To be tolerant means in the sense of Spiritual Science something quite different from what one understands usually about it. It means also to respect the freedom of thought in others. To push others away from their place is an insult, but if one does the same thing in thought nobody would say this is an injustice. We talk a lot about “regard for the other’s opinion,” but are not really willing to apply this principle ourselves.
The “Word” today has almost no meaning, one hears it and one has heard nothing. One has to learn to listen with one’s soul, to get hold of the most intimate things with our soul. What later manifests itself in physical life is always present in the spirit first. So we must suppress our opinion and really listen completely to the other, not only listen to the word but even to the feeling. Even then, if in us a feeling will stir that it is wrong what the other one says, it is much more powerful to be able to listen as long as the other one talks than to jump into their speech. This listening creates a completely different understanding — you feel as if the soul of the other starts to warm you through, to shine through you, if you confront “her” in this manner with absolute tolerance.
We shall not only grant the freedom of person but complete freedom. We shall even treasure the freedom of the other’s opinion. This stands only as an example for many things. If one cuts off someone’s speech one does something similar to kicking the other from the point of view of the spiritual world. If one brings oneself as far as to understand that it is much more destructive to cut somebody off than to give them a kick, only then one comes as far as to understand mutual help or community right into one’s soul. Then it becomes a reality.
- Rudolf Steiner – GA 54 – Brotherhood & the Fight for Survival – Berlin, November 23nd, 1905
The ultimate outcome of Spiritual Science is that there rings out like a prayer:
May God's protecting ray of blessing,
Pervade my growing soul,
That it may everywhere lay hold,
of strength bestowing forces.
My soul shall vow,
To waken in itself,
Life-giving might of love,
To spread God's strength
As seed along life's path,
And thus with all it owns,
To work God's will.
-Rudolf Steiner
You will note in lecture four of Steiner's Macrocosm & Microcosm, the importance of the gift from the spiritual world of the higher forces of Cosmic Will, Cosmic thinking and feeling. These are absorbed during the night in sleep-
"for what we ourselves are able to develop consciously during the life of day would not take us very far."
Part of the Cosmic Will we bring with us is "transformed into the force which enables us to move about, to have mobile limbs." Quote: "Then throughout the day we use up this Cosmic Will." At the moment our wills are only paltry compared with the Divine Will. At the moment we should be thankful for what is offered and has been offered. As my Teachers have said: "But indeed, calling upon the Higher Will immediately invokes a yet much higher activity which within itself has an empowerment to do absolutely anything." And it is not like possession. Quote:
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
-Matthew 17:20 Is "God's Will" directly transmitted to the earth? Well obviously it's not here or we wouldn't have to petition it. "All life is compelled and driven by His Will. When we invite His Will we invite Life to us." And no one can live without it. Always with the proviso: Thy Will be done.
Although not written by Hans Christian Andersen, this little highly influential song, carries a theme that comes from his pages.
The Snow Queen herself, represents cold Reason.
It was written by Frank Loesser. The composer received a letter of appreciation:
“...It is simple, yet it is so intricate, the harmony is perfect and the counterpoint — well it just gives me a headache when I think of what it would be like to try to write it..."
It has been recorded by many singers, including Paul McCartney, and the Muppets.
David Bowie showed high appreciation also. Here’s what he once said about the song:
“‘Inchworm’ – which was sung by Danny Kaye in the 1952 movie Hans Christian Andersen – was a big influence on ‘Ashes To Ashes‘. I loved it as a kid and it’s stayed with me forever. I keep going back to it. You wouldn’t believe the amount of my songs that have sort of spun off that one song. Not that you’d really recognize it. Something like ‘Ashes to Ashes’ wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t have been for ‘Inchworm’. There’s a child’s nursery rhyme element in it, and there’s something so sad and mournful and poignant about it. It kept bringing me back to the feelings of those pure thoughts of sadness that you have as a child, and how they’re so identifiable even when you’re an adult. There’s a connection that can be made between being a somewhat lost five-year old and feeling a little abandoned and having the same feeling when you’re in your twenties. And it was that song that did that for me.”
Zarathustra said this: “So great and mighty is He who revealed Himself to me in the Sun that I surrender everything for him. I rejoice in sacrificing to Him the life of my body, the etheric existence of my senses, and the expression of my deeds” — the astral body. Such was the vow that Zarathustra made a long time ago.
Zarathustra had two disciples. To one of them he revealed through spiritual means everything that one can perceive with clairvoyant astral organs. This disciple was reincarnated under the name Hermes, the Egyptian Hermes. To the second disciple he imparted truths that one can know through the clairvoyant etheric body: the wisdom of the Akasha Chronicle. This second disciple was Moses, and you can find the wisdom imparted to him in the Book of Moses of the Old Testament.
When the first disciple was reincarnated as Hermes, he bore within him the astral body of Zarathustra, who had revealed to him not only his teachings but also his own nature. Such a transfer is possible, for what Hermes had received was nothing else but the astral body Zarathustra had sacrificed for him. Hence it was Zarathustra's wisdom that Hermes, the founder of the third post-Atlantean epoch, proclaimed.
