Rose Cross meditation

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Rose Cross with 7 red roses

The Rose Cross mediation serves to train the perceptive soul organs, which allow a conscious imaginative view into the spiritual world. To do this, the person has to train his soul powers by placing a certain image in the centre of his consciousness as concretely and vividly as possible and holding it there for as long as possible so that it is not disturbed by other thoughts, but is accompanied by very specific sensations. In the case of the Rose Cross meditation, this is the image of the Rose Cross, a cross made of black, dead wood, from which seven red roses blossom.

Building up the Rosicrucian Meditation

„Imagine a plant rooted in the ground, sprouting leaf after leaf, unfolding into a blossom. And now imagine a human being standing next to this plant. Let the thought come alive in your soul how the human being has qualities and abilities that can be called more perfect than those of the plant. Consider how he can go here and there according to his feelings and his will, while the plant is tied to the ground. But now say to yourself: yes, man is certainly more perfect than the plant; but on the other hand I find in him qualities which I do not perceive in the plant, and through their non-existence it can appear to me in certain respects more perfect than man. Man is filled with desires and passions; he follows these in his behaviour. With him I can speak of aberrations through his instincts and passions. With the plant I see how it follows the pure laws of growth from leaf to leaf, how it dispassionately opens the blossom to the pure rays of the sun. I can tell myself that man has a certain perfection ahead of the plant, but he has bought this perfection by adding instincts, desires and passions to the forces of the plant, which seem pure to me. I now imagine that the green coloured sap flows through the plant and that this is the expression of the pure, passionless laws of growth. And then I imagine the red blood flowing through the veins of the human being and how this is the expression for the drives, desires and passions. I let all this arise as a vivid thought in my soul. Then I further imagine how man is capable of development; how he can purify and cleanse his drives and passions through his higher soul faculties. I imagine how thereby a lower thing in these drives and passions is destroyed, and these are reborn on a higher level. Then the blood will be allowed to be presented as the expression of the purified and refined instincts and passions. For example, I now look in my mind at the rose and say to myself: in the red rose leaf I see the colour of the green plant sap transformed into red; and the red rose, like the green leaf, follows the pure, passionless laws of growth. The red of the rose may now become for me the symbol of such a blood, which is the expression of purified drives and passions, which have stripped off the lower and in their purity resemble the forces which work in the red rose. I now try not only to process such thoughts in my mind, but to bring them to life in my feelings. I can have a blissful sensation when I imagine the purity and passionlessness of the growing plant; I can produce the feeling in me of how certain higher perfections must be purchased by the acquisition of the urges and desires. This can transform the bliss I felt before into a serious feeling; and then a feeling of liberating happiness can stir in me when I surrender to the thought of the red blood, which can become the bearer of inwardly pure experiences, like the red juice of the rose. It is important that one does not unfeelingly face the thoughts that serve to build up an imaginative conception. After having indulged in such thoughts and feelings, transform them into the following symbolic idea. Imagine a black cross. This is the symbol of the destroyed lower instincts and passions; and where the beams of the cross intersect, imagine seven red, radiant roses arranged in a circle. These roses are the symbol of a blood that is the expression of purified, cleansed passions and impulses[1]. It should be such a symbolic idea that one calls before the soul in the manner illustrated above with a memory idea. Such an idea has a soul-awakening power if one devotes oneself to it in inner contemplation. One must try to exclude every other idea during the contemplation. Only the characterised symbol should float before the soul in the spirit, as vividly as this is possible. - It is not insignificant that this symbol has not simply been mentioned here as an awakening idea, but that it has been built up through certain ideas about plants and human beings. For the effect of such a symbol depends on its being put together in the manner described before it is used for inner contemplation. If one imagines it without first having gone through such a construction in one's own soul, it remains cold and much less effective than if it has received its soul-illuminating power through preparation. During the contemplation, however, one should not call all the preparatory thoughts into one's soul, but merely have the image hover vividly before one in the spirit and thereby let that sensation resonate which has arisen as a result of the preparatory thoughts. Thus the symbol becomes a sign next to the sentient experience. And in the dwelling of the soul in this experience lies what is effective. The longer one can dwell without another disturbing idea interfering, the more effective is the whole process. However, in addition to the time devoted to the actual contemplation, it is good to repeat the structure of the image often through thoughts and feelings of the kind described above, so that the impression does not fade. The more patience one has for such renewal, the more significant the picture is for the soul.“ (Lit.:GA 13, p. 229ff)

With continued meditation on the symbol of the Rose Cross, the colours transform into the opposite colours. The black wood brightens to white, the red of the roses, radiant with inward love, changes to the green of outward life:

„But the soul is not entirely alone on this difficult path of the esoteric; there is something to which it can cling. Something of this kind is the Rosy Cross. We should let it work upon us; we should be clear that the black of the wood represents our corporeality, which is hardened and withered, that we must let our lower self, which identifies itself with corporeality, become just as dark and dead as the wood of the cross is dead. Then the higher, spiritual I will work in us in the same way as the black of the cross is transformed into bright, radiant lines of light. In the same way the red of the roses will transform itself from the colour of inwardly working love to green, the colour of outwardly working life.“ (Lit.:GA 266b, p. 97)

Rose Cross and Rosicrucian Saying

Rose Cross medallion with Rosicrucian saying.

