The oriental tradition is correct which says that the Buddha was born as a “Bodhisatva,” and only during his time on earth, in his twenty-ninth year, rose to the dignity of a Buddha. When the Gautama Buddha was a little child, the Indian sage Asita came weeping into the royal palace of his father, Suddhodana. He wept because, as a seer, he knew that this King’s son would become the Buddha, and because as an old man, he felt that he would no longer be living to see that event take place. Now this sage was born again in the time of Jesus of Nazareth. It is he who is brought before us in the Gospel of St. Luke as the priest of the temple who saw the revelation of the Buddha in the Child Jesus descended from Nathan. And seeing this he was able to say: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace for I have seen my Master.” What he had not been able to see previously in India, he saw through the astral body of the Boy Jesus, Who comes before us in St. Luke’s Gospel, the Bodhisatva become a Buddha.
All this was necessary in order that that body might be produced which received the baptism of St. John in the Jordan. At that moment the individuality of Zarathustra left the threefold body, the physical, the etheric and the astral body of that Jesus Who had grown up in so complicated a manner, in order that the spirit of Zarathustra might be able to dwell in Him. Through two possibilities of development which were given in the two Jesus-Children, the reincarnated Zarathustra had to pass, and thus there stood before the Baptist the body of Jesus of Nazareth and in it from that time onwards there acted the cosmic individuality of the Christ. Now, as we have shown, in the case of any other human being, the cosmic spiritual laws work upon him only in so far that they give him a start in earth-life. Afterwards there appear in opposition to these laws, others which arise out of the conditions of the earth-evolution. In the case of the Christ Jesus, after the baptism of John the cosmic-spiritual forces alone remained effective without being influenced in any way through the laws of the earth evolution.
Thus in Palestine during the time that Jesus of Nazareth walked on earth as Christ-Jesus,—during the three last years of his life, from his thirtieth to his thirty-third year, the entire Being of the cosmic Christ was acting uninterruptedly upon Him, and was working into Him. The Christ stood always under the influence of the entire cosmos—He made no step without this working of the cosmic forces into and in Him. That which here took place in Jesus of Nazareth was a continual realization of the horoscope, for at every moment there occurred that which otherwise happens only at a person’s birth. This could be so only because the whole body of Jesus descended from Nathan had remained open to the influence of the sum total of the forces of the cosmic spiritual hierarchies which direct our earth. If thus the whole spirit of the cosmos worked into the Christ Jesus, who was it that went, for example, to Capernaum or anywhere else? He who went about as a being upon the earth appeared quite like any other man. The forces active within Him, however, were the cosmic forces, coming from the sun and stars; and these directed His body. And it was always in accordance with the collective Being of the whole Universe with whom the earth is in harmony, that all which the Christ Jesus did took place. It is because of this that in the case of the acts of the Christ Jesus there is so often some slight hint given in the Gospels, about the relative grouping of the stars at the time. We read in St. John’s Gospel how the Christ finds His first disciples. There we are told: “It was about the tenth hour,” because in this fact the spirit of the whole cosmos found expression in conformity with the appointed moment of time. Such intimations are less clear in the other Gospel passages, but he who can truly read the Gospel finds them everywhere. From this point of view also the miracles are to be judged. Let us take one passage,—The one that runs thus: “When the sun was set, they brought the sick unto Him, and He healed them.” What does that mean? The evangelist is drawing attention to the fact that this healing was connected with the whole position of the constellations, and that at the time in question, the constellations throughout the heavens stood in such a way as could only have happened when the sun had set. The meaning of that, at the time, the requisite healing forces could make themselves felt after sun-set, and the Christ Jesus is represented as the intermediary Who brought the sick into connection with the forces of the cosmos which, just at that time could work curatively. These forces were the same as those which worked as Christ in Jesus. It was through the presence of Christ that the healing took place, because in consequence of the same, the sick person was exposed to the healing forces of the Cosmos which could only work as they did when they were in the right relationship to time and space. Thus these forces worked on the sick person through their representative the Christ. But it was only just during the time of Christ on earth that they could so work. It was only then that such a connection existed between the cosmic constellations and the powers of the human organism, that for certain illnesses, healing could intervene when through the instrumentality of the Christ Jesus, the cosmic grouping of the same forces was able to work on men. A repetition of this relationship in the evolution of the cosmos and the earth is as little possible as is a second incarnation of the Christ in a human body. Regarded in this way, the life of the Christ Jesus appears as the earthly expression of a definite connection between the cosmos and the forces of man. The tarrying of a sick person by the side of Christ means that through the proximity of Christ, this sick person found himself in such a relation with the macrocosm that the latter could work upon him curatively.
