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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 4861 through 4870 of 6551

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187. How Can Humanity Find the Christ Again?: The Evolution of Christianity from the Mysteries of pre-Christian Times 27 Dec 1918, Dornach
Translated by Alan P. Shepherd, Dorothy S. Osmond

What a neophyte in those days became at the fourth stage, present-day man would accomplish unconsciously, but would not be able to understand it. Even were he to go through all the initiation ceremonies, were he to tread all the paths that at that time led to Christophorus, he could not now approach the Christ in that way with any understanding.
Also from this knowledge of the cosmos he now has the possibility of bringing understanding to the Mystery of Golgotha. Toward this understanding, today we have received, I might say, just a few incomplete ideas.
If you want dogmatism, you will not be able to accept the contradictions, for they make you uncomfortable. you want dogmatism, you can find it in one place or another, but it will never give you an understanding of reality, only something to swear by when you need it. If you want to understand reality, then you must realize that it has to be presented from various sides.
187. How Can Humanity Find the Christ Again?: The Change in the Human Soul Constitution 28 Dec 1918, Dornach
Translated by Alan P. Shepherd, Dorothy S. Osmond

You see, the secret-society view of the English-speaking people, looking up to what it considers as underlying the whole cosmic process, emphasizes particularly the so-called Architect of the worlds, the great Master Builder of the worlds.
The underlying cause is this, that in the historical evolution of humanity the impulse for freedom is struggling upward in the development of the human being.
See Rudolf Steiner, Building Stones for an Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, GA 175 (London, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972).
187. How Can Humanity Find the Christ Again?: Transformation of the Human Being in the Course of Evolution 29 Dec 1918, Dornach
Translated by Alan P. Shepherd, Dorothy S. Osmond

In our external daily life only the outer reflection of these changes is noticed, a reflection that is really hardly comprehended even by one who wants to understand and is developing the impulse in himself toward understanding. Let us consider this outer reflection, for example, in the development of the Christ concept during nearly two thousand years since the Mystery of Golgotha.
Thus, especially toward the end of the fourth post-Atlantian epoch, initiations very often took place under such direct spiritual guidance. I have previously pointed out that the initiation experienced in this way by Brunetto Latini,17 the teacher and master of Dante, is to be understood as a real initiation.
Today an individual has abundant opportunity to prepare himself well, if he will, for the soul-mood indicated. For if he enters into a true understanding of nature—not a subjective study or anything of the kind—if he tries to start from this true understanding, then much of the mood is already created.
187. How Can Humanity Find the Christ Again?: Experiences of the Old Year and Outlook over the New Year I 31 Dec 1918, Dornach
Translated by Alan P. Shepherd, Dorothy S. Osmond

For although we may look back carefully, much escapes us that would not if we were proceeding at the same pace as the world. This, my dear friends, is an undertone arising from the ground of anthroposophy, that should permeate the serious mood that befits such retrospect on the part of those dedicated to spiritual science.
What can possibly evolve out of all that civilized mankind has undergone in the chaos of these last years? If we face these questions as wide-awake human beings, then another question arises, one that is deeply connected with all our possible hopes for the future of mankind.
We will not complain but accept our destiny and silently go under. The best of us will neither emigrate nor commit suicide but share in this fate with our fellows.
187. How Can Humanity Find the Christ Again?: Experiences of the Old Year and Outlook over the New Year II 01 Jan 1919, Dornach
Translated by Alan P. Shepherd, Dorothy S. Osmond

Obviously, we are not always able to look directly into the deeper causes that underlie events in time. Our gaze must turn first to what may be said to lie more on the surface of happenings.
Particularly at the present time there is no desire to understand such a spiritual intervention. The moment we do give our attention to it, we will have to distinguish between two things.
In science all that is said or written or done is under the influence of thinking that is dismembering, thinking that is differentiating. Exact definitions are demanded.
Aspects of Human Evolution: Foreword
Translated by Rita Stebbing

