For What We're Worth

Innumerable tragedies occurring in the world right now make us feel powerless to save anyone—even ourselves. We wonder how so many people are forced to suffer horribly at the hands of others. Every issue, filled with contradictory information, makes workable solutions seem impossible. Even those in positions of power seem unable or unwilling to think of solutions, yet we keep waiting for them to do so.

Are the people in power throughout the world the brightest and best, the most compassionate and humane people? If so, maybe they will save the world. If not, can we find a way to put different people into power? If so, maybe they will save the world.

Maybe not.

What if holding power is not the precise tool of a true revolution? What if each one of us has the right tool, but we don’t even know we have it? We need to find this tool and how to wield it before thinking itself becomes obsolete. We are facing a new world, and this world needs people who understand that they, and everyone else, is worth saving.

Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:

People ask: What is to be the source of a new morality?” And then they answer: “Having power is an indispensable means for achieving something good in the world; therefore, you should strive to gain the power necessary (if you do not already possess it) for doing good.” People would like to have something good to do in the world, and they beautifully advise one another to seek the power to do that good. A second justification for this new ethics is as follows: With the power that you already possess, you can do some good. Therefore, you should always use the power you have for the achievement of good.

But first you must have some good to do; first you must be able to recognize what is good! The advice that people give is the opposite of what spiritual science must spread throughout the new human civilization. For spiritual science has nothing to do with trying to found something on the basis of having power. You can only found something on the basis of power when you are working with a group of people collectively. When one human being stands before another, it is impossible to found anything on the basis of power; it is only possible to found something on the basis of the things that can develop in the human being, so that the other person has some worth.

We all have a worth to discover and to develop within ourselves that will allow us to accomplish something for the sake of humanity; and each of us must simultaneously develop within ourselves a receptivity that allows us to recognize this worth in others.

This is the only possible means of forming a foundation for the morality of the future: to develop our own individual worth, and to become able to recognize that worth in others. To put this another way: all morality will have to be built on real trust!

… Now, in the wake of recent developments in human evolution, it is indeed necessary that as many people as possible find the energy to recognize that in fact a new spiritual revelation is attempting to enter the flow of human evolution and to see how this new revelation must be understood by humankind. For as long as we allow our spiritual lives to be pawns to exterior powers in the world (be they the state or some other external power), our spiritual lives will never be afforded the opportunity to take up the impulse of this spiritual revelation.

We must come to understand that in every human being there is a seed that does not come from our education and upbringing. We must hold the belief that in every human being alive today is something that can be awakened only by spiritual forces and by maintaining the conviction that these spiritual forces exist.

Excerpt from: What is Necessary in These Urgent Times, Lecture 3: Knowledge of the Human Being through Knowledge of the World by Rudolf Steiner. Dornach, January 11, 1920.

Sitting around fretting about whatever our sources have told us is happening does nothing. The other thing that does nothing is blaming others. Neglecting to work on ourselves may seem easier, but it isn’t an option anymore because we can no longer discern what is true or good based on our senses alone. Right? In print, in videos, in photos – what we can see, hear, and feel through these mediums – all this is now easily altered or AI-produced. We can’t trust it; it isn’t reality.

What then is reality? Knowing ourselves. Being able to trust ourselves, being able to trust the person we meet, is critical to living in reality, a reality that accepts the spiritual as fully as it does the material.

We have to honor our capacity to think by actually thinking for ourselves. We have to take ourselves in hand and do the hard work of freeing ourselves from the mindset that the material world is the only reality.

We must work to develop ourselves so that we can tell the truth and do the good and trust others will do the same. If we are successful in breaking through the barrier lying between the material world and the spiritual world, we will find worthy solutions because we will recognize the truth and goodness in them. If we want to do good things, we need to know what they are. Think about it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-deepfake-ai.html

We Are The Ones

On the temple at Delphi, the Greek mystery student would read: “Know Thyself.” That is still the most basic requirement of spiritual science. Today, however, this requirement is especially daunting because we are so distracted by the culture of our time. Many are content with believing that they are the sum of their upbringing, their place in society, their interests and opinions. Without thinking about why. Why they were brought up in a specific society or why certain things interest them or why they hold this or that opinion. Why they belong to this race or this gender or this religion or this nation or this family.

Spiritual science provides us with a way to find ourselves as we have discussed many times in these posts, including the six basic exercises we shared together from April through September last year. One way to see ourselves now in these divisive times is poetically given to us, and though some attribute it to Hopi elders, it is anonymous. It goes like this:

“You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Yes, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And we are the ones who went before. And we will come again to live in the future we are now preparing. This points to the depth of the demand, “Know Thyself”. This means we need to begin to understand ourselves by accepting the karma we have thus far created for ourselves and how it has extended to all humanity and all the earth. This points to each one of us, not to everyone else.

Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:

If people today want to feel what they really are, the first thing they think of—whatever other nice theories they might have—is what is within their body, within their skin, really within their skin. It is difficult to get a clear idea of this, in particular, because it is true, and no one believes it in our time because people like to develop all kinds of idealism to hide the fact that basically they only believe in themselves in so far as they are enclosed in their own skin…

What people will experience as their karma in the future will connect them consciously with other people. People will have to experience their karma consciously as something real.

As you can easily imagine, experiencing their karma consciously is still very difficult for people today. As I once said, let us assume that someone gives us a slap in the face. Outwardly, of course, in so far as we are enclosed in our body and are beings between birth and death, we have to defend ourselves against that. But a higher perspective has to be applied beyond that: who was it that gave you the slap in the face? Who put the person who gave you the slap in the place where he could do that? He would not be standing there if you had not put him there through the way you are connected with him through karma.

Just think how incredibly difficult it is for people today to think that. Christians believe that they are people of the present, but truly very few of them follow the one who counsels them: if someone strikes you on the left cheek, turn the other one also (Matthew 5:39)—in thought; outwardly it is not possible. People do not yet differentiate in this way between what is inward and outward. It becomes incredibly difficult for them to live in karma in some way.

And yet, as we enter life from the embryonic period through birth, through early childhood, then that which helps to form our body is our karma. Between our last death and our present birth, we have gone through, and have even taken an interest in going through, how we should experience karma and what kind of body we should have so that we can live out our karma.

In this way, we work on kneading, in a manner of speaking, our body through the soul forces. We even act in a localizing way in that we place ourselves at the location in the world where we can live out our karma. We thus act on our personal destiny with the consciousness which we have between death and a new birth.

Excerpt from: Unifying Humanity Spiritually, Lecture 10 by Rudolf Steiner. Dornach. January 7, 1916.

What does turning the other cheek mean? It means that we have helped form that which befalls us in this lifetime. And we are helping to form what will be when we return. So, yes, we cannot allow ourselves to lie down and be trampled by the outside world, but we need to acknowledge our inner responsibility for why whatever is happening is happening. Knowing ourselves is the only path to freedom. And knowing that we chose this time to live is a key to knowing ourselves. It is a good meditation to think about the truth of that and to respond purposefully to what the times are asking of us.

What does it mean to let go of the shore? To push off into the middle of the river? We have a destination as ourselves and as the human race. When the river is flowing great and swift, we have to be braver – something we’ve also been talking about. Let’s get to it!