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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 461 through 470 of 6552

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143. Conscience and Wonder as Indications of Spiritual Vision in the Past and in the Future 03 Feb 1912, Wrocław
Translator Unknown

It must be emphasised again and again however in regard to this point that everyone who hears of the facts and relationships which can be investigated and imparted out of clairvoyant knowledge will be able to comprehend them with his healthy human understanding. For when the facts which have been found by clairvoyant consciousness are once there, and can be put before us, they can be grasped and understood by the logic inherent in every ordinary human being, if only his judgement is sufficiently unprejudiced.
Now it would indeed be very amazing if, under ordinary conditions, someone who had heretofore been sitting quietly in his chair were to feel himself suddenly beginning to fly up into the air through the chimney!
Anyone who ponders over this, even slightly, should find it self-understood. For it is quite clear that we must imagine the spiritual world as completely different from the world in which we live here between birth and death.
143. Conscience and Astonishment as Indications of Spiritual Vision in Past and Future 03 Feb 1912, Wrocław
Translator Unknown

For the content of spiritual science is in the main received, derived and imparted through research undertaken through clairvoyant consciousness. It must be emphasised again and again that everything, all the facts and relationships, investigated and imparted from clairvoyant consciousness, must be comprehended by healthy human understanding. Once the things found by clairvoyant consciousness are there, they can be grasped and understood by the logic inherent in every ordinary human being, if only his judgment is unprejudiced enough.
How is it experienced by every human being? Consideration even by the quite ordinary understanding leads to the conclusion that our environment between death and a new birth must appear entirely different from what we have in physical life.
143. Reflections of Consciousness, Super-consciousness and Sub-consciousness 25 Feb 1912, Munich
Translator Unknown

We would understand many a human being in his 30th, 40th, 50th year—we would know why he has this or that inclination, why he feels so deeply the cause of his dissatisfaction—we would understand many things if we were to trace the life of such a man back to his childhood.
We often find that this or that thing in which we succeed or fail, is connected quite normally with our capacities. In other words—we can understand our failure in a certain direction because we are not particularly clever in that sphere. On the other hand, we can understand our success in this or in that direction because we know that we have certain capacities which account for it.
This soul-experiment is a true path, enabling us to experience karma in a certain way. You may argue:—“I cannot quite understand what you say.” But when you say this, it is not because you think that you cannot understand; you say it because you fail to understand something which is in reality quite easy to understand—but you do not think about it.
143. Hidden Forces of Soul Life 27 Feb 1912, Munich
Translator Unknown

I have been told that my listeners did not understand quite clearly, day before yesterday, how we may distinguish between a true vision or imagination which forms an objective experience, and one which is merely projected into space and belongs to our subjective life.
And, all the while—no matter how seemingly objective—this might, under certain circumstances, be merely a projection of his own inward being. Now, when a human being passes through the portal of death, it always comes to pass that whatever might hinder his subjective life from being transformed into visions or Imaginations now disappears.
And when man has passed through the portal of death, and is unhampered by his physical body, his experiences are such as to play into an elementary world; and, under favourable circumstances they may work down as far as the physical world—where they may be perceived even by the ordinary consciousness.
143. Calendar of the Soul 07 May 1912, Cologne
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Translate Show German The importance of Anthroposophy for present and future mankind will only gradually be realised, but insight will come when understanding has been gained of certain things indicated in occult writings though not, as a rule, studied in sufficient depth.
He speaks in a parable of the seed that is sown and undergoes different forms of destiny. (St Mark, IV, 1–9). The process of which He is speaking belongs to the kingdoms of outer Nature—hence it can only be described in the form of a parable.
It is the mission of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy to teach us to know and understand what is living in our environment. And this it will do, with all clarity. We know that men once possessed this knowledge, although in the form of dreamlike, clairvoyant consciousness; what we reacquire to-day was once primordial wisdom revealed to mankind through dreamlike clairvoyance.
143. Ancient Wisdom and the Heralding of the Christ Impulse 08 May 1912, Cologne
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

She communicates things that she herself was quite incapable of understanding, and if one follows this line of thought further it proves clearly that higher, spiritual Individualities used the body and personality of H.
That will fire the imagination and illumine the souls of men with a new light of understanding. This can be illustrated by a particular example. We turn our eyes to a figure such as the Prophet Elijah.
Here, then, we have the third harbinger after Elijah and John the Baptist. Now we understand many of the questions inevitably raised by those possessed of wider powers of perception. John the Baptist dies the death of a martyr before the event of Golgotha is drawing near.
143. Love and Its Meaning in the World 17 Dec 1912, Zurich
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, E. F. Derry, S. Derry

In the light of this knowledge we shall be able to understand the deeds of a man who has reached a high stage of development, for he has still greater debts to pay to the past.
How, then, can the Gods of progress draw man to themselves again? To understand this we must think, not of the earth, but of Gods taking counsel together. It is for the Gods that Christ performs the Deed by which men are drawn back to the Gods.
Lucifer's deed belongs to a time when man was still aware of his own participation in the super-sensible world; Christ's Deed was performed in material existence itself—it is both a physical and a spiritual Deed. We can understand the deed of Lucifer through wisdom; understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha is beyond the reach of wisdom alone.
143. Birth of the Light — Thoughts on Christmas Eve 24 Dec 1912, Berlin
Translated by Harry Collison

For in this year we ourselves stand before the birth of that which, if we rightly understand it, must lie very close to our hearts: I mean the Birth of our Anthroposophical Society.
Luke's Gospel that comes before our souls at Christmas, but that which Christmas shall bring near to man's heart comes near to every child's soul in the loveliest way, and unites childlike understanding with grown-up understanding. All that a child can feel, from the moment when it begins to be able to think at all—that is the one pole.
Thus those of our dear friends who are united with us to-night may have a kind of excellence of feeling. Though they may not be sitting here or there under the Christmas-tree in the way that is customary in this cycle of time, our dear friends are yet sitting under the Christmas-tree.
144. The Mysteries of the East and of Christianity: Lecture I 03 Feb 1913, Berlin
Translated by Charles Davy

In our own time the principle of Initiation has already undergone a great change, in that Initiation can be attained up to a certain stage without any personal guidance; for it has been possible to set out publicly the principles of Initiation as far as has been done, for example, in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.
By slowly and gradually applying to his soul in due sequence the exercises given, he will break through to an understanding of the spiritual worlds. The Way of Initiation can now be described and pursued without exposing the soul to certain events which could lead it into particular catastrophes and revolutions.
But it is very necessary that it should be carried through in the right way. Now we must understand clearly that if anyone wants to plunge into the Mysteries, everything in his soul-life must gradually become different.
144. The Mysteries of the East and of Christianity: Lecture II 04 Feb 1913, Berlin
Translated by Charles Davy

It was an uncomfortable thing when—theoretically, at least—the ground was taken from under their feet. All the resistance of those times against this new idea sprang from indolence of thought, from the love of ease, for to unlearn anything is tiresome.
Persons who stand with both feet on solid ground, who understand something of actuality and judge things as they are—these are the people best fitted for developing seership.
Concerning man we know that in our time, and especially under our conditions of civilisation, he is no longer in the least guided by the Sun. For instance, if we had to guide ourselves by the Sun, as do the plants, we could not be assembled here together.

Results 461 through 470 of 6552

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