It is always useful to learn how spiritual knowledge is gained

Let us suppose that someone accepts the teachings of spiritual science, but chooses not to follow the path to higher knowledge in his present incarnation. It would still be useful for him to form an idea of how knowledge of the spiritual world is gained.

He would be like a chemist who acquires insight into a particular area of knowledge by accepting the results of an experiment described by someone else,  although he has never himself performed it.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 143 – Erfahrungen des Übersinnlichen/Die drei Wege der Seele zu Christus – Zurich, 15 January 1912 (page 56)

 Anonymous translator

Chakra Goddess-Inner Eye – Art of Carol Herzer

Previously posted on 5 februari 2017

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Knowledge / Humility

To attain a correct point of view as regards the knowledge possessed by the human being, we must really fill our thoughts with all the wisdom-filled arrangements which exist in the world, and which are quite beyond the capacity of man. If a man thinks only of what he can achieve himself, then he really blocks all paths to knowledge. The path to knowledge really begins at the point where we realise, in all humility, all that we are incapable of doing, but which must nevertheless come to pass in cosmic existence.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 236 – Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume II: Lecture VII – Dornach, 9th May 1924

Translated by G. Adams, M. Cotterell, C. Davy, & D. S. Osmond

Previously posted on 23 November 2018

Knowledge / Compassion / Preaching

The path to the peaks of knowledge and the path to the heights of compassion are one and the same. Only knowledge and understanding -not preaching- will lead to empathy.

A man with a broken leg will not be helped by the compassion of a surrounding crowd, but by one who, knowing what to do, treats his leg correctly.

Mere preaching is like standing before a stove, and asking it to perform its duty of warming up the room. It is the same when you tell people they need to practise brotherly love. Just as one must put wood in the stove and light a fire, so must he give people the knowledge their souls need in order to join in brotherly love.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 97 – Das christliche Mysterium – Vienna, 22 February 1907 (page 245)

Anonymous translator

 

Previously posted on 17 november 2018

It is an absolute necessity, in making the ascent into higher worlds to get to know oneself thoroughly and exactly

When man begins from out of the world of Imagination to light up his sleep consciousness, when he begins to lighten it with knowledge and experiences, then it is important for him to make sure that he himself gets out of the way and so shuts out of his consciousness all that might cause disturbance to his physical and etheric bodies.

It is an absolute necessity, in making the ascent into higher worlds to get to know oneself thoroughly and exactly. When we really know ourselves we cease as rule to love ourselves. Self-love comes to an end when we begin to have self-knowledge; and this self-love — which is always present in a man who has not attained to self-knowledge, for it is an illusion to imagine we do not love ourselves; we love ourselves more than anything else in the world — this self-love must have been overcome if we are to be able to shut ourselves out of our consciousness.

We must, in actual fact, come to the point where we say to ourselves: As I am now, I must eliminate myself. We have already gone a long way in this direction in that we have attained to self-surrender. But we must now not love ourselves at all. We must have the possibility at every moment to feel — I must put myself right on one side; for if I do not shut out completely all those things in me that otherwise I quite like to feel in me, errors, trivialities, prejudices sympathies, antipathies — if I do not put these right away then my ascent into higher worlds cannot be made aright.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 134 – THE WORLD OF THE SENSES AND THE WORLD OF THE SPIRIT – Lecture II – Hannover, 28 December 1911

A certain fear

We have referred today, as in past lectures, to other types of beings intimately connected to our lives. A certain fear of those worlds you have heard of here, might assail you and lead you to think that it would be better to remain ignorant of all these things. But isn’t that how the ostrich behaves, when it hides its head in the sand? The things we referred to are absolutely real. It is not by closing your eyes that you will make them disappear, but by knowing about them. The only way to drive away all those creatures, is to manage your life in a manner that, increasingly, makes you master of it. Knowledge and truth are the only means to set you free; religious documents do not lie when they state: ‘You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.’

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 98 – Natur- und Geistwesen – ihr Wirken in unserer sichtbaren Welt – Stuttgart, February 11, 1908 (page 210)

Anonymous translator

 

Previously posted on 23 October 2016