gnosticanthroposopher

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Be Grateful in All Things

The subconsciousness develops a certain feeling of gratitude towards every impression — irrespective of its nature. It is not inaccurate to say that while we might see someone concerning whom our conscious impression may be very unpleasant — he might insult us to our very face — the subconscious impression would still be a certain feeling of gratitude.

The simple reason for this feeling is that everything in life which approaches the deeper element of our being enriches our life, really enriches it, including all unpleasant experiences. This has no connection with the manner in which we must consciously conduct ourselves towards our outer impressions. The way in which we must consciously respond to anything, has nothing to do with what takes place subconsciously; in the subconsciousness everything leads to a certain feeling of thankfulness; there we receive every impression as a gift for which we must be grateful.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 181 – Earthly Death and Cosmic Life: Lecture 6: Feelings of Unity and Sentiments of Gratitude: A Bridge to the Dead – Berlin, 19th March 1918

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Conquer

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you. - Gautham Buddha

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Spiritual Rebirth: A Prayer

Victorious Spirit

Flame away the impotence 

of timid souls.

Burn up self-interest,

Kindle compassion,

So that selflessness, 

As the life-stream of humanity,

Reigns as source

Of spiritual rebirth.

~Rudolf Steiner, Mantric Sayings, Meditations, 1903-1925, GA268

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Love, Please

If this world cannot run on Love...

It does not deserve to run at all...

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Gaze Upon the Blazing Light

To be able to stand is to have confidence; to be able to hear is to have opened the doors of the soul; to be able to see is to have attained perception; to be able to speak is to have attained the power of helping others; to have conquered desire is to have learned how to use and control the self; to have attained self-knowledge is to have retreated to the inner fortress whence the personal man can be viewed with impartiality; to have seen thy soul in its bloom is to have obtained a momentary glimpse in thyself of the transfiguration which shall eventually make thee more than man; to recognize is to achieve the great task of gazing upon the blazing light without dropping the eyes, and not falling back in terror, as though before some ghastly phantom. This happens to some, and so when the victory is all but won it is lost. 

To hear the Voice of the Silence is to understand that from within comes the only true guidance; to go to the Hall of Learning is to enter the state in which learning becomes possible. Then will many words be written there for thee, and written in fiery letters for thee easily to read. For when the disciple is ready the Master is ready also.

https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/books/LightonthePath/LOTP.pdf

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Desire peace fervently

The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb, and in which the soul grows as does the holy flower upon the still lagoons.

https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/books/LightonthePath/LOTP.pdf

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Prerequisite

Only those can ascend into a knowledge of the higher worlds, who strictly adhere to the external world of facts.

Rudolf Steiner – GA 197 – Stuttgart, March 5, 1920

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Blind Man's Soliloquy

"I am living along with you, but my life is not like yours. This is not as it should be - so that's why I want to tell you things. You see, I live closer to my soul than you do. I am in the midst of life and yet I live apart. For me, the windows are closed and the blinds are drawn. It is dark - but I am used to it now. At first it was confusing, and I was a little panicky - but now I somehow enjoy the quite serenity of it. My mind has delved into the hidden places and I have learned much about life... You see only reflections. In my darkness I see the forces of life at work. I can tell which are real and which are not, and I can sense the limitless possibilities of our endowments... Your days are full of the artificial. You are the victims of bluff, selfishness and insincerity - and too many of you practice these devil-arts yourselves. You have no idea how easy it is for me to see through the insincerity and intolerance of people and the shams of life. And when I work on a problem, I can go straight to the insides of it. Somehow most of you cannot do this... And let me tell you this - I don't want you to feel sorry for me, for I am a pretty lucky fellow after all. I can out-think most of you and I know more about real values than you do. Always remember that there is a law of compensation. For everything that is taken away from us, something we didn't have before is given to us - to keep us all in balance. I guess I really am a lucky fellow. I am blind, but I can see."

~ Nelson Douglass Jr.

[gnosticanthroposopher]

All Creatures Great and Small

The highest law of life is to do no harm to any living creature.

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Experience Truth

To paint a picture, one must be an artist; but to experience the beauty and inner content of the picture one need not be an artist, one has only to approach the picture with a sincere and open mind. It is the same with spiritual knowledge. In order to “paint” in ideas, one must be a researcher in the spirit; but once the picture is painted, it stands there for others to behold. And if these, who are not themselves “artists”, are free from prejudice and are sincere seekers after truth, they will receive health and healing from the descriptions of the spiritual world.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 231 – SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE: A WAY OF LIFE – The Hague, November 16, 1923

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Selflessness

We can search through the entire evolution of the world without finding a deeper understanding of selflessness than that offered by Christ’s appearance upon earth. To know Christ is to go through the school of unselfishness, and to become acquainted with all those incentives to human development that fall gently into our souls, warming and animating every unselfish inclination within us, arousing it from passive to active soul life.

