The Splitting of the Human Personality during Spiritual Training
The situation with most people today is as follows. If you see how the good resolves and firm intentions which they have disappear in the next moment, hour, day or month, then in accordance with the prevailing, materialistic world view, one considers this to be something which simply occurs.
But one will gradually begin to feel differently about this. One will begin to feel that a good intention which one was too weak to carry out weakens one's life and reduces one's moral value, and one will see that one becomes morally lighter and less significant in the universe thereby.
Likewise, there will be certain intellectual qualities which people will increasingly feel are weakening them, as if a fire in their soul were consuming them. For it is a significant change if one feels that one's whole manhood is strengthened or weakened by what one is in one's soul. It's quite a change if one feels that destiny is not only a matter of circumstances which work upon one and which are present around one outside, but that it is something which makes one morally lighter or heavier. And one feels that he becomes lighter or heavier as a whole human being.
For it's a question of dealing with what is rising in men's consciousness in such a way that a man is comforted and strengthened. These things are not fully conscious yet, and they are coming up together with all kinds of unrest, nervousness and disharmonious emotional contents.
We are living in the fifth post Atlantean period, a sixth one will follow and a seventh one will follow. The catastrophe which then separates us from the next large period which will come the fifth from the sixth period will not just be an external event in nature like the ice age or flood was. This separation of the fifth from the sixth period will become manifest in a more moral way.
In our age the mind has become the slave of matter. An enormous amount of mental energy has been used in our age to penetrate the natural forces in the outer world for the purpose of making this outer world as comfortable a place as possible for man. The earth-being has never before descended so deeply. A stronger impulse, in fact, the strongest, had to come to the earth. This was the appearance of Christ Jesus, who gave the impulse to new spiritual life. We owe to the mighty impulse which came through Christ Jesus such upward impelling forces as existed in the spiritual life during the descent. In the immediate present and in the age where the consciousness soul and the accompaniment by death are beginning for us, it is important that this coincides with a kind of an attainment of perfection; or decadence and perfection at the same time.
Above all things, no disharmony must ensue between the higher experiences and the events and demands of every-day life. Man’s task must be entirely sought for on this earth, and anyone desiring to shirk his earthly task and to escape into another world may be certain he will never reach his goal. Yet what the senses perceive is only part of the world, and it is in the spirit world that the beings dwell who express themselves in the facts of the physical world. Man must become a partaker of the spirit in order to carry its revelations into the physical world. The man as we know him is an outer expression of the seven human principles . These are the principle of the physical body, of which the external physical body is the expression, the principle of the life body whose expression is the etheric body, the principle of the astral body. This last when transformed yields Spirit Self,- manas; the transformed etheric body- buddhi, Life Spirit ; and the transformed physical body, Spirit Man - atma; in the centre is the “I”-principle. These are the seven spiritual constituents in which the divine nature of man is displayed as in the members of a leader. According to the technical expression used in occultism these seven principles are called the seven Spirits of God in man. And the seven stars are those from which we understand what man is to-day and what he is to become in the future ; these powers of seven Elohim were restored to Earth by Christ, to make the evolution of man comprehensible. No disharmony must ensue between the higher experiences and the events and demands of every-day life. Man’s task must be entirely sought for on this earth, and anyone desiring to shirk his earthly task and to escape into another world may be certain he will never reach his goal. Yet what the senses perceive is only part of the world, and it is in the spirit world that the beings dwell who express themselves in the facts of the physical world. Man must become a partaker of the spirit in order to carry its revelations into the physical world. He transforms the earth by implanting in it what he has ascertained in the spiritual world. That is his task.
It is only because the physical world is dependent upon the spiritual, and because man can work upon earth, in a true sense, only if he is a participator in those worlds in which the creative forces lie concealed—only for these reasons should he have the desire to ascend to the higher worlds. No one resolved not to deviate for a moment from these prescribed directions, need fear the slightest danger.
No one should allow the prospect of these dangers to deter him from esoteric training; it should rather act as a strong challenge to one and all to acquire those faculties which every true esoteric student must possess.
It is not so much a question of casting off this unrest and haste in an external sense, but much ore of taking care that thoughts, feelings, intentions, and bodily health are not thereby exposed to continual fluctuation.
The Esoteric student should never be found wanting in presence of mind or in calm penetration of all situations of life.
In the main, a genuine esoteric training gives rise of itself to all these qualities, and as it progresses the student only becomes acquainted with the dangers while simultaneously and at the right moment acquiring the full power to rout them from the field.
This
speaks so much to my soul (even though I wrote it! Funny right?) -
Inspired Poets like me listen and hear thoughts as FLOWING
LIFE-SPIRIT-WATER or Aquarius, the water bearer. My soul I am as a river
of art-Knowledge. Celebrate with me today, the rains and the spring my
Mother found in her desert womb.
Today is October 21st the day I was born into this world.
Thank you for reaching out Tamara!
