Individuality of Master Jesus

The Individuality of Master Jesus is a Bodhisattva of the White Lodge that provides spiritual guidance to mankind. This being is most well known by his incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the founder of the Persian culture Zarathustra, teacher to Hermes and Moses.

Rudolf Steiner stated that this Individuality is in continuous incarnation, with just a few years between consecutive lives. This is also the case for the Individuality of Christian Rosenkreutz and other advanced Individualities (see Daskalos).

Aspects

known incarnations
- second ancient Persian cultural age
  - Zarathustra
    - pupil of Manu, and initiated into the Sun-Christ mystery ( 1909-02-19-GA109 notes to lecture)
    - for teachings of Zarathustra, see Persian cultural age topic page
- third Egypto-Chaldean cultural age
  - Hermes and Moses were reincarnations of two students of Zarathustra, and received his etheric and astral bodies (1909-05-31-GA109, 1910-09-02-GA123)
- fourth cultural age (approx -747BC to 1413 AD)
  - in Old Assyria of Nazarathos or Zarathas, the teacher of Pythagoras (1909-02-03-GA109 notes to lecture), founded a school from which the three wise sages from the East came (1909-02-07-GA109 notes to lecture, 1910-09-06-GA123).
    - timing
      - "at the time of Buddha and Lao Tzu, around 600 BC" (note Pythagoras of Samos approx. 570 to 495 BC)
      - sixth century BC (1910-09-06-GA123)
  - Jesus of Nazareth - see The two Jesus children
  - incarnation very soon after leaving the three sheaths of the Nathan Jesus at the Baptism (1911-01-21or23-GA264)
  - Friend of God of the Highland (Oberland), inspirer of Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361)
- current fifth cultural age
  - said to be master/inspirer of Rudolf Steiner - see Note [1] in Discussion area below
incorporates every century (same for Christian Rosenkreutz) .. with intervals that never exceed twelve years (see also Daskalos who states something similar)
- note this means that since the Mystery of Golgotha, this Individuality has known maybe 25 or more incarnations.

Illustrations

FMC00.117 provides a reference table of incarnations of Boddhisatvas part of the White Lodge. The table makes the distinction between names listed as Bodhisattvas part of the twelve, or incarnations of historical figures that may link to these same individualities or their direct helpers. The table is non-exhaustive, eg Daskalos states Master Hilarion is Saint Paul (Saul of Tarsus).

Correction: Orpheus was adept part of migration in third age, seeding the Greek culture - see Migrations#1904-09-08-GA091

Lecture coverage and references

1909-02-03-GA109 notes to lecture

The I of Zarathustra takes another way. It incarnates into a body in Old Assyria of Nazarathos or Zarathas, the teacher of Pythagoras. Hence we also see the Pythagorean wisdom going back to deep esoteric wisdom, now dresses in intellectual form, going back to the reincarnated Zararthustra-I. This way we see the continuity of how the Sun Mysteries is sustained and those who take over the Sun Mysteries work further into the Postatlantean culture and further as teacher of and through Pythagoras. Pythagoras, in his travels, visited the initiation sites of his teacher Nazarathos.

1909-02-07-GA109 notes to lecture

Zarathustra came back as Nazarathos or Zarathas and founded a school, where he taught the signs that have to appear in the heavens, when Christ will come to the Earth. It is from this school that the three wise sages from the East came.

1909-02-19-GA109 notes to lecture

The founder of the second Postatlantean cultural age, Zarathustra, was a pupil of Manu (and was initiated into the Sun-Christ mystery). However there is a very large difference between him and the Rishis. The latter knew, through Inspiration, the secrets of the planets, but not the secret of the Sun.

1909-05-31-GA109

And at other times Zarathustra said this: “So great and mighty is He who revealed Himself to me in the sun that I surrender everything for him. I rejoice in sacrificing to Him the life of my body, the etheric existence of my senses, and the expression of my deeds” — the astral body. Such was the vow that Zarathustra made a long time ago.
Zarathustra had two disciples. To one of them he revealed through spiritual means everything that one can perceive with clairvoyant astral organs. This disciple was reincarnated under the name Hermes, the Egyptian Hermes. To the second disciple he imparted truths that one can know through the clairvoyant etheric body: the wisdom of the Akasha Chronicle. This second disciple was Moses, and you can find the wisdom imparted to him in the Book of Moses of the Old Testament.
When the first disciple was reincarnated as Hermes, he bore within him the astral body of Zarathustra, who had revealed to him not only his teachings, but also his own nature. Such a transfer is possible for what Hermes had received was nothing else but the astral body Zarathustra had sacrificed for him. Hence it was Zarathustra's wisdom that Hermes, the founder of the third post-Atlantean epoch, proclaimed.
The other disciple, to whom Zarathustra had given wisdom through the etheric body, was also born again. When he reincarnated, the etheric body that Zarathustra had sacrificed was woven into him. This disciple was Moses. You can find such facts recorded in religious documents, but in a veiled manner only. Read the story of the birth of Moses. What happened then? The child was placed into an ark of bulrushes which was then put into the water. What does that mean? It means that he was completely cut off from the world. His ego and astral body were not to become manifest until they were permeated by the principle of the etheric body. How can this take place? During the time when Moses lay isolated in the ark on the water, the etheric body that had been woven into him became illuminated. Only then could the astral body and the ego begin to work in him. Are not the powerful images of Genesis, which will occupy humanity for a long time to come, images taken from the Akasha Chronicle? These things cannot be understood without the aid of occultism.

