1 lecture, Dornach, 1924 (CW 236) "There is the possibility of a comparatively quick maturing of insight into karmic relationships if, for a considerable time, we try patiently, and with inner energy, to picture with greater and greater consciousness an experience which would otherwise simply take its course, without being properly grasped, and fade away in the course of life." In this unique lecture, Rudolf Steiner presents a practical exercise for understanding karma. He points to the ordinary events of life, encouraging us to take an image of a single event and meditate on it. He describes the method in great detail, and explains how, over several days and nights, the image is incorporated into our various spiritual bodies. Eventually, the image reaches the physical body in a transformed state, leading to a perception of a previous earthly life and the cause of the event first pictured in meditation. The audio CD edition--complete and unabridged--is read by the actor and speech teacher Peter Bridgmont, author of Liberation of the Actor.
At the end of his life, Rudolf Steiner took up the task that was his special destiny: to bring to the West a knowledge of reincarnation and karma. To do this, he gave over eighty lectures in 1924 in which he explicitly and concretely revealed the destinies of various individuals from one life to the next in order to show how the general laws of karma operate in individual cases. He also revealed many details of the karmic streams of the members of the Anthroposophical Society. These volumes constitute an immeasurable contribution to the understanding of reincarnation and karma, and the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society in connection with the Archangel Michael.
The review exercises bring the experiences of our daily lives to full awareness. By directing our attentive gaze to what has happened - whether in a single day or in whole phases of life - we kindle light in our will. Undertaking such a review backwards, in reverse sequence, or from an 'external perspective', requires a huge inner effort as we establish distance between ourselves and our daily experiences.In this essential handbook the editor has drawn together virtually all Rudolf Steiner's statements on the review exercises, supporting them with commentary and notes. Described from different perspectives and approaches, there are a surprising range of suggestions for carrying them out. Individual chapters focus on reviewing the day (transforming the power of memory); reviewing events in your life (awakening the higher self); reviewing the other's perspective (awakening social impulses); exercises in thinking backwards (illuminating the will); and more.
Rudolf Steiner said of his mystery dramas--written between 1910 and 1913--that they contain the whole essence of Anthroposophy and that if, through some unlikely chance, only these dramas were to survive, the essential content of Anthroposophy would nevertheless be preserved. Steiner's dramas powerfully portray the complex processes of reincarnation and karma. In them, we are led to inhabit the living landscape of the human soul and spirit, where suprasensory beings weave destinies. Here we find a connection with the spiritual reality of human life itself by following the dramatic interplay of the joy and sorrow, struggle and striving of a group of individuals attempting to apply spiritual knowledge to their practical lives and relationships. To read, watch, or act in these plays is an initiation experience. In The Souls' Awakening--Steiner's fourth mystery drama--an enlightened entrepreneur appoints a scientist, a historian, and an artist to use their spiritual perceptions to transform his business into one that serves spiritual as well as practical needs. A long-standing colleague objects, and a series of conflicts and crises develops. As the plot unfolds, we follow the characters on a journey that moves from business meetings through various states of consciousness, into worlds known before birth and previous lives in Egypt. This classic translation by Ruth and Hans Pusch was revised for this volume by Ruth Pusch. Included is Hans Pusch's "Thoughts on the Seal," in which he discusses the Rosicrucian meaning of the seal represented on the cover. This book is a translation of "Der Seelen Erwachen," published as part four of Vier Mysteriendramen The Four Mystery Dramas), which includes "The Portal of Initiation"; "The Soul's Probation"; "The Guardian of the Threshold"; and "The Souls' Awakening."
Start Now! offers an extensive and representative sample of Steiner's spiritual instructions and meditative practices, including meditation instructions; mantric verses; daily, weekly and monthly practices for the development of soul qualities; karmic exercises and meditations for working with the dead, the angelic hierarchies and our guardian angel.
Why do people have such differing events and circumstances to deal with in their lives? What are the meanings of diseases, illnesses, accidents, and natural disasters? From his clairvoyant spiritual research, Rudolf Steiner speaks of karma, or destiny, as a reality -- an actual scientific phenomenon that can and should be understood today. He shows how, through a comprehension of karma, a person can begin to answer the inevitable questions that arise when they begin seriously to seek the meaning and purpose of life.
1 lecture, Berlin on March 4, 1909 (CW 57) "The two streams in the human being combine to produce what is commonly known as a person's temperament. Our inner self and our inherited traits comingle in it. Temperament is an intermediary between what connects us to an ancestral line and what we bring with us.... Temperament strikes a balance between the eternal and the ephemeral." --Rudolf Steiner From personal spiritual insight, Rudolf Steiner renews and broadens the ancient teaching of the four temperaments. He explains how each person's mixture of temperaments is shaped, usually with one dominating. Steiner provides lively descriptions of the passive, comfort-seeking phlegmatic; the fickle, flitting sanguine; the pained, gloomy melancholic; and the fiery, assertive choleric. He also offers practical suggestions for teachers and parents in addressing the differing manifestations of the temperaments in children, as well as advice intended for adults' personal development. The audio edition, complete and unabridged, is read by the actor and speech teacher Peter Bridgmont, author of Liberation of the Actor.
