I AM the Soul's Heartbeat Volume 3

By Kristina Kaine

Seek that Goal from which they who have reached it never return. The Bhagavad Gita 15:4

The steps on the Eightfold Path can be found in many teachings and are sometimes called by different names.

The steps on the path to enlightenment are right understanding or view, right intention or judgment, right speech, right action or morality, right livelihood or habits, right effort or endeavour, right mindfulness or memory and right concentration or contemplation.

These steps are aspects of the path rather than a sequence of steps on the path. It is easy to see that the steps do not stand alone. Right speech must be preceded by the right intention which is preceded by the right understanding. Right endeavour must be preceded by right morality and so on.

This book leads the reader into a deeper understanding of how they may experience these things in modern life. It is a guide to conquering the difficulties in life by accepting the challenges and dealing with them in a higher way - that is the I AM that is the heartbeat of the soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristina Kaine
• Release date: Jun 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9780987461766

Kristina Kaine

Kristina Kaine has worked with people all her life: during her early career in medical sales and staff recruitment, and for the last 20 years in her own business which matches people in business partnerships, as well as for home sharing and home minding. Through this rich interaction with people, Kristina has observed the struggle for self identity from many angles. She was awakened to the ideas of Rudolf Steiner by Rev Mario Schoenmaker, attending all of Schoenmaker's lectures for 14 years. After Schoenmaker's death in 1997, Kristina realised the need to explain the knowledge of the threefold human being in simple terms that could be applied easily in daily life. As well as her weekly reflections that are read worldwide, she has set this out in her book, 'I Connecting : the Soul's Quest', which was published in 2007 by Robert Sardello. It is not unusual for her to receive comments about her book like this: "It seems like a very lucid treatment, like looking through a clear glass window through which one can discover and recognize the landscape of the soul."

Book preview

I AM

The Soul’s Heartbeat

Volume 3

Buddha’s Eightfold Path in the Gospel of St John

Kristina Kaine

Smashwords Edition

* * * * *

Published on Smashwords by:

I AM PRESS

PO Box 611

MERIMBULA, NSW

Australia

[e-mail]

www.esotericconnection.com

I AM The Soul’s Heartbeat Volume 3

Buddha’s Eightfold Path in the Gospel of St John

Copyright © 2013 by Kristina Kaine

ISBN 978-0-9874617-6-6

Cover designed by Adriana Koulias

Cover artwork: Buddha Walking among the Flowers by Odilon Redon

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

First Published as a weekly Newsletter from June to December 2004

Second Edition published as an ebook in January 2013.

This book is written from the insight of the author, if similar information is found in other books this is co-incidental. Quotes by other authors are referenced.

More information about the author’s websites is listed at the end of this book.

Contents

Foreword

The Eightfold Path of Buddha

Right Understanding

Right Judgment

Right Speech

Right Action

Right Livelihood

Right Effort

Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration

Foreword

Writing this series of reflections was an extraordinary experience. Buddha is generally associated with the Gospel of St Luke, so to place the Eightfold Path into the Gospel of St John was a challenge and a revelation.

What is widely understood is that Buddha played a crucial role in the Deed of Christ. Without the spiritual work of Siddhartha Buddha, in the flesh and in the spiritual worlds after his incarnation, it would not have been possible for the Cosmic Christ to enter the body of Jesus and complete the journey to the cross on Golgotha. Likewise, Krishna represents a stage in this process. Isn’t it time that we opened our eyes to see how all these lives are intertwined in human evolution.

I dedicate these reflections to my beloved spiritual mentor Rev Mario Schoenmaker (1929 – 1997). It was such a privilege to attend his lectures, many of which I transcribed. He gave us a living experience of Christ and his work lives on in those of us who love him.

May these reflections be the catalyst for new understandings which bring the living Christ to a fuller expression in each of our lives.

New Year 2004/5

The Eightfold Path of Buddha

Seek that Goal from which they who have reached it never return.

The Bhagavad Gita 15:4

The steps on the Eightfold Path can be found in many teachings and are sometimes called by different names. The list below attempts to correlate them.

Rudolf Steiner used these steps as part of his esoteric class and assigned a day of the week to focus on each one.

Rev Mario Schoenmaker recommended these exercises in several of his lecture series. He also associated them with the Beatitudes. (August 9, 1987)

1. Saturday: Right View : Understanding/image : No love /hate : Resolve :Belief

2. Sunday : Right Judgment : Free of past life influences : Not swayed, nor to sway : Right Thinking : Intention Aspiration

3. Monday : Right Speech : Word : No gossip : No lying :

4. Tuesday : Right Action : Deed : Morality : Conduct :

5. Wednesday : Right Livelihood : Standpoint : Orderliness : Living : Vocation

6. Thursday : Right Effort : Objective : Striving : Endeavour : Exertion

7. Friday : Right Mindfulness : Memory : Remembrance : Awareness :

8. Everyday : Right Contemplation : Concentration/ survey : Meditation/Self-immersion : Focus : Absorption

Buddhism is founded on the Four Noble Truths from Buddha’s first sermon which are:

Suffering exists

Suffering arises from attachment to desires

Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases

Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the Eightfold Path

Rudolf Steiner said the following in a lecture given on 25th October, 1909 called The Sphere of the Bodhisattvas.

Gautama Buddha was a Being who had always been able to incarnate in the earthly bodies of the various periods of civilisation, without having had to use everything in this human organisation. It had not been necessary for this Being to go through real human incarnations. Now, however, came an important turning-point for the Bodhisattva; it now became necessary for him to make himself acquainted with all the destinies of the human organisation within an earthly body which he was to enter. He was to experience something which could only be experienced in an earthly body; and because he was such a high Individuality, this one incarnation was sufficient for him to see all that a human body can develop. Other people have to evolve the inner capacities gradually, throughout the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh periods; but Buddha could experience in this one incarnation all that it was possible to evolve. In his incarnation as Gautama Buddha he saw, in advance, the first germ of what was to arise in man as conscience, which will become greater and greater as time goes on. He was therefore able to re-ascend into the spiritual world directly after that incarnation; there was no need for him to go through another. What man will, in a certain sphere evolve out of himself during future cycles, Buddha was able to give in this one incarnation, as a great directing force. This came about through the event which has been described as the sitting under the Bodhi-tree. He then gave forth — in accordance with his special mission — the teaching of compassion and love contained in the Eightfold Path. This great Ethic of humanity which men will acquire as their own during the civilisations yet to come, was laid down as a basic force in the mind of the Buddha who descended at that time, and from Bodhisattva became Buddha, which means that he really rose a stage higher, for he learnt through his descent.

That, in different words, describes that great event in Eastern civilisation known as the Bodhisattva becoming Buddha. When this Bodhisattva, who had never really incarnated, was 29 years of age, his individuality fully entered the son of Suddhodana; not having fully had possession of him. He then experienced the great human teaching of compassion and love. Why did this Bodhisattva, who then became Buddha, incarnate in this people? Why not in the Graeco-Latin people?

If this Bodhisattva was