1910-09-06-GA123

Now let us briefly recall the events connected with the particular course of that human being known as Zarathustra or Zoroaster. Under this name he had given out in early days in the East the mighty teaching that had fitted him for the incarnation described in the Gospel of Matthew. It was he who had inaugurated the Hermetic Civilization in Egypt, and to this end had given up his astral body to Hermes; he also had founded the Mosaic Civilization through the sacrifice of his etheric body, which had been preserved for Moses. Zarathustra himself incarnated later in other astral and etheric bodies. The incarnation in the sixth century B.C. is of special interest, when, as Zarathos or Nazarathos, he had instructed the sages and Magi of Chaldea, and had come in touch with the wisest of the Hebrew pupils of the Mysteries, during the Babylonian Captivity. During the following six centuries, this teaching had permeated the traditions, ceremonies, and culture of the Chaldean Mystery Schools. The name of their great master, Zarathustra, in the form of Zarathos or Nazarathos, had been honoured in the highest degree by generations of pupils in the Mystery Schools of Babylon, Chaldea, and Assyria. They looked forward with longing to the next appearance of their great teacher and leader, for they knew the secret of his reincarnation, and expected it to occur at the end of six hundred years. As the time approached when the blood suitable for this incarnation should be ready, three messengers or wise men, went forth from the East. They knew that the honoured name of Zarathustra would guide them, as a star, to the place of his reincarnation. It was the Being of the great Teacher himself which as a ‘star’ guided the three Magi to the birthplace of Jesus, as is told in the Gospel of Matthew.
Even external philology confirms the fact that the word ‘star’ was used in olden times to describe the human individuality. It is not only through the revelations of spiritual science, which speaks more clearly than other sources of knowledge, that we learn that the Magi followed the ‘Golden Star,’ Zoroaster, to the place where he was to reincarnate, but by the customary use of the word ‘star’ for the higher human individuality it is clearly revealed that in the star which the wise men followed we have to understand Zarathustra himself.
Six hundred years before our era the Magi of the East were closely associated with the individual who incarnated as the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. He himself led the Magi. They followed in his track.
The secret of the coming incarnation of Zarathustra was known in the Chaldean Mysteries; but the secret concerning the blood of the Hebrew people which when the time was ripe was to be prepared for the new bodily-nature of Zarathustra, was taught by those who in the Essene initiation had passed through forty-two stages of development.
There were therefore two sources from which this knowledge came. From the side of Zarathustra, teaching was given by the Chaldean Initiates; they knew of the individuality who was to incarnate in the Jewish race from the external side, that of the body and the preparation of the blood, teaching came from initiates among the Essenes. This teaching was given out for more than a hundred years in the School of the Essenes, the teaching of the coming of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew, who in his fulness would satisfy all the needs of which I have spoken, and still others which we will now try to explain.

1911-01-21or23-GA264

He himself took up incarnation very soon after leaving the three sheaths of the Nathan Jesus.
...
His I united with the etheric body of the Solomon Jesus, which, at the latter's death, has been taken up into the spiritual world by the mother of the Nathan Jesus.

Discussion

Note [1] - Master Jesus as initiator of Rudolf Steiner

Though Rudolf Steiner himself never publicly disclosed any information on his masters, he seemingly did so in informal personal contacts to close students. From various sources the image is conveyed that Rudolf Steiner was initiated by and/or worked with two masters: Christian Rosenkreutz and Master Jesus.

Sources

source A - Schure (from a lecture by Walter Johannes Stein)

Schure asked Rudolf Steiner who had initiated him and the answer was Master Jesus. Schure confirmed this on his deathbed

source B1 - Rittelmeyer (written note from Margareta Morgenstern to Emil Bock)

Rudolf Steiner had said to Rittelmeyer that Master Jesus had referred him to Fichte.

source B2 - Rittelmeyer (from Walter Johannes Stein's diary, on a conversation with Rittelmeyer on 1924-07-09)

Steiner told him [Rittelmeyer] in the presence of Mrs Steiner, that he had two initiators: Christian Rosenkreutz and Master Jesus (Zarathustra): The latter referred him to Fichte. The former worked through Felix Balde.

source C - unknown

"He approached Rudolf Steiner in the shape of an ordinary man, whose identity could not be established."

Related pages

References and further reading

Shirazpour Partow: 'Zarathustra : étude historique et critique sur sa vie, sa doctrine et son culte (1928 in FR)
Walther Hinz: 'Zarathustra' (1961)
Daniël Johan van Bemmelen:
- Zarathustra : Deel 1: De eerste profeet van Christus ; Deel 2: De Gatha's van Zarathustra (1967)
- 'Zarathustra' (1975)
Hermann Koepke: 'Das Leben des Zarathustra' (1986)
Andrew Welburn: 'The book with fourteen seals : the prophet Zarathustra and the Christ-Revelation' (1991)
Wilhelm Rath: 'Der Gottesfreund vom Oberland : ein Menschheitsführer an der Schwelle der Neuzeit (14. Jahrhundert) : sein Leben, geschildert auf Grundlage der Urkundenbücher des Johanniterhauses 'Zum grünen Wörth' in Strassburg' (1929, 1955, 1985)
Jesus : ein Bild in vier Vorträgen Friedrich Rittelmeyer Boek, Duits, 124 p. Kaiser Verlag München 1919