24/12/2023
World Christmas
The people of ancient times could express their awareness of this relationship of man to the universe only by looking to the Sun and the starry heavens at the time of the solstice, when conditions were most favorable to their sense of connection with the Cosmos. But if today we would realize with inner intensity how we can know the universe, we must look into the depths of the human interior. And the right time for that is in the middle of winter, at Christmas.
Try to understand the full meaning of this Christmas thought, my dear friends, because today there is a real need to revive old customs like these. For example, we need to be honest again about our experiences during the year. All many people know about Christmas today is that it is also a time of gift-giving—perhaps a time when the mind turns very outward to the mystery of Calvary!
It is superficialities such as these that are really responsible for the great calamity into which human civilization has fallen today. It is there that much of the real blame must be assigned; it consists in clinging to custom and in the unwillingness to recognize the necessity of renewal—for example, the need to imbue the true Christmas thought, the true Christmas feeling, with new life.
This impulse of renewal is necessary because we can become human again in the true sense of the word only by finding the spiritual part of our being. We need a "world Christmas", the birth of spiritual life. Then we will celebrate Christmas again as honest people; again it will feel that in the time when the earth is clothed with snow, we try to feel that our thought-world is pervaded by the impulse of Christ—a thought-world which is now as blood in us, now as blood, unlike the old world thoughts that were like breath.
We must learn to live more intensely with the course of the seasons than is customary today.
We need strong and decisive thoughts to honestly admit that the salvation of human evolution depends on man's union with wisdom. Many things indicate that he did not always do this, but very often associated with ignorance, with ignorance. The idea of Christmas is to be taken honestly and sincerely in connection with the Being who said: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life". However, the way to Truth and to Life in the Spirit must be sought deliberately, and for this it is necessary that modern humanity dives into the dark depths of midnight to find the light that will kindle in man.
The old tradition of celebrating the first Christmas mass at midnight is not enough. Man must realize again in real experience that the best and brightest in his nature is born out of the darkness that reigns within him. True light is born out of darkness. And from this darkness light must be born—not more darkness.
Try to fill the Christmas thought with the power that will enter your souls when you feel with all intensity that the light of spiritual insight and spiritual vision must pe*****te the darkness of knowledge and spiritual insight. Then, on the holy night, Christ will be born in the heart of each one of you, and together with all of humanity you will experience the world Christmas.
Rudolf Steiner Archive: An electronic Library and Archive site for the over 6000 collected works of the Austrian philosopher and founder of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner
