PREFACE
THE YOUNGER generation is
always faced with the dilemma of being heir to the old while about to
become a guide for the new. Never did this dilemma seem greater than
after the turn of this century when Rudolf Steiner spoke; for us
today it looms even larger, with no end of its precipitate growth in
sight. Uncountable remedies have been offered, and self-appointed
pundits of many nations, creeds and convictions continue to peddle
their wares. Instant diagnosis is followed by suggestions of all
kinds of therapies — from more money to nihilistic revolutions.
To be “deeply involved” is the demand of the day, but
this is naturally followed by the question as to how to be so without
losing one's identity. If a fresh view can be maintained —
despite the “systems” which tend to make us into
interchangeable items within a catalogued society, the problem of
providing the incentive for this is somewhat like that faced by the
inexperienced gardener who lifts each sprouting plant from its
seedbed to check on its root development. The very manner of growth —
first a stillness, then a sprouting, a sudden spurt of leafing
followed by a pause before further growth — a way necessary for
all living things in order to be alive and to be themselves, is even
less within our understanding today than at the time these lectures
were given.
Therefore
these lectures are not less applicable today. The reader, provided he
can be guided by the circumspect sequence of the thoughts and images
contained in them, will be stirred as well as strangely quieted. Here
we are led, not thrust forward or backward; here we are guided, not
badgered, threatened or left direction-less. Yet the direction we
receive is not merely a signpost to all too obvious and all too
fallible remedies. Rather, we are enabled to begin assembling
convictions from within until the conflux of such inner preparedness
can meet with the final image of “the chariot of Michael.”
To
achieve the image of this chariot, however, demands a new education.
By its nature it signifies not so much the content and circumference
of material as the way in which it becomes, as conveyance, a
transmitter of substance. We may time and again consult one single
paragraph, to know what was meant then and is still implied for us
today:
“The
great transition to this newer age consists in man meeting man free
of his sheaths — according to his disposition, to what the soul
demands; but the capacities for this untrammeled encounter have not
yet been acquired. Above all we have not yet acquired the possibility
for a relation between ego and ego. But this must be prepared for by
education. That is why the question of education is of such burning
importance.”
As
can readily be felt throughout, this cycle of lectures was given to a
group of young people in whom an active current — sometimes
even causing divisions — was to be carried into the inner
meaning of education. Destiny spoke throughout their sometimes heated
discussions, awakening one and beclouding another. The call to carry
a new education out into this world — an education for life,
for the spirit in Man and in the universe — had begun to sound.
It was the year of challenge, 1922, and Rudolf Steiner responded to
it, traveling and lecturing untiringly — from the East-West
Congress in Vienna to his visits to England. At Stuttgart, where
these particular lectures were given, the young listeners had to
develop a new ear to perceive something of a new dawn of the spirit,
even while Rudolf Steiner was speaking to them — surveying,
explaining, developing and guiding them toward an understanding of
themselves in their present world-situation. In this new dawn some of
those listeners, like the readers of these lectures today, could
understand the necessity for self-education as the preliminary to all
other education. And from their desire to become educators, to be
able to dispense true nourishment, they began to recognize that the
growth of such food demands that the plough first be turned inward
and seeds of spirit sown. Eventually — in good time and
according to the rhythms of growth, with the power of the sun and the
moon and the stars — a harvest may mature, which will yield
bread, not stones, in man's relation to man.
This
cycle of lectures “To the Younger Generation” speaks of a
pathway to a Michaelic harvest for ears which have the good will to
hear. If they only now appear in English — forty five years
after the sowing — we should neither be disheartened by the
slowness of growth nor complacent about the fruits already gathered.
Much rather when we have read, listened and heard and have become
better aware of the pathway — may we continue toward that
universal harvest with greater singleness of purpose, without dismay
and, however lonely, with a certainty of spirit-companionship
transcending all generations.
Carlo
Pietzner Easter 1967
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