Initiative E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

'Be a person of initiative, and take care that the hindrances of your own body, or hindrances that otherwise confront you, do not prevent you from finding the centre of your being, where the source of your initiative lies. Likewise, you will find that all joy and sorrow, all happiness and pain, depend on finding or not finding your own individual initiative. – Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, 4 August 1924 Rudolf Steiner urges those who feel the calling of the Archangel Michael to become people of initiative. The anthroposophist should be aware that, '… initiative lies in his karma, and much of what meets him in this life will depend on the extent to which he can become willingly, actively conscious of it.' In the second half of this inspiring lecture, Steiner describes how the being of Ahriman is able to work through the personal intellect of human beings today. As a consequence, we are called upon to be inwardly awake and vigilant at all times.

Leseprobe

About the Author

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone 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 thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works 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 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

INITIATIVE

The karmic spiritual impulse of the followers of Michael How Ahriman works into personal intelligence

Lecture held in Dornach on 4 August 1924

RUDOLF STEINER

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

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2019

First published by Rudolf Steiner Press in Karmic Relationships, Vol. III in 1957. Translated by George Adams with revisions by D.S. Osmond. Revised for this edition by Matthew Barton

© Rudolf Steiner Press 2019

Originally published in German as part of the volume entitled Esoterische Betrachtungen karmischer Zusammenhänge, Dritter Band (volume 237 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

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 564 0 Ebook ISBN: 978 1 85584 507 7

Cover by Andrew Morgan featuring ‘The Fall of the Rebel Angels’ by Luca Giordano Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan Printed and bound in Great Britain by 4Edge Limited, Essex

Contents

INITIATIVE

Further Reading

INITIATIVE

The fundamental feeling I have wanted to summon is this: In finding ourselves within the anthroposophical movement we should begin to feel something of the peculiar karmic position which the impulse to anthroposophy gives us. It must be recognized that in the ordinary course of life people feel very little of their karma. They confront life as though the experiences they acquire have happened by chance and fortuitous circumstance. They pay little heed to the fact that what we encounter in earthly life from birth to death contains inner, karmic relationships of destiny. And in the absence of any such thoughts, they may be all too prone to believe, for instance, in a kind of fatalism which calls human freedom into question.

I have often said that the more intensely we penetrate karmic connections, the more we discover the true essence of freedom. We need not fear, therefore, that by entering into the details of karmic relationships we shall lose our open and unimpaired vision of the essence of human freedom. I have described aspects connected with the former earthly lives, and lives between death and rebirth, of those who enter the Michael community. In every instance—and ultimately this relates to all of you—you will have seen the deep and significant part that spirit plays in the whole inner configuration of the soul.

In our materialistic age with all its circumstances, with its manner of education and upbringing, a person only sincerely embraces anthroposophy when he bears an inner karmic impulse that impels him toward the spirit. He will not otherwise truly embrace it. This karmic impulse contains the sum of all the experiences which he underwent in the way I have described, before he came down into his present earthly life.

Now, my dear friends, when a person is thus strongly united with spiritual impulses that work directly upon his soul, he will, as he descends from the spiritual into the physical world, enter less deeply, unite himself less strongly with his external, bodily nature. All those who have grown into the Michael stream as above described, were thus predestined to enter into this physical body with a certain reserve, if I may put it like that. This, too, lies deep in the karma of the souls of anthroposophists.

On the other hand, we will always find that those whose inner impulse is quite consciously and anxiously to hold themselves at a distance from things anthroposophical, are fully and firmly established in their physical bodily nature. In the people of today who embrace the spiritual life which anthroposophy seeks to give, we find a looser relationship, at any rate, between the astral body and I-organization on the one hand, and the physical and etheric organization on the other.

Now this means that such a person will less easily come to terms with his life. He will find life less easy to deal with, for the simple reason that he has more possibilities to choose from than other people, because he easily grows away from what others grow into. Think only, my dear friends, to what an intense degree many people today are what the connections of outer life have made of them. No one can doubt that they suit these connections, however odd this may sometimes seem. Look at a clerk, a business person, a builder, a contractor, a factory owner, and so forth. They are what they are in an absolutely self-evident way. There is no question about it. True, such a person will sometimes say he feels he was born for a better, or at any rate a different kind of life; but he does not mean it very seriously. And now compare with this the infinite difficulties we find in those who are drawn by an inner impulse into the spiritual life of anthroposophy. Perhaps we see it nowhere with such remarkable intensity as in the young, and notably the youngest of the young.