Therewith the points of view have been specified which enable us to discern how the guidance of humanity has come under the influence of the Christ. The other forces, however, which had remained behind in the Egypto-Chaldæic times worked further side by side with those that are permeated by the Christ. This is evident even in the attitude frequently adopted to-day towards the Gospels. Literary works appear in which great pains are taken to show that the Gospels can be understood through an astrological interpretation. The greatest opponents of the Gospels employ this astrological interpretation in such a manner that, the way, for example, taken by the Archangel Gabriel from Elizabeth to Mary is supposed to signify nothing more than the progress of the sun from the constellation of Virgo to another. This, in a certain sense, is correct, except that these thoughts were poured in this manner into our age by the beings who had remained behind during the Egypto-Chaldæic Period. Under such an influence people are induced to a make-belief that the Gospels present only allegories in the place of definite cosmic relations. The truth really is, that in the Christ the whole cosmos finds expression and therefore one can express the life of the Christ by connecting its separate events with the cosmic relations which work into Earth existence unceasingly through the Christ. A right understanding of this matter will thus lead to a full recognition of the Christ, as having lived on earth, whereas the above mentioned error, if it were true, would mean that the Christ life in the Gospels is expressed by cosmic constellation and shows that it was only a matter of constellations being treated allegorically, and that there was no real earthly Christ at all.
If a comparison were to be used, we might think of each human being as represented by a spherical mirror—which, if it were set up, would give pictures of all its surroundings. Let us suppose we were to trace with a pencil the outline of all that is shown from the surroundings. We could then take the mirror and carry the picture about with us wherever we went. Let this be a symbol for the fact that when a person is born, he brings with him a copy of the cosmos in himself, and afterwards carries about with him all through his life the effect of this one picture. The mirror might, however, be left untouched by the pencil, so that wherever the person carried it, it would depict the immediate surroundings. It then would always be giving a picture of the collective environment. This would be a symbol of the Christ from the baptism by St. John up to the mystery of Golgotha. That which, in the case of any other person, passes into his earthly existence at birth only flowed into the Christ-Jesus at every moment. And when the mystery of Golgotha was consummated, that which had been radiating from out the cosmos passed over into the spiritual substance of the earth, and has from that time forward been united with the spirit of the earth.
When St. Paul became clairvoyant before Damascus, he could recognize that That which had formerly been in the cosmos has passed over into the spirit of the earth. Of this every one can be convinced who can bring his soul into such a condition that he can have the same experience as had St. Paul. It is in the twentieth century that those people will first appear who will have St. Paul’s experience of the Christ event in a spiritual way.
Whereas up to our times this event would be experienced only by such persons as had gained clairvoyant powers by means of an esoteric training, hereafter to look upon the Christ in the spiritual sphere surrounding the earth will be possible for the advanced powers of the soul in the course of the natural evolution of humanity. This—as a repeated experience of the event before Damascus—will be possible for some people from a certain point of time in the twentieth century. The number of such people will afterwards increase, until in the distant future, it will be a natural faculty of the human soul.
With the entrance of Christ into the evolution of the earth an entirely new impulse or direction was given to evolution. External facts of history also express this. In the early times of post-Atlantean evolution men knew very well that above them there was not merely a physical Mars, but that what they saw as Mars, Jupiter or Saturn was the expression for a spiritual being. In later times this perception was completely forgotten. The heavenly bodies became, according to human ideas, mere bodies to be estimated according to their physical condition. And in the Middle Ages people saw in connection with the stars only what the eyes can see—the sphere of Venus, the sphere of the Sun, the sphere of Mars, etc., up to the sphere of the fixed stars; and then came the eighth sphere like a solid blue wall behind. Then Copernicus appeared and broke down the idea that only that which is perceptible to the senses can be authoritative. The modern physical scientists may indeed say: “It is madness to declare that the world is Maya, or illusion, and that you must look into a spiritual world in order to see the truth, for in spite of all you say true science is that which relies on the senses and notifies what these senses tell.” But when did astronomers rely only on the senses? Surely at the very time when that astronomical science was dominant which is attacked by the science of to-day! It was at that time when Copernicus began to think out what exists in the cosmic space beyond the evidence of the senses, that our modern astronomy as a science began. And so it is in every domain of science. Everywhere that science, in the most modern sense of the word, has arisen, it has done so in opposition to what had been apparent to the senses. When Copernicus declared “what you see is Maya—or deception, rely on what you cannot see,” then the science came into being which is recognized as such to-day. It might thus be said to the representative of modern science “your science itself only became ‘science’ when it was no longer willing to depend upon the senses only.”