We
Can Follow the Path of
the Great
Saviors of the World
Robert
Crosbie
The general idea of
the origin of Christmas is that the 25th day of December was made notable by
the birth of Jesus of Nazareth; and in commemoration of that Being, so divine
as to be called the Savior of mankind, the Christ
Mass is a season for the giving of gifts - also, for the expectation of
receiving them, one might say, for men have lost all sense of the true meaning
of Christmas.
Even as a matter of fact, we know nothing whatever of the birth of Christ. There is no
historical record anywhere of His birth at such a date; yet, the choosing of
this season of the year for the birth of a Divine Being is really based on fact
- a fact that belongs to the ancients.
The Christmas idea is borrowed from those whom we
choose to call the pagans, as indeed have all our theological ceremonies,
rituals and ideas. Ages before the time of Jesus Christ, among all the ancient
peoples, were ceremonies at this season of the year similar in kind to our own,
which had reference to a certain occurrence in the events of time. For it is
then that the Sun itself returns from its journey southward to the north again
- and this coming of the Sun was understood to be the birth of the Sun.[1]
But the Christmas season has its own peculiar occult
reference. It is the season of the birth of the Sun - the coming back and
bringing into fructification those seeds and plants needing Sun energy for
their growth and expression - but, it is more than that, because behind the
Sun, as behind every single body, there is spirit, there is life, and there is
intelligence. So, there comes with the return of the Sun a spiritual, a mental,
a moral growth and uplifting.
There is a springtime not only in the lower kingdoms -
among plants and animals - but among men. There is an incursion of energy, so
to speak, which if we could take advantage of would enable us to do much more
than we now do. But we have lost the knowledge that we had. We have forgotten,
and so we do not apply to ourselves the fact of the recurrence of this real
Christmas time - the season, not only of the physical renewal of the earth and
all beings [2], but also a return of
the inner life, and of impulse of a spiritual kind.
Between Christmas Day and the
day called Easter - which again has its own significance - the life of the
earth is young. Then, too, the inner life has its rejuvenescence and its
growth, and ideas then taken hold of and carried into expression have ten-fold
the power which they would have at another time. Christmas is a season of birth
and of growth; it is the season of the rebirth of the spiritual nature, and the
birth of Jesus was made to accord with this old knowledge of the past and
ancient observances.
The whole of life has its
recurrent way as well as its recession. Day and night, summer and winter, life
and death are the seasons of nature. But the perceiver - the experiencer - of
those seasons is the self-conscious Man, who lives when the body dies, who is
awake when the body rests at night, who is continually observant whether the
body is awake or asleep.
The Man is conscious every moment.
He sees recurrent waves of activity of one kind, then rest; he sees other kinds
of activity, then rest. He sees the
return of his thoughts and his feelings, reinforced and strengthened on the
second coming or reduced and weakened, according to the degree of energy he has
given them. For always there is the return of impressions - from hour to hour,
from month to month, from year to year.
It is the course of all beings
of every kind to follow the law of action and reaction - to proceed through the
coming back of that which was before plus whatever has been incurred in the
meantime - and there is no cessation of this law; there is an eternality of
progress, which is not restricted to any particular form and which is within
the means and reach of every individual in every part of the universe. So, we
cannot work for ourselves alone, nor progress by ourselves alone, but taking
advantage of all recurrent waves and seasons of uplift we may go on from plane
to plane, from state to state, from quality of being to quality of being.
There is a tide in the affairs
of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, it is said - which is
merely an expression and recognition of the same law of recurrent impression.
For the opportunities of each life come from the past; each life as it is has
been produced by the life or lives preceding, and aspirations are recurrent
ideas of the past. Whenever there is a spiritual idea in the heart or in the
mind, then is the beginning of the rising tide for that individual; then is the
time for him to take advantage of the cycle - to make every possible effort in
the direction of his purpose.
For the time is ripe, and the
time will pass again just as surely as the Sun moves northward and then south
again; and in that time of rising tide, we must have acquired the stamina - the
power of concentrated effort which will hold us through the receding tide and
give us a better standing place when the tide again rises.
There are also tides in nature
for races and civilizations. Every civilization has its beginning and its
ending. This present civilization will end as others before it have ended. No
civilization, however great, will ever continue as such, because it merely
represents a state of mind and a body suited to it, and it must reach its limit
of expression to then die out. The individuals who made that race, however,
will come again with whatever they have gained; they will come on a better
basis and from there go on a little further.
