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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 231 through 240 of 6552

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117. Deeper Secrets of Human Development in the Light of the Gospels: The Gospel of Matthew and the Christ-Problem 19 Nov 1909, Zurich

To understand this, we must look back a little on the course of human development. You know that human abilities have developed.
Every time a Bodhisattva appears in the future, for example after three thousand years, people will understand the Christ, who outshines everything, a little better. Christ is the one who is the deepest essence, and the others are there so that Christ may be better understood.
So we stand on earth as seeking human beings. We have begun to struggle to understand the Christ. We have applied what we have recognized about him and will apply everything the bodhisattvas teach in the future to better understand the Master of all bodhisattvas, the center of our system.
117. The Tasks and Aims of Spiritual Science 13 Nov 1909, Stuttgart
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

And yet the truth is that after death, what a man has simply seen in a visionary way is of very little use to him, while on the other hand an actual reality is immediately present, as soon as he becomes conscious of what he has received in spiritual communications, if he has grasped these with his understanding. It is what has been understood that is of value after death, whether it has been seen or not.
He has no notion of the pride that consists in undervaluing the activity of thought and laying the chief emphasis on inspirations. It is a terrible form of pride, a masked pride.
If you have grasped the concept of evolution you can understand what is set forth in Spiritual Science. You can create a concept of karma, because you can create a picture of it in thought.
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: First Lecture 03 Jan 1910, Stockholm

It was only when the gospel became more popular that the contradictions were found; only then did people understand how to take offense at them. Could it be that in the first centuries after Christ, these learned and highly developed connoisseurs of Christianity had so little insight, reason and understanding that they would be grateful for the contradictions?
If we try to look into the souls of the first confessors of Christianity, we must find that they felt that the Christ mystery was something that man cannot readily understand, and so they told each other that it was good that four narrators described what they understood of the same.
And only by bearing in mind that there were four types of initiation can one understand that each Gospel was written on the basis of a particular initiation. What then is an initiate?
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: Second Lecture 04 Jan 1910, Stockholm

It is said that a clarity arose in him and he understood that the human body could become an instrument of love and compassion. No individual had had this experience before.
When a sufficiently large number of people have come to understand as their inner truth what Gautama Buddha experienced of love and compassion when he sat under the bodhi tree.
The two children were together until the age of twelve. To understand the nature of the Nathanian Jesus Child, we must try to understand the nature of his etheric body and, with the help of spiritual scientific research, find the hidden sources of his origin.
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: Third Lecture 05 Jan 1910, Stockholm

The etheric body of this child was of a peculiar purity. To understand this, we have to go back far in the evolution of mankind. Never before has a being been born with a similar etheric body.
The same individualities that had been active in the Atlantides continued their development - although under completely different circumstances - in other parts of our earth, where their first steps were guided by the high Rishis.
He was entrusted with a very special mission. We can best understand this if we realize that the further we go back in the development of the earth, the more varied the soul forces in man were.
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: Fourth Lecture 07 Jan 1910, Stockholm

That happened through that event which is described by the baptism of John in the Jordan. What is it? We must discuss it in order to understand it, the mission of John the Baptist. What was he sent into the world for? It must be borne in mind that humanity goes through different epochs.
If people had simply been told that they were mature enough to transfer themselves into the spiritual realm with their ego, they would not have understood it. How could he teach them? Only through the baptism of John. It consisted of complete immersion in water.
The greatest teachers could have taught this without being understood. In the past, one could only teach: If you give up your ego and make it objective, you create the conditions for rising up.
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: Fifth Lecture 08 Jan 1910, Stockholm

Only slowly and gradually can one bring oneself to understand the one who lived on earth for these three years. [This being had never been on earth before.]
A complete idea is obtained when one ascends to even higher levels than we have tried to suggest. [Because: to understand it, man must first begin to understand himself.] Man must say to himself: Gradually I have become what I am today from an imperfect being.
Everything we will still find in the future must underlie the world. Spiritual content is in the world. What a person can ultimately find in himself was contained in the world in the very beginning.
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: The European Mysteries and Their Initiates 09 Jan 1910, Stockholm

The external apparatus used for this purpose consisted of underground passages and the like in the initiation temples. And even today, the plan of these arrangements can be found in the Egyptian pyramids.
Each of these twelve helpers sought to bring a single soul power to a very special height in order to allow all these powers to unite in the mystery like rays into the soul of the thirteenth. Under the influence of this, he was inspired and was able to reveal his perceptions from the spiritual world in words.
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: Sixth Lecture 10 Jan 1910, Stockholm

To sit under the fig tree means to identify with one's tribe, to feel at one with one's people, and indicates the initiate's position in relation to his people. On the astral plane, that is, by clairvoyant means, Jesus had seen Nathanael as a fifth-degree initiate, and that is why he said he had seen him under the fig tree. Nathaniel immediately understands that no one other than a high initiate could have known this about him, and that is why he calls Jesus “the Son of God” and “the King of Israel.”
His mother's words, “Do whatever he tells you,” also suggest a mutual understanding. Just as it takes only a half-hint for two friends to understand each other when there is a secret between them that no one else knows, so it was in Jesus' relationship with his mother.
117a. The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels: Seventh Lecture 11 Jan 1910, Stockholm

His astral vision was darkened, so that he could not see and could not penetrate to the spiritual. Oedipus did not understand the oracle's words that he should become an initiate, but that he should first kill his father and marry his mother, because he was not pure enough within, he did not understand what was meant by an initiate.
People had become blind to the physical world and the forces that underlie it. But initiation was to take on a new form, and a new light was to rise over humanity. With the ego, a new impulse was to be given, and this impulse was to open the eyes to the new light that had come into the world.
But if they interpret this passage, they have not understood an important word. When Jesus' mother points out to him that there is no wine, he replies, “My hour has not yet come,” that is, the hour when Christ should actually work.

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