Friend Tazo
An Lecture/Article of Rudolf Steiner 1861-1925
The Splitting of the Human Personality during Spiritual Training
The situation with most people today is as follows. If you see how the good resolves and firm intentions which they have disappear in the next moment, hour, day or month, then in accordance with the prevailing, materialistic world view, one considers this to be something which simply occurs.
But one will gradually begin to feel differently about this. One will begin to feel that a good intention which one was too weak to carry out weakens one's life and reduces one's moral value, and one will see that one becomes morally lighter and less significant in the universe thereby.
Likewise, there will be certain intellectual qualities which people will increasingly feel are weakening them, as if a fire in their soul were consuming them. For it is a significant change if one feels that one's whole manhood is strengthened or weakened by what one is in one's soul.
It's quite a change if one feels that destiny is not only a matter of circumstances which work upon one and which are present around one outside, but that it is something which makes one morally lighter or heavier. And one feels that he becomes lighter or heavier as a whole human being.
For it's a question of dealing with what is rising in men's consciousness in such a way that a man is comforted and strengthened. These things are not fully conscious yet, and they are coming up together with all kinds of unrest, nervousness and disharmonious emotional contents.
We are living in the fifth post Atlantean period, a sixth one will follow and a seventh one will follow. The catastrophe which then separates us from the next large period which will come the fifth from the sixth period will not just be an external event in nature like the ice age or flood was.
This separation of the fifth from the sixth period will become manifest in a more moral way.
In our age the mind has become the slave of matter. An enormous amount of mental energy has been used in our age to penetrate the natural forces in the outer world for the purpose of making this outer world as comfortable a place as possible for man.
The earth-being has never before descended so deeply. A stronger impulse, in fact, the strongest, had to come to the earth.
This was the appearance of Christ Jesus, who gave the impulse to new spiritual life. We owe to the mighty impulse which came through Christ Jesus such upward impelling forces as existed in the spiritual life during the descent.
In the immediate present and in the age where the consciousness soul and the accompaniment by death are beginning for us, it is important that this coincides with a kind of an attainment of perfection; or decadence and perfection at the same time.
Above all things, no disharmony must ensue between the higher experiences and the events and demands of every-day life.
Man’s task must be entirely sought for on this earth, and anyone desiring to shirk his earthly task and to escape into another world may be certain he will never reach his goal.
Yet what the senses perceive is only part of the world, and it is in the spirit world that the beings dwell who express themselves in the facts of the physical world. Man must become a partaker of the spirit in order to carry its revelations into the physical world.
The man as we know him is an outer expression of the seven human principles . These are the principle of the physical body, of which the external physical body is the expression, the principle of the life body whose expression is the etheric body, the principle of the astral body.
This last when transformed yields Spirit Self,- manas; the transformed etheric body- buddhi, Life Spirit ; and the transformed physical body, Spirit Man - atma; in the centre is the “I”-principle.
These are the seven spiritual constituents in which the divine nature of man is displayed as in the members of a leader.
According to the technical expression used in occultism these seven principles are called the seven Spirits of God in man.
And the seven stars are those from which we understand what man is to-day and what he is to become in the future ; these powers of seven Elohim were restored to Earth by Christ, to make the evolution of man comprehensible.
No disharmony must ensue between the higher experiences and the events and demands of every-day life.
Man’s task must be entirely sought for on this earth, and anyone desiring to shirk his earthly task and to escape into another world may be certain he will never reach his goal.
Yet what the senses perceive is only part of the world, and it is in the spirit world that the beings dwell who express themselves in the facts of the physical world.
Man must become a partaker of the spirit in order to carry its revelations into the physical world.
He transforms the earth by implanting in it what he has ascertained in the spiritual world. That is his task.
It is only because the physical world is dependent upon the spiritual, and because man can work upon earth, in a true sense, only if he is a participator in those worlds in which the creative forces lie concealed—only for these reasons should he have the desire to ascend to the higher worlds.
No one resolved not to deviate for a moment from these prescribed directions, need fear the slightest danger.
No one should allow the prospect of these dangers to deter him from esoteric training; it should rather act as a strong challenge to one and all to acquire those faculties which every true esoteric student must possess.
It is not so much a question of casting off this unrest and haste in an external sense, but much ore of taking care that thoughts, feelings, intentions, and bodily health are not thereby exposed to continual fluctuation.
The Esoteric student should never be found wanting in presence of mind or in calm penetration of all situations of life.
In the main, a genuine esoteric training gives rise of itself to all these qualities, and as it progresses the student only becomes acquainted with the dangers while simultaneously and at the right moment acquiring the full power to rout them from the field.
From: https://www.hermetics.net/medi...
This speaks so much to my soul (even though I wrote it! Funny right?) - Inspired Poets like me listen and hear thoughts as FLOWING LIFE-SPIRIT-WATER or Aquarius, the water bearer. My soul I am as a river of art-Knowledge. Celebrate with me today, the rains and the spring my Mother found in her desert womb.
Today is October 21st the day I was born into this world.
I love it!