Breathing the Spirit E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Sophia Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

As a spiritual teacher Rudolf Steiner wrote many beautifully formed and inspired verses. Often they were given in relation to specific situations or in response to individual requests; sometimes they were created for general use in assisting the process of meditation. Regardless of their origins, they are uniformly powerful in their ability to connect the meditant with spiritual archetypes and realities, and are valuable tools for developing experience and knowledge of other dimensions. In this collection of meditations for times of day and seasons of the year, Rudolf Steiner delves into the rhythms of nature and their relation to human beings. The verses in the first part relate to the cycle of waking and sleeping, echoing the greater rhythms of birth and death. They provide an accompaniment for each day, gently reminding us where we have come from and where we are going. The second section focuses on the human being's passage through nature's changing seasons - a greater cycle of sleeping and waking. Together they offer us a spiritual light for our journey through life.. Matthew Barton has delicately translated these meditations into English, many for the first time, and arranged them thematically in this outstanding new series.

Leseprobe

A Note on the Author

RUDOLF STEINER (1861-1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, which can be understood as ‘wisdom of the human being’. A highly developed seer, Steiner based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anybody willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations, Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education—both general and special—agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are literally thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations doing practical work based on his principles. His many published works (writings and lectures) also feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6,000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

Also in the Meditations series:

Finding the Greater Self, Meditations for Harmony and Healing

The Heart of Peace, Meditations for Courage and Tranquillity

Living with the Dead, Meditations for Maintaining a Connection with Those Who Have Died

BREATHING THE SPIRIT

Meditations for Times of Day and Seasons of the Year

Rudolf Steiner

Edited and translated by Matthew Barton

Sophia Books

Sophia Books Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, East Sussex RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

Rudolf Steiner’s verses are selected from the following volumes of the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe (‘GA’), his Collected Works published in the original German by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach: GA 40 Wahrspruchworte, GA 267 Seelenübungen and GA 268 Mantrische Sprüche. This authorized volume is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

This selection and translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 344 8

Typeset by DP Photosetting, Aylesbury, Bucks.

Contents

Introduction

I THE DAY’S BREATH

1 Morning

2 Noon and afternoon

3 Evening

4 Night

II LIGHTING UP THE YEAR

1 Spring

2 Summer

3 Autumn

4 Winter

Notes

A breath from the spirit world,

waking into the body,

falling asleep to leave the body,

is how the true being of the I

experiences itself alternately.

In spirit weaving’s respiration I

am as air in the lung-body:

I am not lung; no, but the air that’s breathed;

yet lung is what’s aware of me.

If I grasp this I perceive

myself in the spirit of the world.

Introduction

The simplest things often contain the greatest depths: we do not need scientists or philosophers to tell us that we wake up in the morning and fall asleep at night. But this deceptively simple rhythm of life, in which we follow the natural cycle of our earth’s rotation (yet are of course free to ignore it if we wish by ‘burning midnight oil’— see Lamp!) also contains a mystery which scientists and philosophers are hard put to answer. What really happens when we sleep, dream and wake?

The meditations gathered in the first section of this book all relate to the breathing rhythm of waking and sleeping, through which our spirit enters and leaves its earthly habitation in a continual cycle. As we dwell on (and in) these verses, we can gain a sense that the journey we pass through each day is a microcosm of greater, longer rhythms: descending from a world of spirit into the vessel of the body as we do at birth, and ascending back to that world of spirit as happens at death; becoming conscious and active on earth and living into our senses; and losing consciousness (most of us) in non-physical realms where spiritual activity has its true home. These meditations can accompany us each day on the smaller echo of our greater journey, gently reminding us where we have come from, and where we might be going.

The second section—‘Lighting up the Year’— addresses our passage through a greater cycle of sleeping and waking—that of nature’s changing seasons. The meditations gathered in this section trace a path through human experience of the year, very much focusing on our inner response to outer changes in nature. We not only follow these changes but also experience a polarity with them. For instance, our inner life can be most intense and awake in winter, when least sustained by natural forces of growth—rather like being wide awake in the middle of the night. The meaning of some of these verses is not always immediately transparent; they repay long pondering, and then they can gradually become interwoven with our own experience of the year’s course, helping the light of spirit to shine in our daylight, and vice versa.

Matthew Barton

I

THE DAY’S BREATH

1

Morning