Quest for the Holy Grail

This is a brief summary of eucharistic writing "The Holy Grail" by Father Sergius Bulgakov, published in a book The Holy Grail & The Eucharist by Lindisfarne Books in 1997. It is full of the most profound spiritual wisdom that is giving ground for thought for all Christians. I highly recommend it!

Bulgakov begins his study by referring to the Gospel of St. John directing our attention to the feature that is absent in the other Evangelists, how Jesus' side was pierced with a spear and forthwith came there out blood and water. He points out how this story is given a special significance: "The man who saw it [the beloved disciple] has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe" (John 19:35 NIV).

Later on Bulgakov explains the nature of blood: "We know that the soul of animals, the power of life of the body, lies in blood." [...]
"Blood is wholly special substance; what is remarkable about it is that psychical and material, living and nonliving being, the animal soul and body, are united in it. The blood is intermediate between spirit and body, between spiritual and material being, as their living connection." [...]
"In the act of death... With the decomposition of the blood, the animal soul perishes, dies... Only the human spirit is immortal, and it is this spirit that animates the soul and, through the soul, the body."
Then Bulgakov suggests an astonishing fact: Christ's human substance was divided on the cross, the blood and water that had flowed remained in the world, they didn't belong to the resurrected body. Christ's blood expresses his humanity, while water is the protoelement of the cosmic matter out of which the world was created in Gen.1:2, 6. Christ has the Spirit (Logos), the soul (blood), and the body (water) as in 1 John 5:8 it is stated.

Now we come to the main point: Bulgakov describes how... "The blood and water that flowed into the world abide in the world. They sanctify this world as the pledge of its future transfiguration", says Bulgakov and continues: "And the whole world is the chalice of the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is inaccessible to veneration; in its holiness it is hidden in the world from the world. However, it exists in the world as an invisible power, and it becomes visible, appears to pure hearts who are worthy of its appearance."

What about the Eucharist? In the light of the Grail legend it becomes obvious it is not only a repetition in remembrance of the Last Supper but it is deeply rooted in Golgotha - it is also a celebration of the resurrection! This dual-unity is expressed in the Grail legend as the Grail is said to be the chalice of the Last Supper that ended up in the hands of Joseph of Arimathea and into same vessel he collected the blood (and water) out of Jesus' side. I personally find this symbolism particularly beautiful and significant!
It also reminds of Jesus' own words: "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him" (John 6:53-56 NIV).
Anyway, Bulgakov mentions that as food eucharistic bread and wine are consumed, communion has accomplished its purpose, it ends. However, the Holy Grail (the blood and water out of Christ's side) "abides in the world as the mysterious holiness of the world, as the power of life, as the fire in which the world will be transfigured into a new heaven and new earth."

The meaning of Ascension is brilliantly revealed by Fr. Sergius Bulgakov. Did Christ leave the world orphaned and emptied, he asks; Is the Ascension abandonment? Does the world have a natural connection with Christ besides the Eucharist?
Bulgakov strongly emphasizes the fact that the story of the Ascension is told only by two of the Evangelists, Mark and Luke; in John there is only an indication of the departure in the farewell conversation and St. Matthew is silent about it: Instead Matthew ends with a Lord's promise, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen" (Mt.28:20). Bulgakov's conclusion is therefore that "the two testimonies are equivalent or, in any case, compatible: The Lord abides on the earth 'unto the end of the world,' while, at the same time, sitting at the right hand of the Father." Here a remark from James H. Hindes, a priest in The Christian Community, might prove to be helpful: Right is usually seen an active side opposite to passive left. Thus Christ Jesus has united with that side of the Father which actively reaches out to the world!
"Heaven is not a place situated somewhere in astronomical space", says Bulgakov, "Rather, it is the metaphysical state of the perfect glorification and deification of human substance, which thereby becomes inaccessible to human perception."
The Lord appeared to the Apostle Paul even after the Ascension; in fact, His departure from the world would correspond to His total de-incarnation! The Second Coming... "does not signify the arrival from one place to another, from 'heaven' to 'earth'. Rather, it signifies a change in human beings in the case of which the Lord will become accessible to our vision." Indeed, a Greek word parousia means the presence which is revealed!

