The Golden Rule of Sadhana

For every step forward you take in the acquisition of knowledge, take three steps forward in the improvement of your moral character.  —Rudolf Steiner

Our value for the world lies wholly in acts of love

Rudolf Steiner:   'Our value for the world must be seen to lie wholly in acts of love, not in what is done for the sake of self-perfecting. Let us be under no illusion about this. When a person is endeavoring to follow Christ through love of wisdom and dedicates that wisdom to the service of the world, it only takes real effect to the extent it is filled with love.'

The goal of yoga: to become Anthroposophia

"To disseminate love over the Earth in the greatest measure possible, to promote love on the Earth — that and that alone is wisdom."   Rudolf Steiner

"What if this present were the world's last night?" —John Donne, Holy Sonnet #13

What if this present were the world's last night?

Mark in my heart, O soul, where thou dost dwell,

The picture of Christ crucified, and tell

Whether that countenance can thee affright,

Tears in his eyes quench the amazing light,

Blood fills his frowns, which from his pierced head fell.

And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,

Which prayed forgiveness for his foes' fierce spite?

No, no; but as in my idolatry

I said to all my profane mistresses,

Beauty, of pity, foulness only is

A sign of rigour: so I say to thee,

To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assigned,

This beauteous form assures a piteous mind.

From its center the Earth as a star gives the impulse to the human ego.




Ex Deo Nascimur       In Christo Morimur       Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus

Rudolf Steiner:  "Everything that is connected with the shaping of the ego as the vehicle of self-consciousness must radiate from the center of a star. The astral works from the circumference; that which belongs to the ego works from a center. From its center the Earth as a star gives the impulse to the human ego."

Man in His Macrocosmic Nature. Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts #168, #169, #170



Ex Deo Nascimur       In Christo Morimur       Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus

Rudolf Steiner:

 

The Cosmos reveals itself to man, first of all, from the aspect of the Earth and from the aspect of what is outside the Earth, viz. the world of the stars.

Man feels himself related to the Earth and its forces. Life gives him very clear instruction regarding this relationship.

In the present age he does not feel himself related in the same way to the stars that are around him. But this lasts only so long as he is not conscious of his etheric body. To grasp the etheric body in Imaginations means to develop a feeling that we belong to the world of the stars, just as we have this feeling regarding the Earth through the consciousness of the physical body.

The forces which place the etheric body in the world come from the Cosmos around the Earth; those for the physical body radiate from the center of the Earth.

But together with the etheric forces which stream to the Earth from the sphere of the Cosmos there come also the World-impulses which work in the astral body of man.

The ether is like an ocean in which the astral forces swim from all directions of the Cosmos and approach the Earth.

But in the present cosmic age only the mineral and plant kingdoms come into a direct relation to the astral, which streams down to the Earth on the waves of the ether; not the animal kingdom and not the human kingdom.

Spiritual vision shows that in the animal embryo there lives not the astral that is now streaming to the Earth, but that which streamed in during the Old Moon period.

In the case of the plant kingdom we see how its manifold and wonderful forms are developed through the astral loosening itself from the ether and working over to the world of plants.

In the animal kingdom we see how, from out of the Spiritual, the astral which was active in very ancient times — during the Moon evolution — has been preserved, and works as something stored up and preserved, remaining on at the present time in the spirit-world, and not coming forth into the etheric world.

The activity of this astral is, moreover, mediated by the Moon-forces, which have likewise remained in the same condition, from the previous stage of the Earth.

In the animal kingdom we have, therefore, the result of impulses which manifested themselves externally in Nature in a previous stage of Earth-existence, whereas in the present cosmic age they have withdrawn into the Spirit-world which actively penetrates the Earth.

Now, it is manifest to spiritual vision that within the animal kingdom only the astral forces which have been preserved in the present Earth from the former period are important for the permeation of the physical and etheric bodies with the astral body. But when the animal is once in possession of its astral body, the Sun-impulses appear actively in this astral body. The Sun-forces cannot give the animal anything astral; but when this is once in the animal, they must set to work and foster growth, nutrition, etc.

It is different for the human kingdom. This, too, receives its astrality to begin with from the Moon-forces that have been preserved. But the Sun-forces contain astral impulses which, while they remain inactive for the animal kingdom, in the human astral continue to act in the same way in which Moon-forces worked when man was first permeated with astrality.

In the animal astral body we see the world of the Moon; in the human, the harmonious accord of the worlds of the Sun and Moon.

The fact that man is able to receive, for the development of self-consciousness, the spiritual which rays forth in what belongs to the Earth depends upon that which belongs to the Sun in the human astral body. The astral streams in from the sphere of the universe. It acts either as astrality which pours in at the present time or as astrality which streamed in in ancient times and has been preserved. But everything that is connected with the shaping of the ego as the vehicle of self-consciousness must radiate from the center of a star. The astral works from the circumference; that which belongs to the ego works from a center. From its center the Earth as a star gives the impulse to the human ego. Every star radiates from its center forces which mould or shape the ego of some being.

This shows the polarity existing between the center of a star and the sphere of the cosmos.

From the above it may also be seen how the animal kingdom still stands there today as the result of former evolutionary forces of the Earth's being, how it uses up the astral forces which have been preserved, and how it must disappear when these have been consumed. Man, however, acquires new astral forces from that which belongs to the Sun. These enable him to carry on his evolution into the future.

From all this it may be seen that the nature of man cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of his connection with the stars as of his connection with the Earth.

And that which man receives from the Earth for the unfolding of his self-consciousness depends also upon the Spirit-world active within all that belongs to the Earth. The circumstance that the Sun gives to man what he needs for his astral depends upon the activities which took place during the Old Sun period. At that time the Earth received the capacity to unfold the ego-impulses of humanity. It is the Spiritual from that period which the Earth has preserved for itself from the Sun nature; and it is preserved from dying out through the present activity of the Sun.

