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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 1401 through 1410 of 2145

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111. Introduction to the Basics of Theosophy: The Place of Purification and Devachan 23 Sep 1907, Hanover

The physical-sensual life is a necessary point of transition in our development and should not be confused with a sensualistic asceticism. We only have to give up the pleasures that the ego wants for its own sake. It is necessary to enjoy food. What is to be frowned upon is the desire for pleasure for the sake of pleasure, which plunges the human being deeper into the material world.
62. Jacob Boehme 09 Jan 1913, Berlin
Tr. Margaret W Barneston

Rudolf Steiner
Regarding it, he said that he did not write it down through his ordinary ego, but that it was given to him word for word; that, in comparison with his ordinary ego, he lived in a being which was encompassing, which reached into all parts of the world and immersed itself in this world.
And he feels that, in his striving, he is driven to something which is not the ordinary cognizing human ego, but which is connected with the forces that bind the human being—out of the subconscious in his soul, out of the depths of his soul—to the whole cosmos; that is, to what lives and weaves outside in nature.
The whole content of consciousness rests on the fact that we can remember past experience, and our consciousness does not extend back beyond that point of time to which we can remember. We began then to grasp ourselves as an “ego,” to have the coherent thread of our consciousness, to be at home in our soul life. Upon what, therefore, does the whole nature of consciousness depend?
79. Foundations of Anthroposophy: World Development in the Light of Anthroposophy 01 Dec 1921, Oslo
Tr. Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
We grow aware, on the one hand, of a complete feeling of loneliness, which alone enables us to maintain our Ego in this world ... for we should melt away in this world of the spirit, if loneliness would not give us this Ego-feeling in the spiritual world, in the same way in which our body, our bodily sensation, gives us our Ego-feeling here on earth. To this loneliness we owe the maintenance of the Ego in the spiritual world. We then learn to know this spiritual world as our environment. But we know that we can only learn to know it through the inner soul-spiritual eye, even as we see the physical world through our physical eyes.
173b. The Karma of Untruthfulness I: LectureI XIII 31 Dec 1916, Dornach
Tr. Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
But those substances that have developed in a forward direction, those substances that live in us in such a way that they can transform themselves to become the bearer of our ego, these are the transformed poisonous substances of ancient Moon. It is only because we bear within us these transformed poisonous substances of ancient Moon that we have to some extent the capacity to be ego-conscious beings. I have mentioned this, even in public lectures, by saying that, in order to live, man needs not only constructive but also destructive forces. Without the latter, ego intelligence would be impossible. From birth onwards, breaking-down, growing-old and death are necessary, for it is in the processes of breaking-down—not those of building-up—that the possibility for our spiritual development lives.
The links with the old atavistic knowledge have been severed, precisely because mankind is to become free to develop ego-consciousness ever further. So there is a fading away of what was still quite clear to the old atavistic consciousness and which is expressed in certain myths.
155. On the Meaning of Life: Lecture II 24 May 1912, Copenhagen
Tr. Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
In short, we have to do with a numberless variety of phenomena. If, as human beings with our present ego we would rightly judge of everything which presents itself in the visionary world, we should have to compare an infinite number of visions.
Further, in that they are empty, whilst the Divine consciousness is full of content, so that in the first place the copies exist as a multiplicity, and further they are empty, just as our empty Ego was confronted by a Divine Ego that contained a whole world. But this empty Ego becomes the stage where the Divine contents which are divided into two opposing camps continually unite, and because the empty consciousness is continually bringing about adjustment it becomes more and more filled with what was originally in the Divine consciousness.
71b. Reincarnation and Immortality: Free Will and Immortality 24 Apr 1918, Nuremberg
Tr. Michael Tapp, Elizabeth Tapp, Adam Bittleston

Rudolf Steiner
A good scientist, Waldstein, has published among his works, which are very good in parts and which deal with the border-area embracing the nervous system and the soul, a dissertation on the unconscious ego. He speaks about all sorts of things that go on in the human soul, and which are of significance to the soul but of which our ordinary consciousness is not aware.
The scientist of spirit utilizes what he experiences with the pictures only to strengthen his ego that thereby becomes stronger than the ordinary ego, and can now maintain itself. When the ego maintains itself, it also maintains the world of pictures for itself, but by means of this inner strength it no longer directs its gaze to the perception of the world of pictures.
171. Goethe and the Crisis of the Nineteenth Century: Seventh Lecture 30 Sep 1916, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
That means: Man's evolution is originally predisposed; man is not merely the highest peak of the animal world in the materialistic-Darwinian sense, but in the very first intentions of the earth's evolution, in the very beginning, in the beginning was the word. And only through this can man develop an ego on earth, which animals do not achieve, that the word is interwoven with human evolution. The word stands for the human ego.
Man is capable of sense through having an astral body. Faust descends deeper into himself, from the ego into the astral body. “In the beginning was Sense.” Consider well the first line, Lest thy pen be over-hasty.
Man will mature by developing still deeper damage for a while — and damage, as our days show, is sufficiently available — in his lower ego-bearer, in wild egoism; if man still had the old powers, that would be completely out of the question.
168. The Connection Between the Living and the Dead: The Elements of the Human Being in Life Between Death and Rebirth 18 Feb 1916, Kassel

Rudolf Steiner
Here, when we look at the human being on the physical plane, the ego appears to us as that which comes to us first, if we may use the expression, as the highest. The physical body is shared with all minerals, the etheric body with all plants, and the astral body with all animals.
For of the earthly members of human nature, essentially only the ego and the astral body remain. The physical body has fallen away. What remains is what I have called “the void.”
Feeling and will remain with us in the astral body and in the ego. We carry these into the spiritual world. Not one science forces materialism, on the contrary, real science today justifies our spiritual science everywhere.
68d. The Nature of Man in the Light of Spiritual Science: The Course of Human Development from the Standpoint of Occult Science 06 Feb 1908, Karlsruhe

Rudolf Steiner
Only later is there a time when, in a similar way, what we call the “ego” is born. ... One can only understand the course of a person's life, and one can only educate a person reasonably, if one knows and applies all of this to the fullest extent. ...
Just a few words about this: the birth and gradual development of the ego comes to an end with normal life around the age of 35. At this point, the human being is at the zenith of life.
Before that, he had to use his time to mature his judgment and enter into a firm, definite relationship between his ego and the world around him. Now, what he is begins to have value for his fellow human beings. Now his judgment has weight, now people start to listen to him, now he radiates valuable things that he himself has to consume.
251. The History of the Anthroposophical Society 1913–1922: Second General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society — Day Two: Part II 19 Jan 1914, Berlin

Rudolf Steiner
Rather, it is about strengthening the powers of the ego, which can raise our ego to a level that we place ourselves in life in such a way that we voluntarily take on what might otherwise appear to us as a compulsion in Boldt's sense. The “Philosophy of Freedom” does not teach that one should overturn all existing values of life, but that we should make ourselves available to these values of life with a strong I, so that we can reshape them – but not in the self-aggrandizing way that only the selfish personal ego knows, but in such a way that we never lose sight of the point of view of the whole, of community.
But he should not devote himself to the affairs of his own ego in such moments. That would have the opposite effect to that intended. Rather, in such moments he should quietly reflect on what he has experienced, what the external world has told him.

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