There is a connection between the Ascension and the Pentecost. The Lord said: "It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, The Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7 NIV). It might be worth to pay regard to the fact that in Exodus during the journey through the desert, the Lord - identified as I AM - went ahead of Israelites in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night, just like Jesus Christ was taken up into heavens and a "cloud hid him" from the sight of disciples, and at Pentecost there came the tongues of fire. This is the etheric life force. Christ is abiding in the etheric counterpart of the earth, and the Holy Spirit is also Christ in us: when we get in touch with His aura surrounding the earth, the fire of the Holy Spirit fulfills us.

But let's return to Bulgakov once more: "The whole world is the chalice of Christ's blood and water. The whole world partook of them in communion at the hour of Christ's death." [...] "The world has become Christ, for it is the holy chalice, the Holy Grail. The world has become indestructible and incorruptible, for in Christ's blood and water it has received the power of incorruption, which will be manifested in its transfiguration" (New Jerusalem is made of precious stone, that is, ennobled, spiritualised matter). And concerning human beings: "The fullnes of the Incarnation, includes its effectiveness in nature as well (as is witnessed by Christ's miracles and the answering movements of the natural world: the star of Bethlehem, the eclipse of the sun and darkness at the hour of crucifixion, the earthquake, and so on). And by no means can one allow that human nature as such remained deaf and indifferent to the fact of its adoption by the God-man"... "Human nature is healed by the Incarnation inwardly, organically, by a new creation of it, as it were, a creation that will be revealed in its power and glory beneath a 'new heaven' on a 'new earth.'"

It is remarkable how much in common Sergius Bulgakov's ideas have with those of Rudolf Steiner's. Bulgakov's Sophiology would require a whole new story.

What I have come to learn about Karma & Grace

When it is said that the Christ suffers " for men", that His strength replaces their weakness, His purity their sin, His wisdom their ignorance, a truth is spoken; for the Christ so becomes one with men that they share with Him and He with them. There is no substitution of Him for them, but the taking of their lives into His, and the pouring of His life into theirs. For, having risen to the plane of unity, He is able to share all He has gained, to give all He has won. Standing above the plane of separateness and looking down at the souls immersed in separateness, He can reach each while they cannot reach each other. Water can flow from above into many pipes, open to the reservoir though closed as regards each other, and so He can send His life into each soul. Only one condition is needed in order that a Christ may share His strength with a younger brother: that in the separated life the human consciousness will open itself to the divine, will show itself receptive of the offered life, and take the freely outpoured gift. For so reverent is God to that Spirit which is Himself in man, that He will not even pour into the human soul a flood of strength and life unless that soul is willing to receive it. There must be an opening from below as well as an outpouring from above, the receptiveness of the lower nature as well as the willingness of the higher to give. That is the link between the Christ and the man; that is what the churches have called the outpouring of "divine grace"; that is what is meant by the "faith" necessary to make the grace effective. (Esoteric Christianity or the Lesser Mysteries by Annie Besant.)