The Rose Cross is closely related to the well-known Rosicrucian saying "Ex deo nascimur - In Christo morimur - Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus":

„The development of the human being is represented in that symbol which belongs to the deeply significant Rosicrucian saying (meaning the words: "Ex deo nascimur - In Christo morimur - Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus) in the black cross with the red roses. Man perceives this symbol as something living, in which the spiritual forces that have built him up live and weave, just as he was born from the Godhead. But then he knows that further development of his soul is possible through the effort of his own powers. He knows that not only his blood must become pure like the red sap of the roses, but that the black cross must also be transformed by purifying his shell nature and growing beyond the merely personal, when he gives himself to something infinitely greater. Then he dies in the Christ, and before his soul the dark, black cross is transformed into a shining, radiant cross. The red roses expand into an infinite circle as the soul settles more and more into the macrocosm until it feels itself to be this circle. In the all-encompassing macrocosm, the human being then experiences himself in a new existence.

Then, in a mysterious way, the colours of the symbolism change, the roses turn green, the cross white. The soul can only sense the full meaning by feeling the power that flows towards it. The soul sees and recognises this sacred symbol as if it were radiating towards it from higher spiritual spheres. Strictly and powerfully it shows itself as an invitation to constant work, so that one day the great ideal may be attained, which every individual human being can realise when he is reborn in the Holy Spirit.“ (Lit.:GA 265, p. 268f)

The Rosicrucians and the Holy Grail

„Those who called themselves St. John's Christians and had the Rose Cross as their symbol said: 'Precisely that which has been reborn for humanity as the secret of this humanity's higher self, that has been preserved. This has been preserved by that closer community which began with Rosicrucianism. This continuity is symbolically indicated: That sacred bowl from which the Christ Jesus ate and drank with his disciples, which is called the "Holy Grail" and in which the blood that flowed from the wound was collected by Joseph of Arimathea, was, as the story goes, brought to Europe by Angels. A temple was built for her, and the Rosicrucians became the keepers of what was in the vessel, that is, of what constituted the essence of the reborn God. The mystery of the reborn God reigned in humanity: that is the Grail mystery.

This is the mystery that is presented like a new Gospel and of which it is said: We look up to such a wise man as the writer of the Gospel of John, who could say: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a God was the Word. That which was with God in the beginning was born again in him whom we saw suffer and die on Golgotha, and who rose again. - This continuity of the divine principle through all times, and the rebirth of this divine principle, is what the writer of the Gospel of John wanted to portray. But all those who wanted to portray such things knew: That which was from the beginning has been preserved. In the beginning was the mystery of the higher human I; it was preserved in the Grail; it remained connected with the Grail, and in the Grail lives the I, which is connected with the eternal and immortal as the lower I is with the transient and mortal. And whoever knows the secret of the Holy Grail knows that from the wood of the cross comes forth the living, sprouting life, the immortal I, which is symbolised by the roses on the black wood of the cross. Thus the mystery of the rose cross is something that can seem like a continuation of the Gospel of John. And we can say the following words in relation to the Gospel of John and what it continues:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a God was the Word. This was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through it, and without it nothing came into being that was created. In this was life, and life was the light of men. And the light shone into the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it." Only some of the people who had something of that which is not born of the flesh understood the light that shone into the darkness. But then the light became flesh and dwelt among men in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Now one could say, completely in the spirit of John's Gospel: And that which lived as Christ in Jesus of Nazareth was the higher divine I of all humanity, of the reborn God who became earthly in Adam as in his image. This reborn human I continued as a sacred secret, was preserved under the symbol of the Rose Cross and is proclaimed today as the secret of the Holy Grail, as the Rose Cross.

That which can be born in every human soul as the higher I points us to the rebirth of the divine I in the development of all humanity through the event of Palestine. As the higher I is born in every individual human being, so in Palestine the higher I of all humanity, the divine I, is born, and it is preserved and further developed in that which is concealed behind the sign of the Rose Cross.“ (Lit.:GA 112, p. 18ff)

The Rose Cross as a Cosmic Symbol

File:GA266c 123.gif
The seven planetary spheres (drawing from (Lit.:GA 266c, p. 123)

„From the spiritual solar forces, however, man receives the I-power, the self-consciousness, which combines with the lunar forces and so on to bring about the whole being of man. But first we have two suns, the spiritual, which gives the I, and the physical, which animates the physical earth by its rays of light and heat. But then we must grasp a third sun, namely the mediator of the highest spiritual forces, which connects the extra-solar forces with the inner-solar ones, which since the Mystery of Golgotha has sent its forces of grace to the earth. This spiritual sun is the Christ-principle, that which man can experience in himself when he grasps the Pauline sentence: "Not I, but the Christ in me."

This third sun was always revealed to the initiates in the Christian initiation places. A great tragedy lay in the fact that one man knew of this third sun and yet could not fully experience it inwardly, that was Julian Apostata. Thus we have the sphere of this threefold sun, outside it the three circles which represent the high indirectly acting forces, and within the solar circle the three which act directly upon the earth. In each of these seven circles stands one of the seven heavenly bodies, and so we can also regard the Rose Cross with the seven roses as a symbol of this sevenfold celestial rose. From the three inner spheres flows into the earth that from which the human being is born: Ex Deo nascimur.

The three outer circles denote the high, spiritual powers by which his higher nature is founded: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

The connection between the two is formed by the middle semicircle, the solar orbit of the physical, spiritual and the Christ-Sun: In - morimur.“ (Lit.:GA 266c, p. 123f)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ It is not important to what extent this or that scientific conception finds the above thoughts justified or not. For it is a question of the development of such thoughts about plants and human beings, which, without all theory, can be gained through simple, direct observation. Such thoughts have, after all, their significance alongside the theoretical ideas about the things of the external world, which are no less significant in other respects. And here thoughts are not there to represent a fact scientifically, but to build up an image which proves to be effective in the soul, no matter what objections occur to this or that personality in building up this image.
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