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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Search results 811 through 820 of 6552

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103. The Gospel of St. John: The Mystery of Golgotha 26 May 1908, Hamburg
Translated by Maud B. Monges

That this truthful explanation of the Last Supper can cause some of the sanctity to be lost which has always been associated with it can only be imagined by someone possessing no understanding of it or who has neither desire nor capacity for such an understanding. But anyone who wishes to understand will acknowledge that this does not cause it to lose in holiness, but that through it the whole of the earth-planet becomes sanctified.
Unless the idea of Karma has been understood in this way, it has not been grasped in its deepest significance. When one man judges another, the one is always placing the other under the compulsion of his own ego.
Humanity has not even today attained a very great understanding of true, esoteric Christianity. However, when men learn to understand what is to be found in such a writing as the Gospel of St.
103. The Gospel of St. John: Human Evolution in Its Relation to the Christ Principle 27 May 1908, Hamburg
Translated by Maud B. Monges

In order that we may gradually reach a complete understanding of the mystery presented yesterday, it will now be necessary to consider the advent of Christ-Jesus in our postAtlantean period.
These are the experiences which can be had by one who acquaints himself with occultism, and then bit by bit learns to understand how literally the religious documents must be taken. Of course one must first learn to understand the alphabet.
This is the moment when men also attained an understanding of personality. You will comprehend that this was also the time when they were able to understand God as a personal manifestation, the time when the spirit belonging to the earth also progressed to the point of becoming a personality.
103. The Gospel of St. John: The Prophetical Documents and the Origin of Christianity 29 May 1908, Hamburg
Translated by Maud B. Monges

We are now at a point in this religious record which is very difficult to understand, especially for those who do not go at it properly. This passage must be clearly understood, particularly because with the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the most extraordinary confusion has arisen.
That age—in which he seemed to coalesce with the outer reality—was alone qualified to understand that the Divine is able to appear in an individual man. All earlier epochs would have understood almost anything more easily than this.
Thus the birth of Christianity appears as something positively necessary in the whole spiritual course of human events. If we desire to understand what form Christianity should gradually assume, understand what form was prophesied for it by such an individuality as the writer of this Gospel, we must take under consideration, in the next lecture, certain essential and important concepts.
103. The Gospel of St. John: The Effect of the Christ Impulse Within Mankind 30 May 1908, Hamburg
Translated by Maud B. Monges

John has not, up to our own age, been understood is due to our whole materialistic evolution. Such a materialistic culture as has gradually developed could not fully understand this Gospel. The spiritual culture which must begin with the Anthroposophic Movement will understand this document in its truly spiritual form and prepare what will then lead over into the sixth epoch.
John, we are now able to say: The Christ Impulse was so great that mankind of the present has understood but very little of it, and only in a later age will it be wholly comprehended.
103. The Gospel of St. John: Christian Initiation 30 May 1908, Hamburg
Translated by Maud B. Monges

John, we must first acquire the material for an understanding of the concept, Mother and Father, in its spiritual sense, as it is intended in this Gospel and at the same time in its actual meaning.
In many gatherings of very good Christians, one can hear it said: "Anthroposophists talk of some kind of an esoteric Christian teaching, but Christianity needs no esoteric teaching; for only that can be true which a simple, unpretentious mind can perceive and understand," which means, of course, only what the speaker can perceive and understand. He therefore requires that no one should perceive and understand anything different from what he himself perceives and understands.
How is this accomplished? It is a matter of understanding the human astral body in the state in which it exists in its purity. During the day this astral body is immersed in the physical body.
103. The Gospel of St. John: The Nature of the Virgin Sophia and of the Holy Spirit 31 May 1908, Hamburg
Translated by Maud B. Monges

If, in a certain sense, this has been rightly understood, we shall also comprehend what is meant when it is said that the Movement for Spiritual Science has the mission of raising Christianity into Wisdom, of rightly understanding Christianity, indirectly through spiritual wisdom. We shall understand that Christianity is only in the beginning of its activity, and its true mission will be fulfilled when it is understood in its true spiritual form. The more these lectures are understood in this way, the more have they been comprehended in the sense in which they were intended.
The Gospel of St. John: Introduction
Translated by Maud B. Monges

It brings us what we need in order that the central point of human and earthly happenings may again be understood, that belief may be changed into knowledge, unbelief into understanding. It is active among us since the beginning of this dark century with those forces which are able to transform our darkness into spiritual light.
The force for this revitalization streams out of the Mystery of Golgotha, but there must be a human activity springing up to meet it, understanding how to open itself up to it. In order that this might occur, Rudolf Steiner was active among us.
The whole of cosmic wisdom must be called into play in order to understand this greatest of all mysteries. The other mysteries were a preparation for this, and Rudolf Steiner led us gradually and steadily into their essence and meaning.
104. The Apocalypse of St. John: Introductory Lecture 17 Jun 1908, Nuremberg
Translated by Mabel Cotterell

He was one of those spirits of whom we hear little to-day and whose works are understood still less; but he will signify very much for man's intellectual life in the future when he is once understood.
That the Christian faith, the message of the Gospel, can be understood at every stage of consciousness has been taught for a period to be reckoned almost in millennia.
We misunderstand the Apocalypse, if we do not understand it as the impulse given for the future, for action and deed. Everything that we have let pass before us to-day can be understood out of anthroposophical Spiritual Science.
104. The Apocalypse of St. John: Lecture I 18 Jun 1908, Nuremberg
Translated by Mabel Cotterell

There has always been in this city a very earnest search for the knowledge of great spiritual truths, and a deep understanding of anthroposophical life, of the true anthroposophical attitude towards life, has always been manifest.
Darkness spreads around man. For the human astral body to-day under normal conditions is so organized that it is unable of itself to perceive what surrounds it. It must have organs.
This had to be avoided from the very outset. The first step towards initiation had to be undertaken with man in the ordinary physical world, in the same world where man perceives with the physical senses.
104. The Apocalypse of St. John: Lecture II 19 Jun 1908, Nuremberg
Translated by Mabel Cotterell

Every word in the Bible has a deep meaning and only he can understand the Bible who knows how to value every single word. That is the first thing. Then, however, in the pre-Christian Mysteries something special had to take place.
It was like a common group-soul-“I” which included the whole race and those that understood the matter said: That which really forms our inmost immortal being dwells not in the separate members but in the entire race. All of the several members belong to this common “I.” Hence one who understood the matter knew that when he died he united himself with an invisible being which reached back to Father Abraham.

Results 811 through 820 of 6552

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