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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 861 through 870 of 6551

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140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: Man's Journey Through the Planetary Spheres 18 Nov 1912, Hanover
Translated by René M. Querido

Anyone who can distinguish between sleeping and waking can also understand what consciousness is. Consciousness is what enters a man's soul again every morning when he wakes from sleep.
Earthly life is really not dependent upon theoretical understanding, but upon our being permeated through and through with the effects of the Event of Golgotha.
Above all, when spiritual science helps us to understand our fellow men a little better, it has fulfilled its function, for spiritual science is life, immediate life.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: Life Between Death and Rebirth I 26 Nov 1912, Munich
Translated by René M. Querido

Although Paul declared that Christ died not only for the Jews but also for the heathen, these words even today are still little understood. Not until it is realized that Christ fulfilled the Deed of Golgotha for all human beings will Christianity be understood.
This is understandable if one knows that it has the posture of the etheric or life body, and that in such a position the etheric body can be fully active.
Spiritual science grasped by sound human reason develops knowledge in us of what we meet in life, and, above all, of the souls of our fellow men. We shall attempt to understand every human soul. This understanding, however, is meant in quite a different way from the usual.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: Life Between Death and Rebirth II 28 Nov 1912, Munich
Translated by René M. Querido

Naturally, if this condition of coercion is sufficiently intense, the relationship will be painful. Now in order to understand this condition rightly and sense it from the heart, we should not merely imagine it to be painful.
If in our present cycle of evolution people continually acquire an understanding for the spiritual world, things that cannot exist for sense perception but are nevertheless in our environment will work upon us in a definite way.
If he has understood and lived in anthroposophy, not merely acquired an external understanding of it but really lived in it with his heart and mind, then his experience will be different.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: The Working of Karma in Life After Death 15 Dec 1912, Bern
Translated by René M. Querido

People do not find it easy to throw bridges from one confession to another because they are so entrenched in their own views. A real understanding for one who thinks and feels differently is particularly difficult. In theory such an understanding is often claimed, but matters are quite different when it is a question of putting theory into practice.
We must consider that between death and rebirth we also dwell in the Sun sphere where a thorough understanding of the Christ impulse is essential. We must bring this understanding along with us from the earth, for Christ once did dwell in the Sun but, as we know, He descended from the Sun and united Himself with the earth.
A wonderfully apt description! One only learns to understand this through the occult mysteries. The more one strives in this direction, the more one realizes that the ancient poets were the greatest seers and that much that is secretly interwoven in their works requires a considerable amount of understanding.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: Between Death and a New Birth 21 Jan 1913, Vienna
Translated by René M. Querido

When we read a spiritual-scientific book in a particular language, can the dead understand this language? During the period of catharsis the dead understand the language they have spoken on earth. It is only later, during the passage into devachan, that they can no longer understand words but only thoughts. A transformation in the intercourse with the dead takes place after a definite period of years.
Then the saying, “Rather a beggar on earth than a king in the realm of the Shades,” had reality. At that time to dwell in the underworld meant to lead a miserable existence. Before the birth of Christ life after death was little developed.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: Life After Death 26 Jan 1913, Linz
Translated by René M. Querido

Our whole being is dependent on what occurred previously in the spirit-world. This can be understood most readily if one studies a phenomenon by means of super-sensible cognition that might appear to many as an objection to spiritual investigation as such.
Thus we see ourselves membered in the totality of life on earth. So also we understand the importance of not letting our innate spirit-powers wither, but of cultivating them lest we gradually be obliterated from the world.
He will live more and more as if on an island and his calls, his understanding must go from island to island. Human beings who seek to partake of the future of the spiritual life of humanity will be able to understand one another, that is, those who live in freedom on other islands.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: Anthroposophy as the Quickener of Feeling and of Life 16 Feb 1913, Tübingen
Translated by René M. Querido

If he pursues the matter further, the seer discovers that even when these souls have gone through the gate of death, they have but a dim perception of one another. They will only be able to achieve a mutual understanding under considerable difficulty, or not at all, because a common language is lacking. The seer realizes what anthroposophy is in a deeper sense.
There is, however, yet another aspect to the understanding between the living and the dead. In this connection we have not progressed very far as yet but it will come about. In order to grasp how the living will gradually develop an understanding for the dead, let us consider the following. Man knows little about the physical world.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: The Mission of Earthly Life as a Transitional Stage for the Beyond 02 Mar 1913, Frankfurt
Translated by René M. Querido

Human beings are unable to establish any contact with them because they live under quite different conditions and because they will in the main not have made the least connection with these beings on Mars.
The gulf between the living and the dead must be bridged. Under certain conditions the dead can also work into the earthly sphere, as the living are able to send their influence into the spiritual world, and we can investigate how the dead work into the physical world.
He now notices something strange on the square, under the colonnade where he used to walk every day. The roof of the colonnade has collapsed! Had he left at the accustomed time, the falling roof certainly would have killed him.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: Life Between Death and Rebirth I 10 Mar 1913, Munich
Translated by René M. Querido

He was dull in a previous life and he will become of necessity duller in the next than he need or should have been. He will not be able to understand as much as he might otherwise have grasped. He will not be able to participate in the life of the world as he otherwise could have done and he will remain disinterested in what otherwise should have interested him.
When such a soul again goes through the portal of death, super-sensible investigation reveals that he falls strongly under the influence of the Ahrimanic forces. These forces now color what a man gathers between death and rebirth and in the next incarnation without his intervention he is so predisposed in his thoughts and feelings as to be narrow-minded.
I have often emphasized that there are souls today who are in no way inclined to develop an understanding of the super-sensible worlds in accordance with our day and age, who are thoroughly materialistic and who have completely cut themselves off from the spiritual world.
140. Life Between Death and Rebirth: Life Between Death and Rebirth II 12 Mar 1913, Munich
Translated by René M. Querido

Our concepts must be recast if we wish to gain an understanding of the life between death and rebirth. It is not really incongruous to speak about the dead in words taken from the conditions of earthly existence because our language is adapted to these conditions.
This prior was a pedantic and strict disciplinarian with little understanding of art. He asked impatiently why the painter could not finish the picture, reproached him for it and also complained to Duke Ludovico.
This brings us to the point where we can begin to understand the principle that perfection signifies for the different epochs the end of a stream of evolution, and imperfection, the beginning of an evolutionary stream.

Results 861 through 870 of 6551

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