 It is not my outer world actions that are crucial, but those actions that take place inwardly in my soul life, thus Steiner's indication that for English speakers, the book should be called: "The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity". |
Dear Friends,
Recent posts by Carl and others have put foward various conceptions about the nature of freedom as contemplated by Steiner's The Philosophy of Freedom (Spiritual Activity). It is easy, to a degree, to have ideas about what this means, but it is far harder to realize in practice (in experience) what Steiner meant. Consider, for example, the last sentence of the original preface: "One must be able to confront an idea and experience it; otherwise one will fall into its bondage." These are the last words before the section of the book begins that has the title: "Knowledge of Freedom". Then follows seven chapters before we get to the next section: "The Reality of Freedom", which itself contains seven chapters. So, to summarize, we go from the Preface's last sentence:
"One must be able to confront an idea and experience it; otherwise one will fall into its bondage" to
"Knowledge of Freedom" and thence to
"The Reality of Freedom".
These related general ideas have always suggested to me that the Freedom of PoF is not about freedom in the outer world, but freedom in the inner world of soul and spirit. My experiences, as a practioner of introspection for 35 years, have confirmed this view. It is not my outer world actions that are crucial, but those actions that take place inwardly in my soul life, thus Steiner's indication that for English speakers, the book should be called: "The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity".
From another direction, we have Steiner in Occult Science: an outline, explaining that Knowledge of Higher Worlds takes one through the sense world indirectly toward spiritual experience, while PoF takes one directly into the spiritual world. In this light consider this symbolism:
sense world < soul < A/d < i-AM> L/d > soul > spiritual world
A/d is the ahrimanic double and L/d the luciferic. The i-AM is in between the sense world and the spiritual world, and has out of Steiner's work two basic paths of development: One in the direction of the sense world (and indirectly then toward the world of spirit), and the other in the direction of the spiritual world directly. The question then becomes, at a pragmatic and practical level: In which direction (toward the sense world or toward the spiritual world) do I direct my activity (my will)?
Throughout Steiner's The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity we are shown in various ways the nature of our relationship to phenomena of the spiritual world, as these appear first in the soul. To consider, for example, the questions of desires and wants, as is done in the Ist Chapter (Conscious Human Action), is to involve us directly in phenomena of the soul that is visible only to introspection. I can observe my own activity here, but not the activity of another. They can only observe their own activity, but not mine. Working in this invisible territory (which is really the path of the whole book) means to work directly in the spiritual right from the beginning, although this work is for a long time only taking place in the own soul, in the own inwardness.
Recent discussions here have suggested a confusion as to what it means to be a free or an ethical individual in how we act in the social world. The question also took the form of: Is my deed a free deed if it conflicts with others, or must the communty be able to judge it as a free deed. I believe such questions misconceive a basic teaching that lives in the book and is pointed to above.
My experience is that what makes any deed in the outer world free is a consequence of whether or not I am free first inwardly. Am I in bondage to the idea, or do I truly experience it objectively? What is the relationship between desire and want and my experience of an idea? Is the only thing I need to do, to claim I am an ethical individualist, that I form my own ideal of action? Or, do I have to do more? What about ideals of action for actions that only take place in the soul, and never appear outwardly as an action toward another human being? If my judgment of an outer world situation is based upon either an excess of antipathy or an excess of sympathy, is the ideal which I then engender done out of freedom? What is the relationship between feelings and ideas? Can I desire an idea (because it takes a shape the lets me do what I hunger to do)? Is an idea toward which I have hungered, and which is essentially a justification for an action that is otherwise not truly moral, a freely created ideal? Can a desire warp my perception of the ideas upon which I base my actions, outwardly or inwardly?
What is the experience of moral imagination? When I form such a mental picture, do I form it as a question, or do I bring it into existence in a such a way that my unredeemed and unrecognized desire or want forms it? What qualities of inner activity in the forming of a moral imagination truly lead to a moral intuition? How carefully have I observed my own activity in forming moral intuitions? Have I learned to form them free of want or desire? When I consider the problem of moral technique, how well do I appreciate the world of percepts which the technique means to effect? If the world of percepts in which I wish to apply a moral intuition is the world of my inner activity, how self aware am I of the dynamics of this soul world have I become in which I seek to apply this moral intuition?
What is a moral intuition that belongs only to my inner world of "spiritual activity"? How is this intuition different from one that is directed outwardly at the social world?
etc. etc. etc.
joel