The Earth was itself Sun at one time. Then it was spiritualized. In the present cosmic age, what belongs to the Sun works from outside. This continually rejuvenates the Spiritual which originated in ancient times and is now growing old. At the same time, this which belongs to the Sun and acts in the present preserves that which belongs to a former period from falling into what is Luciferic. For that which continues to work without being received into the forces of the present succumbs to Luciferic influences.

We may say that man's feeling of belonging to the cosmos beyond the Earth is in this cosmic epoch so dim that he does not notice it within his consciousness. And it is not only dim, it is drowned by his feeling of belonging to the Earth. As man is obliged to find his self-consciousness in the elements of the Earth, he so grows together with them during the early part of the age of the Spiritual Soul that they act upon him much more strongly than is compatible with the true course of his soul-life. Man is to a certain extent stupefied by the impressions of the world of the senses, and during this condition, thought which is free and has life in itself cannot rise within man.

The whole of the period since the middle of the nineteenth century has been a period of stupefaction through the impressions received by the senses. It is the great illusion of this age that the overpowerful life of the senses has been considered to be the right one — that life of the senses whose aim was to obliterate completely the life in the cosmos beyond the Earth.

In this stupefaction the Ahrimanic powers were able to unfold their being. Lucifer was repulsed by the Sun-forces more than Ahriman, who was able to evoke, especially in scientific people, the dangerous feeling that ideas are applicable only to the impressions of the senses. Thus it is exactly in these circles that one can find so little understanding for Anthroposophy. They stand face to face with the results of spiritual knowledge and try to understand them with their ideas. But these ideas do not grasp the spiritual because the experience of the ideas is drowned by the Ahrimanic knowledge of the senses. And so they begin to fear that if they have anything to do with the results of spiritual investigation, they may fall into a blind belief in authority.

In the second half of the nineteenth century the cosmos beyond the Earth became darker and darker for human consciousness.

When man becomes able to experience ideas within himself once more, then, even when he does not support his ideas on the world of the senses, light will again meet his gaze from the cosmos beyond the Earth. But this signifies that he will become acquainted with Michael in his own kingdom.

When once the Festival of Michael in autumn becomes true and inward, then this thought will arise in all sincerity in the mind of him who celebrates the festival, and it will live in his consciousness: Filled with ideas, the soul experiences Spirit Light, when sense-appearance only echoes in man like a memory.

If man is able to feel this he will also be able, after his festive mood, to plunge again in the right way into the world of the senses. And Ahriman will not be able to injure him.

(March, 1925)

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (in connection with the foregoing study: Man in his macrocosmic Nature)

168. In the beginning of the age of the Spiritual Soul, man's sense of community with the cosmos beyond the Earth grew dim. On the other hand — and this was so especially in men of science — his sense of belonging to the earthly realm grew so intense in the experience of sense-impressions as to amount to a stupefaction.

169. While he is thus stupefied, the Ahrimanic powers work upon man most dangerously. For he lives in the illusion that the over-intense, stupefying experience of sense-impressions is the right thing and represents the true progress in evolution.

170. Man must find the strength to fill his world of Ideas with light and to experience it so, even when unsupported by the stupefying world of sense. In this experience of the world of Ideas — independent, and in their independence filled with light — his sense of community with the cosmos beyond the Earth will re-awaken. Hence will arise the true foundation for festivals of Michael.

 

 

 

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0026/English/RSP1973/GA026_c24.html

Understanding Human Nature

Rudolf Steiner:  "Human nature cannot be understood unless we are just as conscious of our connection with the stars as of our connection with the Earth."

 

 

Our Task in Life

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  — Rumi

Full Faith, Confidence, and Gratitude

Rudolf Steiner: "A sentence that we can so often hear people say today, which is abused in its applications as few others, is 'I am a Christian.' Esotericsts should be clear that 'being a Christian' is a distant, distant ideal toward which they must constantly strive. To live as a Christian means, above all, to accept with serenity whatever destiny may bring us; to never complain about the work of the gods; to accept with joy whatever they may send. It means that the saying 'Look at the birds in the sky, they do not sow, they do not reap, they do not gather into barns, and yet they receive what they need' beomes second nature in us. Accept with gratitude what is given to us. Then we are living according to the verse. If we do not do this, then the verse becomes blasphemy in our mouth."


Source: http://steinerbooks.org/detail.html?session=c190180292ba409c1bf56ad08e3a5f27&id=9780880106177

The Evolution of Justice, Truth, Beauty, and Morality. The Psychic Physiology of the Four Platonic Virtues. A Prayer for Awakening from Sleep.

