The path of anthroposophy begins in the individual human heart – from the indwelling spirit of the feeling heart. The path leads to the heart of the world (universe) where dwells the IAM spirit at the heart of all things. The hunger and thirst for truth lives not as a desire in the soul, but as an elemental or etheric impulse in the life body of formative forces in such a way that our very experience of wellbeing depends on it.
Following on from the study of the etheric heart (http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/2498) this is the first of a series of considerations of the Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts written by Rudolf Steiner in the last months of his life.
Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts
“The Leading Thoughts here given are meant to open up subjects for study and discussion. Points of contact with them will be found in countless places in the anthroposophical books and lecture-courses, so that the subjects thus opened up can be enlarged upon and the discussions in the Groups centred around them.
When new ideas emerge among leading members in the several Groups, these too can be brought into connection with the suggestions we shall send out from the Goetheanum. We would thus provide an open framework for all the spiritual activity in the Society.
Spiritual activity can of course only thrive by free unfoldment on the part of the active individuals — and we must never sin against this truth. But there is no need to do so when one group or member within the Society acts in proper harmony with the other. If such co-operation were impossible, the attachment of individuals or groups to the Society would always remain a purely external thing — where it should in fact be felt as an inner reality.” -- Rudolf Steiner
(http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_a01.html)
Anthroposophical Leading Thought (1)
Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe. It arises in man as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling; and it can be justified only inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner need. He alone can acknowledge Anthroposophy, who finds in it what he himself in his own inner life feels impelled to seek. Hence only they can be anthroposophists who feel certain questions on the nature of man and the universe as an elemental need of life, just as one feels hunger and thirst.
(http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_a01.html)
Thanks John for bringing this forward.
Dear John,
Wishing you a Beautiful and Fulfilling New Year. I am looking forward to what you will share here on the Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts and appreciate your emphasis on the heart-thinking that is the bridge from our own soul to the soul of the cosmos.
Love,
Patri
Art from the World Heart
Olga posted a highly relevant comment in another thread.
http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/2514#comment-5522
In days of origin
the spirit of earthly existence
came to the spirit of heaven,
pleading:
I know how to speak
with the human spirit;
yet I would implore
also the language in which
world’s heart speaks to human heart.
In kindness the spirit of heaven
gave to earth’s spirit the gift of
ART.
-- Rudolf Steiner
Thank you Olga for sharing this beautiful contribution.
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