The other disciple, to whom Zarathustra had given wisdom through the etheric body, was also born again. When he reincarnated, the etheric body that Zarathustra had sacrificed was woven into him. This disciple was Moses. You can find such facts recorded in religious documents, but in a veiled manner only. Read the story of the birth of Moses. What happened then? The child was placed into an ark of bulrushes which was then put into the water. What does that mean? It means that he was completely cut off from the world. His ego and astral body were not to become manifest until they were permeated by the principle of the etheric body. How can this take place? During the time when Moses lay isolated in the ark on the water, the etheric body that had been woven into him became illuminated. Only then could the astral body and the ego begin to work in him. Are not the powerful images of Genesis, which will occupy humanity for a long time to come, images taken from the Akasha Chronicle? These things cannot be understood without the aid of occultism.
…….
St. Augustine, for example, bore within him a copy of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth; and once you know that, you will be able to appreciate his life, his errors, and his accomplishments. His ego and his astral body were left to their own resources, and only in his etheric body did his great mystical gift come to life. St. Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas had copies of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into their souls, and it is this fact that allowed them to be such dynamic teachers. They worked from a sphere in which Christ had once lived.
In some cases external events such as natural catastrophes or similar things enhance this weaving of spiritual bodies into the soul of the recipient. It is said of St. Thomas Aquinas that lightning struck and killed his little sister in the room where he happened to be standing, but spared him. He interpreted this lightning bolt next to him to the effect that elemental forces were necessary to help him take up the copy of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth. Elisabeth of Thüringen also had an imprint of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth in her soul.
Zarathustra, or Jesus of Nazareth, is one of the three Masters of the Rosicrucians. Many copies of his ego — that is, of the ego in which the Christ Spirit Himself had dwelt — can be found in the spiritual world. The copies of the ego of Jesus of Nazareth are waiting for us in the spiritual world to be utilized for the future evolution of humankind. People who endeavor to strive upward to the heights of spiritual wisdom and love are candidates for these copies of the ego of Jesus of Nazareth. They become bearers of Christ, true Christophori. On this Earth they shall be heralds of His Second Coming.
We derive strength for our future work from the knowledge of which individualities are behind the missions of important human beings. It is possible to test these facts. Not everyone is able to investigate what goes on behind the curtains of the physical world, but everyone can examine the results of such investigations by looking at the Holy Scriptures written before and after Christ. These facts can illuminate the way to understanding; and if they do, they change within us and become spiritual life-blood. -Rudolf Steiner, lecture at the International Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society in Budapest, May 31, 1909
Christ is a sun-spirit, a fire-spirit. It's His spirit that reveals itself to us in sunlight. It's His breath of life in the air that sweeps around the earth and presses into us with every breath. His body is the earth on which we live. He actually feeds us with his flesh and blood, for all the food we eat is taken from the earth, from His body. We breathe His breath of life that He streams to us through the earth's plant-cover. We see in his light, for the sunlight is His spirit-radiation. We live in His love, even physically, for the sun's warmth that we get is His spiritual force of love, that we perceive as warmth. And our spirit is drawn towards His spirit, as our body is fettered to his body. That's why our body must be consecrated, because we walk on His body. The earth is His holy body that we touch with our feet. And the sun is the manifestation of His holy spirit to which we are allowed to look up. And the air is the manifestation of his holy life that we are allowed to take into us. So that we could become aware of our self, our spirit, so that we could become spirit-beings ourself, this high sun-spirit sacrificed Himself, left His royal abode, descended from the sun and took on physical raiment in the earth. Thus he is physically crucified in the earth. But he spiritually embraces the earth with his light and his love power, and everything that lives on it belongs to Him. He's only waiting for us to want to belong to Him. If we give ourselves to Him completely then He'll not only give us His physical life, but also His higher spiritual sun-life. Then he streams through us with his divine light-spirit, with His warming waves of love and with his creative God's will. We can only be what He gives us, what He makes out of us. Everything about us that corresponds to the divine plan is His work. What can we do in addition to this? Nothing but to let Him work in us. It's only if we resist His love that He can't work in us. But how could we resist this love? Resist Him who says: “I have always loved you and have drawn you to me out of pure goodness.” He has loved us since the earth's very beginning. We must let His love become a real being in us. Real life, spirit and bliss are only possible if this life becomes real life for us, becomes Christ's life in us. We can't become pure and holy by ourselves, but only through this Christ-life.
All our striving and wrestling is in vain as long as this higher life doesn't fill us. It alone can wash everything out of our nature that's still unpurified, like a clean, pure stream. This is the soul-ground from which this purifying light-life can ascend. There we must seek our dwelling, at His feet and in devotion to Him. Then He will transform us Himself and stream through us with his divine love-life until we become illumined and pure as He is, become like Him. Until He can share His divine consciousness with us. Our soul must become pure and wise through His light — then it can unite with His life. This then is the union of Christ and Sophia, the union of Christ's life with the human soul that has been purified by His light.
~Rudolf Steiner From the Contents of Esoteric Classes, EL, Hannover 24th September 1907
