Comments of Profundity
It is one thing to repost from another site that has impacted one such they feel the “need” to do so. However sometimes one finds profound thought offered as responses (comments) to the post. One such place (blog) I have always found a wealth of intelligent thought (whether I agree with the comments or not) is the Anthropopper site. Over the years Jeremy has thrown forth seeds from which grew ongoing interaction with a host of people that I have come to respect, and as I said above, whether I agree with them or not. What I recognize about myself, however, is that I am no match for the intelligence these people display in their arguments (and often the comments are argumentative!).
So I share on this post a few of what I view as some of the most impactful comments I’ve ever read – on Jeremy’s site or elsewhere. I do share, I believe, one trait of these wonderful people – the deepest desire to find Truth. Truth, in my most humble opinion, can only be found after digging with bare hands to the point when your fingers are bleeding. Such is life and its profound mystery.
So I bow humbly before these people and thank them for their wisdom. The source of these comments is Rudolf Steiner’s last illness and last verse.
I would like to look at this post from a slightly different angle, namely that of the illnesses of initiates. It’s not as if Rudolf Steiner was immortal, was it? We all have to die at some point, some of us sooner, some of us later: whatever, it is an inevitable part of being human. Furthermore, as a Christian Initiate, Rudolf Steiner will have accepted the challenges that his life brought, and would have done so without complaint.
One must look at the life of Rudolf Steiner in the light of his dedication to the way in which heaven and the hierarchies work, namely that there is total freedom. It is also a place where no evil can enter, in that evil is (in many respects at least) to prefer what one wants above what we are here on earth to learn. If one is to work with freedom in this way, one must accept the evil that is done to one, and do so uncomplainingly: for the evil that a person does to another will return to them by means of Karma.
The path of the initiate is to accept their own karma, their own unique cocktail of challenges, whilst striving for that part of themselves that is not affected by karma and that they have carried from life to life. Each new incarnation will demand a totally new expression of this, and it is this which develops the qualities of the soul.
It is this free part of one’s life that brings one joy simply by being engaged in it; thus no coercion or persuasion is needed, no material gain will be sought. Thus the act is free – the only things that can come into contact with heaven are those things that have no coercion or selfishness attached to them.
The work of Rudolf Steiner must be seen in the light of the above, and his death. The Goetheanum was freely created and freely funded. That it was brought down by an act of selfishness – and I accede to the arson theory – means that Rudolf Steiner succumbed to an act of evil himself.
Whatever a person dies of will be part of their life – witness the cancer that Sergei Prokofieff died from, that it was the liver should speak loudly to those with any true understanding of astrology. ~ Gemma
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Well now, I was reading a lecture today with my morning cuppa, and I came across this passage:
It is not exaggerated to say that there exists the most profound and thoroughgoing wish to deprive us of the Waldorf School and this building. And if we pay no attention to this; if we do not even develop in us a feeling concerning the ways and means of this opposition, then we remain sleeping souls. Then we do not take hold with inner alertness of what is trying to pour forth out of anthroposophical spiritual science.
Dornach, April 17th 1921; Gesamt Ausgabe 204. [My own emphasis].
Now whilst this concerns the destruction of the Goetheanum, there is, nevertheless a direct link to Jeremy Smith’s wish that we speak of the verse that Rudolf Steiner created.
Because in our day and age, the power of Ahriman has been augmented and amplified by human weakness. If any of you should meditate on the verses Rudolf Steiner gave us – any of them – what will become clear is that human power is actually the result of human weakness. What is more, one will understand why this is. Thus one is able to express one’s own thoughts using more than by just repeating the terminology. Put another way, one will have taken the first steps in developing heart thinking.
What is more, one will be able to discern those who only use words.
My point is that in meditating on the verses, including the one Jeremy Smith gave us here, and one does so for a sufficient length of time, something develops that lies beyond the imagery Rudolf Steiner wished to convey. One will become aware of something that one wasn’t able to perceive before, a nuance – and nuance is all it will be, a mere inkling or just the trace of an idea.
Materialists will say that this is subjective, worthless and unscientific; but this is only them stating that they are unwilling to explore their own souls in order that they may determine their own subjective likes and dislikes – and in doing so, unveil their own place in the world we live in.
For it is through practicing the verses that one has one skein of understanding of how other people think and what motivates them. It is in doing this that one can achieve the work that Rudolf Steiner challenged us with in the above lecture.
How many of those present actually took up this challenge and practiced the things Rudolf Steiner had given them? They had a year and seven months to achieve this, before the building was destroyed by its enemies.
Put better, they had had ten years since the founding of Anthroposophy to achieve this work in themselves. How many of them were prepared on the nights of December 1922 to deal with their enemies and the way their enemies thought? Furthermore, if one is working out of the truths spoken by anthroposophy, one cannot speak to such people wielding barbed clubs. Nor can one use their language, for they will only rebuke you. The task is far more subtle, far more demanding.
Now I repeat: how many of you are engaged with the verses, and what have you learned in doing so?
Jeremy Smith has taken the time to give all of us the inspiration – and Tom Mellett has added his fire to boot. ~ Gemma
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The entire spirit mass of humanity can divide infinitely as the entire crowd of people becomes greater, but in one is everyone and everyone else is all. Everyone who has lived still lives .. and says to me be at peace with everything that gives you life that humanity will wake up soon to the spirit .. ~ Ralph Andreas Meyen