The first Chapter of PoF is Conscious Human Action, and the first sentence of this Chapter is a question: Is man in his thinking and acting, a spiritually free being, or is he compelled by the iron necessity of purely natural law?
If we look at some of the ideas in modern biology, particularly evolutionary pyschological biology, we will find that this question remains with us today, albeit in some quarters fully decided. We can find there the view that our modern behaviors are "hard wired" into our brains by the long term effects of natural selection. "Iron necessity" or "hard wired" - take your pick - both view the human being as not free.
The promise of PoF is that we can, through introspection following the methods of natural science, discover that in spite of such views we are in fact free (or perhaps more accurately: can become free. At the same time: Where do we begin the adventure of introspection?
Everyone has to make their own experiences in the end, but I thought I would make some suggestions that I learned through experience might be useful. Clearly in the first sentence above, with reference to man in his thinking and acting, we are given some aspects of the problem. Already, since we have been studying the text, we know that thinking is a significant matter with which to become acquainted, so lets begin there.
Discursive Thinking is a term that is used to describe our ordinary inner state when thinking, so lets turn our attention inward into our souls and take a look at it. Close your eyes, and before you read any further do the following: Count in your inner voice from 1 to 33 and then reverse the sequence.
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If you have done this, now ask yourself whether you did this without the interruption of any other discursive thought. Did you remain focused on the counting, or did other thoughts intrude, such that you might have counted to 23 and then said to yourself this is stupid, or counted to 22 and then had the associative thought (again said to yourself) that 22 is an important number in Kaballah. There isn't any right answer, yet it is important to notice what actually happened.
Now reread the above paragraph and try to notice whether or not you sub-vocalized while you read.
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Next, get up from the computer and walk around the house or the room and think about anything at all the comes to your attention, and then return to your desk.
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Have you become aware through these experiments that part of ordinary thinking involves this inner speaking? What or who is speaking in this inner voice? Who or what is listening? Haven't we all heard the mother yelling from the kitchen to the children fighting over the TV: "Stop all that noise, I can't hear myself think!"
It is important to notice Discursive Thinking, for it has all manner of unusual properties. To give a hint for further introspective work here is an analogy: We place a piece of paper over a magnet, and then pour some iron filings on the paper. The lines of the magnetic field are revealed by the way the iron filings become organized.
So also with Discursive Thinking. It constantly reveals order which is beneath it in a kind of way (in the sub-conscious or the supra-conscious). When you counted your will and attention were active, and the inner speaking took its shape from this activity. When you read the paragraph, the words on the page guided the Discursive Thinking - the sub-vocalizing, but at the same time something else happened, for in order to understand the paragraph (the words on the page) something in addition to Discursive Thinking had to be involved. What was that?
To help with this question, gather several books into a pile (or magazines, what is needed is just different sources of reading material). Read a paragraph or two in each and simultaneously try to notice how your Understanding of the text is created. Is understanding coming from the same spacial place in your inwardness as is Discursive Thinking.
Notice I used the terms "same spacial place in your inwardness". Sub-vocalization (Discursiving Thinking) comes from the spacial region of our inwardness we might later call the larynx or Throat Chakra, while Understanding (relational thinking?) comes from that spacial region of the soul we might call later "between our eyebrows" or the Brow Chakra.
In these simple observations is serious food for further thought. The danger, however, is to leap ahead. Far better is to do just very simple observations, for our thinking in the beginning is more or less completely undisciplined (no control of thoughts), which is why Steiner gives the 6 Basic Exercises. These exercises discipline the soul, so that as our introspective work proceeds in a competely emperical (scientific) fashion, we don't form concepts which might be called loose associations. A loose association is generally driven by something deeper in the sub-consciousness (a field influencing the order of discursive thought that yet remains beneath or outside our conscious awareness.
Consider this. Steiner's first sentence used the terms: thinking and acting. When we counted intentionally, or when we read, we acted inwardly. At the same tiime, there is no movement in even Discursive Thinking or Understanding that can't arise without our consciously willling it. We think and understand all the time from sub-conscious movements in the inwardness. So we remain, even after the above, with a dilemma or riddle: If I am not consciously willing my discursive thinking or understanding, who or what is willing it? Thus we return to the mystery of the First Chapter: Conscious Human Action.
joel