Awakening to Community

Awakening to community is a need that is becoming stronger and stronger in the present [[consciousness soul age}}, namely since the beginning of the 20th century. Rudolf Steiner has also called it a second awakening that leads beyond the awakening to everyday object consciousness.

Through object consciousness, the human being sees himself confronted with external nature. He also faces other people externally at first. He sees their outer form, their facial expressions and gestures, hears their speech. At the same time, his self-consciousness is ignited by this experience of the outer sensual world, in that he becomes aware of his own inner soul world through his thinking, feeling and willing. Through his compassion, he already finds an emotional bridge to his fellow human beings - a development that already began in the Greco-Latin period. Today, as an enhancement of this ability, a full awakening to the spiritual and soul of the other person is possible, an awakening to their real being, with whom one feels a karmic connection.

„A new element made its appearance in human life with the awakening and development of the consciousness soul. This calls for a second kind of awakening, one for which the human race will feel a growing need: an awakening at hand of the souls and spirits of other human beings. In ordinary waking life one awakens only in meeting another's natural aspects. But a person who has become an independent, distinct individual in the age of consciousness wants to wake up in the encounter with the soul and spirit of his fellowman. He wants to awaken to his soul and spirit, to approach him in a way that startles his own soul awake in the same sense that light and sound and other such environmental elements startle one out of dreaming.

This has been felt as an absolutely basic need since the beginning of the twentieth century, and it will grow increasingly urgent. It is a need that will be apparent throughout the twentieth century, despite the time's chaotic, tumultuous nature, which will affect every phase of life and civilization. Human beings will feel this need — the need to be brought to wake up more fully in the encounter with the other person than one can wake up in regard to the merely natural surroundings. Dream life wakes up into wakeful day consciousness in the encounter with the natural environment. Wakeful day consciousness wakes up to a higher consciousness in the encounter with the soul and spirit of our fellowman. Man must become more to his fellowman than he used to be: he must become his awakener. People must come closer to one another than they used to do, each becoming an awakener of everyone he meets. Modern human beings entering life today have stored up far too much karma not to feel a destined connection with every individual they encounter. In earlier ages, souls were younger and had not formed so many karmic ties. Now it has become necessary to be awakened not just by nature but by the human beings with whom we are karmically connected and whom we want to seek.“ (Lit.:GA 257, p. 179f)

This makes a new kind of community building possible today, a spiritual community building, such as is to be cultivated in anthroposophical community building. At the same time, this can give rise to a new form of cultus, a kind of reversed cultus, through which a community striving together spiritually elevates itself into the spiritual world in such a way that higher spiritual beings can also be effectively present in its midst.

Literature

• Friedrich Benesch: Das Religiöse der Anthroposophie. Der kosmische, der umgekehrte Kultus, Die Pforte, Basel 1985, ISBN 978-3856360696
• Gerhard von Beckerath: Gespräch als Kultus: Wiederkunft, Christlicher Einweihungsweg, Bruderschaft, Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 2005, ISBN 978-3723512388
• Günter Röschert: Das freie Erkenntnisgespräch als umgekehrter Kultus, Verlag für Anthroposophie, Dornach 2010, ISBN 978-3037690277
• Herbert Ludwig: Das anthroposophische Erkenntnisgespräch als "umgekehrter Kultus", Verlag Ch. Möllmann, Borchen 2011, ISBN 978-3899791334
• Rudolf Steiner: Anthroposophische Gemeinschaftsbildung, GA 257 (1989), ISBN 3-7274-2570-9 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Vortrag in Dornach, am 3. März 1923, Klartextnachschrift des 9. Vortrags aus GA 257 pdf

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.