I consider quote above quite useful, as the whole book by Besant, no matter what one might think of her twisted Christology - a reason that caused Rudolf Steiner to leave the Theosophical Society for good and found his own Anthroposophical movement.
In his Lecture in Münich, 3rd May 1911, titled: The Concepts of Original Sin and Grace, which I have found very enlightening, Rudolf Steiner explains how Luciferic influence came when a man was on the point of receiving his ego, so at that time still a child-like man could not discern between right and wrong: "This temptation was a deed to which man yielded before the period of ego-development but which has cast its shadows into the whole of this development."A man sinned with his astral body, for he had not his ego yet: "That is the radical difference between the sin we now incur as men and the sin which at that time crept into our human nature." [...]
"What the astral body has become as the result of the temptation of Lucifer is a perpetual cause of degeneration and deterioration of the human race."
This has continued through the course of the incarnations, since Luciferic impulse was implanted in heredity causing increasing deterioration in that process, says Steiner, and that is the true meaning of the "Original Sin", Inherited Sin in some languages like Finnish."This sin which, in its consequences, is inherited, which represents sin in man of which he is not guilty in the real sense, must be counterbalanced by the possibility of re-ascent, also without merit of his own. Just as without guilt of his own, man was obliged to fall, so he must be able to re-ascend without merit of his own — that is to say, without full merit of his own. We fell without being ourselves guilty and we must therefore be able to ascend without merit of our own." [...]
"Just as man has worsened his astral body through incurring Original Sin, so he heals it again through the Christ Impulse. An inflowing power repairs the astral body to the same extent to which it has deteriorated. That is the Atonement, that is what in the true sense is called ‘Grace’. Grace is the concept that is complementary to that of Original Sin. So the Christ Impulse has made it possible for man to become one with Christ, to say with St. Paul: ‘Not I, but Christ in me’, thus giving expression to everything that is designated by the concept of Grace."
Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer (1872-1938), a well-known Protestant Minister in Germany, who became a first leader of The Christian Community in 1922... "Tells us of his experiences with Rudolf Steiner over a period of ten years of apprehension, critical investigation and cautious scrutiny of the new body of thought, and his final conviction of the unparalleled greatness of Rudolf Steiner's spirit" (note by D.S. Osmond, translator of his book, Rudolf Steiner Enters My Life). Friedrich Rittelmeyer writes among other things about karma and grace:

But - Sin and Grace? This was, after all, the most fundamental experience in Luther! "Rudolf Steiner has not understood that at all," - so say the theologians. - He understood it so little that he spoke more profoundly and poignantly than all his contemporaries of the actuality and influence of Evil. He investigated the history of the Fall into Sin and perceived its consequences on the one hand in nature itself and on the other in thought, which has become abstract, vapid, dead, wherever one looks in theology. A later epoch will be faced with the remarkable phenomenon in history that the man who spoke as none other before him - not subjectively but objectively - of the terrible havoc wrought by Evil, should have had to put up with being reproached by theologians that he did not know the meaning of Sin.

And Grace? He understood it so little that, as none other before him, he taught the Christ-Deed - that act of Grace unmerited by us and far transcending all our thinking - as the all decisive event in human history without which the whole of mankind would have been lost, but which they could not have brought to pass of themselves - an event so decisive that upon it rested the whole future of humanity and of each individual. He understood "so little" that he said: "The higher one rises, the more does everything become Grace." But he said little about it, and he did not speak in the language of the theologians.

Karma and reincarnation - the laws of destiny and rebirth. They are exactly contrary to the Christian experience of Grace and the biblical Gospel of salvation - so it is said. Over against this let it be stated with all emphasis that in our time both these truths, although they are not found in the Bible, can be recognised as Christian truths. For me they are not so much scientific results of spiritual research with which Christianity has to come to terms - although they are that too - but far rather actual demands of Christianity when it is rightly understood.
Think of it for a moment: a man passes into the higher world. How will it be with him? For a time he may rejoice to find himself free of the earth and all her misery. But then, if he is allowed a prayer - what will it be? He will surely wish again to meet all those human beings whom he wronged in earthly life, and he will crave for the opportunity to do good to those whom he wronged on earth. "Grace" will lie precisely in this, that he asks if this may be granted him. The law of Karma may have appeared in the East as irrevocable world-necessity - in the light of Christ it becomes an act of Grace, our own free wish. But that act of Grace - the only one of which we usually hear mention - namely that a man has been seized by the reality of Christ, that act of Grace must have gone before in order to make such a wish possible at all.
And now suppose the man in the other world is allowed a second request - what will he wish? He will wish that he may help the Christ where His task is heaviest and most menaced, where Christ Himself suffers and has to fight most bitterly. This wish, if it were fullfilled, would lead the man back again to the earth.
It is not Christian to long for the rest and blessedness far from the miseries of earth. It is Christian to bear within one the consciousness which once brought Christ from Heaven to earth, to find one's joy in being like unto Him and to work with Him wherever He may need us.

