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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 1941 through 1950 of 6552

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220. Truth, Beauty and Goodness 19 Jan 1923, Dornach
Translator Unknown

In earthly existence we live in a world that is but a copy of true reality. Indeed, we only understand this physical world aright when we realize it to be this copy of reality. It behooves us, however, to feel the true reality within us; we must be aware of our connection with the spiritual world.
Now in earlier epochs of evolution man had a better understanding of the etheric body than he has to-day. Indeed, instead of feeling the reality of the etheric body, he is nowadays apt to scoff at the very idea.
Past, present, future—these three concepts, as they play their part in human life, assume far-reaching significance when we understand the concrete reality of the other three concepts—Truth, Beauty, Goodness. The man who is untruthful denies his spiritual past; the liar severs the threads between himself and his spiritual past.
220. Living Knowledge of Nature 20 Jan 1923, Dornach
Translator Unknown

I learn to perceive a big difference between the warm gleaming water which produces fish, and the warm illumined air which produces birds. I learn gradually to understand how, through this difference, the whole life of the bird becomes different. While the fins of the fish obtain their simple rays from the water, the bird's feathers obtain their barbs and barbules through the particular activity of the air, air that is filled with the light and warmth of the sun.
Many of the old feelings that still live on in tradition would disappear, and be replaced by the recognition that the Anthroposophical Society has a very definite task. Then would everything else develop and be understood in its relation to life. We may indeed point with a certain inner satisfaction to the fact that during the war, when the peoples of Europe were engaged in fighting against one another, seventeen nations were working together on this Building, which has now come to such a sad end.
The second is the sense for the recognition of the real place of each being in the world of which it is a part—to perceive the water with the fish, the air with the bird, and then further to the sense for the understanding of our fellow men. For the sense for goodness, which is this sympathetic experience of what interests another and lives in his soul, is the third thing.
220. Fall and Redemption 21 Jan 1923, Dornach
Translator Unknown

And it is absolutely untrue to say, for example, that they even understand the higher animals. They only believe that they understand them. And so our understanding of the human being gradually dropped completely out of our understanding of the world, because understanding dropped out of our concepts.
Today the time has come when Christ must be understood. But we resist this understanding of Christ, and the form this resistance takes is extraordinarily characteristic.
We must extend our knowledge out into the cosmos. We must learn to understand the elements. We must learn to understand the movements of the planets. We must learn to understand the star constellations, and their influence on what happens on earth.
220. Man's Fall and Redemption 26 Jan 1923, Dornach
Translator Unknown

The fear of that time—a last remnant of which can be seen in Faust, when he says farewell to the Bible and turns to Nature—consisted in this, that man might approach a knowledge of Nature under the sign of man's fall and not under the sign of an ascent from sin. The root of the matter really lies far deeper than one generally thinks.
Then we shall argue, very intelligently, that the bones must in this case remain physical matter, in order that they may undergo a gradual material metamorphosis in the grave! It is important to bear in mind that the material form is an external form and that it is the formative forces that undergo a metamorphosis.
A real understanding of the process of thinking leads to a pre-existent life, provided such thoughts are not forbidden.
220. Realism and Nominalism 27 Jan 1923, Dornach
Translator Unknown

In the present time, Spiritual Science alone enables us to understand the entire process of resurrection—to understand it practically, as an experience. Spiritual Science wishes to bring these very experiences to conscious knowledge out of the depths of the soul; they bring light into the Christ-experience.
Instead we must realize that what enables us to understand the monistic materialistic conception does not enable us to understand the anthroposophical conception. You see, theosophists believed that the understanding of the materialistic monistic conception enabled them also to understand the spiritual. For this reason we have the peculiar phenomenon that in the monistic materialistic world conception people argue as follows:—everything is matter; man consists only of matter—the material substance of the blood, of the nerves, etc.
221. Earthly Knowledge and Heavenly Insight: The I-Being can be Shifted into Pure Thinking I 03 Feb 1923, Dornach

Bon, for his part, probably thought of Rosenkranz as being obsessed with the latest ideas, and as a person who, although unprejudiced in a sense, no longer understood the good old wisdom that Bon still possessed. And so these two – as I said, it was in 1843 – entered into a conversation.
Now, that's what Bon had learned here in Switzerland from the Goutuelians, to say that one should take care not to be disturbed in one's own constellation by the turba of the other processes in the surrounding area, so that the pure tincture of one's own astrum could remain. As I said, Rosenkranz understood the expressions. I believe that today not even everyone understands the expressions, even if they want to be a very learned person.
People take in Anthroposophy, at first they take it in the way that modern people are accustomed to, in the manner of passive thinking. One can understand it if one's human understanding is healthy, one does not need to apply mere belief. If the human intellect is merely healthy, one can understand the thoughts.
221. Earthly Knowledge and Heavenly Insight: The I-Being can be Shifted into Pure Thinking II 04 Feb 1923, Dornach

I said that the insect has the task of always undergoing certain transformations within itself, coinciding with the course of the year. The insect undergoes the course of the year in its own transformation.
So what is being proved to him is something dead. He cannot understand it. Only when one begins to perceive what is today the ordinary world view as something dead, then one says to oneself: I do not understand what is being proved to me, just as I do not understand a corpse, because it is what is left over from a living being. I understand a corpse only when I know to what extent it was permeated by life. And so we have to say to ourselves: what is considered proven today cannot in fact be understood if we look at it more deeply.
266II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 20 Sep 1912, Basel
Translator Unknown

Some souls even have a negative attitude to this treasure, and they express their dislike for it. Such an attitude is understandable, for one has to admit that it's hard to master the given teachings. But after all, it's our task to work our way through to an ever more comprehensive understanding of Christ and to penetrate ever deeper into the Mystery of Golgotha.
If we strive seriously and apply thought power, effort and time to understand everything that was and is being said about Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, we'll be equal to the attacks of the adversarial forces that are trying to stop esoterics' development.
266II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 22 Sep 1912, Basel
Translator Unknown

He looks at the latter differently than before. In a way, he's outgrown them and yet he understands them better. We shouldn't lose interest in things in the outer world, although an esoteric training tends to make one lose interest in what formerly interested one.
266II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 08 Nov 1912, Berlin
Translator Unknown

However, great help is given by what we receive from theosophy, when we study what is said there about the Saturn, Sun and Moon conditions, for then we can understand what the “it' is in: It thinks me. It's theosophy; that's what this it is. Theosophy is the world thoughts that thought me as an I.

Results 1941 through 1950 of 6552

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