Our Dead
GA 261 — 26 December 1915, Dornach
Memorial speech for Sophie Stinde
When I last spoke to you here in this place, the person who is most intimately connected with this building was still among us: our dear Sophie Stinde.
You have commemorated the great, painful loss here, and in the time when Sophie Stinde's soul left us, you have evoked in your own souls those feelings that arose from the deep, intimate connection that existed between your souls and Sophie Stinde's soul in relation to our spiritual work. Nevertheless, my dear friends, I cannot resume these lectures here without mentioning the departure of Sophie Stinde's soul from the physical plane, which had such a profound impact on our lives. Only a few words are needed, for our souls, each one's soul, speaks to us so much when we think of the soul that has left us, and the more abundantly, the more fully perhaps the soul has to say to itself at this point, the shorter may be what is expressed with outer physical words.
My dear friends, for many years we here in the physical world were faithfully connected with this soul that had passed away from us in a way that we can say, in the highest sense of the word, was exemplary for us and to us. For the way in which Miss Stinde has placed herself in our spiritual endeavor is so connected with the deepest, most inner soul impulse of this personality, with that in this personality which, within this incarnation, constitutes its essential character of existence.
It was only a short time since we had begun our work in Central Europe, and our task was to establish this work in various places. In the house of Fräulein Stinde and her dear friend, Countess Kalckreuth, it was possible for me to speak the first intimate words to a community in Munich that was willing to receive them at that time. And from that moment on, Fräulein Stinde was with our work out of the very abundance of her beautiful will, was with our work in a sense that our work needs it.
For we must distinguish between two things. The content of our work must be taken from the spiritual world; if the earth is to reach its goal, it must belong to what will flow into the spiritual development of humanity in the course of future earthly ages. This is what we must humbly face in our soul. In our time we can be convinced of this content, or we can reject it. It is a matter that can be said to belong to something that may already now, but will certainly one day, flow into the spiritual development of humanity, even if our efforts, as they are being attempted by us in the present, should fail due to the resistance of souls that are too weak for our cause.
But working within our own circle, with those who strive with us to incorporate the spiritual content of our world view into the spiritual heritage of humanity, to bring this content to the souls and hearts of those who need it, is something else entirely within our society. There is no possibility of saying: if not now, then later. There is only the one possibility of committing oneself with one's whole, undivided soul. And anyone who is committed to this, who puts everything he has and can do at the service of the cause, as if this work were one of the most necessary things he has to do in life, can be said to have grasped the full meaning of how our work is to flow into the spiritual culture of the world through a socially organized circle.
For the time being, for the content of our world view, no goodwill is required of people; only the inner truth of the matter is needed. But it is true that under certain circumstances the matter can fail, and the time may lie further in the future when this content can be incorporated into the spiritual culture of humanity. There is nothing but understanding of the content, nothing but learning to recognize, there is no need to speak of trust, of this or that kind of will, there is only need to speak of the inner truth of the matter.
The situation is different when we look at the instrument through which this spiritual content is to enter the world. This has nothing to do with the truth content of our world view. But this truth must be carried into the present day in the mutual trust that the souls of the members have for one another, and the goodwill that is connected with the warmth and light of the cause must extend into that which, as if in a necessary stream of development, must be brought into the present day.
For those who, so to speak, have a special task to work on, there are many things to consider. The first thing is that they have the good will to gather together what karma has brought them in this incarnation up to the moment when they enter our spiritual house through the gate of our spiritual aspirations, so that they know how to transform and transmute everything that has presented itself to them in the present incarnation in order to put it at the service of our cause. Some will bring this, others that; some were capable when they came, others when they go. There is no path in the life of present-day humanity that does not lead to the center as if it came from the ends of a circle: to the place where the gate to that house stands.
And so was Fräulein Stinde. And she had important and essential things to bring, and she had goodwill, the best of intentions, to bring through our gate that which she has become with this incarnation. Among the many things we may remember in these days of the Christmas season, the world's earthly motto stands before our soul above all:
Revelation of divine powers in the heights
And peace on earth to men,
Who are of good will.
Yes, this soul was of good will. She had a goal in life when she came to us, and this goal was embraced by her artistic endeavors. A heartfelt artistic sense lived in her soul and expressed itself to all who came to know what this soul had attempted and created in the field of art through the heartfelt way in which she worked artistically. But it was of infinite value that she could bring this through the gate to our spiritual home. For that which blossoms in artistic fantasy may find its way more easily than from many other starting points to the spiritual secrets that must be brought down from the realms of imagination. And what this soul was able to experience, what it was able to acquire from art, it brought to us.
Only in this way was it possible to unfold that will, which then spreads and takes hold of many, that will to develop, which finds expression in this our building. Sophie Stinde was among the very first to whom the idea of this our building arose, and one can feel that we would hardly have found the way to this building from our Munich mystery thoughts if her strong will had not been at the starting point of the thought of this building.
