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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 271 through 280 of 1057

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107. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount: The Ten Commandments 16 Nov 1908, Berlin
Translated by Frieda Solomon

Through his acceptance of the other gods man is not a free being, but rather a being that worships the gods of his lower members. When, however, he consciously recognizes the god, a part of whom he carries within his ego, then he is a free being—one who confronts his fellowmen as a free being.
So it had to be clearly and strongly emphasized to the Jewish nation, “You bear within you what flows into you from the now highest of Gods. It cannot be symbolized with an image from the mineral, plant or animal kingdom, were it ever so sublime; all gods who are served by this means are lower gods than the God who lives in your ego.
If, however, the ego is not understood in the right way, the body withers, becomes weak and sickly. If the father does not place the ego into his soul in the right way, his body becomes weak and sickly, the ego slowly withdraws itself, the son becomes sicklier, the grandson more sickly and finally there is nothing more than a shell from which the Jehovah God has retreated.
90a. (On) Apocalyptic Writings: Lecture II 17 Oct 1904, Berlin
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

The Christian calls the three principles which underlie the world: Father, Word and Holy Spirit. A Christian of the first centuries would have refrained from speaking of the Father.
I am now speaking entirely in the sense in which an initiated Christian of the first period of Christianity would have spoken. He believed in the Father and he believed that he could come to know the Father only through the Word. And what was the Word?
Whoever does not apprehend this, whoever tries to twist the meaning of the God made Flesh, this Word which is the God become Flesh, whoever does not hold the view that here was the Incarnation of God in Jesus, cannot really understand the mind and thought of the first Christians.
346. Lectures to Priests The Apocalypse: Lecture II 06 Sep 1924, Dornach
Translator Unknown

We pointed out that there was a very ancient mystery period during which the gods descended into the mystery centers in order to work with human beings, and a semi-ancient mystery period when the gods sent down their forces, so that the men who lived in this sphere of forces were able to work with the gods in the cosmos.
[ 5 ] One thing we have already seen is that the act of consecration of man and its transubstantiation process involves a working together of human beings and the gods in the spiritual world. Priests cannot really work properly unless they're aware that men and the gods can work together.
Taking transubstantiation and communion as a unified priestly or cultic act, let's look at a view which the initiates we call fathers had in the oldest mysteries. The “fathers” refers to the father grade of initiation, and this name is still given to priests in many confessions today,—pater.
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: Sixth Lecture 10 Jan 1910, Stockholm

Thus, John the Baptist had also clairvoyantly seen Jesus as the Lamb of God - as the sacrificial animal of God - that is, the ego in man. This ego in the symbol of the lamb had been sacrificed unceasingly in pre-Christian times; in other words, man had to sacrifice his ego in order to do God's will. This I or Lamb of God was now to be transformed through Christ into the Son of Man. [Using the Nicodemus narrative as a model, we need to understand why, upon the testimony of John the Baptist, it is revealed that Jesus is the Christ, the God of our cosmos.
Those who had penetrated the farthest came to the father of the solar system. Through them spoke the Father Spirit - the Spirit of the All-Father and they were an expression of his will and his law.
68a. The Essence of Christianity: The Bible and Wisdom II 09 Jun 1907, Leipzig

Just as you remember your youth today, so one remembered events from the life of the father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Today's man does not believe that. At that time, what the father had done was felt as: I have done it. For today, this is a highly wonderful situation. Thus, what was the experiences of the fathers, as in Anzengruber, passed into the memory. You could have felt your father as your self at that time, so that you did not say “I” to yourself, but you took father, mother, grandfather and great-grandfather all together as “I”, you felt the whole generation as “I”.
Every time a person came back into the body, he woke up with the cry: “My God, my God, how you have glorified me. Only those who achieved the victory of life over death could attain knowledge.
100. The Gospel of St. John (Basle): Lecture VIII 25 Nov 1907, Basel
Translator Unknown

What you perceive as your individual ‘I am’ is one with the ‘I am’ of the Father. Whichever of you has developed within him the consciousness of this fact, can say: ‘I and the Father are one.’
Only through this ‘I am’ can you reach the Divine Father, for the father and ‘I’ are one.” A seer alone could grasp this, and the writer of St. John's Gospel was a seer.
we read: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” But is this a view worthy of a Christian, that God makes a man be born blind, in order that God may make His Glory manifest in him?
100. Theosophy and Rosicrucianism: Man's Descent into an Earthly Incarnation 21 Jun 1907, Kassel
Translator Unknown

Now the occasion for incarnate is essentially dependent on the qualities of father and mother; and there, father and mother work differently. When a human being descends to a new birth, the Ego, which possesses more volitional forces, feels more attracted by the father, and the more astral forces by the mother.
From this standpoint, the esoteric Christians of the past used to call the three highest members the Divine Nature, and they called the highest Atma, i.e. the Father. This is the deepest divine essence in man: the Father in Heaven. The Father is the essence towards which all men develop.
In the course of his development, aiming at the attainment of God, man enters into these three elements. But you must not think that man becomes God. Take a drop out of the ocean: In its essence it is akin to the ocean, but it is not the ocean.
34. Essays on Anthroposophy from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Why does the Theosophist Need Teachings 01 Jan 1905,

Is it not enough for him to become aware of the “God-man” within himself, of the unity with all beings, and of the divinity of all things? Why does he need teachings and theories?"
What matters is that we recognize more and more of the revelations of God in the universe. Let us therefore repeat less that theosophy is the consciousness of the unity of God with man, and let us seek to understand more of the secrets of the world, that is, of the divine workings in things.
Indeed, it is presumptuous to speak of this unity with God without wanting to delve deeper into the deeds of God in the universe. What use is it to always say: I am the son of this father.
87. Ancient Mysteries and Christianity: Gnosis and the Apocalypse 29 Mar 1902, Berlin

When the world spirit - Father and Son - merges in the womb of the All-Mother, what is called the four elements - fire, earth, air and water - comes into being.
The material, as dark matter, was initially the primordial principle under the image of the All-Mother [who was just as primordial as the Father]. The two supreme spiritual entities unite with these four elements: Father and Son, and produce a spiritual-material entity: [the Christ].
"He who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God and he will be my son." The new Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb is the new church. Four roads lead to the new city.
69c. A New Experience of Christ: Christ in the 20th Century 10 Jan 1914, Bremen

Here we encounter a lofty concept of Christ, which even those who consider Gnosticism fantastic must acknowledge: the Gnostic idea is bold and grandiose. We can quickly pass over the first Church Fathers who worked to establish the [Christian] dogmas. What the Fathers dared to do in those days, men later completely abandoned.
The sonship will be felt effectively. That the son comes from the father is scientifically based. But the father does not necessarily have the son. The moral world is related to the natural world order like the son to the father. Just as the father does not have to have the son, so [from the rule of natural laws, morality does not follow by itself].

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