{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p025","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"When we have grasped this connection then we need only look at the phenomena with open eyes and pain will appear comprehensible. All that gives rise to consciousness is originally pain. When life manifests externally, when life, air, warmth, cold encounter a living being then these outer elements work upon it. But as long as they only work upon it, as long as they are taken up by the living being, as they are taken up by the plant as bearer of internal life-processes, so long does no consciousness arise. Consciousness first arises when these outer elements come into opposition with the inner life and a destruction takes place. Consciousness must result from destruction of life. Without partial death a ray of light is not able to penetrate a living being, the process can never be stimulated in the living being from with consciousness arises. But when light penetrates into the surface of life, produces a partial destruction, breaks down the inner substances and forces, then that mysterious process arises which takes place everywhere in the external world in a quite definite way. Picture to yourselves that the intelligent forces of the world had ascended up to a height where outer light and outer air were foreign to them. They remained in harmony with them only for a time, then they came to completion and an opposition arose. If you could follow this process with the eye of the spirit, then you could see how when a ray of light penetrates a simple being, the skin becomes somewhat transformed and a tiny eye appears. What is it therefore that first glimmers there in the substance? In what does this fine destruction (for it is destruction) manifest? In pain, which is nothing else than an expression for the destruction. Whenever life comes up against external nature destruction takes place, and when it becomes greater even produces death. Out of pain consciousness is born. The very process which has created your eye would have been a destructive process if it had gained the upper hand over the nature that had developed up to the human being. But it has seized upon only a small part with which out of the destruction and partial death it could create that mirroring of the external world which we call consciousness. Consciousness within matter is thus born out of suffering, out of pain.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"I. The Origin of Suffering","site_heading":null,"date":"1906-11-08","location":null,"word_count":397,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p025","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Mabel Cotterell and Violet E. Watkin","identified_edition":"SBC1980","book_title":"The Origin of Suffering the Origin of Evil Illness and Death","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/SBC1980/19061108p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row"},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p025"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p025","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"other_renderings":{"loci":[{"locus":"GA 55/1906-11-08","ga":"55","lecture":"1906-11-08","kind":"renderings","relation":"another translation or transcription of the same lecture"}],"note":"The same lecture is also served at the loci listed, each with how it relates to this one. They are ONE witness, not independent attestations: quote the rendering you fetched, and do not cite another as corroborating it. Wording differs between translations, so a quotation found in one need not occur in the other."},"unit_kind":{"kind":"second_translation","base_unit":"GA 55/1906-11-08","note":"A second English translation of the same lecture as 1906-11-08. The German served under this id repeats the German of 1906-11-08: one German text, to be cited at 1906-11-08.","same_lecture_as":"GA 55/1906-11-08","german_repeats":"GA 55/1906-11-08"},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1906-11-08_02","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p026","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p026"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":404,"en_words":397,"ratio":0.98,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p026","passage_number":26,"text":"Wenn wir diesen Zusammenhang begriffen haben, dann brauchen wir nur mit offenen Augen die Erscheinungen anzusehen, und der Schmerz wird uns begreiflich erscheinen. Alles das, womit das Bewußtsein beginnt, ist ursprünglich Schmerz. Wenn das Leben sich nach außen öffnet, wenn einer lebendigen Wesenheit Licht, Luft, Hitze, Kälte entgegentreten, dann wirken diese äußeren Elemente zunächst auf das lebendige Wesen. Solange diese Elemente aber nur auf dieses lebendige Wesen wirken, solange sie von diesem lebendigen Wesen aufgenommen werden, wie sie von der Pflanze als Träger von inneren Lebensvorgängen aufgenommen werden, solange entsteht kein Bewußtsein. Bewußtsein entsteht erst dann, wenn diese äußeren Elemente in Widerspruch treten mit dem inneren Leben, wenn eine Zerstörung stattfindet. Aus der Zerstörung des Lebens muß das Bewußtsein erfließen. Ohne teilweisen Tod wird ein Lichtstrahl in ein lebendiges Wesen nicht eindringen können, wird in dem lebendigen Wesen nie der Vorgang angeregt werden können, aus dem das Bewußtsein entspringt. Wenn aber das Licht in die Oberfläche des Lebens eindringt, dann eine teilweise Verwüstung anrichtet, die inneren Stoffe und Kräfte niederreißt, dann entsteht jener geheimnisvolle Vorgang, der sich überall in der Außenwelt in ganz bestimmter Weise abspielt. Stellen Sie sich vor: Die intelligenten Kräfte der Welt wären zu einer Höhe emporgestiegen, daß das äußere Licht und die äußere Luft ihnen fremd geworden wären. Nur eine Zeitlang blieben sie mit ihnen in Einklang, dann vervollkommneten sie sich selbst, wodurch ein Widerspruch entstand. Könnten Sie mit den Augen des Geistes diesen Vorgang verfolgen, so könnten Sie sehen, wie da, wo sich in einfache Wesen ein Lichtstrahl eindrängt, die Haut etwas umgestaltet wird und ein winziges Auge entsteht. Was ist es nun, was da in der Materie zuerst aufdämmert? In was drückt sich diese feine Zerstörung aus, denn eine Zerstörung ist es, was dabei vor sich geht? Es ist der Schmerz, der nichts als ein Ausdruck für diese Zerstörung ist. Überall, wo das Leben der äußeren Natur entgegentritt, findet Zerstörung statt, die, wenn sie größer wird, selbst den Tod hervorbringt. Aus dem Schmerz wird das Bewußtsein geboren. Derselbe Prozeß, der Ihr Auge geschaffen hat, wäre ein Zerstörungsprozeß geworden, wenn er an dem Wesen, das sich in dem menschlichen Wesen heraufentwickelt hat, überhand genommen hätte. So hat er aber nur einen kleinen Teil ergriffen, wodurch er aus der Zerstörung, aus dem partiellen Tod heraus jene Spiegelung der Außenwelt schaffen konnte, die man das Bewußtsein nennt. Das Bewußtsein innerhalb der Materie wird also aus dem Leide, aus dem Schmerz geboren.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":404,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p026"}],"english":["GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p025"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":404,"en_words":397,"ratio":0.98,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.98,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6799,"original_word_count":6967,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Mabel Cotterell and Violet E. Watkin","identified_edition":"SBC1980","book_title":"The Origin of Suffering the Origin of Evil Illness and Death","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/SBC1980/19061108p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p026"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"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."}}