Europe: throne of the past

It is very bad when you see such a conflict developing, that you sense, feel, how the forces of hatred begin to flare up in it. We know that it is something that has been in preparation for a long time, but when it breaks out, it is something else. Then you start to notice how hatred flares up, and not only in the area where it takes place, but the whole world actually participates in it. Of course, you can say that all our compassion for the Ukrainians in distress is not hate, but at the same time, hatred is being flared up against this other people, who cannot actually be held responsible for what is happening. You cannot say that every Russian in Russia is responsible for what is happening. What you can say is that every Russian will have to bear the consequences.Watch video on YouTube

In Europe, we are sitting on the throne of the past. That is a high throne. We have a huge culture behind us, which you could say has been fed by Indian culture, by Persian culture, by Egyptian-Chaldean culture, by the Old and New Testaments, by Greek-Roman culture and then the Renaissance and so on. What a wealth, what an incredibly ornate throne, that we are sitting on. But it is the past. And there is a future coming and that future wants to be prepared. And I see a crisis such as this, as it is now breaking out, as a call to look into how the relationships actually are in the past and towards the future. It is very sad when you see such a conflict developing, that you sense, feel, how the forces of hatred begin to flare up in it. Now, of course, it is true that such a situation with the Ukraine and Russia is not something that happened yesterday; of course, we know that it is something that has been prepared for a long time, but when it breaks out, it is something else. Then you start to notice how hatred flares up, and not only in the area where it happens, but the whole world actually participates. And, of course, you can say that all our compassion for the tormented Ukrainians is not hatred, of course it is not, but at the same time a hatred is being flared up against this other people, who cannot actually be held responsible for what is happening. You cannot say that every Russian in Russia can be held responsible for what is happening. What you can say is that every Russian will have to bear the consequences. And so you can't actually justify harbouring feelings of hatred towards the Russian people. And on top of that, and this makes it extra painful, this Ukrainian state, the people who live there are in fact brothers of the Russian people. And that reminds me a bit of the battle that is described in the old Indian poem Bhagavad Gita, that there are brothers fighting against each other. And that's what I think - we have to keep that in mind. Of course, you can get carried away by all the feelings that arise from what you read and what you pick up from fake news or not, which makes it so difficult that you really don't know what you should or should not accept as true. I've even noticed that articles in the newspaper often have a caption underneath: 'These reports cannot be verified by (say, the nrc)'. That is something new, that was never there before, now it is, so that means that what you get in the way of news reports, that it is questionable to what extent it is true. But of course it is clear that when a battle breaks out, the one who attacks is in fact to blame, the one who is attacked is in fact a victim, but that does not mean that you and the whole world should turn against the attacking people with your forces of hatred. Because that is really something else. The people who populate Russia are not equal to the government policy. And I would like to emphasise that we should try to keep our emotions in proportion and that we should also look at the very large people who are the aggressors there and to whom the whole world is now sending its forces of hatred. You cannot hold those people responsible. Some are, of course, but not the whole people. And that is, if you think, yes, here we are actually fighting brother against brother, sister against brother, sister against sister, it is so incredibly painful to experience, that it should actually ignite a will in us to immerse ourselves more in that people' s nature, which is so different from ours. And I don't know if this is still allowed nowadays, to say that one people's character differs from another. Perhaps this is no longer allowed, perhaps it has become discrimination, I don't know, but in that case I would find it insane, because it is really very clear that a Dutchman represents a completely different people's character than, say, a Frenchman or a Russian. And that is also very important when a conflict breaks out, that we look into this. At the very least, I feel the need to pick up Russian literature again and also the need to start reading Russian folk tales, for example, in order to get a feel for that very typical world of experience that is the folk experience in the East. And it is always then that I find a blessing in the work of Rudolf Steiner, who has done so much inner work to make these distinctions as clear as possible and then to describe them in such a way that they are really useful. And so there is a lecture on the development of the different people in the world, and you see, I think I also said this in the previous video, that we in Europe have the task of developing the consciousness soul and learning to look in the direction of the spirit with this consciousness soul. It is also possible to use the consciousness soul