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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 371 through 380 of 6552

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95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Human Tasks in the Higher Worlds 26 Aug 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

In the first region, the continental, where everything physical is spread out in negative, but like a vast tableau, a man is under an obligation to create the image of his new body. He does this free of all hindrance, and in so doing feels the bliss of creation. In the second region, the universal life which under physical conditions is tied up with the forms of man, animal and plant, flows freely like the waters of the sea; and a man sees this flow as something both external and internal.
Hence it is man himself who brings about the great changes in the countenance of the Earth, and also the greatly altered scene in which he lives during his next incarnation. But he carries out this work under the leadership and guidance of higher Beings. Thus it is true to say, when we look at the continually changing plant and animal worlds, that this change is the work of the dead.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: The Upbringing of Children; Karma 27 Aug 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

Then there is a change again after the sixteenth year, or shall we say after puberty. We can properly understand how a human being grows to maturity only if we keep before our eyes the different ways in which the various members of his being develop.
A man has his own Ego, and the individual Ego undergoes its destiny just as the group-soul of animals does. A whole species of animal may change over the generations, but with man it is the individual Ego that changes from one life to another.
This does not mean that each one must bear the consequence of his own actions, but that the consequences must be borne by someone, no matter whom. If a Theosophist maintains that he cannot understand the unique deed of Christ having been accomplished once only for all mankind, this means that he does not understand karma.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Workings of the Law of Karma in Human Life 28 Aug 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

This temperament, too, is apparent in childhood: a child of this type does not like to display his toys; he is afraid something will be taken away from him and would like to keep everything under lock and key. The phlegmatic man has no real interest in anything; he is dreamy, inactive, lazy, and seeks sensuous enjoyment.
Then the clever liberal theologians began to expound the sources, each in his own way; and this meant that many passages were not expounded but undermined. Then there was a third stage: that of the people who took everything—old myths and legends and even the life of Christ—as a series of symbols.
But there is also a fourth stage: that of the occultist, who can once more understand everything literally because through his spiritual knowledge he can see how things are interconnected.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Good and Evil. Individual Karmic Questions 29 Aug 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

All this has been said in order to show you that nothing can be truly understood if it is looked at from one side only. Everything which appears to us in one condition was quite different in earlier times; only by relating the present to the past can it be understood. Similarly, if you do not look beyond the physical world of the senses, you will never understand illness, or the mission of evil. In all such relationships there is a deep meaning. Evolution had to take its course in this way, through a process of splitting off, because man was to become an inward being; he had to put all this out of himself in order that he might be able to see his own self. So we can come to understand the mission of illness, of evil, and even of the external world. We are led to these great interconnections by studying the law of karma.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Evolution of the Earth 30 Aug 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

Every single bone is so artistically structured and wisely devised as to perform the maximum work with the minimum mass, in a way no human engineer could equal. The more deeply we penetrate to an understanding of the wonderful structure of the human frame, the more marvellous will it appear to us to be.
These plants, however, were really a sort of “plant-animal”: they were able to feel and under pressure would have experienced pain. And man in the animal kingdom of the time was not like any animal of today; he was halfway between animal and man.
We shall see in the course of the next few days how Theosophy enables us to understand for the first time what our early forefathers expressed quite simply in names, and how the most ordinary everyday things are linked with the most profound.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Progress of Mankind Up To Atlantean Times 31 Aug 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

The water withdrew and separated from the solid parts; the air developed its own purity, and under the influence of the air the swim-bladder changed into lungs. Man now raised himself out of the watery element—a specially important and significant event.
In the end, Lemuria was destroyed through these passionate impulses of mankind. Meanwhile, the Earth had undergone further changes and had become more solid. Other continents had arisen, and most important among them was Atlantis, between present-day Europe, Africa and America.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: The Post-Atlantean Culture-Epochs 01 Sep 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

In proportion as they achieved the gift of exact sense-observation, they ceased to understand nature as the body of the Godhead. Gradually they came to see before them only the body of the world, and not its soul.
The third sub-race, comprising the Chaldean-Assyrian-Babylonian-Egyptian people, and later the Semites who branched off from them, came to understand these laws. Men looked up to the stars and observed their movements and their influence on human life, and accordingly worked out a science which enabled them to understand these movements and influences.
Hence it is deeply significant that in Theosophy no religion is attacked and no religion is specially singled out, but all are understood, and so there can be brotherhood because the adherents of the most varied religions understand one another.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Occult Development 02 Sep 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

If he exercises conscious control over them, a stage is soon reached when the pupil not only sees what is physically present but can truly perceive the astral element in a man, his soul and his aura. He then learns to understand what the shapes and colours in the astral body signify—what passions, for example, they express.
During occult development you must never allow your judgment of the future to be influenced by the past. Under certain circumstances you must exclude all that you have experienced hitherto, so that you can meet every new experience with new faith.
See Goethe: Notes and comments for a better understanding of the West-Östlichen Divan, “Allgemeines”.41.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Oriental and Christian Training 03 Sep 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

Yama includes all the abstentions required of anyone who wishes to undergo Yoga training: Do not lie, do not kill, do not steal, do not lead a dissolute life, desire nothing.
That is Pranayama, the science of the breath. Our modern materialistic age places health under the sign of fresh air; but our modern way of achieving health through fresh air is one that terminates in death.
The first stage is the Washing of the Feet. We must understand the significance of this great scene. Christ Jesus bends down before those who are lower than himself.
95. At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Rosicrucian Training — The Interior of the Earth — Earthquakes and Volcanoes 04 Sep 1906, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, E. H. Goddard

It is precisely through the Rosicrucian path that those who have been led away from Christian belief by what they take to be science can learn to understand Christianity truly for the first time. By this method anyone can come to a deeper grasp of the truth of Christianity.
The best books are those we have to take up again and again, books we cannot understand immediately but have to study sentence by sentence. It does not matter so much what we study as how we study.
This topmost layer is called the Mineral Earth. 2. Under it is a second layer, called the Fluid Earth; it consists of a substance to which there is nothing comparable on Earth.

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