"When the healthy human nature works in its entirety, when the human feels herself as a great and beautiful, worthy and valuable whole within the world, when the feeling of harmonious pleasure affords her free delight --then, if the universe could perceive itself, it would shout with joy as if it had arrived at its ultimate goal and would acclaim the pinnacle of its achievement and striving. For to what purpose is the expenditure of suns and planets and moons, of stars and milky ways, of comets and nebulae, of worlds already created and worlds in the making, unless ultimately a happy human being enjoys it unselfconsciously?"
This quote is included in chapter 12 of T.H. Meyer's Clairvoyance and Consciousness: The Tao Impulse in Evolution. To reword Meyer's thoughts which accompany this quote he means that Goethe held a 'soul-atmosphere' within him which was the inspiration for his lifework. And this 'soul-atmosphere' was an 'underlying feeling for the unity of man and nature which sees all separation as only a partial phenomenon'. This 'underlying feeling for the unity of man and nature' is a deep sense for the Tao.
Further, Meyer mentions Steiner's 1905 characterization in one of Goethe's works with these words in a lecture 1905:
'Goethe had an inkling of the Tao-perception when addressing Nature in the words of his 'Hymn to Nature'.
Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her--powerless to leave her and powerless to enter her more deeply. Unasked and without warning she sweeps us away in the round of her dance and dances on until we fall exhausted from her arms.
She brings forth ever new forms: what is there, never was; what was, never will return. All is new, and yet forever old.
We live within her, and are strangers to her. She speaks perpetually with us, and does not betray her secret. we work on her constantly, and yet have no power over her.
All her effort seems bent towards individuality, and she cares nothing for individuals. she builds always, destroys always, and her workshop is beyond our reach. she lives in countless children, and the mother--where is she? She is the sole artist, creating extreme contrast out of the simplest material, the greatest perfection seemingly without effort, the most definite clarity always veiled with a touch of softness. Each of her works has its own being, each of her phenomena its separate idea, yet all create a single whole.'
(a fragment from Goethe's 'Scientific Studies')
my commentary:
How far we really are in our consciousness as individual and collective humanity from this closeness to Nature! Will we ever reunite?.... and how will we ever regain that union with her that he speaks of?...it will take time assuredly, long ages. It will happen...in this we can be sure... but it will only happen firstly on an individual basis when an achieved rebirth occurs out of one's deepest core of humanity 'Die and Become' Goethe once said. The Spirit of the human being will at long last achieve reunification with the Spirit in Nature. When many accomplish this in brotherhood...in freedom and through many lifetimes...then the Mighty Work will be accomplished...the TAO will be fulfilled. All dualities and all divisions will have been overcome. The 'underlying feeling for the unity of man and nature' which Goethe felt deeply and which we can only to begin with...emulate ....becomes for a ever-growing number of humanity a 'power which spurs me on' ...a matter of warmth-filled-resolving-will.
Rudolf Steiner 1905 with the following:
"The Tao gives expression to the highest to which a large part of humanity can look up and has revered for thousands of years. It is something which was considered as a distant goal of the world and of humanity, the highest element which man carried as a germ within him, which would one day develop into a fully opened blossom from the innermost depths of human nature....
...That by which I am surrounded today is but a stage which has to be overcome. I must clearly see that this development in which I am involved has a Goal, that I am going to work towards an exulted Goal and that within me there lives a power which spurs me on to come to the Great Goal of Tao."
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