|
|
Module 1: Theosophy
- A picture of the human being and a deeper understanding of Baptism
|
Participants in module 1
The Africa Seminary - Review of Module 1 ‘Theosophy and Baptism’
by Michèle Schiess (adapted from a longer article by RK)
Fourteen participants met at Dover Street on Friday evening, 16th February 2018, and sitting in a circle we each introduced ourselves, sharing why we are attending these groundbreaking modules of the Africa Seminary. There was one person from Rwanda. I asked him how he came to be here and he simply stated: “It is God's will.” The overall theme for the year is: “The essential nature and purpose of the human being - Finding meaning in the Spirit”, and this man certainly had purpose to have travelled so far to join this profound gathering. Four people travelled from Botswana, and the balance was made up of South African Christian Community connected persons from the Free State, Johannesburg and Tshwane.
Michaël Merle shared on the unfolding of Theosophy (Divine wisdom) and Anthroposophy (Spiritual science), how the wisdom of God is seen in the architecture of creation. He placed Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy in the context of a long history in the development of human consciousness. Beginning with the ancient Vedic scriptures, to Greek initiation schools, (particularly Aristotle, who expounded on the qualities of Soul), to a modern day mystic Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj (1888-1936) who identified the great causal body of “I am”, to Steiner who begins with Body, Soul and Spirit and develops a threefold, fourfold, sevenfold, ninefold order of the human being. Thereby opening up a deeper perspective and understanding of ourselves in relation to our purpose for being incarnated in a physical world and body as well as in relation to Christ, to God and to each other as spiritual beings, all stemming from a common source idea and focused on a common ultimate purpose.
Saturday morning brought us together again, and after the celebration of the Act of Consecration of Man and a short introduction we spent the day bringing the concepts of Theosophy, this still abstract idea of ‘human being’, into a personal experience. Through exercises and reflection, by doing, thinking, feeling alone and in sharing, everyone made their discoveries and had their ‘aha’ moments. So that in the end the concept: BODY was enriched with ‘physical body, etheric body, astral body’ and SOUL deepened to ‘sentient soul, mind soul, consciousness soul’ and SPIRIT expanded into ‘Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Human’.
Woven into this endeavour of ‘grasping the spirit’ and making it real for us personally, were the windows, which opened and shed light on the ‘body’ of the Sacraments and how their architecture and imagery are exact expressions for the spirit reality of the past, present and future unfolding human being. In the example of the altar, the candles and the layered vestments of the priest who stands at it, we can ‘see’ this with our normal eyes, take it into our thinking to understand it and bring it into personal experience in our feeling, all the while becoming aware of the power with which we can do all this as a Christ-power. Our senses are used to access experience and once we become conscious, we have to take charge and participate actively. This way experience is linked to change and inner shifts.
On Sunday 18th, after the Act of Consecration of Man, Reingard opened our session by giving each one of us a seed. Where does the substance come from? The seed is an idea waiting to manifest. Who conceived this idea? What are the conditions for an idea to manifest, to become itself and fulfil its purpose? The seven sacraments are about making real an IDEA.“Let us fulfil the Act of Consecration of Man”: The only possibility to manifest the fulfilment is to have a body. The baptism is like the seed laying ceremony into the mother-ground of the body of the child and the community, preparing the place for the possibility of the manifestation of the BIG-IDEA of becoming Humanity.
What a day, what a weekend! We were called to immerse – ‘baptise’ – ourselves in thoughts and experiences, so profound; and so the first module closed with much to take home: Theosophy - a picture of the human being and a deeper understanding of Baptism.
Fourteen participants met at Dover Street on Friday evening, 16th February 2018, and sitting in a circle we each introduced ourselves, sharing why we are attending these groundbreaking modules of the Africa Seminary. There was one person from Rwanda. I asked him how he came to be here and he simply stated: “It is God's will.” The overall theme for the year is: “The essential nature and purpose of the human being - Finding meaning in the Spirit”, and this man certainly had purpose to have travelled so far to join this profound gathering. Four people travelled from Botswana, and the balance was made up of South African Christian Community connected persons from the Free State, Johannesburg and Tshwane.
Michaël Merle shared on the unfolding of Theosophy (Divine wisdom) and Anthroposophy (Spiritual science), how the wisdom of God is seen in the architecture of creation. He placed Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy in the context of a long history in the development of human consciousness. Beginning with the ancient Vedic scriptures, to Greek initiation schools, (particularly Aristotle, who expounded on the qualities of Soul), to a modern day mystic Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj (1888-1936) who identified the great causal body of “I am”, to Steiner who begins with Body, Soul and Spirit and develops a threefold, fourfold, sevenfold, ninefold order of the human being. Thereby opening up a deeper perspective and understanding of ourselves in relation to our purpose for being incarnated in a physical world and body as well as in relation to Christ, to God and to each other as spiritual beings, all stemming from a common source idea and focused on a common ultimate purpose.
Saturday morning brought us together again, and after the celebration of the Act of Consecration of Man and a short introduction we spent the day bringing the concepts of Theosophy, this still abstract idea of ‘human being’, into a personal experience. Through exercises and reflection, by doing, thinking, feeling alone and in sharing, everyone made their discoveries and had their ‘aha’ moments. So that in the end the concept: BODY was enriched with ‘physical body, etheric body, astral body’ and SOUL deepened to ‘sentient soul, mind soul, consciousness soul’ and SPIRIT expanded into ‘Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Human’.
Woven into this endeavour of ‘grasping the spirit’ and making it real for us personally, were the windows, which opened and shed light on the ‘body’ of the Sacraments and how their architecture and imagery are exact expressions for the spirit reality of the past, present and future unfolding human being. In the example of the altar, the candles and the layered vestments of the priest who stands at it, we can ‘see’ this with our normal eyes, take it into our thinking to understand it and bring it into personal experience in our feeling, all the while becoming aware of the power with which we can do all this as a Christ-power. Our senses are used to access experience and once we become conscious, we have to take charge and participate actively. This way experience is linked to change and inner shifts.
On Sunday 18th, after the Act of Consecration of Man, Reingard opened our session by giving each one of us a seed. Where does the substance come from? The seed is an idea waiting to manifest. Who conceived this idea? What are the conditions for an idea to manifest, to become itself and fulfil its purpose? The seven sacraments are about making real an IDEA.“Let us fulfil the Act of Consecration of Man”: The only possibility to manifest the fulfilment is to have a body. The baptism is like the seed laying ceremony into the mother-ground of the body of the child and the community, preparing the place for the possibility of the manifestation of the BIG-IDEA of becoming Humanity.
What a day, what a weekend! We were called to immerse – ‘baptise’ – ourselves in thoughts and experiences, so profound; and so the first module closed with much to take home: Theosophy - a picture of the human being and a deeper understanding of Baptism.
Copyright © 2012 to 2024. | All rights reserved.
