love, yeah, you need no one, you are in relationship with no other.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_00:And you're actually, you are a world. Yeah. And you you are a kind of darkness that is light.
SPEAKER_01:And this is you just named it. This is one of the the it is the central reality of, for example, the meditations that the priests of the Christian community work with is this mystery that the self can become the darkness if it doesn't learn to find itself in first starting with what rose from the grave. And then I can start to overcome a feeling of a lack of love, as you put it, where I'm just detached from everything and learn to find God in others as the central central experience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so then then all the ego can become a bride. The ego itself can become one who seeks a beloved, yeah, seeks union with that beloved, seeks to be filled by the word power of that beloved, and thereby be made complete. That's right. Not to be complete in and of itself, right?
SPEAKER_01:So because we have these two different imaginations, very often the kind of archetype or model that we see is a kind of being that is fully independent and and just totally self-contained, like a a kind of guru master that needs no one and is totally detached as the as the ideal. Yes. I remember carrying that ideal very much. But if we look at the Lamb, Jesus Christ, as the model of what the true human eye is to become, what we see even at the highest levels, is a being that is receiving its life from the Father and making it whole through the Holy Spirit and the community for all cycles of time to come, as it says in our liturgy. So it's not a it's not a perfectly kind of independent being. It's a being that is in communion with something higher and united with and living for something in community, something lower, in fact, right? Even even lower, you could say.
SPEAKER_00:Right? And and the earth like bending in love and sacrifice to the lower, right? Like the pictures come in the in the gospels that Jesus ascends, right? His consciousness expands, he goes into the cloud realms, he goes up to the highest realms, he goes to the deepest realms, he goes to the beyond the stars to the throne of the Father. He ascends to the right hand of the Father. And then in Matthew 25 it says, at the end of time, the question will be: the comments by this being will be, when I was thirsty, you gave me to drink. When I was hungry, you gave me to eat. When I was naked, when I was in prison, you treated me, you cared for me. Lord, when did we give you water when you were thirsty? When did we give you food? Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me. So he extends his identification forces in freedom, not in entanglement, but in loving bond with all with all beings to participate as a sacrificial participatory uh identification process rather than seeking to preserve, seeking to enhance, seeking to. reduces my suffering and egotism. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:Because the ego the the the unfulfilled ego wants to preserve itself and not be in pain or or process or suffering. That's its fundamental gesture. It wants to be in this state where it's not affected. And that that's the shadow of this detachment mode that if we only stick with we we we become imprisoned in ourselves in a way and lack love.
SPEAKER_00:And it's it's a dark picture actually like you said. Right. This is where the true the true in in the drama of the ego then the true darknesses now start to I think actually become possible and that's what I love to see if we could go a little further with next time. I know you've got to go now so thank you so much for beginning to take us into the joy process here of what has happened and what's at stake with the ego and and evil.
SPEAKER_01:And thank you for for these beautiful questions and yeah thank you Patrick. Thank you Donna