|
  cont.
Steiner spoke very little of his spiritual life in personal terms. But in
his autobiography he indicates that from childhood he was fully conscious
of a world of invisible reality within the everyday world. His inner
struggles for the first forty years of his life were not the result of an
effort to achieve spiritual experience, but to unite his spiritual
experiences with everyday reality through the methods and language of
natural science. Steiner saw this scientific era, even in its most
materialistic aspects, as an essential phase in the spiritual education of
humanity. Only by forgetting the spiritual world for a time and attending
to the material world can new and essential faculties be kindled,
especially the experience of true individual inner freedom.
During his thirties, Steiner
awakened to an inner recognition of what he termed "the turning point
in time" in human spiritual history. That event was brought about by
the incarnation of the Christ. Steiner recognized that the meaning of that
turning point in time transcends all differences of religion, race, or
nation and has consequences for all of humanity.
Rudolf Steiner was also led to
recognize the new presence and activity of the 
Christ, which began in the twentieth century -- not in the physical world,
but in the realm of invisible life forces, or etheric
realm, of Earth and humankind. Steiner wished to nurture a path of
knowledge that can meet today's deep and pressing needs. These ideals,
though imperfectly realized, may guide people to find in anthroposophy a
continuing inspiration for their lives and work.
Steiner's legacy are the
fruits of careful spiritual observation and perception (or, as he
preferred to call it, spiritual
research), free and thoroughly
conscious of the integrity of thinking and understanding inherent in
natural science.
bio | the
books of | credits
|
