{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p023","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Bearing this in mind, we shall say: If we look into our own inner being we find how, on approaching the gate of death, it becomes ever richer. The contention that a man weakens with age is not valid; it originates in materialistic habits of thought and prejudices. In proportion to the decline of the body, the inner life of the soul gains vigour, becoming inwardly more childlike; we see a kind of approach towards those forces which are at their highest tension when we are nearing the gate of death. This is particularly true of people who are enabled, through the training indicated in the book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds to have some perceptive experience independently of their bodily organs. It is also described there, how, by means of meditation and concentration, we can so school ourselves that experience and knowledge of the spiritual world can become absolute reality for our souls. At the same time the soul knows with certainty that this experience is acquired with no help from eye or ear, or from any bodily organ, for it is then outside the body. In a case of this kind, feeling and will-impulses must permeate livingly a person's meditation and concentration: thought alone is not enough. In *Knowledge of the Higher Worlds* there is an exact account of how the person must not lose touch with his feelings and perceptions—with everything, indeed, that in youth withdraws into the depths of the soul. He has to meditate and concentrate with his mind, but his thoughts must be fired by his heart and soul, and infused with life by those impulses of will that are then not transformed into action but into thinking.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"The Nature of Eternity","site_heading":null,"date":"1912-03-21","location":null,"word_count":284,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/61/1912-03-21/p023","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"eLib2016","book_title":"Human History in the Light of Spiritual Investigation","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA061/English/eLib2016/19120321p01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"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/61/1912-03-21/p023"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/61/1912-03-21/p023","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},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1912-03-21","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p021","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p021"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":301,"en_words":284,"ratio":0.94,"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 61/1912-03-21/p021","passage_number":21,"text":"Wenn wir dies ins Auge fassen, werden wir sagen: Wir sehen unser Inneres immer reicher und reicher werden, wenn es der Pforte des Todes zugeht. — Dagegen sind die Einwände, man werde mit dem Alter schwach und so weiter durchaus nicht maßgebend, sie entspringen materialistischen Denkgewohnheiten und Vorurteilen. In dem Maße, als unser Leib erstirbt, erfrischt sich innerlich, man möchte sagen verkindlicht sich innerlich unser eigenes Seelenleben, so daß wir auch daran sehen, es gibt eine Art von Annäherung an jene Kräfte, die am höchsten gespannt sind, wenn wir der Pforte des Todes zueilen. Besonders zeigt sich das bei demjenigen, dem die Schulung, wie sie in dem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» dargestellt ist, die Möglichkeit gibt, wahrzunehmen und etwas zu erleben unabhängig von den Werkzeugen der Leiblichkeit. Das ist auch beschrieben worden, daß man sich durch Meditation, Konzentration und so weiter hinaufschulen kann, so daß das Erleben und Erfahren der geistigen Welt innerhalb der Seele zur Realität wird, und daß die Seele zu gleicher Zeit ganz genau weiß: Was ich jetzt erfahre, dazu hilft mir kein Auge, kein Ohr, keine äußere Leiblichkeit, denn ich bin außer der Leiblichkeit. — In einem solchen Falle müssen immer zu der Meditation, Konzentration und so weiter, die der Mensch durchmacht, lebendige Gefühle und auch Willensimpulse hinzutreten. Daher genügt es nicht, daß sich jemand nur Gedanken hingibt. In «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» ist genau beschrieben, daß sich der Mensch mit Gefühlen und Empfindungen verbinden muß, das heißt mit dem, was sonst in der Jugend in die unbewußten Seelentiefen hinuntertaucht. Der Mensch muß meditieren, sich konzentrieren in dem Gedankenleben, aber so, daß die Gedanken von dem Feuer der Gemütsstimmungen immerdar durchdrungen sind, daß sie belebt sind von den Willensimpulsen, die sich nicht in Handlungen umsetzen, sondern in den Gedanken leben.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":301,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p021"}],"english":["GA 61/1912-03-21/p023"],"method":"length","confidence":"medium","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":301,"en_words":284,"ratio":0.94,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.9,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8000,"original_word_count":8902,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"eLib2016","book_title":"Human History in the Light of Spiritual Investigation","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA061/English/eLib2016/19120321p01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing.","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":"ok","checked_against":["GA 61/1912-03-21/p021"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","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."}}