Holy Night 9

January 1-2 – Virgo

Now come the three nights of the crown.

Release from the only intellectual, or release of the intellect from its earthly bonds and purposefulness. This is the thrice-holy night, in which the lower ego falls away and only the desire to serve, to devote oneself, remains.

Rudolf Steiner’s indications for the Holy Nights given to Herbert Hahn
Translation from German by Laura Zanutto 2015 and Mark Willan 2016

Heilige Nacht

1./2. – Jungfrau

Nun folgen die drei Nächte der Krone.

Loslösung vom Nur-Intellekt oder die Loslösung des Intellektes von der irdischen Gebundenheit und Zweckhaftigkeit. Es ist die dreimal heilige Nacht, in der das niedere Ich abfällt und nur der Wunsch bleibt, zu dienen, sich hinzugeben.

Ninth Contemplation: Kristina Kaine 2020

What is involved in the “desire to serve, to devote oneself”? This seems like a simple idea but on deeper reflection we will discover that the desire to serve can be motivated by ego. To serve someone we deem to be lower or higher can be used to raise our self esteem. This attitude can be tied to our karma.

St Mark records the words of Jesus about the true nature of serving. “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Mark 9:35

“The urge to be the greatest quite possibly stems from the urge to survive, however, to want to be greater than others could be overextending ourselves. Wouldn’t it be better to want to be great but at the same time want others to be great too? Wanting to be first, protos, wanting to be somewhere before anyone else, is a lonely position to take.

Jesus felt the need to make an example of this discussion. He pointed out that if we want to be first then we were also happy to be last, to take up the rear, and to serve others. If we look closely at the text another meaning is revealed. If anyone resolves first, protos, to be, eimi, then they are the ones who strive to integrate their I Am ego eimi ahead of the rest. Pro means before. Last is eschatos, from echo, which means to have and to hold – wedded. Therefore, those who strive to express themselves through their I Am form an unbreakable bond with all, pas, people who do the same. Those who do it first will be the servant of all the others who are doing it.” Kristina Kaine “Who is Jesus : What is Christ?” Vol 3

When we reach a point of realizing the true nature of serving we stand in the right place in the stream of evolution. Rudolf Steiner speaks about it in this way.

“Serving the main goal of evolution … entails learning to love one’s own karma with all the powers of one’s soul as a gift by the Christ in order, out of this love, to glean the forces for constant work on one’s karma for the purpose of gradually bringing harmony into it; a harmony that corresponds to the new world order of the Christ as Lord of Karma. ‘Only through the Mystery of Golgotha have human beings first learned to love their karma.’” April 17 1912

Evocation (also known as head of Christ) by Odilon Redon