to look only in the direction of matter. That is very well possible, but Europe's task would be that with this developed consciousness soul - meaning that we are not only thinking people, not only feeling and willing people, but that we also have the awareness that you are the one who thinks, feels and wants - that consciousness soul that is developed in Europe, that is developed in the whole world, but in Europe the connection with the spirit should be sought, prepare a spiritual development, which will then in the next cultural period seek its centre in the East, in Russia and in the Slavic countries. And we should imagine that this is already being prepared now and that therefore, instead of turning to hatred against these peoples, we should instead develop a love, regardless of all the events that are going on, based on the trust that the course of events is also determined by how we perceive things. If we believe very strongly that all people are exactly the same and that there is no difference between a European and an Asian - making a difference does not mean making a value judgement, that has nothing at all to do with it, It is only learning to know the difference and when you then also have the awareness of reincarnation, then it becomes completely different because then you know that you have been incarnated in all those different peoples and you will incarnate, so it is nonsense to exclude yourself in the people you are now and as a reaction to that just say: Yes everyone is the same. We are not the same. And we also have to make the effort to empathise with the people who are already pointing to the future. We are in Europe, sitting on the throne of the past. That is a high throne. We have a huge culture behind us, which you could say has been fed by Indian culture, by Persian culture, by Egyptian-Chaldean culture, by the Old and New Testaments, by Greek-Roman culture and then the Renaissance and so on. What a wealth, what an incredibly ornate throne, that we are sitting on. But it is the past. And there is a future coming and that future wants to be prepared. And I see a crisis such as this, as it is now breaking out, as a call to look into how the relationships actually are in the past and towards the future. And Rudolf Steiner has a lecture in which he describes how strongly you can experience the future in, for example, Soloviev's work. He then makes the comparison between the idealistic philosophers we know from Germany: Fichte, Hegel and Schelling, from the time of Goethe and Schiller, makes the comparison with this philosophy of Soloviev and then shows very vividly that what the German idealists have brought in terms of philosophy, that that is really the throne of the past, but then shrouded in very sober concepts of thought, and that what Soloviev brings in is the as yet unformed germ-like, but so wonderfully referring to brotherliness and Christianity of the future. And he describes how the religious attitude of the European, of the Westerner, in relation to the Eastern European, in relation to the Russian people, how that religious attitude is different, and how, coming from the past, we have a wealth of mythical figures. You only have to take Greek mythology and you get to know a whole community of deities. But if you take Germanic mythology, you find that too, if you take Celtic mythology, you find that too. It is a very richly populated religious area and when we look at Christianity, then you get the so completely different religious experience that was actually populated by Dyonisius the Aereopagite in the time shortly after Christ's arrival on earth. I want to say, this writer has actually brought about the transformation between the ancient Greek names of the gods and what we in our Christian religion know as the higher hierarchies, the angels and the archangels and so on. But that is typically western. Christianity comes from the East in a way, but it really found its effect in Europe and then spread widely, also to Russia. But when you then get to know the experience of religion in that Eastern Europe and in Russia through the clairvoyant eyes of Rudolf Steiner, then you get to know that there is a very different way of experiencing the divine world. Not the individual gods but much more the divine spheres that are experienced there, ultimately ending up in nature, to behold the spirit. We, as Westerners, cannot do that at all. And I am of course sure it is not the case that you go to the Kremlin and ask the heads of government about the spirit in nature - you will not get much of an answer - but I imagine that when you go out into the country, and you are able to make visits here and there, you encounter a very different religious experience than we have here in the West. And when we then become aware that this refers to a future, while we are sitting on the throne of the past, then this places a responsibility on us to intensively study this people of the future. And that includes Ukraine; you cannot say that they are a different people from the Russians, they are the same type of people, the nature of the people is the same. That makes it even more painful, that those two nations, those two countries, collide. But we will only emerge unscathed from this battle, again, I say that every time, if we become active. And in this case we will not have to do virus research, but we will have to look into the folk nature of these two countries that are colliding there, but which in fact have the same people's character, a wonderful people's character that points towards a Christianity of the future.