23 March 1924
TO ALL MEMBERS • X
On how to present Anthroposophical Truths
There will be the more
life in the imparting of anthroposophical truths the more they are
presented from the most varied points of view, in the most manifold
descriptions. For this reason, active members in the Society should
not be afraid of treating the same subject again and again in their
Group meetings. Only they should always approach it from different
directions. We shall be led to this quite naturally if our attitude
to the questions of others is as I described in my last letter. Along
this line we first gain a real insight into the livingness of
anthroposophical knowledge. We feel how every thought or picture in
which we clothe it must needs be incomplete. We feel that what we
bear in our soul is infinitely richer than what we can express in
thought; and as we grow aware of this more clearly, the reverence for
the spiritual life increases in us. Now this reverence must be
present in all anthroposophical descriptions. It must be one of the
fundamental notes. Where such reverence is absent, there is no power
in the discussion of anthroposophical truths.
As
to this element of power ― we should never try to bring it by
external means into our talk on Anthroposophy. We should just let it
evolve out of the living feeling which we have towards the truths of
Anthroposophy, realising that as we grasp them in our soul we
approach the reality of the spiritual world. This will give a certain
mood to our soul; for certain moments, our soul will feel itself
absolutely given up to the thought about the spiritual world. In such
moments the reverence for the Spiritual is born in a perfectly
natural and unconstrained way.
The
beginning of all true meditation lies in the development of such a
mood. Whoever is unable to love it will in vain apply the rules for
attaining knowledge of the spiritual world. For it is in this mood
that the Spiritual, which lies in the depths of the human soul, is
called into consciousness; Man thereby unites himself with his own
spiritual being, and it is in this union alone that he can find the
Spiritual in the World. It is only the Spirit in Man that can
approach the Spirit in the Universe.
If
the active members in the Society can gain these deep moments of
feeling then when others come to them for advice they will find in
themselves an increased power to perceive what their fellow-man is
really wanting. Often it is hard for a man to explain clearly what it
is that deeply moves his soul. All too easily he who is asked will
miss the real need of his questioner; and the latter will rightly
feel that after all he has not received a proper answer. But if he is
in the condition of soul that comes from such inner feelings as above
described, he will have the power to loosen the tongue of his
questioner. The latter will gain that true and deep confidence which
gives life to the communication of anthroposophical truths. Something
will then enter in, enabling the questioner to take the answer he
receives as a starting-point from which he can proceed independently
in the quest of his spiritual needs. He will perhaps have the feeling
that though the answer may not contain all he was looking for, he
will now be in a position to help himself along the way. An inner
feeling of strength will come into his soul in place of the powerless
or helpless feeling which was there before. And this feeling of
strength was what he really wanted when he came to ask his questions.
We
should not imagine that the answers to burning questions of the soul
can be found in mere feelings or without clear thought. But a thought
evolved in cold seclusion and indifference to feeling can find no
path into the human soul. On the other hand we should not be afraid
that our feeling might mar the objective nature of our thought. For
it would only do so if it had failed to enter, through the
above-described mood of the soul, into the deep spiritual being that
lies hidden in each one.
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