Rittelmeyer adds however, that there are no dogmas in The Christian Community, so reincarnation certainly is not one either. Together in devotion to Christ one can even reject that.
James H. Hindes, a priest in the Christian Community, summarises Steiner's ideas of salvation in his excellent book, Renewing Christianity:

The weight of sin through the ages would have already destroyed the earth and with it our possibility of any future existence as human beings were it not for the intervention of God in the person of Christ Jesus. In uniting with the earth he has taken on the consequences of human misdeeds which burden the earth. He is the one who 'takes away the sin of the world.' When Christ says to the sick man in Chapter 9 of Matthew's gospel 'Your sins are forgiven' this means, according to Steiner's interpretation, 'Christ has forgiven you so completely that even the destructive spiritual consequences for the earth have been eradicated.' What we by ourselves cannot do - to undo the consequences of our sins for the earth - Christ has done for him. [...]
What is here essential is that the personal consequences of our sins be transformed into destiny. To take away this aspect of sin would be to rob us of the possibility of advancement, ultimately, of salvation. Salvation cannot be a purely passive process or we would be robbed of our freedom.

You may also want to meditate these Bible passages:
"A man reaps what he sows." - Gal.6:7
"For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." - Mt.7:2
"For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done." - Mt.16:27
"It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of pen to drop out of the Law." - Lk.16:17
"But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'" - Mt.9:13
"Love covers over a multitude of sins." - 1 Pt.4:8
"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world trough him." - John 3:17
Also consider this: A Greek word generally translated as "judgement" means actually crisis; Crisis is a turning point with a possibility for something new!

Paul Brunton wisely said that Buddha was born in a country where priests had made people to believe that all sins can be redeemed and their effects on karma deleted through some payed ritual, or sacrifise, or magic. Therefore Buddha wanted to lift the morality of his people and denyed forgiveness of sins affirming the strict and unchangeable rule of the law of karma.
Jesus was born in a country where religion declared "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Because he was as wise as Buddha, he emphasized the forgiveness of sins and God's mercy. He might have acknowledged Buddha's view but he would have added, "There is also the law of love for those who have faith to call it and will to obey it."
There is no jugdement or punishment in destiny, it is a neutral and impersonal force. God's Love is not sentimental; it is tough love seeking the ultimate Good for us, therefore it won't protect us from experiences we need in order to grow. Man is an active participant in his life, not just an unwilling observer. Life is a sum of countless opportunities and choices. Past influence only provides the frames for possibilities and probabilities. In God's "Blue print" there are only outer limits of the building, not details or materials for interior decorating: that's left for the man himself.
Same difficulties may make one man bitter and another man may see them as an opportunity. Reactions order how things evolve. Good deeds are followed by contentment and bad deeds are followed by sorrow.
"And forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are in debt to us." This is the law of balance and harmony, doctrine of cause and effect. As karma is one side of the coin, so are the compassion and grace another aspect of the same universal law: too much and too little - sin to grace - vices to virtues.
The immortal I-amness, real center and source of our consciousness, preserves all lessons that our earthly, ordinary self cannot comprehend. It is the vine and personalities on earth are the branches.
"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouds and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head." Mark 4:26-28
Here sleeping means the sleep of death, but the seed is growing night and day. It won't result fast and suddenly but nothing goes backwards - everything goes forward.
In another parable of Jesus (Mt.21, Mk.12, Lk.20), Vineyard is earthly life and man is only a tenant not an owner. He must pay the rent, to bring some fruit to the Giver of Life, that is, to find something in his experiences of life that will nourish his eternal being, or else he's wasted his life.

See also: Karma & Grace by John Van Auken (Edgar Cayce's viewpoint),
and Grace and Mercy - Wisdom words (quotes from various authors).