"Rejoice, and be exceeding glad" — Matthew 5:12
Rudolf Steiner: "You should be leading lives of joy — deep inner joy in the truth! There is nothing in the world more delightful, nothing more fascinating, than the experience of truth."
Rudolf Steiner:
According to Plato, the first virtue is wisdom, and according to him, he who does not strive after wisdom is unmoral.
We are now in the fifth post-Atlantean age. We are still far from the time when the wisdom instinctively implanted in humanity as a divine impulse will be raised into consciousness. Hence in our age people are specially liable to err in both the directions we have mentioned, and it is therefore particularly necessary that the great dangers to be found at this point should be counteracted by a spiritual conception of the world, so that what man once possessed as instinctive wisdom may now become conscious wisdom. The Anthroposophical Movement is to contribute to this end.
The gods once gave wisdom to the unconscious human soul, so that it possessed this wisdom instinctively, whereas now we have first to learn the truths about the cosmos and about human evolution. The ancient customs were also fashioned after the thoughts of the gods.
We have the right view of Anthroposophy when we look upon it as the investigations of the thoughts of the gods. In former times these flowed instinctively into man, but now we have to investigate them, to make the knowledge of them our own. In this sense Anthroposophy must be sacred to us; we must be able to consider reverently that the ideas imparted to us are really something divine, and something which we human beings are allowed to think and reflect upon as the divine thoughts according to which the world has been ordered. When Anthroposophy stands in this aspect to us we can then consider the knowledge it imparts in such a way that we understand that it has been given us so as to enable us to fulfill our mission. Mighty truths are made known to us when we study what has been imparted concerning the evolutions of Saturn, Sun, and Moon, concerning reincarnation, and the development of the various races, etc. But we only assume the right attitude toward it when we say: The thoughts we seek are the thoughts wherewith the gods have guided evolution. We think the evolution of the gods. If we understand this correctly we are overwhelmed by something that is deeply moral. This is inevitable. Then we say: In ancient times man had instinctive wisdom from the gods, who gave him the wisdom according to which they fashioned the world, and morality thus became possible. But through Anthroposophy we now acquire this wisdom consciously. Therefore we may also trust that in us it shall be transformed into moral impulses, so that we do not merely receive anthroposophical wisdom, but a moral stimulus as well.
Now, into what sort of moral impulses will the wisdom acquired through Anthroposophy be transformed? We must here touch upon a point whose development the anthroposophist can foresee, the profound moral significance and moral weight of which he even ought to foresee, a point of development which is far removed from what is customary at the present time, which is what Plato called the “ideal of wisdom.” He named it with a word which was in common use when man still possessed the ancient wisdom, and it would be well to replace this by the word veracity, for as we have now become more individual, we have withdrawn ourselves from the divine, and must therefore strive back to it. We must learn to feel the full weight and meaning of the word ‘veracity’, and this in a moral sense will be a result of an anthroposophical world conception and conviction. Anthroposophists must understand how important it is to be filled with the moral element of truth in an age when materialism has advanced so far that one may indeed still speak of truth, but when the general life and understanding is far removed from perceiving what is right in this direction. Nor can this be otherwise at the present time, as owing to a certain quality acquired by modern life, truth is something which must, to a great extent, be lacking in the understanding of the day, I ask what does a man feel today when in the newspapers or some other printed matter he finds certain information, and afterwards it transpires that it is simply untrue? I seriously ask you to ponder over this. One cannot say that it happens in every case, but one must assert that it probably happens in every fourth case. Untruthfulness has everywhere become a quality of the age; it is impossible to describe truth as a characteristic of our times.
For instance, take a man whom you know to have written or said something false, and place the facts before him. As a rule, you will find that he does not fear such a thing to be wrong. He will immediately make the excuse: “But I said it in good faith.” Anthroposophists must not consider it moral when a person says that what he said in good faith is merely incorrect . People will learn to understand more and more that they must first ascertain that what they assert really happened. No man should make a statement or impart anything to another until he has exhausted every means to ascertain the truth of his assertions; and it is only when he recognizes this obligation that he can perceive veracity as moral impulse. And then when someone has either written or said something that is incorrect, he will no longer say “I thought it was so; I said it in good faith,” for he will learn that it is his duty to express not merely what he thinks is right, but it is also his duty to say only what is true and correct. To this end, a radical change must gradually come about in our cultural life. The speed of travel, the lust of sensation on the part of man, everything that comes with a materialistic age, is opposed to truth. In the sphere of morality, Anthroposophy will be an educator of humanity to the duty of truth.
My business today is not to say how far truth has been already realized in the Anthroposophical Society, but to show that what I have said must be a principle, a lofty anthroposophical ideal. The moral evolution within the movement will have enough to do if the moral ideal of truth is thought, felt, and perceived in all directions, for this ideal must be what produces the virtue of the sentient soul of man in the right way.
Sources:
The development of the astral sheath of Christ through our faith
"The Moral Impulse of Truthfulness"
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