A second thing, my dear friends, may come to our minds when we see Sophie Stinde's soul, which is intimately connected with the work and life in our society: her trust. Within the second, that is, within the context of where trust is necessary because cooperation is necessary, Miss Stinde can be an example to us. And where cooperation is necessary, mutual trust is necessary, quite independently of the teaching and the world view, which include the striving for truth and the striving for knowledge and not, for example, trust. But trust is part of working together.
Yes, those who knew how to work with Sophie Stinde were able to learn from her how the kind of trust that is needed for working together in our field is particularly special. I would like to say something here that I wish would sink into many souls so that they would fully understand it: When working together towards a certain goal, a goal that often only reveals itself to the outside world after a long time, that can only be manifested in the outside world after a long time, it is necessary to work together towards a goal that cannot be presented to others, but that wants to develop. People must work together who can trust each other to want to work together, even if the goal cannot be presented in a programmatic, abstract, theoretical way in a few sentences. Not trust in work, not trust in theories, but trust in souls, from which one feels and experiences that one will achieve with them what is to be achieved, even if one cannot yet determine it in the outer world, because it will show itself in the development itself. One must know, one is dealing with people who are not only able to grasp this deeper trust, which is not based on external formulations, but are also able to grasp the coexistence of souls that want to walk together, even if they do not know the goal. This goal will be the right one. That means: being connected to the living core of the work; that means: experiencing loyalty to the work in this core of life; that means: being selflessly connected to the work.
We will perhaps only agree with each other on the things that lie years ahead of us, which we would ruin now if we wanted to put them in front of us in an externally formulated way: you have to be able to say that to each other if you have trust in such a context, as our context should be. That such trust existed between them and Sophie Stinde was known to those who really got to know Sophie Stinde in this regard.
Thus, above all, the thought that comes to mind when we think about her is: because we know how she is with us in our souls, because we know how she belongs to those souls who, after passing through the gate of death, work in our midst with all the means of power that are then available to their souls and which are the flowering of what the souls have acquired here in earthly incarnation.
Their place in the external physical world will be empty in the future. But for those who have learned to understand her, this place will be the source of the idea of exemplary, dedicated, sacrificial work within our ranks. And this idea must live in particular in the rooms under the double dome, in the rooms where Sophie Stinde's soul already worked as her co-work during this incarnation on earth. If we grasp our relationship to her in the right sense, it will be impossible to turn our gaze to our forms without feeling connected to her, who first turned her gaze to him to whom she dedicated her own work, and in whom Sophie Stinde's soul will continue to work.
My dear friends, spiritual science cannot be there to dull the pain that weighs on our soul when we suffer a great loss, for pain is a world principle. And the great and the sublime in the world, as we have explained in various places in our world view, arise as blossoms and fruits from the mother soil of pain. If we were to sin against pain, we would sin against the meaning of the world. But we may look up to the words that she spoke as Sophie Stinde's spirit, the words that we can learn from her: “I will be with you as I was with you! Our relationship will have changed as a result of passing through the gate of death, changed only, not changed, and one may think that our understanding of the connection with the departed souls may then increase our overall understanding of the human connection with the spiritual world. For the understanding that we may have of such personalities as Sophie Stinde is interwoven with and sustained by love and mutual trust.
I do not think that there will ever be a significant occasion within this building where we will not have to remember how Sophie Stinde's soul has prevailed at the starting point of this reasoning, how she has connected with it. Of course, souls of this kind, who clearly recognize the task that is inwardly incumbent upon those who unite with our work, must accept many misunderstandings and go through many difficulties; they are not easily understood by others, misunderstood by many. This must be borne. But there are enough souls in our ranks who, in their deepest inner being, carry a flame of love, a beautiful flame of love, which shines towards Sophie Stinde's soul. The flames of love that Sophie Stinde's nature has kindled in the hearts of our members appear to me especially before the soul.
Just think how many a soul has searched, has come to her, and with those words that it was able to speak, has found that love, loyalty and friendship that such a soul needs. And then the flames of love are kindled by such love, loyalty and friendship, and they are especially kindled to a lasting degree where they flare up in the right way, where they can be kindled by a soul that seizes what it has to seize for the world in the highest sense of duty, and whose sense of duty never speaks, even when it must speak in the negative, without this sense of duty being crossed by the mitigating love. We must never let ourselves be tempted by love to dispense with duty. Love must be warmed by duty, duty must be strengthened by love. This could be seen in Sophie Stinde's soul. And so she also ruled within these rooms, so she ruled for the benefit of our building, and so the spirit of her soul will continue to rule as the soul of our building. May the souls be quite numerous who look with understanding at the way Sophie Stinde's soul is connected to this, our spiritual work.
My dear friends, I did not want to speak again within these rooms, where Sophie Stinde's soul ruled, without first mentioning her. If we loved her when she walked among us in the physical body, we will love her as a spirit that warms and illuminates us without end. Let us seek her among those to whom we look up with particular loyalty in the times when the spiritual realms shine even more brightly than at other times of the year. Let us seek in particular those effective forces that emanate from Sophie Stinde's soul, and in relation to which we want to make ourselves so worthy that they can always be effective through our work, especially in these rooms.