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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 881 through 890 of 1057

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159. Spiritual Science, a Necessity for the Present Time 13 Mar 1915, Nuremberg
Translator Unknown

One felt deeply attracted by the child's soul, even if one only met the boy, now and then, for brief moments. When his father had to enlist, to do his duty on the battlefield as a German citizen, the boy of seven stood, I might say, whole-heartedly in the midst of this situation and he made a special effort to replace his father as best as he could by helping his mother with all kinds of small services.
In return for your pity he will torture you, wind your intestines round his hand, tear every vein out of your body, an inch an hour. You fool ... pity? Pray God that they may whip you pitilessly, and there's an end to it! Pity? ... Fie!” Gorki, of whom you will already have heard many things, comments these, words with: “Cruel, but true”, by rendering not only the world-conception of a poet in a poet's words, but his own world-conception, resulting from his own observation of the world.
30. Individualism and Philosophy: Individualism in Philosophy 01 Jan 1899,
Translated by William Lindemann

No matter how one studies this, one finds that there are countless people who believe themselves governed by gods; there are none who do not independently, over the heads of the gods, judge what pleases or displeases these gods.
If God is regarded as an outer power, then the human self is the one actually acting. It acts either in God's sense or against it. But if God is transferred into man's inner being, then man himself no longer acts, but rather God in him. God expresses himself directly in human life.
273. The Problem of Faust: The Problem of Faust 30 Sep 1916, Dornach
Translated by George Adams

And many a man stands here alive Whom your good father, wrestling yet, Snatched from the fever's burning rage, When for the Plague a bound he set.
O could'st thou read what in my heart is hidden. Father and son, no more than babe unborn, Merit the fame that seeks them thus unbidden. My father was a worthy gentleman, To fame unknown, who sought with honest passion, Yet whimsical device, as was his fashion, Nature and all her holy rounds to scan; In the Black's Kitchen's murky region, Cloistered with masters of the craft.
Now stress of deed and storm of yearning Sleep, at her all-compelling nod; The love of man now bright is burning, and burning bright the love of God.” The poodle growls. But let us be quite clear that those are spiritual experiences; even the growling of the poodle is a spiritual experience, although dramatically it is represented as external.
254. The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century: Lecture II 11 Oct 1915, Dornach
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

If all things are divine, how comes it that there is evil in the world, since God can only be perfect Goodness? If the soul of man is in God, how comes it that she follows her own self-seeking interests? And if it is God who acts in me, how can I, who therefore in no wise act as an independent being, yet be called free?”
If rationalistic philosophy satisfies him and he desires nothing further, let him content himself with that, but he must give up trying to find in rationalistic philosophy what unfortunately it cannot have within it, namely, the real God and the reality underlying the course of things, and a free relationship of God to the world.’ Negative philosophy will ‘remain pre-eminently the philosophy for the schools, Positive philosophy, the philosophy for life.
46. Posthumous Essays and Fragments 1879-1924: On the Comic and its Connection with Art and Life

The situation is quite different if we take as our starting point the idea of beauty that I have put forward (Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetic). Art can never, ever have the task of representing the idea itself. That is the task of science.
That is why Goethe, when he saw the works of Greek art, exclaimed in admiration: “There is necessity, there is God; it is as if these eternal things were conjured forth by creative nature itself.” Thus, we see no contradiction in the aesthetic appearance that the work of art provides us with, but only with the depths of reality, only with its surface.
161. Meditation and Concentration: Three Kinds of Clairvoyance: Lecture III 02 May 1915, Dornach
Translator Unknown

The remarkable thing is that they begin to speak of God and of a divine ordering when formerly such words never passed their lips. On this point today among those people who are in the thick of events we really experience a very great religious deepening.
Take the most characteristic thing, in the letters written from the front, in which can be seen this religious deepening. Much is said of how God has been found again but almost nothing, almost nothing at all—this has been little noticed—of Christ. We hear of God but nothing of Christ. This is a very significant fact—that in this present time of heavy trial and great suffering many people have their religious feeling aroused in the abstract form of the idea of God.
273. The Problem of Faust: Goethe's Life of the Soul from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science 29 Sep 1918, Dornach
Translated by George Adams

