Donate books to help fund our work. Learn more→

The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Search results 5861 through 5870 of 6456

˂ 1 ... 585 586 587 588 589 ... 646 ˃
71b. Reincarnation and Immortality: Free Will and Immortality 24 Apr 1918, Nuremberg
Translated by Michael Tapp, Elizabeth Tapp, Adam Bittleston

Rudolf Steiner
However, despite this, science has really only discovered half of what is necessary to make the human being understandable. For the human being is not as simple as all that, and cannot simply be understood on the basis of this single line of evolution.
Why should this be?—Because the head of man not only undergoes a forward evolution, but within this forward evolution it also evolves in the opposite direction, a retrogressive evolution.
All the time we are awake the head must suffer from undernourishment. This is the retrogressive evolution. It is derived from the withdrawal of evolution, from reducing substance.
71b. Reincarnation and Immortality: The Historical Evolution of Humanity and the Science of the Spirit 25 Apr 1918, Nuremberg
Translated by Michael Tapp, Elizabeth Tapp, Adam Bittleston

Rudolf Steiner
All these arose under the influence of these conditions. As far as these conditions are concerned his view of history hits the nail on the head.
And we can grasp what has happened since that time when we recognize that a whole age can be understood only by taking into consideration how this instinctive understanding, this rational soul, began to operate in more or less the same way in the 7th or 8th century B.C., how this understanding molded Greek history, Roman history, Roman law, Roman politics.
And it is only in the age that will follow this present age of the consciousness soul that those who today are the Russian people will be ready to evolve their particular kind of soul which at the moment cannot be observed at all with the ordinary senses in the people who live in the east of Europe. Today it is imperative to acquire a deeper understanding for what is happening all over the earth. And also a deeper understanding is needed for what is taking place in the individual human being, inasmuch as he belongs to the great dream of history that can be understood only when we can call forth something from the dreaming human soul that cannot be approached with our normal observation: that from the 7th, 8th century until the 14th, 15th century instinctive willing and understanding evolved, and that a great change then comes about, under whose influence we now stand.
80a. Reincarnation and Immortality: The Essence of Anthroposophy 24 Jan 1922, Elberfeld
Translated by Michael Tapp, Elizabeth Tapp, Adam Bittleston

Rudolf Steiner
Before supersensory knowledge all this remains in existence, just as the healthy human being with his sound human understanding remains side by side with the personality which develops as the possessor of higher power of knowledge.
The abnormal destructive forces, processes of inflammation for example, can be understood in their connections too. For example, one comes to know what exists as polar opposite to an abnormal construction, that is, a process of rampant growth, through understanding the cooperation of sun-nature and moon-nature.
On the contrary, Anthroposophy, when it is rightly understood must build on exact scientific method. Recognized medicine is in no way to be attacked, but only to be developed further.
Reincarnation and Immortality: Introduction
Translated by Michael Tapp, Elizabeth Tapp, Adam Bittleston

Through a study of the transcripts of lectures like those contained in this book, one can come to a clear, reasonable, comprehensive understanding of the human being and his place in the universe. In all his years of writing and lecturing, Steiner made no appeal to emotionalism or sectarianism in his readers or hearers.
He addressed the healthy, sound judgment and good will in each person, confident of the response in those who come to meet his ideas with the willingness to understand them. Among the many activities springing from the work of Rudolf Steiner are the Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association which aims at improved nutrition resulting from methods of agriculture outlined by Rudolf Steiner; the art of Eurythmy, created and described by him as “visible speech and visible song;” the medical and pharmaceutical work carried out by the Clinical and Therapeutical Institute of Arlesheim, Switzerland, with related institutions in other countries; the Homes for the education and care of mentally retarded children; and new directions for work in such fields as Mathematics, Physics, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, Drama, Speech Formation, Social Studies, Astronomy, Economics and Psychology.
34. Reincarnation and Immortality: The Science of Spirit and the Social Question
Translated by Michael Tapp, Elizabeth Tapp, Adam Bittleston

Rudolf Steiner
It depends on whether the science of spirit helps them to take up these tasks judiciously and with understanding to seek ways and means of solving them. If we want to work effectively in life we have first to understand life.
All the statements that support this are based on a lack of understanding. Nevertheless, although this too is really a self-evident truth, it must be mentioned. For even if such things can easily be grasped with the understanding, in practice people still act in a different way.
It is naturally necessary to have deeper knowledge than the kind to be found here and there sailing under the flag of social science, in order to understand this. This “social science” takes only the outer aspect of human life into account, and not the forces which lie deeper.
68c. The Story of the Green Serpent and the Beautiful Lily: Lecture One 04 Apr 1904, Berlin
Translator Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
“He who is not born again of water and the Spirit, cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Goethe understood perfectly what was signified by the expression “born again of water.” And we can see in what sense he understood it by his “song of the Spirit.”
These final verses are a mystical creed. We can only understand them completely when we see our own intimate life come to life again in the story of the green Serpent and the beautiful Lily.
It is of profound significance if we are able to understand the words written by Goethe in his testament, the second part of “Faust,” when he had completed his course on the Earth.
68c. The Story of the Green Serpent and the Beautiful Lily: Lecture Two 27 Nov 1904, Cologne
Translator Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
We can only understand when we have the key to it, that in this Fairy Tale Goethe revealed his Anthroposophical conception of the world.
They have attained to a knowledge reaching far beyond what can be understood by the senses. The passage is as follows: “The Spirit world is not locked; Thy mind is closed.
The four lower ones are crippled by the spirit until they have undergone the purifying development; after that the three higher principles work together harmoniously in Man.
90a. Signs and Symbols of the Christmas Festival: Birth of the Light 19 Dec 1904, Berlin
Translated by Lisa D. Monges, Gilbert Church

Rudolf Steiner
Thus, we are faced with an historical event, a great mystery that is little understood. The event that occurred in Palestine took place literally as it is described in the Gospel of St.
But if it is comprehended in this way, it will also be understood why from this moment onward God can be thought of as a personality, and the Trinity, which previously was thought of differently, can now be understood in the form of three Divine Persons.
Today it has taken on a peculiar form, which must be understood if we wish fully to decipher the Christmas festival. Let us go back to the fourth post-Atlantean period, back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D.
54. Signs and Symbols of the Christmas Festival: The Christmas Festival as a Symbol of the Sun Victory 14 Dec 1905, Berlin
Translated by Lisa D. Monges, Gilbert Church

Rudolf Steiner
There is hardly anything more hopeless and alien to a true understanding of Christmas than the material being published today. Now let us summarize in our souls the whole range of spiritual science that has been offered in various lectures this autumn.
Let us use the knowledge acquired in the course of our spiritual-scientific lectures to understand what the ancient sages expressed in the Christmas festival. The festival held at Christmas time is not only a Christian event.
The Christmas festival is the festival of the greatest ideal of humanity, and humanity must make it its own if it wishes to reach its destination. The Christmas festival, rightly understood, is the festival of the birth of mankind's highest feelings and will impulses. The anthroposophical science of the spirit intends to contribute to this understanding.
96. Signs and Symbols of the Christmas Festival: Signs and Symbols of the Christmas Festival 17 Dec 1906, Berlin
Translated by Lisa D. Monges, Gilbert Church

Rudolf Steiner
Thus, people spoke of the "Persian," or the "Israelite." Now we can understand how it was that Nathanael, for instance, was called a "true Israelite." It was because he had reached the fifth degree of initiation. The sixth degree was that of the "Sun Hero," and we must understand what this name signifies. We shall then realize what awe and reverence passed through the soul of the pupil of the Mysteries who knew something of a Sun Hero, and who experienced at Christmas the Birth Festival of a Sun Hero.
The sun and moon were not seen clearly in the sky, but were surrounded by a rainbow, and sacred Iris. At that time man still understood the language of nature. What speaks to him today in the lapping and surging of the waves, in the whistling and rushing of the wind, in the rustling of the leaves, in the rumbling of thunder, is no longer understood by him, but at that time he could understand it.

Results 5861 through 5870 of 6456

˂ 1 ... 585 586 587 588 589 ... 646 ˃