Question:
We have a query about the heart and its twelve lotus petals and their relation to the twelve Apostles. Also, there is a sixfold path of development given by Rudolf Steiner in relation to six of the lotus petals - namely: 1. Thinking 2.Will 3. Positive Attitude 4. Equilibrium
5. Open-mindedness 6. Harmony.
Could you please comment?
AS aforementioned, it is by way of the heart that a soul may connect with the world, that the unfolding of all expression pertaining to the true life of the soul enspirited, is heart inclined. In this sense we may separate the parent and the child within the form/expression of Man.
For example: the mind may indeed work independently of the heart, but that we have a mind at all is reliant upon the heart firstly, for the soul itself ordains the active body which in turn is responsive to the soul's directives. Therefore those qualities which are essential to the characteristic physical expressions, must necessarily unravel from capabilities the soul itself knows to dictate.
There are centers of focus within the body which may be made active depending upon the conduct of a man, and to what he places his vitality into. These centers may shift activity, may be deleterious or healthful, depending upon the direct resonance in relation to the heart itself.
One must ask, what is the point of living if the soul is to be denied the life. In other words, so much activity which works within a man may frustrate or thwart a soul from actually making its way into the expression and comprehension of the world. The heart has been closed as it were, like a shunt, and the body takes to it the ghoulish aspects of pretence pretending to be an example of divinity, behaving on levels which are only satisfying to it, rather than God.
It is all very well to nourish oneself, and marvelous also to relish a taste and know satisfaction; these experiences of themselves are good and intended, being neither injurious or sinful as indulgences. However, there can be no true nourishment from the food or the experience if at the time of consumption/assimilation, the heart is as separate to the activity. Food will become as poison, function will begin argument and 'life' will eventually overrun the constitution. For the heart must lead all phases of being. This is intended literally, to be understood that there is much sense in poetry which has been telling Man for years of the importance owed to being faithful to one's soul.
We may begin divining life anew. We can turn back our concentration and our efforts into those valves, those depositories, of divine inclination. The parent example, the great master, one's 'higher self', does manifest in the wisdom of the soul - on the other side of the heart itself. It is not, moreover, that we are duty bound to acknowledge this, rather we are life bound.
It can be said, needs be said also, that certain death forces which are invited into the constitution deny the heart intolerably. Remember again that we have maintained that the body or the mind, the belly or the genitals for that matter, may actually conduct activities separately for a time, discordant to both heart and soul.
There is a point upon which men have suggested that beverages which alter their thinking processes and make slack their muscle system can be useful in connecting them to the world- that by surrendering to the will of the ferment, they shall be enlightened or enlivened beneficially. This cannot be so, for it is a process of excluding the man from the man - it is an experience of disincarnating and playing with death, to become intoxicated to the point of stupidity. To imply the release of the heart is but the fool-utterings coming from the nature of the insolentrial ferment in the first place.
There is much that we do which is injurious to our being and it is not expected that a man should come all at once to an understanding of perfection. However where possible we endeavor to cross the 't's and dot the 'i's that one may in due course, decide for themselves with full knowledge of the way to betterment. Severity in the extreme is never helpful either. Mainly because it may never be maintained - severity by nature is short-lived. It is a contrast, quick and mean. We hope that men may ease their way toward those conjunctions of the heart, that by proof within, shall contest such things as 'proof' from without.
Returning to the question: All that we are, everything we have, is as 'on loan'. We had not the ability to draw upon the know-how or the substance to create or build upon ourselves. Existence, existing, is intrinsic to our being, but the actual means of description has been afforded us by the One who is prototypical to us.
Small wonder that Christ is confusing, configuring in all that He is. One can actually meet Him however, and in the simplest of meeting His permeations become oh so evident. Perhaps one of the greater mysteries is that there is such a Face and an image of Man at all.
Our physical heart thumps in repetition to our spiritual pulse of our spiritual heart. The twelve vassals which permit the various expressions of being, become enlivened when the soul may become active in the world. When the thinking becomes 'right thinking' it is aligned with the heart, stimulated by the soul itself. When the will of a man drives his activity and does so in accordance with the will of the soul and its inclinations, then there is accordance and lively creativity flowing through. When a man rises to the perspective of the soul his heart will respond with a positive attitude which concurrently will emanate into the world and beyond. If he is to shelter from the persuasions of the world he may find a certain equilibrium which predicts continuance above all else - as this the soul knows. If a man is to come before the mysterious with open attitude, he is embracing the man before him, as his heart does embrace him, faults and all. Lower man is forever compensated for by the ever-loving heart. Shall a man understand harmony he shall perceive the congeniality of preciseness and the binding nature of love itself.
The six were so named because each principle has its inverted counterpart - the parent and child aspects, so to speak. One is qualified by divine impulse transmuted by the soul through the heart whilst the other pertains to the actual effort and realization of such on behalf of the man in the world. Thus six are regarded as entitlement, whilst six are actively developed in a man.
Christ gathered together the essential fields pertinent to our particular development. As positioned, there becomes a music which is particular to their starry placements. This music is an announcement of being, it is deciphered and responded to continually by our starry counterpart bodies which alter in relation to where we are fixed in the field. Imagine this illustration: I am descending to Earth for a further incarnation, I am passing through a favored region - one which I last came through in exit before. I am required to make a personal deposit before passing through, one which I shall recover again on the way back. This deposit is as the pebble left behind to mark the track.
Where I combine in the Cosmos I may easily return to and leave 'pebbles' dropped along the trek; throughout the many ventures. There are twelve distinct zodiacal fields. I may only pass through one aspect of one of these degrees on the way through. I am obliged to drop the pebble (metaphorically speaking) through the gate, and by doing such I am fixed in relation to the Zodiac thereafter. My predominant characteristics shall be firstly those which emanate the stronger in the field my 'pebble' is in. My perspective shall be centered from the mountain view of that particular fixation. Furthermore I shall come to those secondary influences which are nearest to me in relation to the Zodiac and the predominating aspects closer in.
My slide into the axis of the world will be allotted according to the mark of passage that I bear. For at all times that pebble of mine is still connected and apparent, and now registered within that field elected. The planets and the Sun, of course, hold their own marked effect upon the zodiacal fields, which then convertively respond to waves of influence impinging their regions.
The actual zodiacal fields are visually interpreted as one does come to varying landscapes, flowered and characteristic of extreme example. There are 'continents' of such - and experienced in essence and nature as very definite places. The terrain is actually enormous and there are positionings within degrees of any given zodiacal field. The 'pin-pricks' of light mark the divisionings ascribed to a formula which manifests similarly to surveyor's markings along the way.
Which only goes to prove that we can be in more than one place at the one time.