The Riddle of Humanity. Lecture 5 of 15. Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, August 6, 1916: Today the essential thing for which I would like to use our time is to develop some things that will provide the basis for tomorrow's discussion. These things are an expansion of what was described yesterday. Consider how birth or, say, conception, is the entry into the life a person leads between birth and death. Think of what we have said in the course of the past years about how a human being enters the physical body. We know that in a certain sense the three lower realms of nature — the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms — flow together in man, and that he rises above these three realms that are joined together symbiotically in him. But as a being of soul and spirit he also grows into these realms. Man becomes human by descending to the physical plane and growing into the mineral, plant, and animal realms. After death, he ascends again. Then something similar happens from a spiritual point of view: in the spiritual world something happens that resembles the growing into the three kingdoms of physical existence on Earth. With all such descriptions you must be clear that everything that has already been said in earlier presentations still holds true. Everything we have previously said about how a human being grows into the spiritual world after passing through the gates of death still holds good — the further details that arise are only to be taken as additions to that. Thus we can say: as a human being grows into the spiritual worlds he is received into the realm of morality, the aesthetic realm, and the realm of wisdom or truth. Now, in this life when we speak of the moral realm, the realm of the good; the aesthetic realm, the realm of the beautiful; and the realm of truth, of wisdom, naturally we are speaking more or less abstractly. But the forces in the spiritual world into which a human being grows and which are left behind when physical existence is once more taken up are absolutely concrete forces. They are real, spiritual modes of existence. We use names like these just to summarize. Here on Earth, a person's aura carries a kind of remnant of the things he received when he had ascended to the spiritual world. Having left behind the realms of wisdom, of beauty, of truth, mankind must enter the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. But the three spiritual realms continue to shine into the human aura, so that if we include his spiritual parts, then the whole man is a being who lives most directly in the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, and lives more at a distance from that which, so to speak, comes down from the three spiritual realms, hovers before him, and shines and weaves through him. The light from the three spiritual realms shines over a human being. A schematic kind of a drawing will help us see how these things are connected with human nature, but please note that it is just a schematic drawing. All that I am going to show you is just schematic, but it will clarify much for you if studied carefully. For the sake of clarity, I will draw everything to do with the I like this (green). Everything to do with the astral body will be yellow; everything to do with the etheric human being, lilac, and everything to do with the physical human being, red.   Now we will take a schematic look at mankind. We will observe how mankind stands in the cosmos, in so far as a human being is a moral being, that is, through his participation in the moral forces of the cosmos. Then we will observe mankind in so far as a human being participates, in the way we described yesterday, in the aesthetic impulses of the cosmos. And then we will observe mankind's participation in the impulses of wisdom. Thus we are going to outline a kind of psychic physiology — forgive the slightly nonsensical form of the expression, but you will understand what I mean. Naturally, this outline is meant imaginatively. When we observe the human being who stands in the moral sphere, you will be especially reminded of what we said yesterday — that the Greeks felt and experienced the relationship between the physical and the soul-spiritual more strongly than is the case today. Hence Plato, for example, was able to give a clear account of how man is taken hold of, gripped, by moral impulses coming from the spiritual universe. Plato says that there exist four virtues. The whole of morality takes hold of the whole human being. But all that is naturally to be taken with the well-known grain of salt. Naturally, even though it grips the whole person, the human being is subsequently divided up into the particular virtues. The first virtue Plato mentions is wisdom — wisdom now understood as a virtue, not as science. Since wisdom as a virtue is related to the way truth is experienced, it takes hold of those forces that flow from the moral sphere to the head. Therefore it can be pictured like this. (See drawing.) And therefore Plato says: The head of the moral man is gripped by wisdom; the breast is gripped by the virtue of strength of heart (Starkmut) — I cannot find a better word — strength of mind, or industriousness, but a kind of industriousness that includes the forces of the heart: an industriousness of the soul. The person who does not give in to his animal instincts is not necessarily wise. The wise human being — wise in the sense implied by strength of heart — is the one who possesses moral ideas, ideas he can grasp and according to which he is able to direct his life. But even though the moral impulse is grasped in the form of moral ideas, it nevertheless streams into the physical person, into the body. Therefore we can picture morality as flowing into a human being here (green); here it flows into the I . That is where the Platonic moral sphere of wisdom would be located. Whenever strength of heart — strength of mind, industriousness of the soul — streams down out of the moral sphere, it streams into the area of the chest, which encloses the heart. We can say: When morality radiates down, it is here, in the area of the chest and heart, where it particularly takes hold of the astral. So we will show this next in-pouring (yellow). Thus we now have wisdom as virtue in the head (green), strength of heart as virtue in the area of the chest (yellow). Plato calls the third virtue temperance, sophrosyne, and he quite rightly assigns it to the abdomen. Human desires are aroused in the abdomen, and the temperate person is the one who is able to rule over his desires by thinking about them, feeling his way into them and consciously experiencing them. It is no virtue to live a life that simply chases after desires. Animals can also live like that. Temperance first arises when the desires are made as conscious as it is possible for them to be made. This happens in the etheric body; for, to the extent that thought, temperance, and courage are human, they must be taken hold of by the etheric body. Therefore we must put this (violet) into our drawing. Thus, as I said yesterday, the moral sphere takes hold of the whole physical human being. And the head is included, as I explicitly stated yesterday. And then Plato refers to a fourth, comprehensive virtue that flows into the whole physical body, which is actually invisible, as I showed you yesterday. He calls this virtue dikaiosyne. We have to translate this as justice, although the modern sense of the word does not entirely match Plato's meaning. Plato's word ‘justice’ is not meant abstractly. It refers to the ability to give our lives direction, the ability to know ourselves and to orient ourselves in life. So we can say that here (red) the moral sphere, as justice, as uprightness, streams into the whole physical body. This gives us a schematic indication of how, in the human aura, morality streams into the human being. Now we want to indicate how aesthetic impulses stream into man. Here there is a slight displacement. Things are simply displaced upward by one stage. What we previously pictured as within the head must now be pictured higher (green), so that it is hovering around the head. In aesthetic experience, the etheric stream circumvents the I and flows directly into the astral body, giving one the impression that the I hovers in the etheric that surrounds the head. A person who feels and responds a little to beauty does not need to be very clairvoyant to experience how he seems to live in the space that surrounds his head while he is contemplating a work of art. Within the head, however, the person is gripped directly; there the astral body is taken hold of, which we will draw in with these (yellow) rays. On the other hand, beauty works in the area of the breast in such a way as to allow that surging back and forth I described yesterday. One could say that the aesthetic glows through the region of the breast. And beauty actually affects nothing beyond what belongs to the aura of the head, the head itself, and the breast. In other words, in the case of beauty, not all of the area wherein sophrosyne lives comes into consideration. But our materialistic age is distinguished by the way it so thoroughly involves the sphere of sexuality in artistic considerations — a piece of mischief for which our age is responsible, for it is precisely in the contemplation of beauty that such things are absolutely irrelevant and should be absolutely out of the question. Thus, only the lowest kind of aesthetic considerations, those that no longer have anything to do with art, are to be located in the physical body (red). Now we want to use the same schema