8. The Knowledge of the Spiritual Essence of the World

Ladies and Gentlemen, how these things can then be lived out in external civilization, what significance they can have for practical life today, that is to be the subject of a third lecture, which I may give here tomorrow under the title: “Moral and Religious Education from the Point of View of Anthroposophy”. Here I wanted to show that what was once said in a completely different way by ancient human wisdom about the supersensible world can in turn be said by modern man, that this modern man, by meeting all the demands of modern civilization, does not become weak by placing himself in dependence on a guru, but can build precisely on the strong forces of his own individuality, and can enter precisely into those regions where knowledge of the spiritual essence of the world can be gained. Man must only have the courage to let that approach him again, which comes from the present-day spiritual researcher. For just as people today must let astrological, biological and physical knowledge approach them, so our time demands that these spiritual-scientific insights into our culture and our civilized life also be incorporated. For the means by which they have been attained is the powerful force of thinking, which not only allows man to look at the world passively, but also gives him virtues, self-discipline, self-education of the will to the point of overcoming all egoism, to the point of merging in love for the whole world, without which, as I have described, universal world knowledge in the spirit cannot be attained.