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Resources
Biography
of Rudolf Steiner
(1861 - 1925), founder of Anthroposophy.
Please find a short biography here:
Rudolf
Steiner was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austria (now in
Croatia) in 1861 and died in Dornach, Switzerland in 1925. In university, he
concentrated on mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Having written his
thesis on philosophy, Steiner earned his doctorate and was later drawn into
literary and scholarly circles and participated in the rich social and
political life of Vienna.
During the 1890s, Steiner
worked for seven years in Weimar at the Goethe archive, where he edited
Goethe's scientific works and collaborated in a complete edition of
Schopenhauer's work. Weimar was a center of European culture at the time,
which allowed Steiner to meet many prominent artists and cultural figures.
In 1894 Steiner published his first important work, Intuitive
Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom, now published as
one of the Classics
in Anthroposophy.
More ...
St. John, Buddha, and the
Transformation of Conscience.
By Conrad Rehbach.
A study of history is one possibility to
come closer to an understanding of particular events of the past, of
personalities incarnated at a certain period in history, but also to
understand one's own and one's contemporaries' soul life. This soul life
encompasses the events of the past in their essence, in one person more in
another less consciously. Word of mouth, history told by the parents to
their children, by teachers to their students, or by wise men instructing a
chosen few - is one way of how the events of the past enter and live on in
human souls. Books, and literature are another source, where knowledge of
that kind can be found, internalized and carried in one's soul. The "main events" in history are more or less
known to everyone, who has had some basic education of one sort or other:
The life of Buddha in the 5th century B.C., the Mystery of Golgatha, the
life of the prophet Mohammed in the 6th century A.D., the re-discovery of
America by Columbus in the 15th century A.D., the Declaration of
Independence in 1776 in America or the French Revolution in 1779 and so on.
More ...
Facing Karma. By Conrad Rehbach. Whenever we are confronted with so-called karmic events, when our life takes an unexpected turn or dramatic changes occur, we have the tendency – depending on our temperament – to face these changes either with anger, frustration, questioning or attempts at ignoring, but seldom do we greet these changes with acceptance. Goethe, in one of his poems (from Faust) tries to express his view on fate and destiny with these words:
As on the day, you were
bestowed on earth
The sun and planets ranged themselves in greeting
'Til on you prospered swiftly and with strength
In keeping with the fate with which you came.
So must you be; you cannot flee from yourself:
Already thus spoke sibyls and the prophets
Not time, nor any powers can destroy
The form engraved, which develops you through all your life.
Rudolf Steiner, in a lecture given in Vienna on February, 8, 1912 (contained in the book Anthroposophy in Everyday Life), speaks among other things of three important aspects belonging to the mysteries surrounding karma.
Suffering. Happiness. Contrary to some beliefs Steiner makes it clear that happiness and joy are not something that we ourselves have produced and can now enjoy so to say as a reward. Joy and happiness are rather gifts. Gifts from the divine powers, which are bestowed upon us by grace. Gratitude is the right attitude with which to receive them. On the other hand, the suffering we experience in life is the result of our karmic debts or shortcomings. Although the melancholic shows specific aptitude towards the ability to suffer, and we might well believe that it is by choice that we find ourselves gifted with this temperament, the other temperaments suffer also their fair share, even though not to the same extent. The reason for this suffering in life can be found in our karma and in our need to develop and become better human beings. Upon reflection most people arrive at the insight that indeed it was through suffering and overcoming obstacles that they have learned the most, and for those who think otherwise, I have a word of advice: Prepare, for it is still coming.
At Home With Your Relatives. A second not less remarkable idea is mentioned by Steiner in this text, namely how we during our existence on earth, encounter different people at different times. Although as with all such indications we need to be careful not to become too narrow in our interpretations and leave room for the possibility that also different encounters occur than the ones described, still we can learn a lot from trying to look at our lives in this way. In general terms it can be said, that during the first part of our life, as children, our parents, siblings, friends, etc., are those that we connected with in a former incarnation during the middle of our life, while the ones we become close to in the middle of our present life, are the ones that were our parents, or children, or close relatives in a previous incarnation. In the later part of our life, we then encounter souls that we are karmically connected either from a previous incarnation, or they are people with whom we are in contact in order to start common work that points towards the future and future incarnations. Reflecting on these statements we might experience the familiarity and ease with which we feel connected to some people, but not others, and we might find acknowledgment (or as the case might be, doubt) concerning these indications by Steiner.
Finding the Higher Self. In the final pages of this lecture, Steiner leads us to an understanding of how to find – or connect – to our higher self. While our lower self or ego reigns over the affairs of day to day living, has its outlet and field of existence in the physical life on earth and relates to the laws and conditions of this life, our higher self is at home in the spiritual world. It is this higher self that guides us through life and also guides us towards the necessary suffering and obstacles in our path. As long as we are enmeshed and focused only on our life here on earth and the physical existence, we are unable to gain access and become close to our higher self. Only if we turn towards the spiritual world, if we regularly turn to meditation, transcend nature, study spiritual science, concern ourselves with spiritual texts – for instance the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita – or consciously connect to the world of artistic practice and expression, we start to spend some of our time with our higher self, as this higher self lives in the spiritual world rather than in the physical existence her on earth.
The Inner Light a fairy tale (by Conrad Rehbach)
Purchase the book "The Inner Light"
One fine day, after Manon had eaten an excellent breakfast consisting of all organic ingredients such as eggs, butter, bread and fresh fruit of an orange color, she set out on a walk. She took her usual route past the 15th century castle and into the woods. The ground was soft from the recent rain, but now the sun shone brightly and she met several people in colorful clothes who smiled at her in response to her friendly greeting. Manon walked several minutes past the familiar trees and a bench upon which she had rested upon some other time, when the weather was less friendly, more blustery and cold. The few people she met back then stared straight ahead and ignored her greeting, although she did not remember whether she greeted them less friendly on that day. Chasing away this memory with a wave of her left hand—which she took out of her pocket for this gesture—that went unnoticed by the rest of humanity, Manon moved on and deeper into the forest. A squirrel crossed her path a short distance in front of her and seemed to stop for an instant but upon becoming aware of her ran on and up a birch tree, and disappeared in the heights. Manon noticed the birch tree, which stood out pleasantly with its white bark in front of the more solemn fir trees that rose immediately behind the birch tree, into which the squirrel had now disappeared.
Although Manon had walked this path many times before, she had not noticed a small wooden sign nailed to the trunk of the birch tree approximately sixty inches above the ground. The sign was now slowly swinging back and forth, most likely because the squirrel in its hasty escape had touched the sign and set it into motion. Manon looked closer and tried to decipher the writing on the wooden sign that seemed quite old and well weathered: “inner light” was written in a somewhat stern looking hand with a little almost unnoticeable arrow pointing in a certain direction. At first Manon read “miller lite” and thought, what a silly joke, and suppressing a laugh, she looked closer and read the message this time correctly.
Manon followed the direction the sign was pointing to, and moving some fir tree branches to the left, went into the thicket of trees and bushes, finding her way more by intuition than following markers or looking for further signs, even though there were many pine cones on the ground some of which were arranged in such manner that they could easily be taken for arrows pointing in the direction that Manon was taking.
Manon realized that she now was walking through a part of the forest that she had never gone to before, nor even knew existed. The bushes seemed darker and the fir trees taller. Slowly she made her way through the thick underbrush. Soon enough she approached what seemed to be a small clearing ...
Purchase the book "The Inner Light"