for picturing the man who is striving for truth. Once more, there is a displacement, a kind of outward displacement. Yesterday I mentioned that the striving for truth circumvents both the I and the astral body and flows directly into the etheric portion of the head where thoughts are generated. So here, directly into the head, is where I must draw the ether streaming into the etheric body, here where thoughts are generated. On the other hand, when we strive for truth — and this is something one only notices after initiation — it only affects the I and the astral body outside us, in the aura; then it streams into the etheric portion of the head; then into the breast, where its life already affects the physical body (red). If we are to feel truth — and we must feel truth — it has to work into us; it must stream down into the region of the breast. Spirituality has to be experienced in the way we experience the moral. All of the preceding lives in the aura of the physical plane and therefore applies to the physical plane. In this instance, that into which we enter after death participates in the aura on the physical plane. Just as our physical organism connects us to the forces of the mineral, plant, and animal realms, so the moral sphere, the aesthetic sphere, and the sphere of wisdom connect us to the forces of the spiritual world. Even though some of the things I have said have come out very badly — perhaps they will come out better later — I want to present something further to you, something that belongs in the context of the whole. One can say: Whereas it is our physical body that connects us with the realm of physical becoming, our brain connects us with certain elemental beings, namely those elemental beings that belong to the sphere of wisdom. In the third drawing, that which we indicated with yellow was still outside; in the second drawing, it is internal. The green that here (drawing 2) is hovering around the head is even further outside. To etheric observation, this green hovers in the immediate vicinity of our head. The I lives in it, and alongside the I are found the elemental beings of the myths and sagas. There they are called elves, fairies, and so on. When we enjoy something aesthetically, all that is hovering around our heads. But here (drawing 3), it is spiritual beings from the astral sphere that are hovering around us. It is possible to picture how perception and truth take hold of a person as he wakes from sleep. Although it is not physically visible, the way a person is taken hold of and received on awakening can be expressed in words. Today I would like to put into concrete words how man comes alive in the sphere of truth and wisdom when he awakens. The words are not so bad in their present form, and perhaps they will be improved later. A person should speak to the spirits that surround and take hold of him when he awakens in the following manner: O, Ye!, from spheres of light stream through this head, — spoken to the spirits! — Stream through it — — the head — Move there in ways which spirits pure are led, Damp well down his brain's insane confusion; with the ordered processes of thought that dissipate madness — Damp well down his — man's — brain's insane confusion, From his striving untangle all doubt's fire and fear, — just feel the words! They scatter doubts, banish them as wisdom pours in! — To guide him within from the paths of illusion. he would be following a path of illusion if he only followed the path of dreams; in so far as he enters the sphere of truth, the surrounding spiritual world frees his inner being from false paths. — In daily experience four goals are clear; we still have to discuss this; everything here divides into fours — In daily experience four goals are clear, Now lead him on untouched by apprehension. — lead man toward his goals — First strive for countenance that fills with light, Then spirit's quest for power hold fast. Once lame-wingd senses move again in flight, His day in freedom can unfold. — It will be freed from everything dreamlike and arbitrary that would otherwise rule it with the force of necessity — Thus truest spirit duty it fulfills: Through holy light to lead him where he wills. — So might man address the spirits that take hold of him when he awakens to the life of truth. When a person awakens to the life of beauty, other spirits surround him. This is already something that is easier to convey to you. These are spirits that live in the sphere of the I : O Ye!, surround this head with airy circling, Your paths in noble elfin fashion tracing, And soften in the heart its harvest grim, — for this reaches into the heart — Remove reproach's bitter, glowing arrows, — the reproaches are reproaches of conscience, but also of pleasure and displeasure, which have to do with the surging world of the soul. — Within him make all pure from horror's gleam. — Earlier the brain was involved, now it is the inner world. — Within him make all pure from horror's gleam. Four in number are the nightly hollows, Now, friendly, fill them up without a seam. First lower head down on the pillow cool, — That corresponds to the words of the earlier verse: First strive for countenance that fills with light, — Bathe it then in dews from Lethe's flood released; — In the case of wisdom, the words go: To spirit's quest for power hold fast, — Soon limbs, cramp-stiffened, will again grow supple, — Corresponding to: Once lame-winged senses move again in flight, — In rest, against the day his strength's increased. — Corresponding to: His day in freedom can unfold. — Fulfill most comely duty of the elf, — These are elemental beings. There (drawing 3) it was spirits who live in the etheric, so the verse said: Thus truest spirit duly it fulfills, Through holy light to lead him where he wills. — Return to holy light man's self. Here (drawing 1), we are concerned with the influence of the entire cosmic sphere: morality. As I said, the whole of the universe influences the entire human being. That calls for the following words: O Ye!, stream through this head with strength to move, — Morality, and will, is revealed when man is moved to deeds. — O Ye!, stream through this head with strength to move, And in good earthly deeds yourselves soon prove. — For the right employment of the will in the world follows from these, and also temperance. — So boldly stamp out torment of absurdity, — which emanates from the body in the guise of desires. Yesterday I described how what rules in the bodily passions is related to moral impulses. — So boldly stamp out torments contradictory, Ennoble desire's power, wherein dark forces surge, Abduct his soul away from spirit-fatality. — This spirit-fatality is nothing but the consequence of animal passions. — In human obsession, pathways four do merge, — In earlier times, one called drives that originate in the body ‘obsessions’ — Tear them away from embrace of infirmity. Conquer the fires in which the senses groan, Illumine that which dies in pleasure, And hear how speak in ensouled tone The powers that match eternal measure. — For deeds of karma work in eternity. — Attempt to strive in world-willed action, Awaken him to life-benediction. And there you have a description of the threefold manner in which the surrounding cosmos takes hold of the human aura. How do the spirits that grip him take hold of the man of wisdom? O Ye!, from spheres of light stream through this head, Move there in ways which spirits pure are led, Damp well down his brain's insane confusion; From his striving untangle all doubt's fire and fear, To guide him within from pathways of illusion. In daily experience four goals are clear; Now lead him on untouched by apprehension. First strive for countenance that fills with light, Then spirit's quest for power hold fast. Once lame-winged senses move again in flight, His day in freedom can unfold. Thus truest spirit duty it fulfills: Through holy light to lead him where he wills. The aesthetic sphere comes especially to the fore in the third act of the second part of Faust, when Faust is united with Helen, who personifies beauty: O Ye!, surround this head with airy circling, Your paths in noble elfin fashion tracing, And soften in the heart its harvest grim, Remove reproach's bitter, glowing arrows, Within him make all pure from horror's gleam. Four in number are the nightly hollows, Now, friendly, fill them up without a seam. First lower head down on the pillow cool, Bathe it then in dews from Lethe's flood released, Soon limbs, cramp-stiffened, will again grow supple, In rest, against the day his strength's increased. Fulfill most comely duty of the elf, Return to holy light man's self. And then the moral sphere: O Ye!, stream through this head with strength to move, And in good earthly deeds yourselves soon prove. So boldly stamp out torment of absurdity, Ennoble desire's power, wherein dark forces surge, Abduct his soul, away from spirit-fatality. In human obsession, pathways four do merge, Tear them away from embrace of infirmity. Conquer the fires in which the senses groan, Illumine that which dies in pleasure, And hear how speak in ensouled tone The powers that match eternal measure. Attempt to strive in world-willed action, Awaken him to life-benediction. You see, the more profound elements are only revealed when one approaches these things spiritually and really takes hold of their spiritual content. Now, in a single stroke, the Faust of Part Two appears before us — the Faust around whom Goethe placed a hovering circle of elves. He represents the human being who stands within the spiritual-aesthetic sphere. And there are parallel occurrences when he stands within the sphere of wisdom and truth, or within the moral sphere. One really has to call on the assistance of the feelings if one is to grasp these things. In pursuing them, one is somehow reminded of Nietzsche's remark ‘The world is deep, deeper than the day has thought!’ The day represents physical life, physical perception, physical experience. ‘The world is deep, deeper than the day has thought!’ And that it is, especially when the entire human being is included as part of it — this being who is following a path of cosmic evolution, and who, for us in our present stage, is beyond our powers to grasp. That means that in our present state of being we do not understand much about ourselves. So much, so inconceivably much, has gone into our becoming what we are. And there is so inconceivably much contained in the Earth evolution that is still to come, and in our passage through the spheres of Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan! Only little by little does one disentangle oneself from the implications of current thought and approach that which, because it is more spiritual, is more difficult to conceive and is rarely touched on by the habitual thinking of people of today. Observing man as he presently is on Earth, we see that the seeds, so to speak, of what will develop during Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan already are hidden within him. But the human being is also the result of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon spheres. Yesterday I said that wisdom and everything concerned with truth was established on Old Sun and will be completed on Jupiter. Let us picture that graphically once more. The seed that was planted on Old Sun will more or less complete its development on Jupiter. Thus we can say: The period within which truth develops stretches from Sun to Jupiter. On Jupiter truth will have become thoroughly inward, and so will have become wisdom: Truth becomes wisdom! Everything that belongs to the aesthetic sphere began on Old Moon. It will be completed on Venus. We could draw it in like this: From here, Moon, to completion here, Venus. This is where beauty develops. You see how it overlaps. Everything contained within these two streams — and the third stream, also — is actually resting unconsciously in the depths of our being. And now, on Earth, the sphere we can call the sphere of morality is beginning. It will be completed on Vulcan. So we have a third, overlapping stream, the stream of morality. To these must be added a fourth stream that will be completed when the goals of the Earth sphere are achieved. Morality begins on Earth; but Earth also marks the completion of a higher order, one that was already beginning on Saturn. So we have another stream, another order, that flows from Saturn to Earth, and we will now call that the stream of justice — justice in the sense that was explained earlier. As you know, the senses had their beginnings on Saturn. These senses have the tendency to scatter a human being in all directions. You know that we distinguish twelve senses. The development of the twelve senses through Sun, Moon, and Earth leads mankind to justice, to a rightness and uprightness that also includes moral justice and moral uprightness once it has been taken hold of by the moral nature of the Earth. Moral justice first makes its appearance on Earth. And justice works inwardly to counter the peripheral tendency of the senses; the sphere — or stream — of justice works toward the center. Everything pictured here is contained within the human being, but, as you know, the prevailing awareness includes only the smallest part of what is actively living and weaving in man. Nevertheless, this all continues to live in the depths of his being, working and weaving. And yet one can ask oneself: Are things as they appear? Is it really true that men grasp so little of how humanity is carried by this broad stream of being out of which it emerges? Such an awareness is not just restricted to circles of the initiated. It is developing in humanity. There really are people who experience what lives and works in the streams which are carrying mankind along. Thanks to what could be called their natural gifts they feel it surge up during especially privileged moments. This is manifested in the most various ways. There are men who feel the depths of humanity in a higher sense than is often the case with external, philistine notions of religion. People often speak of guilt, and there are some pastors who try to deepen their flock's sense of things by leading them to experience guilt. But that is a superficial way of looking at things. This superficiality also has its justification, but one can go deeper. And those who have a deeper experience feel how morality connects with that glowing, resounding force that is streaming up from the powers that rule in the human depths. Self-knowledge would be much more common if people were not so timid and so afraid of getting to know themselves. But the awareness of what rules in the depths is already suppressed in the unconscious levels of the soul because people have such unconscious fear and inhibition and anxiety about confronting themselves in all their manifoldness and complexity. And when it does surge up, what comes glowing and gleaming from out of the depths really does make a sphinx-like impression. The experiences of others who have really felt such things in their own soul can be deeply moving. The following literary passage expresses beautifully how the human depths can appear to a man from out the surging dreams of his soul life. One must imagine someone who has laid himself down to rest after the toils and the burdens of the day. But as he rests, out of the darkness and shadow, the human depths rise up before his soul in powerful dreams. Here is how a Polish poet once described it: And in the secret magic of the night, There, before my palace, My dreams took hold of the ghostly mists and built Unimaginable blossoms with dead eyes That formed a balefully grinning Medusa In the moonlight drenched with dew, And she waxed monstrous. — As the moon streamed into my chamber And lay across the bed of my exhaustion — I was roused from sleep by lecherous, Monstrous desires Which shuddered on my stammering lips And sent hot fires of fever streaming from my eyes Towards creatures that were yours! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! — My guilt, my most great guilt! These words of Jan Kasprowicz (see Note 9) are a beautiful, lyrical expression of a quite wonderful experience, an experience that is at once questioning and also touches on the answers. The question is contained in the way this literary work makes the transition from memories of the day, through the aesthetic sphere, into the moral sphere — mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! One should not shrink from the questions that rise up out of the surging depths of life. These things are not there to rouse fear, but to kindle questions. The ‘unimaginable blossoms with dead eyes that formed a balefully grinning Medusa’ are questions, questions that have taken on the shapes of the plant kingdom. And as for how that is connected with the moon, we only have to remind ourselves of the stream that begins on Old Moon to understand how the silent floods of moonlight connect outer physical reality with spiritual experience. One has here a wonderful description of a spiritual experience: And in the secret magic of the night. There, before my palace, My dreams took hold of the ghostly mists and built Unimaginable blossoms with dead eyes That formed a balefully grinning Medusa In the moonlight drenched with dew, And she waxed monstrous. — As the moon streamed into my chamber And lay across the bed of my exhaustion — I was roused from sleep by lecherous, Monstrous desires — just think of the third speech, to the spirits of the moral sphere — I was roused from sleep by lecherous, Monstrous desires Which shuddered on my stammering lips And sent hot fires of fever streaming from my eyes Towards creatures that were yours! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! — My guilt, my most great guilt! Then think of how the moral sphere shines into the stupefying fires of the senses, conquering them and illuminating that which dies in pleasure — and of how it is greeted by the resounding of ensouled powers that match eternal measure. Yes, if one wants to delve deeply into everything that relates to humanity one must certainly call on the help of the feelings. That is the only way one ever will arrive at a picture of how, when a human being steps onto the physical plane, he can live his way into the spiritual realms — the realms of morality, of aesthetics, and of that which has to do with conceptions and with truth. For a human being does not just enter into the mineral, plant, and animal realms. Man remains human as he passes through all these realms. Mankind descends through the realms of mineral, plant, animal, and human; and mankind ascends through the moral, the aesthetic, and through the realm of truth and wisdom. In this way, humanity participates in that wonderful stream of being that develops as it flows through Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth and on toward Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. There are lesser streams that overlap and unite in man, creating the separate forces he needs in the course of his development. These are granted to humanity from out of the deep impulses that rule the cosmos. Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19160806p01.html

