Water, Our Holy Teacher
Posted on Sat, Mar 21, 2009
“God reveals Himself in His creations and whoever would know God must learn to know the true essence of these creations.”
Dr. Rudolf Steiner, from the Stages of Higher Knowledge
Creative Renunciation
Water does not demand for itself a specific form, it takes the form of the vessel into which it is oured. It does not have an “ego” but by not demanding a form, it creates a space that enables things to experience themselves. We know that in the physical world the greater the force we apply, the
more we can “move mountains.” If we want to bring about a change in the physical world we need to
show a strong will. However, in all true spiritual paths, there is a spiritual law to be mindful of – if we want to gain access to the spiritual world we have to completely let go of our own will, or egoism, and devote ourselves to the spiritual essence we want to understand.
Can we create a new space in order to contain, to perceive, to wonder? Some would call this the capacity for “unconditional love,” the place in which the human being puts herself aside and says, “I, with my willing, my feelings, my thoughts, am not important now. I will let that which stands in front of me speak. I will turn myself to water.” Water teaches us the force of renunciation. Not oiding myself out of lack of self-esteem but waiving my purely personal stance out of spiritual strength, out of creativity.
The Universal Womb
We know from research about life that all forms of life known on earth must go through at least one
stage of their life cycle in liquid water. The embryo in the womb of the mother, the chrysalis before it
transforms into a butterfly, Jesus in his Baptism in the River of Jordan when He received the Christ into his physical existence. The chemical reason for this is that water is an ideal medium for chemical reactions as each element feels safe enough that it can join or part with another element.
Can we learn from this “ultimate host” how to create a lifesupporting space? A space in which each true meeting is done out of real listening, out of caring; where the inner and the outer find ways of
self-expression; where it is legitimate to have doubts and to make mistakes. A space that does
not dictate but enables, carries and supports the individuals who are in it. A sharp rock would transform into a softer, rounder stone until at the end it turns into grains of sand.
The Vortex
In the physical world, in solid substances there is always a “power game” in space. When two solid
objects meet in space, one of the following situations must occur: either one body pushes the other
one, or they both break. When two human beings are wrestling, you either conquer space or you are
pushed away from space or you wrestle until the bitter end. When two strong streams of water meet in space, instead of going into a power game they start dancing around the “eye of their
meeting.” A new space is created, an open space that penetrates to the depths and enables a higher
element – air – to penetrate. Can we learn from this example how to meet our fellow human beings? How can we bring ourselves with all our might and accept into the space the full might of the other
person so that we don’t diminish one another? Can we, like water, enable the two forces to start dancing around a mutual centre? Can we invite into this centre a higher element than that which
each one would bring alone if the meeting hadn’t taken place?
The Never Ending Movement
Water never stops moving, it always moves in cycles, in an eternal cycle. It forms vapour, it condenses into rain and then streams into rivers, to the sea, and from there back again into vapour. Only in one situation does it look like the movement stops, when water freezes, but then we see a phenomena which is called “the Anomaly of Water.” In a solid state the mass and density of water
is lower than its liquid form at 4° C. “is means that ice does not sink but it floats upon the heavier water – a situation that enables water (and life in Arctic areas) to continue to move and flow underneath the ice.
Can we learn from this movement something essential about healing forces – mental healing forces as well as physical ones? Water asks us not to stop, not to solidify, not to sink down but to move, to change, to grow, to go through metamorphoses and transformations; renewal, laughter and sorrow, breakdown and build up, death and resurrection.
The Forces of Resurrection
In the high mountains, substance is taken out of the life cycle. Water goes over the surface of the earth in clouds, deep under the earth in groundwater and on the surface of the earth in familiar ways. Soil does not go out of the life cycle. When water falls down as rain on high mountains it penetrates through small cracks into the hardest of rocks, but when it freezes it has the capacity to expand – the cracks get bigger, the rocks break down and when the ice melts, the water carries the broken rocks down the mountain and they stream into rivers, where they become available to plants again. Water also brings minerals up through the roots of plants, which are fixed under the
earth, and water also moves substances from place to place by its flow upon the earth. Can we learn from water to see the world as one living organism? Can we be like water, which does not distinguish between nations, borders or closed spaces?
The Forces of Self Purification
Whatever dissolves in water, at the end of the day will emerge back out of
it again. Water has the capacity to take into itself many substances but
only for a limited time. It lets processes happen within it (see “the
Universal Womb”) but it does not want to hold onto things. It does not
need possessions, which is why on the banks of rivers or ponds, water frees
substances again. It cleans itself by evaporation or by throwing substances
to the banks of rivers and seas. Water purifies itself only in order to be able
to take in new substances in the future.
Can we learn to live in this way with matter, so that we always borrow, we never possess? Can we treat matter not as our own but as the world’s possession, given to us only for a limited time, a loan to be returned and know that our journey continues without it?
Above all, water teaches us the essence of love – love for life, for the world, for the other person and for ourselves. Isn’t it again time to sanctify God’s creation, to make it holy again, to educate our children, our friends and ourselves to conserve it?
- Chen Atid