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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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201. Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe: Lecture X 01 May 1920, Dornach
Translated by George Adams, Mary Adams

To understand the world without understanding Man is impossible. That is the net result to be derived from our studies here.
It is due to a certain necessity of the evolution of humanity; and we can understand the matter as follows: Picture it to yourselves in this way. The man of ancient times looked into this outer world.
In earlier times people could say: the heart is related to the liver somewhat as the Sun to Mercury in the outer world; and man knew something of how this relationship of Sun to Mercury was drawn from the super-sensible world into the sense world. This is now no longer understood, nor can it ever be thoroughly understood if the foundation, the basic impulse for this comprehension, be not acquired from within.
201. Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe: Lecture XI 02 May 1920, Dornach
Translated by George Adams, Mary Adams

There are many reasons, but one will suffice for an unprejudiced judgement to understand that we are bound to place the point of waking over that of falling asleep. Consider the remarkable fact that when we look back over our life, it appears to us as an unbroken stream.
No drawing of our solar system that is inscribed into one space of the ordinary three dimensions will be right. We must understand this. Just as in the case of man, in order to understand him as a whole we must pass from physical to super-sensible forces; so in the same way, to understand the solar-system, we must pass from the three dimensions into other dimensions.
It is the same, when we do not observe the turning inside out in the case of the human head, or when we do not observe the Universe under this law of reversal; we do something very peculiar. We do not in that case think with our head at all.
201. Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe: Lecture XII 08 May 1920, Dornach
Translated by George Adams, Mary Adams

I have already mentioned this, but we shall see how deeply grounded is the statement in the whole being of the world, for we can only understand something of the nature of the world or of the nature of Man when we consider the two together, not separately, as is done at present.
All these things are so consistently—in a sense, so grandly—thought out, that it is inexcusable to be under any illusions about them at the present difficult and fateful time. These 747 years fall in the world's evolution as a period which speaks with the utmost significance.
These things are of the highest importance for the consideration of the Universe and of life, and cannot be dispensed with if one wishes to understand the Universe. There are other facts too which are also entirely overlooked. And what do all these things betoken?
201. Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe: Lecture XIII 09 May 1920, Dornach
Translated by George Adams, Mary Adams

This obliquity of the ecliptic may be understood and even interpreted as you will; with such interpretations we are not for the moment concerned as to whether they accord with reality or not; we are concerned rather to bring a certain fact to your notice.
For science must not simply continue to develop, as did the science of the last century, under the influence of the materialistic view of the Universe, which is itself a child of the materialistic comprehension of Christianity.
I have wanted to tell you these things, because they will enable you to understand better why ill-willed opponents fight so strenuously against what we are bringing before the world today.
201. Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe: Lecture XIV 14 May 1920, Dornach
Translated by George Adams, Mary Adams

Although in popular consciousness men are not aware of this law of the conservation of force and energy, they think of natural phenomena in a way that they can only be thought of when one is under the influence of this law. I want you clearly to understand what I mean. There may be something in the action of a being that corresponds to a certain principle, even when that being is not in a position to understand that principle. Suppose, for instance, that one wished to make a dog understand that a double quantity of meat means that a single quantity has been taken twice over; it could not be done.
In the insertion of the Mystery of Golgotha into the evolution of our Earth, we have to do with an Event of a totally different nature from all the rest of the happenings of Earth-evolution; and this we shall never understand unless we begin by learning to understand the Cosmos itself. What I have said today is intended as a preparation or groundwork on which we shall be able to build up in our lectures of tomorrow and the day after.
201. Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe: Lecture XV 15 May 1920, Dornach
Translated by George Adams, Mary Adams

It is specially important to receive this knowledge not only into our intellect, but also into our feeling and will; for only by regarding Man in his totality as born out of the whole Universe, can a deeper understanding be gained for that which Christianity wishes to be for the world. It might easily be objected that if this is so, a complicated understanding of the details of the Universe and of Man is demanded of modern humanity in order that Man should become complete Man in his consciousness.
Christianity first appeared in such a way that it could only be understood by comprehending e.g. the Trinity: The Nature of God the Father, God the Son—that is, Jesus Christ—and the Spirit. In the sense in which Christianity understood these three aspects of the Divine Spiritual, the understanding of them demanded no less than does the understanding of such things as are given by Spiritual Science today.
201. Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe: Lecture XVI 16 May 1920, Dornach
Translated by George Adams, Mary Adams

Here too courage is lacking actually to put to the test the depth of thought underlying these modern principles. One might indeed arrive at many things by testing what we find in modern science; one has only to test its logic and more especially its reality.
The endeavour of those in the Middle Ages who wished to understand the Parsifal picture, who wished to make the Parsifal striving active in the human soul, was to bring into the picture-existence that could crystallise out in man after all the materiality had filtered away—to bring into it true substance, inwardness of being.
That is the cosmic significance of the Mystery of Golgotha; that is what I meant years ago, when I said: Christianity will not be understood until it has penetrated even into the physics of our Earth, until we understand how, even in physical things, the Christian substance works in the world-existence.
202. The Bridge Between Universal Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man: Soul-and-Spirit in Man's Physical Constitution 17 Dec 1920, Dornach
Translator Unknown

Similarly, a destructive, partially destructive, process takes place whenever we breathe out. Our aeriform organism undergoes a certain change with every indrawn breath; it is not exactly newly born, but it undergoes a change, both when we breathe in and when we breathe out. When we breathe out, the aeriform organism does not, of course, die, it merely undergoes a change; but there is constant interaction between the aeriform organism within us and the air outside.
An impulse of will proceeding from the Ego works upon the warmth-organism. Under present earthly conditions it is not possible for what I shall now describe to you to be there as a concrete reality.
202. The Bridge Between Universal Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man: Moral as the Source of World-Creative Power 18 Dec 1920, Dornach
Translator Unknown

As has been said so often, the prevailing world-view—which relies entirely upon natural science for knowledge of the outer physical world and can only resort to earlier religious beliefs when it is a matter of any comprehensive understanding of the life of soul, for in modern psychology there really is no longer any such understanding—this world-view is unable to build a bridge.
Nothing of this can be grasped if we study only the solid component of man's constitution. To understand it we must pass from the solid organism through the fluid and aeriform organisms to the warmth-organism. Man's connection with the universe can be understood only if the physical is traced upwards to that rarefied state wherein the soul can be directly active in the rarefied physical element, as for example in warmth.
202. The Bridge Between Universal Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man: The Path to Freedom and Love and Their Significance in World-Events 19 Dec 1920, Dornach
Translator Unknown

Imagine that you are living for a time purely in reflection as usually understood, that you are engaging in no kind of outward activity at all, but are wholly engrossed in thought.
Just think how abstract modern thinking has become when it uses abstract words for something which, in its reality, is not understood! Men such as Kant had a dim inkling that we bring mathematics with us from our existence before birth, and therefore they called the findings of mathematics ‘a priori.’
That is how the past, dying away into semblance, is kindled again to become reality of the future. Let us understand this rightly. What happens when man rises to pure thinking, to thinking that is irradiated by will?

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