I AM, Page 2

Here it is well to reflect upon the significance, of old, of one’s “name.” To this end, see “Name,” “Name Change” and “NT Names.” And for further light on the nature of the “I Am” see the meaning of “Bush.”

While “Bush” appears later herein, the other terms will not be available until later. Since they relate so closely to the “I Am,” a brief discussion of them at this point seems essential. Since the Middle Ages the significance of a “Name” has undergone such a change that in our modern time we have little understanding of it. Today’s human being looks out upon the world and sees in it merely a physical object in space and time. There is no tendency to think of it as existing other than in those confines, space and time. Any name given to it has no particular significance other than the fact that it is known by that name. If it is an orange, it is so only because that happens to be the name of the class of items to which it has been assigned. If it is a person, the name exists only because it was assigned at birth by the parents. The name itself has no reality apart from the person. This is so obvious that any suggestion otherwise borders on the ridiculous in the modern way of thinking.

And yet, it has not always been so. At a transitional point in human history (evolution), when this modern view began to arise, it was the center of an emotional philosophical debate known as Nominalism versus Realism. Plato and Aristotle were “realists” who saw in the name of an object something that transcended the object. For the orange, there was in the spiritual world a very real “Form” from which the tangible orange itself came into being. Moses also had this understanding. It can be found most vividly in the “after its kind” language in Gen 1,11,12,21,24,25. Throughout the time when the Bible was written this view prevailed. But this Platonic and Aristotelian conception was fading by the Middle Ages. Aquinas and other devout churchmen struggled to carry it forward, but the tendency was toward the “nominalist” idea that there was no metaphysically real existence in regard to the “Name” of an object or person. Insofar as it applied to human beings, the nominalist view seems to have been a natural development with the loss, over long periods, of the knowledge that the Ego, one’s “I Am,” has existed in prior lives and that its personality and its “Three Bodies” in the present life have been formed in the spiritual world as a result of these prior lives (see “Form”). The Middle Age churchmen held to the ancient understanding even though they had lost the knowledge of reincarnation. They clung to theological beliefs that had arisen earlier, without seeing the metaphysical reality behind them. See 8 Brit 753, “Nominalism,” which says “In the Middle Ages . . . Platonic and Aristotelian realisms were associated with orthodox religious belief.”

Theologians today almost universally agree that names had greater significance in ancient than in modern times. But they have generally failed to articulate why this is so. It is all part of humanity’s “Fading Splendor.” When humanity comes to understand the human journey between death and rebirth, as discussed in “Karma and Reincarnation,” the metaphysical reality behind the individual human being will once again be seen. The “reality” behind the sensate world, seen by ancient humanity, will again be “seen, heard and understood” (Is 6,9-10). Then, for example, will the meaning of Luke’s emphasis upon the naming of the Baptist as “John” be understood (Lk 1,13,59-66).

The “Name” given to a person in the Bible is a description of the nature of the person at birth, describing the character and attributes of personality with which the person incarnated. A person who went through initiation into the Mysteries was said to have been “born again” (Jn 3,3), becoming a “New Man,” whereupon a “Name Change,” where appropriate, was given to indicate the person’s new character and attributes. Abram became Abraham; Jacob, Israel; Simon, Peter; and Saul, Paul. We will see other examples. It is this transformation, as described in Jn 11, “the raising of Lazarus from the dead,” that hides the reality of the “Name” of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see “Peter, James and John”).

In this light, one cannot pray “in his name” who is not acting in keeping with his (Christ’s) Being. The words themselves mean no more than the names given to children at their birth today. Whenever one truly prays “in his name,” the prayer is always heard (Jn 14,13-14). The term “unanswered prayer” is an oxymoron if it is really “in his name.” For total subservience to the Father’s will is always present when one is “in his name.” And it is only in this condition that one can become a “child of God” by “believing in his name” (Jn 1,12). Such belief is a matter of character, not mere verbal profession. The latter, without the former, is a fraud (1 Jn 1,6; 2,4; Mt 7,21).

Steiner called the Elohim (I-6), the beings called “God” in Gen 1, “Spirits of Form.” They created the etheric reality behind the tangible world, and from that reality came the perishable things and creatures we perceive on Earth. Ultimately there is more reality to the “Form(s)” than to their perishable offspring. The latter has even been called “maya,” illusion. The “Name” of something tangible is its higher reality in the etheric or spiritual world. With this, we can return to the “I Am.”