Under the influence of materialism the natural unselfishness of mankind was lost to an extent that will be fully realized only in the distant future. But by contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha, by permeating our knowledge of it with all our feeling, we may acquire again, with our whole soul-being, an education in selflessness.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 152 – The Four Sacrifices of Christ – Basel, June 1, 1914

Act without expectation. Lao Tzu

[gnosticanthroposopher]

No Fear

We need only to remember the feelings of fear and anxiety that gnaw at our soul-life in face of the unknown future. Is there anything that can give the soul a sense of security in this situation? Yes, there is. It is what we may call a feeling of humbleness towards anything that may come towards the soul out of the darkness of the future. But this feeling will be effective only if it has the character of prayer. Let us avoid misunderstanding. We are not extolling something that might be called humbleness in one sense or another; we are describing a definite form of it — humbleness to whatever the future may bring.

Anyone who looks anxiously and fearfully towards the future hinders his development, hampers the free unfolding of his soul-forces. Nothing, indeed, obstructs this development more than fear and anxiety in face of the unknown future. But the results of submitting to the future can be judged only by experience. What does this humbleness mean?

Ideally, it would mean saying to oneself: Whatever the next hour or day may bring, I cannot change it by fear or anxiety, for it is not yet known. I will therefore wait for it with complete inward restfulness, perfect tranquility of mind. Anyone who can meet the future in this calm, relaxed way, without impairing his active strength and energy, will be able to develop the powers of his soul freely and intensively. It is as if hindrance after hindrance falls away, as the soul comes to be more and more pervaded by this feeling of humbleness toward approaching events.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 59 – Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience Vol. 2: Lecture 4: Nature of Prayer – Berlin, 17th February 1910

“On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear.” – Bhagavad Gita

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Remember the Dead

The dead, although dwelling in an element akin to sleep, yet have a vast range of interests and sweep the whole world with their glance. And we ourselves can greatly assist them. This may be done by thinking of the dead as vividly as possible; especially by sending thoughts to them which bring to life, in the most striking way, what we experienced in their company. Abstract concepts are not understood by the dead.

Hence I must send out such thoughts as the following: Here is the road between Kristiania and a near-by place. Here we two walked together. The other person, who is now dead, walked at my side. I can still hear him speaking. I hear the sound of his voice. I try to recall how he moved his arms, how he moved his head.

By visualizing, as vividly as possible, what we experienced together with the dead; by sending out our thoughts to the dead whom we conjure up before our soul in a familiar image, we can make these thoughts, as it were, soar or stream towards the dead. Thus we provide the dead with something like a window, through which they can look at the world. Not only the thought sent by us to the dead comes forth within them, but a whole world. They can gaze at our world as if through a window.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 226 – Man’s Being, His Destiny and World-Evolution: Lecture II – Kristiana, 17th May 1923

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Compassion

"Do that which is good in those who are materially, mentally or even spiritually ugly in their relationships with their fellowman, with themselves or with their Maker as individuals; see the good, see the possibilities, see the opportunity for thee to say a kind word. Kindness, gentleness, patience, persistence should be the watchword for each entity."

Edgar Cayce reading 2072-15

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Become a Free Being

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Solace for the Angels

With the Mystery of Golgotha Christ entered earth-life, and He has remained in earth-life since then; and from this point of view we can feel it as good fortune for earth-life that Christ should have entered it. But now let us consider this from the standpoint of the Angels — which is no invention of mine, but follows as a reality from occult investigation — let us transfer ourselves to the standpoint of the Angels. Their experience in the spiritual sphere was quite different, it was the reverse of ours. Christ left the sphere of the Angels to come to mankind; He forsook their world. Speaking for themselves they could say: Christ left our world to go through the Mystery of Golgotha.

And they would have as much reason to sorrow over this as we have to rejoice that Christ in His healing power should have come to us in as far as we live on earth in our physical bodies. This is a real train of thought, and anyone with actual knowledge of the spiritual world knows that there is only one way for the Angels to find solace, and I described it rightly when I said that men on earth in their physical bodies should live with the Christ-thought in such a way that it can shine upwards as a light to the Angels — since the Mystery of Golgotha — shine up to the Angels as a light.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 168 – How Can the Destitution of Soul in Modern Times Be Overcome? / Social Understanding – Liberty of Thought – Knowledge of the Spirit – Zurich, October 10th, 1916

[gnosticanthroposopher]

Your Thoughts Determine Your Life

It is not for nothing, not futile that the anthroposophical movement has reminded people of the invisible worlds, of which they are a part, on which they always exert influence. A person can’t utter one single word, can’t have a thought, without their feelings influencing the environment. In the same manner that our actions cause an effect in space, so do our emotions; they travel through space and influence people and the entire astral world.

Under ordinary circumstances, the human being is not aware that a stream of action goes out from him, that he is a cause whose effects can influence the environment. He is not aware that this can also cause harm, that he sends streams of sympathy and antipathy, of passions and desires into the world, which can work on other people in a very harmful way. He is unaware of what he is bringing about with his emotional life.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 88 – Über die astrale Welt und das Devachan – Berlin, October 28, 1903 (bladzijde 27)

Our life depends on the kind of thoughts we nurture. If our thoughts are peaceful, calm, meek, and kind, then that is what our life is like. If our attention is turned to the circumstances in which we live, we are drawn into a whirlpool of thoughts and can have neither peace nor tranquility.

- from the introduction to Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica.