“Man is not organized as a self-consistent unity. He always demands more than the world, of its own accord, gives him. Nature has endowed us with needs; among them are some that she leaves to our own activity to satisfy. Abundant as are the gifts she has bestowed upon us, still more abundant are our desires. We seem born to be dissatisfied. And our thirst for knowledge is but a special instance of this dissatisfaction. We look twice at a tree. The first time we see its branches at rest, the second time in motion. We are not satisfied with this observation.
“The something more which we seek in things, over and above what is immediately given to us in them, splits our whole being into two parts. We become conscious of our antithesis to the world. We confront the world as independent beings. The universe appears to us in two opposite parts: I and World. We erect this barrier between ourselves and the world as soon as consciousness first dawns in us. But we never cease to feel that, in spite of all, we belong to the world, that there is a connecting link between it and us, and that we are beings within, and not without, the universe. This feeling makes us strive to bridge over this antithesis, and in this bridging lies ultimately the whole spiritual striving of mankind. The history of our spiritual life is a continuing search for the unity between ourselves and the world. Religion, art and science follow, one and all, this aim. The religious believer seeks in the revelation” ~Rudolf Steiner
Seeking More
Actually, man is fairly consistent in one thing: wanting more. Whatever he has, he wants more. Whatever he knows, he wants to know more. This is a good thing. Contented cattle may be easy to control, but they don’t grow, they don’t evolve. Man grows and evolves simply because he is not content with the status quo. He always looks for something better. Yet, while we have this discontent, we also want happiness and unity.
We also have to work to get things. It is our nature as well as that of the universe. Everything is moving. We must move also, we must work also. And we tend to not appreciate that which is handed to us without earning it.
Knowing What to Seek
One of the big problems with this seeking more is knowing what to seek for. Shortly after The Fall, man knew what he had lost and what he needed to get back. After many centuries, the majority of us have forgotten. We know that we crave something more, something greater, but we don’t know what it is. We have become so accustomed to being matter that we don’t really know what spirit is anymore. But that is starting to change. Continue reading “Seeking More Than Materialism”