Love & Its Meaning in the World - Softcover

Steiner, Rudolf

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0880104414 ISBN 13: 9780880104418

Publisher: SteinerBooks, 1998

Synopsis

Although Steiner did not often speak or write about love explicitly, love is at the very heart of his whole body of work and the foundation of his hopes for humankind and the Earth. Steiner teaches that, without love, nothing is possible; with love, however, we can do everything. Love is always "love of the not-yet." To love is to create; it is to selflessly enter the current of time that flows toward us from the future.

Reality, true knowledge of reality, is impossible without love. Only through love can we truly know as we are know, can we encounter the world and its beings in a living way. Without love, knowledge becomes manipulation, domination, control; the world becomes a space of dead things. But, when we know through love, we enter into a pattern of dynamic, potentially redemptive relations and the world becomes a living world of beings working for the good.

This collection gathers all of Rudolf Steiner’s main lectures and writings related to love. From earthly love to the nature and function of spiritual love, these pieces are essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of humanity and the Earth.

Love and Its Meaning in the World is essential reading for anyone who'd like to gain a deeper understanding of our true mission as human beings and the purpose of evolution on Earth.

Chapters include:

• "The Division of the Sexes"
• "Lucifer and Christ"
• "The Mission of Reverence"
• "The Buddha's Teaching of Compassion and Love"
• "Faith, Love, and Hope"
• "Love & Its Meaning in the World"
• "'I'-Feeling, the Soul's Capacity to Love, and Their Relationship to the Elemental World"

Love mediated by the senses is the wellspring of creative power, of what is coming into being. Without sense-born love, nothing material would exist in the world; without spiritual love, nothing spiritual can arise in evolution. When we practice love, cultivate love, creative forces pour into the world....

For human beings, love is the most important fruit of experience in the sensory world. Once we really understand the nature of love, or compassion, we will find that love is the way spirit expresses its truth in the world of the senses....

"We may even say that, in love, the spiritual world awakens in the physical. The more truly a soul inhabits the spiritual worlds, the more it experiences lovelessness and lack of compassion as a denial of spirit itself." ―Rudolf Steiner

About this title

About the Author:

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Croatia), where he grew up (see right). As a young man, he lived in Weimar and Berlin, where he became a well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, known especially for his work with Goethe’s scientific writings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he began to develop his early philosophical principles into an approach to systematic research into psychological and spiritual phenomena. Formally beginning his spiritual teaching career under the auspices of the Theosophical Society, Steiner came to use the term Anthroposophy (and spiritual science) for his philosophy, spiritual research, and findings. The influence of Steiner’s multifaceted genius has led to innovative and holistic approaches in medicine, various therapies, philosophy, religious renewal, Waldorf education, education for special needs, threefold economics, biodynamic agriculture, Goethean science, architecture, and the arts of drama, speech, and eurythmy. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world. He died in Dornach, Switzerland.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

About this edition

• Publisher: SteinerBooks
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0880104414
• ISBN 13: 9780880104418
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208