Christ meditated in Gethsemane, a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives to the east of Jerusalem.

He knew what awaited him and He wanted to prepare himself inwardly on Golgotha, the last phase of his earthly life.

In Gethsemane, He prepared himself to represent his All-Consciousness at the moment that the violence of the world would charge at him.

Amidst that destruction, He had to be able to do and say exactly what his message of love could give strength for mankind.

He felt that He could achieve this by accepting in everything and receiving in love the people who came to him.

That inner attitude that he had mastered during his cosmic evolution, by feeding and putting into practice more and more the giving love to all life.

As a result, that attitude and that universal love could guide him in everything that he encountered.

After all, he had become true in everything, when He spoke to the human being and offered help where possible.

In Gethsemane, He also made his apostles aware of his role.

After all, they still fell asleep, because their higher and serving feelings were not ready for holding a vigil with him during these crucial hours.

Would they be resistant to the lower feelings and behaviours which started to test their lives, or would they soon lose their own harmony by participating in the harshness of the world?

Master Zelanus explains in his lectures what Gethsemane can mean for anyone who wishes to follow the path of Christ.

Gethsemane is the preparation for the task which people wish to take on in life.

For this purpose, it is necessary to create a silence in the inner self, a calm place in order to meditate.

A space in which all feelings and thoughts can be considered in relation to universal love.

When all the lazy and destructive feelings and thoughts are banished from the inner self, they can no longer pounce on the human being when necessary.

Golgotha is the place where Christ was crucified.

He let himself be nailed to the cross willingly, after he had dragged that heavy cross up the mountain.

The apostles did not understand at that moment why their teacher did not offer any single resistance.

Master Zelanus says that they suffocated in the inertia of Christ and that they then doubted whether He was indeed the Messiah, because He let himself be murdered like a criminal.

In his lectures, master Zelanus analyses the reason why Christ accepted this crucifixion.

Christ knew that his actions would be known throughout the whole world and would serve as an example for mankind.

But what actions does it concern then, the non-violence that the apostles saw as submissive?

Master Zelanus puts forward that it costs precisely a great deal of willpower to let oneself be beaten in this way and to do nothing in return.

Christ would have been able to free himself from that situation with one thought, He did not even need to use his hands for that.

If He had just attuned his wonderful concentration, all his assailants would have been wiped from the surface of the earth.

But what would He have achieved then?

Master Zelanus explains that He would then have lost his All-Love.

Christ had reached the All by loving every life, not by cursing it and wishing it gone.

Universal love not only extends to the own loved ones but to all people, also the so-called opponents and enemies.

Christ did not know any opponents, He only saw the life of the All-Soul that we called ‘people’.

Christ also loved Pilate, Caiaphas and his executioners.

He did not materialise one negative thought about them.

By means of this, He indicated what universal love entails.

That is in the first instance an unconditional accepting of everything that another person does.

This total acceptance is also a complete openness, keeping the connection with the other person open, being ready to take care of that other person in everything that he does, thinks and feels.

Christ already built up that openness in the past during his own evolution as a cosmic soul.

He had first acquired a connection of feeling as a result of which He could feel directly the inner world of all people.

Then that connection of feeling with life had become even more spacious, and He felt the life of animal, nature and Mother Earth.

And finally He had been able to open the cosmic connection of feeling with all the life in the universe.

If He had just closed himself off for a moment from his executioners on Golgotha, then He would have destroyed his cosmic openness.

Christ remained open to all people, and as a result He had to suffer during his crucifixion, but not due to the crucifixion of his body.

But because He felt what it brought his executioners.

That hurt him, because He knew that as a result they placed themselves in a sphere of violence.

Christ knew that sphere, the Land of Hatred and Lust and Violence in the hereafter, He knew what all these people attuned themselves to as a result of their actions.

He knew that his executioners beat themselves and that they would later sink away in this violence.

When they too begin with their journey to the spheres of light one day, they must take back all this violence and they will unbelievably regret that they ever violated the Messiah.

It will take them many centuries to free themselves from that remorse.

Christ knew that they could not beat him, because He could not be reached inwardly, He remained himself, He remained love.

However, He could not explain to them how they burdened their own soul by means of a harsh word or a destructive thought.

He could not teach these people that their soul is harmonious by nature and that they only came further in their cosmic evolution when they started to experience the harmony of their soul by letting their feelings and actions be guided by universal love.

Christ knew that He could not reach these people by means of words, so He said nothing, and let himself be crucified.

However, He also knew his astral pupils, the masters of the University of Christ, would one day be able to explain to the world why He had let himself be crucified.

He also knew that another two thousand years would pass.

At that time, his apostles still could not understand any explanation at soul level, they were still too limited by the then level of understanding of the world.

In the twentieth century, via Jozef Rulof the masters could pass on that the path of Christ is the path of all souls in the universe.

Every soul will one day reach the complete acceptance and thus achieve universal love.

Once every destructive thought has been crucified and all the inner violence has died, every soul will begin to feel the All-Love which was built into the core of all life and will only reach working and become radiant light by actually loving.

Then Christ awakens in the inner life, because the own Golgotha is accepted and experienced in the depth.

In this way, for every soul who leaves behind it all the dark feeling and thinking, the sentient connection with all the life in the cosmos begins.

Then the personality becomes soft, benevolent, supporting, helpful, kind-hearted, open and universally loving.

For that soul, it will never become dark again on earth or in the Hereafter, because the All-Light will lighten its further paths for ever.

Gethsemane and Golgotha -- Sources