{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 10/l01/p030","lang":"en","edition":"MAC1909","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"text":"Of greater difficulty than the development of this lotus is that of the six-petalled flower which is situated in the center of the body. For to cultivate this it is necessary to strive after a complete mastery of the whole personality by means of self-consciousness, so that body, soul, and spirit make but one harmony. The functions of the body, the inclinations and passions of the soul, the thoughts and ideas of the spirit must be brought into complete union with each other. The body must be so refined and purified that its organs assimilate nothing which may not be of service to the soul and spirit. The soul must assimilate nothing through the body, whether of passion or desire, which is antagonistic to pure and noble thoughts. The spirit must not dominate the soul with laws and obligations like a slave-owner, but rather must the soul learn to follow by inclination and free choice these laws and duties. The duties of an occult student must not rule him as by a power to which he unwillingly submits, but rather as by something which he fulfils because he likes it. He must evolve a free soul which has attained an equilibrium between sense and spirit. He must carry this so far that he can abandon himself to the sense because it has been so ennobled that it has lost the power to drag him down. He must no longer require to curb his passions, inasmuch as they follow the good by themselves. As long as a person has to chastise himself he cannot arrive at a certain stage of occult education, for a virtue to which one has to constrain oneself is then valueless. As long as one retains a desire, even although one struggles not to comply therewith, it upsets one's development, nor does it matter whether this appetite be of the soul or of the body. For example, if some one avoids a particular stimulant for the purpose of purifying himself by refining his pleasures, it can only benefit him if his body suffers nothing by this deprivation. If this be not the case it is an indication that the body requires the stimulant, and the renunciation is then worthless. In this case it may even be true that the person in question must first of all forego the desirable goal and wait until favorable conditions—perhaps only in another life—shall surround him. A tempered renunciation is, under certain circumstances, a much greater acquisition than the struggle for something which in given conditions remains unattainable. Indeed, such a tempered renunciation contributes more than such struggle to one's development.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"I. The Astral Centers","site_heading":null,"date":null,"location":null,"word_count":439,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/10/l01/p030?edition=MAC1909","alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"count_diverges","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["HR1960","MAC1909","RSPC1947"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/10/l01/p030"},{"lang":"en","edition":"RSPC1947","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/10/l01/p030"},{"lang":"en","edition":"HR1960","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/10/l01/p030?edition=HR1960"},{"lang":"en","edition":"MAC1909","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/10/l01/p030?edition=MAC1909"}],"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.83,"band":"fuller_than_original","note":"This witness is longer than the original — paraphrastic or padded. That makes it a less faithful witness to wording, not a more complete one. Verify quotations against the original.","word_count":11730,"original_word_count":6421,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}