Teachings and art of Herman Rednick

Editorial Notes
These lessons were selected from the herman archives. Some were presented in class & some were not. There may be others lessons or fragments that should be included in this memoir, but we do not have copies of any others at this time. We have not included anything from god touched the earth.

Very little editing was necessary to make this presentation & we have arranged it in chronological order – as near as that could be determined. All of these lessons were written between 1971 and 1984. We have also supplied some of the bible citations to facilitate study.

The criteria for selection was that the lesson should tell us about the nature of the christ, and not about our relation to the christ, the life of Jesus or the christ’s function in our practical yoga.

It seems appropriate that at this time of year we ask herman, “who is christ?” His answer is eloquently contained in these 100 short homilies.

The cosmic christ presented in these lessons is the focal- point, way, presence & goal of herman’ teachings.

Robert and Dianna VanArsdale 12/13/94

Preface to tbe Centennial Edition 2.002
That being we comprehend as the Christ was the heart and soul of Herman’s teaching — both his theology and his practice rest on the living Presence of Christ. Herman was not a philosopher nor a romantic, he was a true mystic, a seer who presented the truth of his actual experiences in the spiritual worlds. In other words, in these too lessons Herman is expressing what he had- realized through his direct experiences with the Christ. Herman was not unaware of the concepts and images of Christ which the desires of humanity have created in the astral world, but he ascended to a higher level of Christ’s reality and provides us with a truly cosmic vision of the christ—a vision for today.

The Being of the Christ which Herman presented to us differs radically from almost all of the many ideas and images which have arisen in Western minds these past two millennia. Indeed, even among serious seekers the idea of a cosmic Christ remains ambiguous and inarticulate. Even those with a metaphysical bent usually image Christ using rather vague esoteric or theosophical—that is, quasi -mystical—concepts mixed with purely sentimental fantasies and mundane psychological assumptions. Alternatively, many educated Christians, who contend that they are too sophisticated for such indecisive and incoherent thinking, often conceive of a Christ so abstract, so remote from our lives and needs as to be totally irrelevant to our “real- world” problems. Their abstract and theological approach isguite the opposite from what the masses of Christians believe. Indeed, for the overwhelming majority of Catholics and Protestants alike, the Christ has been reduced to “the man Jesus/ “the son of man,” or sometimes “the man of sorrows”—”One so like us, so human!” Unfortunately, such notions quickly become idolatrous and end in reducing the universal redemptive power and transcendent love of Christ to a simple morality play about a good and wise Jewish Rabbi who was unjustly crucified by the Romans two thousand years ago. We do not find the theological, materialistic or sentimental perspective in Herman’s teachings and image of the Christ.

For those Christians who cannot ascend to the current “home” of Christ in the etheric, His image has remained pretty much frozen—fixed in mundane ideas of an imagined Palestine of two thousand years ago. And thus, most people have a static and unchanging concept of the Christ. Indeed, it is from the Greeks that we got the notion that perfection must be unchanging and this still dominates Christian thinking. Herman told us in 1972 that “we need a clear image” of Christ, “as He is today!” For instance, “His physical body is transmuted so that every cell is radiating light. All his centers are glowing with prismatic color and power. His heart is like the sun. And His mind is filled with a holy intensity. Out of His heart and eyes, there floods waves of compassion to everyone. Every activity in the world is touched” (Lesson 5). This is certainly a different vision of the Christ than is commonly presented in our culture, or in any culture. We,as Herman’s students, must open our hearts and minds to make this dynamic, cosmic vision a living reality in our own lives. Therefore, Herman instructed us “not to reach out to the crucified Christ. It is the risen Christ that lives within me” (Lesson 99). Furthermore, “The Christ is not a single figure, He is much larger than the form of man. He has a great aura that is filled with a thousand angels and with His close disciples. He is here and everywhere. He responds to every sincere call” (Lesson 9 7). Thus, it is only through the living Christ Presence that we may move along this Path at all.

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