Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.
I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.
I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies--
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.
—Sara Teasdale, "Peace"
Featured Titles
Start Now!
A Book of Soul and Spiritual Exercises
Rudolf Steiner
Meditation instructions, meditations, exercises, verses for living a spiritual year, prayers for the dead, and other practices for both beginning and experienced practitioners—Start Now! has become the classic, indispensable text and reference for all those who are serious about the practice of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science.
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Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry
When Knowing Becomes Love
Arthur Zajonc
Arthur Zajonc offers an overview of the meditative life, weaving practical instruction together with the guidance and inspiration of the world’s great teachers, from Rudolf Steiner to Rumi, and from Goethe to the sages of Asia.
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“The future of spiritual esoteric movements such as ours will depend more and more upon the realization that human spiritual development is necessary. Whoever rejects or is hostile toward spiritual development will thus have identified with what is no longer useful on Earth, with what is withered and shriveled, and will have abandoned cosmic evolution as willed by the gods.” —Rudolf Steiner
The Effects of Esoteric Development
Rudolf Steiner
Beginning with questions regarding the body’s experience of food and drink—meat, coffee, alcohol, and so on—Steiner lays out the progression of anthroposophic spiritual inner work, up to direct perception of “Paradise” and the Holy Grail. He discusses the role of human beings in our evolution that takes place between the forces of Lucifer and Ahriman. Included is Steiner’s important lecture “The Being of Anthroposophy.”
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From the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner
Inner Reading and Inner Hearing
and How to Achieve Existence in the World of Ideas
2 lecture courses & 2 Christmas lectures, Dornach, Oct. 3–7 & Dec. 12–20, 1914; Dornach, Dec. 26 and Basel, Dec. 27, 1914 (CW 156)
One can certainly not say how infinitely significant it is for the budding esotericist to see more and more that loving interest awakens us toward everything around us in the world. This statement, unfortunately, is not usually taken seriously enough. This is the reason the results achieved in esotericism are often disappointing. . . . We must really make an effort not to be permanently interested in ourselves, for life on the physical plane inherently brings with it the condition that one be interested in oneself. . . .
You will admit that what I have described is quite difficult. And it is no different with most things that one experiences on the physical plane. It is in fact very difficult to take the most ordinary thing that our senses and our thinking experience [ourselves], as if we were outside our skin and to look at it as an object. But that is exactly what we must attempt; only because it is so terribly hard is it generally not attempted at all. Whoever conscientiously and enthusiastically performs the exercises described in How to Know Higher Worlds will gradually succeed in attaining such a point of view. You will only reach it by detours, because it is infinitely difficult; but you will attain it to a certain degree in exactly the same proportion as your interest in yourself is diminished, so that you are no longer an interesting subject for yourself, but merely an interesting object. You can do that . . .
—Rudolf Steiner, from the lecture “The Vowels and Consonants of the Spiritual World,” in
Inner Reading and Inner Hearing & How to Achieve Existence in the World of Ideas (CW 156)
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