The more human love, the more food for the Gods

It is entirely possible that one being may impart a gift to another, and only come to know his gift through the other. Picture to yourselves an exceedingly rich person who has never known anything but riches, nor ever experienced the deep satisfaction of soul which results from well-doing. Picture this person now as doing something good; he gives to the poor. The gift calls forth great thankfulness in the soul of the needy individual; this feeling of gratitude is at the same time a gift; it would never have existed if the rich person had not first given. He is the originator of the feeling of gratitude, although he does not himself feel it, and is only acquainted with it through its reflection, which streams back to him from the person in whom he roused it. It is approximately in this way that the gift of love is imparted to man by the Gods. They have progressed so far that they are able to kindle love in man so that he feels it, but they only learn to know it as a reality through man. From their heights the Gods reach down into the ozone of humanity and feel the warmth of love. We know that the Gods lack something when man does not live in love. The more human love there is on earth the more food for the Gods there is in heaven; the less love there is, the more the Gods hunger.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 105 – UNIVERSE, EARTH AND MAN – Lecture IX – Stuttgart, 13 August 1908

Reaching for the Sky – Art of Carol Herzer

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Love / Karma / Physical body

It is possible to observe, in all details, how the tendencies that were present in one life, work, in the next, on the physical body. A person who is disposed to love everything around him, who is loving to all creatures, who pours out love, will have in the next incarnation a physical body that remains young and fresh until late in life. Love for all beings, the cultivation of sympathy, gives rise to a physical body that preserves its youthful vigour. A man who is full of antipathy against other human beings, who criticises and grumbles at everything, trying to keep aloof from it all, produces, as the result of these tendencies, a physical body that ages and becomes wrinkled prematurely. Thus are the tendencies and passions of one life carried over to the physical, bodily life of subsequent incarnations.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 99 – Theosophy of the Rosicrucian – VI: The Law of Destiny – Munich, 30th May 1907

Translated by M. Cotterell & D. S. Osmond

Cosmic Fire – Art of Carol Herzer

Previous posted on   17 December 2018

Hindrances to our development

What a human being experiences in the physical body is of value to him because he evolves to higher and higher stages as the result of what he achieves on earth. That is the essential point. On the other hand, between birth and death there are many inducements for individuals to create hindrances to their development, for example, everything that we do to injure our fellowmen. Every time when, at the cost of our fellowmen, we provide satisfaction for our own aims or embark for self-seeking reasons on a project that in some way affects the world, we create a hindrance to our development: Suppose we give someone a box on the ear. The physical and moral pain connected with it is a hindrance to our development. This hindrance would cling to us for all our subsequent lives in future epochs if we did not expunge it from the world. During the kamaloka period an impetus is given to a man to get rid of these hindrances to his development.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 109 – Rosicrucian Esotericism: Lecture IV: Man Between Death and Rebirth – Budapest, 6th June 1909

Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Previously posted on 9 december 2018

Faith, Love and Hope

Faith, love, hope, constitute three stages in the essential being of man; they are necessary for health and for life as a whole, for without them we cannot exist.

Just as work cannot be done in a dark room until light is obtained, it is equally impossible for a human being to carry on in his fourfold nature if his three sheaths are not permeated, warmed through, and strengthened by faith, love, and hope.

For faith, love, hope are the basic forces in our astral body, our etheric body, and our physical body.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 130 – FAITH, LOVE, AND HOPE – I. The Third Revelation to Mankind – Neurenberg, 2 December 1911

Translated by Violet E. Watkin

Chakra Goddess-Power – Art of Carol Herzer

Maria Strauch-Spettini

A member of our esoteric school, Maria Strauch-Spettini, died today. We have a special relation to her that doesn’t end at death. For us death is the transition to another life. The pain that some people feel at the death of a beloved person often has an egotistical character, because the loss of the person affects them. But such feelings don’t help the deceased personality upwards. On the contrary, they take away some of the feathers of the garment that must bear the soul upwards. If we send feelings of unselfish love after the personality we thereby weave feathers into the garment. So when a personality dies we should suppress feelings of pain coming from the loss. Maria Strauch took in theosophical teachings well and her soul became weightier.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 266-III – ESOTERIC LESSONS: Lesson 35 – Berlin, 28 December 1904

Maria Strauch-Spettini (1847 – 1904)