Easter Words

Inspiring Easter words from a recent interview with our dear friend Paul Hodgkins 

“In Foundation Studies, I have often said what was once experienced as the spiritual is now experiencing itself in the human being. So it is not humans becoming spiritual, it is the spiritual become human. Where am I going with this…oh, yes…so the organizing principle behind what we experienced – all of those spiritual experiences, all of those spiritual beings that once showed themselves to us once upon a time – the organizing principle behind all of those is the Christ. The spiritual has to experience itself in the human being, for the human being to properly become human. One can say, in a way, “I” cannot become moral. Not by oneself. Only, as Paul says, not “I” but Christ in me. But there is no way to invite Christ in except by striving. It is a two way street.  

St. Paul says I know what I should do but I don’t do it. I know what is good but I am not good. Then he says not I but Christ in me. That doesn’t mean you raise your consciousness to a Christ-like level. Some people want the Christ Being to be a human man with a higher consciousness. It is not that. In Christ a divine consciousness came into a human. In a way, this is something we can be given if we are moral enough to take it on. Then it can show itself individually. This is all very complicated for me—for my tiny mind! 

If you take Goethe’s plant—the archetypal plant—it is only one but it shows itself to you in many ways. It shows itself in any plant form you could think of. And so it is with the Christ Being as the logos of humanity. It can show itself in the human being, in any number of individuals. This has only just started. It is the beginning of an eventual outcome where we will all show this Christ logos, each in an individual way. 

I am totally okay with dying. As I hinted at earlier, I am not so okay with being dead. I will have to meet myself and my immorality clearly in the face, along with my lack of awakeness. In the spiritual world after death, you eventually meet spiritual beings who think in you. You see your life from their point of you. The more awake you can be in that process the better. I don’t think I am going to be very awake there. I have experienced quite a bit of self-loathing recently—not in a morbid way; I am not morbid about it all. I am willing to take on my karma. I am willing to try to make up for what I have done wrong and I am willing to bear that to the best of my ability, even if it is painful. But I know from experience that I am not always going to do that. I can look back on my life and I can see where I have opted out of the right thing to do. Every case of immorality is an attempt to avoid consciousness of the spiritual. There has been a lot of petty immorality in my life – petty, little selfish thoughts and actions. Lying and stuff like that. Most of us do these things. When I sit and think of them, I see they add up and add up. There has been an entire lifetime of them. 

I have taken a little bit of anthroposophy and made myself good at it but I know I will be coming back. And I think we will come back together. You know, when I was sick in Vietnam, I think Steiner came to me! He just approached me and I had the impression that he has unconditional love for all of us—for the least of us in his care, or perhaps it is better to say, on his path—and that is because standing behind him was this huge figure of unconditional love. I think he is building a following—I don’t want to say army—he is building a following to come back to earth to fight a battle in a way. There is going to be a strong materialistic impulse that is going to have to be met. I think all of us are going to have to come back to be a part of that and it won’t be easy. I am sure we will all come back.”