How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy) QUOTES

1 " Feelings are for the soul what food is for the body. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

2 " Whoever seeks higher knowledge must create it for himself. He must instill it into his soul. It cannot be done by study; it can only be done through life. Whoever, therefore, wishes to become a student of higher knowledge must assiduously cultivate this inner life of devotion. Everywhere in his environment and his experiences he must seek motives of admiration and homage. If I meet a man and blame him for his shortcomings, I rob myself of power to attain higher knowledge; but if I try to enter lovingly into his merits, I gather such power. The student must continually be intent upon following this advice. The spiritually experienced know how much they owe to the circumstance that in face of all things they ever again turn to the good, and withhold adverse judgement. But this must not remain an external rule of life; rather it must take possession of our innermost soul. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

3 " for even the wisest can learn incalculably much from children. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

4 " There slumber in every human being faculties by means of which he can acquire for himself a knowledge of higher worlds. Mystics, Gnostics, Theosophists — all speak of a world of soul and spirit which for them is just as real as the world we see with our physical eyes and touch with our physical hands. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

5 " Some day, when I have grown sufficiently, I shall attain that which I am destined to attain, "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

6 " All knowledge pursued merely for the enrichment of personal learning and the accumulation of personal treasure leads you away from the path; but all knowledge pursued for growth to ripeness within the process of human ennoblement and cosmic development brings you a step forward. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

7 " The tranquility of the moments set apart will also affect everyday existence. In his whole being he will grow calmer; he will attain firm assurance in all his actions, and cease to be put out of countenance by all manner of incidents. By thus advancing he will gradually become more and more his own guide, and allow himself less and less to be led by circumstances and external influences. He will soon discover how great a source of strength is available to him in these moments thus set apart. He will begin no longer to get angry at things which formerly annoyed him; countless things he formerly feared cease to alarm him. He acquires a new outlook on life. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

8 " The heights of the spirit can only be climbed by passing through the portals of humility. You can only acquire right knowledge when you have learnt to esteem it. Man has certainly the right to turn his eyes to the light, but he must first acquire this right. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

9 " It cannot be repeated too often that this transformation does not alienate him from the world. He will in no way be estranged from his daily tasks and duties, for he comes to realize that the most insignificant action he has to accomplish, the most insignificant experience which offers itself to him, stands in connection with cosmic beings and cosmic events. When once this connection is revealed to him in his moments of contemplation, he comes to his daily activities with a new, fuller power. For now he knows that his labor and his suffering are given and endured for the sake of a great, spiritual, cosmic whole. Not weariness, but strength to live springs from meditation. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

10 " Consider the following case. Someone is traveling by railway; his mind is busy with one thought; suddenly is thought diverges; he recollects an experience that befell him years ago and interweaves it with his present thought. He did not notice that in looking through the window he had caught sight of a person who resembled another intimately connected with the recollected experience. He remains conscious, not of what he saw, but of the effect it produced, and thus believes that it all came to him of its own accords. How much in life occurs in such a way! How great is the part played in our life by things we hear and learn, without our consciously realizing the connection! Someone, for instance, cannot bear a certain color, but does not realize that this is due to the fact that the schoolmaster who used to worry him many years ago wore a coat of that color. Innumerable illusions are based upon such associations. Many things leave their mark upon the soul while remaining outside the pale of consciousness. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

11 " Truthfulness, uprightness, and honesty are in this connection creative forces, while mendacity, deceitfulness, and dishonesty are destructive forces. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

12 " The possibility of acquiring the art of writing may be withheld from someone through poverty, or through the conditions of civilization into which he is born; but for the attainment of knowledge and proficiency in the higher worlds, there is no obstacle for those who earnestly seek them. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

13 " In an epoch of criticism ideals are lowered; other feelings take the place of veneration, respect, adoration, and wonder. Our own age thrusts these feelings further and further into the background, so that they can only be conveyed to man through his every-day life in a very small degree. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

14 " There is, in truth, no difference between esoteric knowledge and all the rest of man's knowledge and proficiency. This esoteric knowledge is no more of a secret for the average human being than writing is a secret for those who have never learned it. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

15 " In ancient times, anterior to our history, the temples of the spirit were also outwardly visible; today, because our life has become so unspiritual, they are not to be found in the world visible to external sight; yet they are present spiritually everywhere, and all who seek may find them. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

16 " Above all, it is imperative to extirpate the idea that any fantastic, mysterious practices are required for the attainment of higher knowledge. It must be clearly realized that a start has to be made with the thoughts and feelings with which we continually live, and that these feelings and thoughts must merely be given a new direction. Everyone must say to himself: “In my own world of thought and feeling the deepest mysteries lie hidden, only hitherto I have been unable to perceive them. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

17 " The teacher, as we know, can confer upon the pupil no powers which are not already latent within him, and his sole function is to assist in the awakening of slumbering faculties. But what he imparts out of his own experience is a pillar of strength for the one wishing to penetrate through darkness to light. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

18 " If I meet other people and criticize their weaknesses, I rob myself of higher cognitive power. But if I try to enter deeply and lovingly into another person's good qualities, I gather in that force. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

19 " It does not matter if what I think differs from what the other person thinks. What matters is that, as a result of what I can contribute to the conversation, the other discovers what is right out of themselves. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)

20 " Have this thought deeply imprinted within you: One day when I am ready for it I shall receive what I am to receive. "

― Rudolf Steiner , How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthroposophy)