“…After His Resurrection from the dead and also at His Ascension, Christ was still outside the world of men; He had not endowed their individual ego-consciousness with those forces which He had already borne into Earth-existence through the Mystery of Golgotha.
In order that this might come about, the festival of Ascension had to be followed by the Festival of Pentecost, the festival of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Universal Love, upon the Apostles.
Rudolf Steiner speaks about this as follows: ‘From the event of Pentecost onwards, the Christ-Being experienced His entry into the sphere of the Earth, which signified for Him what the transition into the Spirit-Land signifies for the human being.
But instead of ascending – as is the case with a human being after death– to Devachan, to a spiritual region (that is, as far as the World of Archetypes), the Christ Being offered up His sacrifice as though He were building His Heaven on the Earth; He sought it on the Earth.
Since then, and for all future ages of the Earth, it has become possible for every man inwardly to experience the direct presence of the macrocosmic Christ through an inner experience of the new Holy Spirit who proceeds from Him, who quickens the soul of man with a universal, cosmic love, and reveals to his fully awake individual ego-consciousness a perception of the higher worlds, so that he may become a conscious witness and servant of the Spirit. ”
~From ‘The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation, The Mystery of Pentecost’ by Sergei O. Prokofieff
In order that this might come about, the festival of Ascension had to be followed by the Festival of Pentecost, the festival of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Universal Love, upon the Apostles.
Rudolf Steiner speaks about this as follows: ‘From the event of Pentecost onwards, the Christ-Being experienced His entry into the sphere of the Earth, which signified for Him what the transition into the Spirit-Land signifies for the human being.
But instead of ascending – as is the case with a human being after death– to Devachan, to a spiritual region (that is, as far as the World of Archetypes), the Christ Being offered up His sacrifice as though He were building His Heaven on the Earth; He sought it on the Earth.
Since then, and for all future ages of the Earth, it has become possible for every man inwardly to experience the direct presence of the macrocosmic Christ through an inner experience of the new Holy Spirit who proceeds from Him, who quickens the soul of man with a universal, cosmic love, and reveals to his fully awake individual ego-consciousness a perception of the higher worlds, so that he may become a conscious witness and servant of the Spirit. ”
~From ‘The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation, The Mystery of Pentecost’ by Sergei O. Prokofieff
