In a certain mood of soul, we can
become aware of a gulf which separates us from everything which confronts us in
life. This gulf appears to delineate
insurmountable boundaries to what we can know.
What can a person truly know with
certainty – first
hand, all anthroposophical literature aside! - about the being of a tree, the
process of remembering, the inner experience of even his closest friends? This gulf can cast doubt upon everything a
person thinks he knows, leaving him feeling estranged from the world. Even when life’s obligations or distractions
intervene and awareness of the gulf fades, a nagging feeling can remain that he
is unable to answer life’s most pressing questions.
Or perhaps an experience shakes him
out of the sleep of everyday consciousness, as happens to Strader, the
scientist or engineer, in scene one of Steiner’s first drama, when he witnesses
a seeress in trance and hears her visionary words. His friend, Capesius, tells him, “I fear…
that you are losing through this your certainty of mind; soon over everything
for you black doubt will spread its veil.”
Strader confides, “The terror of
such doubt – it often tortures me… often, when in agony with problems, a
terrible dream figure like a ghost rises from spirit depths before my vision;
it presses hard upon my soul, and clutches horribly about my heart, and speaks
through me: Unless you conquer me with the crude weapons of your thought, you
are no more than a brief, lying picture, formed by your own illusion.”
This doubt which Strader experiences
also sets the stage for the knowledge drama which is narrated in the Philosophy
of Freedom. Dualism, this separation
between self and world, is not merely a philosophical point of view. It is a fundamental experience of the human
soul on the path to knowledge. In
treading the knowledge path which is implicit in the Philosophy of Freedom, our
goal is not merely to grasp how Rudolf Steiner rebuts and overcomes the
arguments of dualistic philosophers; it is to make conscious the gulf of
knowledge which is an essential experience of every human being today – and to
overcome through our own efforts our apparent limitations.
When we set out to observe our
thinking, we discover a realm of experience which differs from all other forms
of consciousness in life, a realm which Steiner characterizes in chapter three
of the Philosophy of Freedom as a kind of “exceptional state”. In this exceptional state we encounter in the
living mobility of thinking an activity which comes into being through our own
efforts and is at the same time a universal, objective process. Through it, we gain strength and certainty
for new beginnings, for exploring ourselves and exploring the world.
On the one hand, the process is
simple… First, we observe something.
Then we think about it. Then we
observe the thinking we have done. The
thing to observe at the outset can be whatever we choose, for example:
a physical phenomena
a feeling
a verse for meditation
On the other hand, it is a trial, a
seminal process of creative engagement and discovery which draws upon our
deepest resources. The first transition
– from observing to thinking – requires an exertion of will. The second transition – from thinking to
observing the thinking – requires a higher magnitude exertion of will. And yet, with good will every healthy person
is capable of entering this exceptional state and practically benefiting from
the health-bringing forces which the activity engenders.
A woman observes something. A question arises and she seeks an answer, an
explanation for what she has observed. Two bouquets of flowers are taken from
the same shrub. Petals fall from one
bouquet when it is placed in a vase. Why
does the other bouquet drop no petals?
A man has a feeling. He observes it – recognizing, perhaps, that
he is vexed and investigating the quality and form of that vexation. He examines the outer event which caused
it. And he asks what in his personality
brought about such a feeling, when perhaps another person might have felt
differently.
Even a verse upon which a person
meditates must be brought into motion through the activity of thinking. Perhaps the meaning of part of the verse is
not immediately clear and a question arises which may be answered through a
deeper exploration of other parts of the verse.
Typically, this is as far as we go
with our thinking and we are content if we have uncovered an explanation,
gained a new insight. But we can go
farther. We can turn around and observe
the thinking in which we have just engaged.
And when we do so, something immediately
changes. Before, we were exploring with our thinking something
which was separate from us. The flowers,
the feeling, even, to begin with, the verse – were all outside us, part of the
given world. When we now observe the
thinking itself, we explore an activity which we know intimately and
immediately, which we brought into being through our own exertions. The separation, the gulf between world and
self now disappears. We experience the
powerful, objective, active reality of thinking.
Our thinking becomes more vibrant,
more alive. And now we have a choice
about how to proceed. One direction
would be to more deeply explore – with our enlivened thinking – the question
with which we started. We experience
this as a turning away from the observation of thinking, in order to repair or
enhance or enlarge the thinking in which we were initially engaged. New insights appear to us, insights richer
and more complete than those we initially uncovered. They appear with lightning
speed, creative leaps and that joyfulness we experience when we really
penetrate with our thinking into the depth of a question.
The other direction is to continue
to work within the exceptional state. But nothing is static in this state. To
move forward requires a further increase in will activity. The temporal distance between the thinking
and the observation of thinking narrows, approaching simultaneity. There are many different ways to proceed at
this point. In forging our individual
pathways we live our way directly into the creative being of thinking.
In The Riddles of Philosophy (page
88, bottom), Steiner writes, “A world conception must express itself in
thoughts, but thought only
then endows the soul with the power
for which it searches by means of a world conception in the modern age, when it
experiences this thought in its process of birth in the soul. When thought is born, when it has turned into
a philosophical system, it has already lost its magical power over the soul. For this reason, the power of thought and the
philosophical world conception are so often underestimated. This is done by all those who know only the
thought that is suggested to them from without, a thought that they are
supposed to believe, to which they are supposed to pledge allegiance. The real power of thought is known only to
one who experiences it in the process of its
formation.”
You are invited to join colleagues
and friends in Thornhill, Ontario from October 23 – 25, 2015, for a conference
devoted to the exploration and experience of the path of knowledge which is
implicit in the Philosophy of Freedom. Interwoven into the fabric of the
conference, TQuest Productions of Toronto will perform the first third of the
Portal of Initiation. Accompanying us on
this journey, Christian Community Priest Daniel Hafner will open and close the
conference with lectures which are
intended to awaken a spiritual dialogue between the two initiatives. Visit
www.philosophyfreedom.ca to learn more.
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