Such people really yearn for genuine experiences of the spiritual realms that all mankind prior to our era had as a precious, if not entirely understood, gift. These people, though often without the benefit of technical knowledge, can in varying degrees see through the pretentions and unwarranted assumption of a science that has debased its own ideals and brought the world to the brink of destruction.
At the end of the 20th century there are certainly more people than there were then who can see the possibility, and understand the necessity, for such an attitude. Generally, however, they have no clear idea of how it could be brought about.
In practical American terms this might mean looking beyond the prevailing extreme alternatives of agnostic secular humanism and fulminating fundamentalism in search of a true balance that retains what is valid in each and with that moving on to new tasks already being undertaken by the spiritually sane of our times—by definition those who exercise healthy common sense. To insist on the reality of both the spiritual realm and the scientific realm and their interweaving is actually the most practical idea of our troubled times.
177. The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness: The Driving Forces Behind Europe's War 29 Sep 1917, Dornach
Translated by Anna R. Meuss

You have to accept that it will be a long time before order arises from the chaos. For it will not come until human hearts understand the realm of the spirit. Order can only come when it is understood how this chaos has arisen. Chaos has arisen because the reality is considered in an unspiritual way and the world of the spirit cannot be ignored with impunity.
Surely it cannot be that difficult for anyone to admit: I see the way things are, but I do not yet understand them and therefore I will not say anything to interfere. Considering the incredibly superficial level of education, it is not at all surprising when people are able to understand and have an opinion on everything.
Anthroposophy as a science of the spirit can only be understood by those who are able to grasp that humanity is being asked to make a clear decision. Either the spirit is understood or the chaos continues.
177. The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness: Humanity's Struggle for Morality 30 Sep 1917, Dornach
Translated by Anna R. Meuss

In practice this means we are challenged to do everything we can to encourage spiritual life as the only way of freeing future humanity from those destructive forces. It has to be clearly understood, of course, that this was different in the past, when the fact that an age of materialism must inevitably summon up an age of wars and devastation did not hold true to the same degree. It will, however, hold true in future. Humanity is labouring under numerous illusions that have their origin in the past. The consequences of these have not been as serious in the past as they will be in the future evolution of humanity.
It is wrong to ask why the gods do not intervene. Attempts have to be made; and if one such undertaking should go awry, we should not draw the wrong conclusions. Instead, those who come later must let this give them an even greater impetus to work in a way that helps to encourage such an attempt at further development in the spirit.
177. The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness: The Search for a Perfect World 01 Oct 1917, Dornach
Translated by Anna R. Meuss

The state of mind has to be such—and with reference to the phenomena of the subjective inner life it merely is a state of mind—that for any real understanding of the things of the spirit one has to loosen the etheric and astral bodies a little. This loosening should only be a means of gaining understanding of the world of the spirit.
There may be other situations in life when to be thus ‘given up’, or ‘warm’, is a good thing; it is no good at all when it comes to revealing the truths relating to things of the spirit. This must be properly understood. If spiritual truths are rightly understood, and if people are in all seriousness following the lines of thought used to develop concepts which may make the world of the spirit accessible to our understanding, their humanity will be enhanced and they will learn the things which have to be known at the present time for the salvation and further development of humanity.
I wish they would make the effort to try and understand just one of the things that appears to be in contradiction to other things!5 So one way would be to point out something like this.
177. The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness: The Elemental Spirits of Birth and Death 06 Oct 1917, Dornach
Translated by Anna R. Meuss

It is because there are entities in this next-door world—other, higher worlds lie beyond it—which could only be made known to human beings under certain conditions. They have a specific function in the whole universe and especially also in human evolution.
We are only in the early stages of the technological, industrial and commercial activities which proceed under the influence of the elemental spirits of birth and death. This influence and its effects will be increasingly more radical.
This splits them apart into human atoms, each with his own point of view, with no one able to understand anyone else. There, in this mood where no one can understand anyone else, you see the destructive powers at work in human society.

Results 4861 through 4870 of 6551

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