And I have often referred before to how Goethe as a seven year old, collected minerals, piled them up on a reading desk he took of his father's, placed a candle on top, and then went through a kind of divine service in which, however, he sought to make a sacrifice to the ‘Great God’ who worked through natural phenomena.
By trying to rationalize this and bring it into some kind of formula man has even gone so far as to try to justify through the ethical God of Love, what is dreadful and profoundly evil. This is instead of humbly remaining, in face of the frightful submergence of love and life, by Luther's ‘Deus absconditus’, the hidden God, that also comes to appearance in the world dynamics that is indifferent to ethics. Through this ethical and religious glorification of war, political aims were thrust upon the God of Love—aims that appear depressingly like those of rulers and cabinet ministers.” Those who follow contemporary literature will know that this is perfectly correct—that on all sides the intentions of those in power are foisted as divine intentions upon God.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Cosmic New Year: the Dream Song of Olaf Asteson 31 Dec 1914, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

To the waters then I came, ’Twas where the icy masses gleamed Like unto flames of blue. . . . And God did guide me in my steps That I did not come close. The moon shone bright And all the paths led far away.
The moon shone bright And all the paths led far away. God's Holy Mother then I saw Amidst most wondrous glory! ‘Now take thy way to Brooksvalin, the place where souls are judged!’
IV In other worlds I tarried then Through many nights and long; And God alone can know The suffering I saw there— In Brooksvalin, where souls World judgment undergo.
159. The Mystery of Death: The Intervention of the Christ Impulse in the Historical Events 13 Mar 1915, Nuremberg
Translator Unknown

One had the most intimate interest in the soul of this child, even if one could see it only briefly here and there. When then the father joined the armed forces to do his duty as a German citizen on the battlefield, there was the seven-year-old boy with his heart, I would like to say, already in the whole situation of life that he made particular efforts to substitute the father, as well he was able to do, to help his mother, while he managed everything possible.
Into cosmic distances I will carry My feeling heart, so that it grows warm In the fire of the holy forces' working; Into cosmic thoughts I will weave My own thinking, so that it grows clear In the light of eternal life-becoming; Into depths of soul I will sink Devoted contemplation, so that it grows strong For the true goals of human activity; In the peace of God I strive thus Amidst life's battles and cares, To prepare myself for the higher Self; Aspiring to work in joy-filled peace, Sensing cosmic being in my own being, I seek to fulfil my human duty; May I live in anticipation Oriented toward my soul's star, Which gives me my place in spirit realms.
He will stretch you on seven instruments of torture for your compassion; he wraps your intestine over the hand and pulls all your veins out of the body, an inch per hour ... Oh you ... Compassion! Pray to God that one may thrash you simply without any compassion, and finish ... Compassion ... Bah!” And Gorki of whom you have already heard something says to such words: “Cruel, but true,” while he returns now not only the world view of a poetic personality, as the poet expresses it, but he expresses his own world view which results for him as the consideration of the world.
342. Lectures and Courses on Christian Religious Work I: Fourth Lecture 14 Jun 1921, Stuttgart

In the first three lines one would express essentially how the human being still stands under the influence of the conditions of heredity, how he is born out of the father principle of the world. The fourth line, the middle one, would then show how these principles of heredity are overcome by the principles of the soul.
The Catholic Church does not recognize pre-existence in more recent times. There is only one thought of God, and this growing out of the thought of God is presented in seven stages. These seven stages must be counteracted by other forces.
There are genuine spiritualized natures among the clergy – the Jesuits, aren't they, they are prepared – I found one among the clergy of Monte Cassino, Father Storkeman, with whom I also spoke about Dionysius the Areopagite, who showed me the altar where he usually says mass.

Results 881 through 890 of 1057

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