Absolutely everything is relative

Rudolf Steiner: "...things must be stated in a somewhat absolute manner when they have to be expressed. Life itself will make it relative."

Illustration: Thank you, Kim Graae Munch!

"Joy to have merited the Pain —" by Emily Dickinson

Joy to have merited the Pain —
To merit the Release —
Joy to have perished every step —
To Compass Paradise —

Pardon — to look upon thy face —
With these old fashioned Eyes —
Better than new — could be — for that —
Though bought in Paradise —

Because they looked on thee before —
And thou hast looked on them —
Prove Me — My Hazel Witnesses
The features are the same —

So fleet thou wert, when present —
So infinite — when gone —
An Orient's Apparition —
Remanded of the Morn —

The Height I recollect —
'Twas even with the Hills —
The Depth upon my Soul was notched —
As Floods — on Whites of Wheels —

To Haunt — till Time have dropped
His last Decade away,
And Haunting actualize — to last
At least — Eternity —

The mission of the Earth: to cultivate love

Rudolf Steiner:

"The mission of our Earth is the cultivation of the principle of love to its highest degree by those beings who are evolving upon it. When the Earth has reached the end of its evolution, love should permeate it through and through....

Only gradually throughout the whole of the Moon evolution was wisdom stamped upon the outer world. When the Moon had fully completed its evolution, everything was then pervaded by a wisdom which was to be found everywhere. Inner wisdom first appeared upon the Earth with the human being, with the ego. This inner human wisdom had to be developed by degrees.

Just as wisdom was evolved upon the Moon, in order that it might now be found in all things, so in like manner is love evolving. Love came into existence first in its lowest, its most sensuous form, during the Lemurian period, but during the course of life upon the Earth it will become ever more and more spiritualized, until at last, when the Earth has reached the end of its evolution, the whole of existence will have become pervaded with love, as today it is pervaded with wisdom, and this will be accomplished through the activity of human beings if they but fulfill their task.

The Earth will then pass over to a future planetary condition which is called Jupiter. The beings who will wander about upon Jupiter, just as human beings move about upon the Earth, will find love exhaling from all creatures, the love which they themselves, as human beings, will have placed there during their life upon the Earth. They will find love in everything just as we today find wisdom everywhere. Then human beings will develop love out of their own inner selves in the same way that they are now little by little evolving wisdom. The great cosmic love that here upon the Earth is beginning its existence will then permeate all things."


Source: http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-mission-of-earth-veda-was-made.html
Thank you, Robin Mitchell!

Where is man as a being who thinks and remembers? Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts #165, #166, #167

Rudolf Steiner:

With his power to form ideas (thinking) and his experience of memories, man finds himself within the physical world. But wherever he may turn his gaze in this physical world, he will nowhere find with his senses anything that could give him the power to form ideas and to remember.

Self-consciousness appears in the act of forming ideas. This is, in accordance with our former studies, an acquisition man possesses from the forces of the Earth. But these earthly forces are such as remain concealed from the vision of the senses. During earthly life man thinks only that which his senses impart to him, but the power to think is not given him by anything of all that he thus thinks.

Where do we find this force which forms ideas (thought) and the pictures of memory out of that which belongs to the Earth?

We find it when the spiritual vision is directed to that which man brings with him from the previous Earth-lives. The ordinary consciousness knows nothing of this. It lives in man unconsciously at first; but when, after his spiritual life, man enters into earthly existence, it immediately shows itself to be related to those earthly forces which do not come into the sphere of sense-observation and sense-thought.