Soul Exercises, 1903-1924 (CW 267) "The whole world stands facing the human soul--dark, unknown as the blue of the sky. But what is unknown comes. The human soul must feel this coming as its own extinguishing. Sensing this self-extinguishing is followed by the right to re-create oneself anew from the outer world that has been absorbed.... "I am 'I.'" Rudolf Steiner made it his task to teach nothing that he had not experienced himself and always encouraged others to make individual spiritual-meditative research the basis of their spiritual lives. Therefore he gave many spiritual exercises to his pupils who asked for them. This was especially the case during the period of the Esoteric School (1904-1914), which closed with the outbreak of World War I, which made a certain kind of esoteric work impossible. Steiner, however, continued to give individuals exercises and meditations in private conversations until 1924, when his health no longer allowed it. Usually he would write all instructions out by hand. A few were communicated verbally. Although every exercise originated in a particular context, he believed that because the same conditions apply to all who take up this path of training, in principle the exercises should be available in "the widest possible context." Beginning with general rules and conditions (the so-called supplementary exercises), meditations for the days of the week, and morning and evening exercises, Soul Exercises collects all of the word and symbol meditation exercises Steiner gave. This includes nine groups of exercises based on Mabel Collins' "Light on the Path" and a multitude of exercises with individually composed meditative verses. The book concludes with explanations and contextual commentary relating to the exercises, including notes on the value of symbolic ideas on the path of spiritual schooling; the Rose Cross meditation; the verse "More radiant than the Sun"; the backward review (Rückshau); contemplation of one's own divine ideal; and alcohol and diet. Soul Exercises will be a help to all who take up the anthroposophic path of inner work. CONTENTS Translator's Foreword by Matthew Barton Preface to this Edition by Hella Wiesberger Introduction by Hella Wiesberger: "Accounts of the Anthroposophic Path of Schooling in Rudolf Steiner's Works" PART ONE: GENERAL RULES General Conditions Additional Rules Following from the "General Conditions" For the Days of the Week The Twelve Virtues as a Subject of Meditation and for Practice in Daily Life PART TWO: MAIN EXERCISES FOR MORNING AND EVENING The Essential Nature of Meditative Practice PART THREE: EXPLANATIONS RELATING TO THE EXERCISES The Value of Symbolic Ideas on the Path of Inner Schooling The Rose Cross Meditation The Verse "More Radiant than the Sun" Single Meditative Phrases from "Light on the Path" The Meditation "I am--It thinks--She feels--He wills" The Verse "In the Pure Rays of the Light" The Review (or "Rückschau") Exercise Thoughts on "Study" Contemplation of One's Own Divine Ideal Alcohol and Diet Meditations with or without Indications of the Time They Should Take APPENDIX: EDITOR'S COMMENTARIES A. The Breath Exericises B. References to "Lotus Flowers and Chakras" and "Kundalini This volume is a translation from German of Seelenübungen: Band I. Übungen mit Wort- und Sinnbild-Meditationen zur methodischen Entwicklung höherer Erkenntniskräfte, 1904-1924 (GA 267). Cover art: De tio största, n° 2 (1907) by Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), Swedish artist and mystic.
In 1924, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of urgent, impassioned, talks to members of the Anthroposophical Society regarding their karma and its relationship to the culture of the time. Steiner's words characterize vividly a spiritual battle, of forces gathering to fight for the soul of humanity itself. Given the challenges faced by humanity today, it has, perhaps, never been more urgent for those who ally themselves with Rudolf Steiner's work to study, absorb and take to heart the contents of this critically important material.
During 1924, before his last address in September, Rudolf Steiner gave over eighty lectures on the subject of karma to members of the Anthroposophical Society. These profoundly esoteric commentaries examine the underlying laws of reincarnation and karma, and explore in detail the incarnations of specific historical figures. In Rudolf Steiner’s words, the study of karma is ‘... a matter of penetrating into the most profound mysteries of existence, for within the sphere of karma and the course it takes lie those processes which are the basis of the other phenomena of world existence...’ In this eighth and final volume of the series, Rudolf Steiner offers insights on a variety of subjects, including Cosmic Christianity, the Michael impulse, the Arthur and Grail streams of wisdom, as well as the individualities of Gregory VII, Haeckel, Swedenborg, Loyola, Haroun al Raschid, Byron, Voltaire and others.