There is a rising tide in the
birth of a nation, and all through its life are various tides rising and
falling. For us now, a tide of recession has prevailed through many centuries.
We are living in the Iron Age, which was preceded by other better Ages known as
the Gold, the Silver and the Bronze Ages. It is a hard and cruel Age - an Age
of spiritual darkness - but in it we have to found all that existed in the
other Ages; we have to bring into expression all that existed before, and put
the very highest of all that preceded into practical use. Not only have we to
pass through this Iron Age with all the aspirations of the other Ages, but we
must start a new Golden Age with all
that we have gained.
At the present time all our discoveries, our science,
our religions, our social and national life are material, without spirituality.
The more the self-conscious spiritual man has gone into matter, the more he has
closed his spiritual doors, because his self-consciousness and energy have been
put into the lower kingdoms.
But he must go through these stages and emerge from
them, bringing with him all the knowledge he has gained thereby; and not only
is his effort to gain knowledge for himself, but also to impart his feeling and
understanding to the kingdoms below him in the matter which he uses. Then when
he moves up the scale of being, that matter, too, will be lifted up and fitting
for his use.
In the receding tide, old theological ideas have lost
their sway over the minds of men. Minds are searching in every direction for
that which is stable, permanent and true; they are looking for a knowledge
which is feasible and practical. And a tide comes for the presentment of such
knowledge. A tide comes for Beings greater than we are, because at some time
They took advantage of the rising tide to go far beyond where the ordinary man
found himself able to go. Those Beings come at certain great seasons, as the
heavens tell the story in the Messianic cycle.
The passage of the Sun from one sign to another of the
Zodiac takes a period of about twenty-one hundred years - the cycle of coming
of a great Teacher. We need only to know that a great Teacher existed at some
time here to count forward or backward and known when another has been or will
be.
The real Christmas can come to us in our hearts. We
can realize that there has come once more the season we can rise with. If we
make up our minds to do it, we can follow the Path of our great Predecessors -
the great Saviors of the world, the great Saviors of all times, for They all
come from the same Body, whether we call them Buddha, Jesus, or any other name.
They are all Beings of the same nature who come among us, and, as was said of
Jesus, in all things become like unto us that They may impart to us something
of Their great knowledge and point us to the Path They followed.
Always the object of Their coming was that we in time
might become even as They are. Always They left messages for us which were set
down and known as the sayings of the Founders of all the great religions. Jesus
for Whom the Christian nations celebrate Christmas, was one of a Body of
perfected men. There were many others before Him; there have been others since;
there will yet be others.
Christmas is a time for giving and also for receiving.
But there is a giving that is not of things. There is a giving of the heart
itself. There is the giving of service, of love, of brotherhood, of every
thought that makes for good - a giving open to all, however poor our personal
possessions may be.
It is the feeling and the thought in our hearts which
reach people and stir their hearts to
a better perception, a better feeling, a wider and stronger action, for all our
hearts are based in the same One Life; we draw all our powers and forces from
the One Life. The Real Christmas means something to the Real Man, and it
applies to the whole of man’s nature. Let us take advantage of the resurgence
of spiritual, mental, and moral force that comes with the Christmas time.
NOTES:
[1] From the point of view of the Northern Hemisphere.
(CCA)
[2] The vast majority of the world
population and most of the territories are in the northern half of the globe.
(CCA)
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The above article was published at the associated websites on 22 December
2019. It was reproduced from the December 1920 edition of “Theosophy” magazine,
Los Angeles, pp. 33-36. The text was
first taken from the stenographic report of a talk by Robert Crosbie.
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A contemplative study:
“The Magic of the End of the Year”,
by CCA.
Seeing the essence
of things: “Christmas as a Lesson in Simplicity”,
“The Symbolism of Judas Iscariot”,
and “Wherein Is Love, Therein Is God”
(the story by Leo Tolstoy).
Recommended readings:
“The Nativity Scene in Our Hearts”;
“The Origin of the Christmas Tree”, “Christmas Time in Polar Lands”,
“If Christ Comes Back This Christmas”
and “The Meaning of the Christmas Star”.
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