24. The Beatitudes

GA 246/1910-02-13/p003 ·1910-02-13 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Nach zum Teil bruchstückhaften Mitschriften» (From transcripts that are in part fragmentary). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 246), which also speaks of "fragmentarischen Hörernotizen und Vortragszusammenfassungen". The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

The longing for spiritual deepening, for occupation with the spiritual foundations of existence, drives man to Theosophy. Man must not believe that he can now, without further ado, discard his very specific way of imagining, feeling and thinking and renounce that which has been imprinted in the soul from previous experiences. It is difficult to really take the right attitude to what we come to know as concepts, as ideas, as spiritual laws. The theosophical laws must not remain mere teachings - it is important that, after one has become acquainted with these ideas and teachings, one can also acquire the right feelings and emotions towards these ideas. When we have grasped the truth about something, we do not yet have everything we should owe to this truth. It depends on how we relate to a truth, how we allow ourselves to be permeated in our souls by the truth in question, whether we are able to take some knowledge as important or unimportant in the right way.

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Cite: GA 246/1910-02-13/p003 · edition English