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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 4941 through 4950 of 6552

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182. The Dead are with Us 10 Feb 1918, Nuremberg
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Anyone who does not understand them should realize that he has not thought about them deeply enough. They must be investigated by means of Spiritual Science, but they can be understood through constant study.
I tried to explain how the head, in respect of its physical structure, can only be rightly understood when it is conceived as a complete transformation of the other part of the organism. No one was able to understand at all that a bone in the arm would have to be turned inside out like a glove, in order that a head-bone might be produced from it. It is a difficult concept, but one cannot really understand anatomy without such pictures. I mention this in parenthesis only. What I have said today about intercourse with the Dead is easier to understand.
182. The Work of the Angels In Mans Astral Body 09 Oct 1918, Zurich
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, Owen Barfield

Anthroposophical understanding of the spirit must not be a merely theoretical view of the world, but a leaven, an actual power in life.
But the essential step has already been taken when Spiritual Science is studied and really consciously understood. Spiritual Science can be studied to-day without developing clairvoyance faculties. Everyone can do so, who does not bar his own way with his prejudices.
From this you can realise that the work of the Angels is, and under all circumstances must remain, serious. Just imagine what conditions would be behind the scenes of existence if through their somnolence men were able to turn the work of the Angels into a game!
182. What Does the Angel Do in Our Astral Body? 09 Oct 1918, Zurich
Translator Unknown

The whole anthroposophical attitude presupposes our clear understanding that our thoughts and ideas must find still other means of realization besides the results of our deeds in the outer sense-world.
There reigns an impulse of the most perfect fraternity—of brotherhood rightly understood—of the most absolute unification of the human race with relation to social conditions in physical life.
But all that is really necessary is to study spiritual science, and consciously and rightly understand it. Without the development of clairvoyance any man may study it understandingly who does not himself set up the obstacle of prejudice.
173c. The Karma of Untruthfulness II: Lecture XXIII 22 Jan 1917, Dornach
Translated by Johanna Collis

Take a clear look at what I have just said. You will then find that you have understood an important connection between the physical and the spiritual world. And if you think the thought through in a living way you will discover an important means by which to understand all kinds of impulses that emanate from those brotherhoods about which we have spoken on numerous occasions in the past weeks.
The time has come when it is necessary that at least a few solitary individuals understand these things so that they can gain an idea of what is actually going on and being accomplished.
Spiritual science will bring about a possibility of reaching an understanding, even with those who have passed through the portal of death. A life of community will embrace all human souls—those embodied on the earth and those living between death and a new birth—when the fundamental nature of the human being is understood, when it is understood that life in the body and life without the body are simply two forms of one and the same all-embracing life.
173c. The Karma of Untruthfulness II: Lecture XXIV 28 Jan 1917, Dornach
Translated by Johanna Collis

Now multiply by 24, and the number of breaths in twenty-four hours comes to 25,920! You see how a remarkable rhythm underlies the course of our life in one day. Let us take one unit of life to be one breath. This is something very important for us, since the rhythmical repetition of our breathing maintains our life.
Concrete concepts such as these are what ought to underlie any talk of the relationship of the individual to his people. Yet consider how far mankind is today from even the faintest notion of what is contained in the name of a people.
In connection with this I also want to refer to a number of things at the present time which can really only be properly understood from the standpoint of spiritual science. The suffering mankind is having to bear today is connected in large measure with the fact that people do not want to find clarity with reference to the things they discuss.
173c. The Karma of Untruthfulness II: Lecture XXV 30 Jan 1917, Dornach
Translated by Johanna Collis

This is indeed what mediums do; for them, to mistrust human understanding is a basic impulse. They endeavour, purely experimentally, to let the spirit speak while excluding active understanding.
Think on this, meditate on it, and you will come to understand that this third factor corresponds to the provision of material needs. So what is being withheld?
Today's tragic destiny of mankind is that in striving upwards today, human beings are endeavouring to do so not under the sign of spirituality but under the sign of materialism. This in the first instance is what brought them into conflict with those brotherhoods who want to develop the impulses of the mercantile element, commerce and industry, in a materialistic way on a grand scale.
174a. Central Europe Between East and West: First Lecture 13 Sep 1914, Munich

It will be necessary for all who grasp the spiritual life in its genuine, true sense in our time to learn to understand how these folk souls, the genuine, true folk souls, form a kind of choir in which they already live together harmoniously.
Then we will face everything that comes with this faith and know that what is happening is under the guidance of the high hierarchies and will go its way. It is up to us to go along this path in the right way.
Victory and the triumph of spiritual life is a saying that has often found its way into our hearts during these times. Try to understand how we have witnessed the event, which is to be decisive for the development of the entire human spirit, not just for a short time, but for a long, long time!
174a. Central Europe Between East and West: Second Lecture 03 Dec 1914, Stuttgart

Today's war is what I have said. Generalization, which is important for understanding the physical plane, is not important for the spiritual world. Here, things must be investigated individually.
Someone who is incarnated today in a German body may already be preparing in his innermost being to undergo the next incarnation in an English body; someone who is incarnated today in an English body may already be preparing to undergo the next incarnation in a German body.
It has to say that what it is undertaking today is the outward expression of its spiritual mission and that it cannot fail to fulfill it.
174a. Central Europe Between East and West: Third Lecture 23 Mar 1915, Munich

One turns: “Spirits of your souls,” but in the second line it is understood that one does not turn to one or a number of people, that one turns to the protecting spirits there.
For him, there is only the possibility of gaining the strength of blood that makes it possible for him to accept the essence of others. It turns out that the German essence underwent an important development in the evolution of the folk soul. The folk souls, like human beings, undergo development.
We shall gradually realize that in the face of these events in particular, we must be clear about how the supersensible must be acknowledged in both good and evil. If we try to understand these events on the basis of what can be observed on the physical plane, we will not be able to understand them.
174a. Central Europe Between East and West: Fourth Lecture 29 Nov 1915, Munich

If you hear someone speaking and you don't want to think about it, you don't have to understand it. You have to participate if you want to understand. So you have to participate everywhere here too.
— It is really the case in the spiritual world that one must acquire step by step what is to be understood from the spiritual world, and it is naive to believe that everything there does not have to be looked at step by step first.
In the spiritual world they differ greatly from the souls whose bodies have been taken away through illness or old age. In order to explain and understand such things, one must be able to place the right thing next to the right thing in the spiritual world.

Results 4941 through 4950 of 6552

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