2 March 1924
TO ALL MEMBERS • VII
The Work in the Society
In the lectures to the
Anthroposophical Society which I am now giving at the Goetheanum, I
am seeking to give expression to the root-questions of the inner life
of Man. The underlying point of view has been indicated in the first
five ‘Leading Thoughts’ published in the News Sheet.
My object has been to meet the fundamental need of an
anthroposophical lecture. The listener must feel that Anthroposophy
is speaking of what he, when he holds counsel with himself most
deeply, realises as the essential concern of his soul. If we can thus
find the right way of representing Anthroposophy, there will arise
among the members the feeling that in the Anthroposophical Society
the human being is truly understood.
And
this is the fundamental impulse in those who become members. They
want to find a place where the understanding of Man is duly
cultivated.
When
we earnestly seek to understand the human being, we are indeed
already on the way to recognition of the spiritual being of the
World. For we are made aware that, as to Man himself, our knowledge
of Nature affords no information but only gives rise to questions.
If
in representing Anthroposophy we tend to lead the soul away from love
of Nature, confusion alone is the result. The true starting-point of
anthroposophical thoughts cannot lie in the belittling of what Nature
reveals to Man. To despise Nature, to turn away from the truth which
flows to Man from the phenomena of life and the world, or from the
beauty that pervades them and the tasks they offer to man's will:
this frame of mind can at most produce a caricature of spiritual
truth.
Such
a caricature will always be tinged with the personal element. Even if
it is not composed of dreams, it will be experienced in a dreaming
way. In waking life man lives with other men, and his effort must be
for mutual understanding on things of common interest. What one man
states must have some meaning for the other; what one achieves by his
work, must have a certain value for the other. Men who live with one
another must have the feeling that they are in a common world. But
when a man is living in his own dreams he cuts himself off from the
common world of men. The dreams of another ― even his nearest
neighbour ― may be utterly different from his. In waking life
men have a world in common; in dreaming each man has his own.
Anthroposophy
should lead from waking life, not to a dreaming, but to a more
intense awakening. In everyday life we have community indeed, but it
is confined within narrow limits. We are banished to a certain
fragment of existence, and only in our inner hearts we bear a longing
for life's fullness. We feel that the true community of human life
extends beyond the confines of the everyday. We look away from the
Earth to the Sun when we would see the source of light common to all
earthly things. So too we must turn away from the world of the senses
to the reality of the Spirit to find the true sources of humanity
where the soul can experience the fullness of community it needs.
Here
it may easily happen that we turn away from life instead of entering
it more fully and more strongly. The man who despises Nature has
fallen a victim to this danger. He is driven into that isolation of
the soul, of which ordinary dreaming is a good example.
Let
us rather educate our minds by contact with the light of truth which
streams into the soul of man from Nature. Then we shall best develop
the sense for the truths of Man, which are at the same time the
truths of the Cosmos. The truths of Nature, experienced with free and
open mind, lead us already toward the truths of the Spirit. When we
fill ourselves with the beauty, greatness and majesty of Nature, it
grows in us to a fountain of true feeling for the Spirit. And when we
open our heart to the silent gesture of Nature revealing her eternal
innocence beyond all good and evil, our eyes are opened presently to
the spiritual world, from whence ― into the dumb gesture ―
the living Word rings forth, revealing good and evil.
Spirit-perception,
brought up in the loving perception of Nature, brings to life the
true riches of the soul. Spiritual dreaming, elaborated in
contradiction to true knowledge of Nature, can but impoverish the
human heart.
If
one penetrates Anthroposophy in its deepest essence one will feel the
point of view here indicated to be the one from which all
anthroposophical descriptions should take their start. With this as
our point of departure, we shall come into living touch with the
reality, of which every member will say, ‘There lies the true
reason why I entered the Anthroposophical Society’.
It
will not be enough, for the members who wish to be active in the
Anthroposophical Society, to be theoretically convinced of this. Real
life will only enter their conviction when they unfold a warm
interest in all that goes on in the Society. As they learn of what is
being thought and done by active individuals in the Society, they
will receive the warmth they need for their own work in it. We must
be filled with interest in other human beings, to meet them in an
anthroposophical way. The study of ‘What is going on in the
Society’ must gradually form the background of all our activity
in it. Those above all who wish to be active members will stand in
need of this.
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