Man is not in this sphere with his ideas (thought), but with his will, which works in accordance with destiny.

When we consider that the Earth contains forces outside the sphere of the senses we may speak of the “spiritual Earth” as the opposite pole of the physical. It then follows that as a Willing being man lives in and with the “spiritual Earth," while as a Thinking being he is indeed within the physical Earth, but as such he does not live with it.

Man as a thinking being carries forces from the Spirit world into the physical, but with these forces he remains a Spirit-being who only appears in the physical world, but does not form a union with it.

The thinking human being forms a mutual relationship during earthly existence with the ‘spiritual Earth’ only; and out of this mutual relationship his self-consciousness develops. We therefore owe the development of self-consciousness to spiritual processes which take place in man during earthly life.

If with spiritual vision we grasp that which is here described, we have before us the ‘human ego.’

With the experiences of memory we come into the sphere of the human astral body. In the act of remembering there stream into the present ego not merely the results of former Earth-lives, as is the case in thinking, but into his inner being stream the forces of the Spirit-world, which man experiences between death and new birth. This in-streaming takes place into the astral body.

Again, there is no sphere within the physical Earth for the immediate reception of the forces which thus stream in. As a being who remembers, man cannot unite with the objects and processes perceived by his senses, any more than he can unite with them as a being who forms ideas.

But he forms a mutual relationship with that which is not indeed physical, but which transposes the physical into processes, into events. These are the rhythmical processes in Nature and in human life. In Nature, day and night alternate rhythmically, the seasons of the year follow in rhythmic succession, etc. In man, the processes of respiration and the circulation of the blood take place rhythmically; so do the alternating states of waking and sleeping, etc.

Rhythmical processes are nothing physical, either in Nature or in man. They might be called half spiritual. The physical as object vanishes in the rhythmic process. In the act of remembering, man's being is transposed into his own rhythm as well as into that of Nature. He lives in his astral body.

Indian Yoga wishes to submerge itself entirely in the experience of rhythm. It wishes to leave the sphere of thought, the sphere of the ego, and in an inward experience similar to memory look into the world that lies behind the one which it is possible for the ordinary consciousness to know.

It is not permissible for the spiritual life of the West to suppress the ego in order to ‘know.’ It must bring the ego (‘I’) to the perception of the Spiritual.

This cannot take place if we penetrate from the world of the senses to the world of rhythm, and so experience in the rhythm only the process in which the physical becomes half spiritual. Rather we must find that sphere of the Spirit world which reveals itself in rhythm.

Two things are therefore possible. Firstly, the experience of the physical in the rhythmical element as the physical becomes half spiritual. This is an older path, one not to be followed any longer at the present time. Secondly, the experience of the Spirit-world, which possesses as its sphere the cosmic rhythm within man and without him, just as man's sphere is the earthly world with its physical beings and processes.

Now, to this Spirit-world belongs everything that takes place at the present cosmic moment through Michael. A Spirit such as Michael brings that which otherwise would lie in the Luciferic sphere into the purely human evolution which is not influenced by Lucifer — by choosing the world of rhythm for his dwelling-place.

All this can be seen when man enters into Imagination. For with Imagination the soul lives in rhythm, and Michael's world is the one which reveals itself in rhythm.

Memory stands already in this world, but not very deeply. The ordinary consciousness experiences nothing of it. But if we enter into Imagination there emerges first of all, out of the world of rhythm, the world of subjective memories; and this passes over at once into the archetypal pictures for the physical world which are created by the Divine-Spiritual world and which live in the etheric. We experience the ether which lights up in cosmic pictures and conceals within it the creative activity of the Universe. And the Sun-forces weaving in this ether are there not merely radiant, they conjure up the archetypal world-pictures out of the light. The Sun appears as the cosmic world-painter. It is the cosmic counterpart of the impulses which in man paint the pictures of thought.

(February 1925)

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (in connection with the foregoing study: Where is man as a being who thinks and remembers?)

165. Man as a thinking being, though he lives in the realm of the physical Earth, does not enter into communion with it. He lives, a spiritual being, in such a way as to perceive the physical; but the forces for his Thinking he receives from the ‘spiritual Earth,’ in the same way in which he receives his Destiny — the outcome of his former lives on Earth.

166. What he experiences in Memory is already within that world where in rhythm the physical becomes half spiritual, and where such Spirit-processes take place as are being brought about in the present cosmic moment by Michael.

167. He who learns to know Thinking and Memory in their true nature will also begin to understand how man as an earthly being, though he lives within the earthly realm, does not become submerged in it with his full being. For as a being from beyond the Earth, he is seeking by communion with the spiritual Earth for his Self-consciousness — for the fulfillment of his ego.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0026/English/RSP1973/GA026_c23.html

"Why are we by all creatures waited on?" —John Donne, Holy Sonnet #12

 

 

Why are we by all creatures waited on?

Why do the prodigal elements supply

Life and food to me, being more pure than I,

Simple, and further from corruption?

Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?

Why dost thou, bull, and boar, so sillily,

Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die,

Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?

Weaker I am, woe is me, and worse than you,

You have not sinned, nor need be timorous.

But wonder at a greater wonder, for to us

Created nature doth these things subdue,

But their Creator, whom sin nor nature tied,

For us, His creatures, and His foes, hath died.

The Freedom of Man and the Age of Michael. Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts #162, #163, #164

Rudolf Steiner:

In the human faculty of memory there lives the personal image of a cosmic force — a cosmic force that worked upon the human being in the past, in the way revealed by our last studies. This cosmic force is still working at the present time. It works as the force of growth, as the life-giving impulse in the background of human life. The major portion of it works in this way, and only a small part is separated off as an activity that enters into the conscious Spiritual Soul, where it shows itself as the force of memory.

We must learn to see this force of memory in its true light. When in the present epoch of cosmic evolution a man perceives with his senses, his perception is a momentary lighting-up of world-pictures in consciousness. This lighting-up takes place when the senses are directed to the outer world. It illumines the consciousness and vanishes when the senses are no longer directed outward. That which lights up in the human soul in this way must not have duration. For if man did not eliminate it from his consciousness quickly enough, he would lose himself in this content of consciousness. He would no longer be himself. For a short time only — in the so-called ‘after-images’ in which Goethe was so interested — the inner illumination of a sense-perception may live on in consciousness. Nor must this content of consciousness crystallize into real being. It must remain a picture. It must on no account become real, any more than the picture in a looking-glass can become real.

Man would lose himself in anything that lived and worked itself out as a reality in his consciousness, just as he would lose himself in something which of its own nature possessed duration there. In this case, too, he could no longer be himself.

Thus our sense-perception of the outer world is an inward picture-painting by the human soul; a painting without materials; a painting in the ebb and flow — in the coming into-being and the vanishing of Spirit. As in Nature a rainbow comes forth and passes away, leaving no trace behind, so does a perception arise and pass away, without of its own inherent nature leaving any memory behind.

But simultaneously with each perception another process takes its course between the soul of man and the outer world — a process lying in the more hidden portions of the soul-life, where the forces of growth, the life-impulses, are at work. In this part of the soul's life, not only a fleeting image but a permanent and real image is impressed in every act of perception. Man can suffer this, for this is a part of the contents of the world, connected with his being. He cannot lose himself while this process is taking place, any more than he loses himself through the fact that he grows and is nourished without his own full consciousness.

This second process takes place in every act of outward perception. And when a man draws forth his memories from within him, it is an inward perception of that which has remained permanent through the second process.

Once again the soul paints a picture, but now it paints the past that is living in the man's own inner being. And once again, while he is thus painting, no lasting reality may form itself in consciousness, but only a picture that arises and vanishes again.

Such is the connection in the human soul between the forming of an idea in the act of perception and the remembering of it.

But the forces of memory are perpetually striving to be more than they can be if man is not to lose himself as a self-conscious being.

For the forces of memory are relics of the past in human evolution, and as such they come within the realm of Lucifer's power. Lucifer strives so to condense the impressions of the outer world in the human being that they may continuously shine as ideation in his consciousness.

This Luciferic striving would be crowned with success if it were not for the force of Michael which counteracts it. Michael's force does not allow that which is painted in the inner light to crystallize into real being, but keeps it in the state of a fleeting picture.

But the excess of force, which presses upward from within the human being through Lucifer's activity, will be transformed in this Age of Michael into the force of Spiritual Imagination. For gradually into the common intellectual consciousness of mankind there will enter the force of Imagination. But this does not mean that man will burden his present consciousness with lasting realities. His present consciousness will still be working in the fleeting pictures that arise and vanish. With his Imaginations, however, he reaches up into a higher Spirit-world, just as with his memories he reaches down into his own human nature. Man does not keep the Imaginations within him. They are drawn as cosmic pictures into cosmic existence and thence he is able to copy them, painting them again and again in his own life of picture-ideation.

Thus what Michael preserves from crystallization in the inner being of man is received by the spiritual world. What man experiences of the force of conscious Imagination becomes at once a part of the World-contents. That this can be so is an outcome of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Christ force impresses the spiritual Imagination of man into the Cosmos. It is the Christ-force, united with the Earth. So long as it was not united with the Earth but worked upon the Earth as the Sun-force from without, all the impulses of life and growth went into the inner nature of man. He was formed and maintained by them, out of the Cosmos. Since the Christ-Impulse has been living with the Earth, man in his self-conscious being is given back again to the Cosmos.

From a cosmic being, man has become an earthly being. He has the potentiality to become a cosmic being once again, when as an earthly being he has become himself.

Thus in his momentary ideation or forming of ideas man lives not in an element of real being, but only in a mirroring of being — in a picture-being. In this fact the possibility of development of freedom lies inherent. All that is being in consciousness has power to compel. But a picture cannot compel. If anything is to be brought about through the impression that the picture makes, it must happen quite independently of the picture. Man becomes free through the fact that with his Spiritual Soul he rises out of the ocean of being and emerges in the picture-existence, which has no being.

Here the weighty question arises: Does not man lose hold of being altogether, inasmuch as he leaves it and plunges into non-being with a portion of his nature? This is another point where in our contemplation of the world we find ourselves face to face with one of the greatest riddles.

That which is experienced in consciousness as ideation, originated from the Cosmos. In relation to the Cosmos, man plunges into non-being. He frees himself in ideation from all the forces of the Cosmos. He paints the Cosmos while he himself is outside it.

If this were all, freedom would light up in the human being for a single cosmic moment, but in the very same moment the human being would dissolve away. But while in ideation man becomes free from the Cosmos, in his unconscious life of soul he is still organically connected with his former earthly lives, and his lives between death and a new birth. As a conscious man he is in the sphere of picture-being, while with his unconscious life he maintains himself within the spiritual reality. He experiences freedom in the present ego, while his past ego preserves him in the element of real being.

With respect to real being, man in his life of ideation is completely given to what he has become through the whole course of the cosmic and earthly past.

We are here pointing to the abyss of nothingness in human evolution which man must cross when he becomes a free being. It is the working of Michael and the Christ-Impulse which makes it possible for him to leap across the gulf.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (with respect to the foregoing study: The Freedom of Man and the Age of Michael)

162. In ideation man lives not in Being, but in Picture-being — in a realm of Non-being — with his conscious Spiritual Soul. Thus is he freed from living and experiencing with the Cosmos. Pictures do not compel; Being alone has power to compel. And if man does direct himself according to the pictures, his doing so is independent of them, that is to say in freedom from the Universe.

163. In the moment of such ideation man is joined to the Being of the Universe by that alone which he has become through his own past: through his former lives on Earth, and lives between death and new birth.

164. Only through Michael's activity and the Christ Impulse can man achieve this leap across the gulf of Nonbeing in relation to the Cosmos.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0026/English/RSP1973/GA026_c22.html