 Is self-knowledge about our true self --beyond the experience of our self in ordinary everyday life-- possible? |
Anthroposophical Leading Thought (5)
The human being needs spiritual self-knowledge for inner peace. He finds himself in his thinking, feeling and willing. He sees how thinking, feeling and willing are dependent upon the natural human being. Where health and illness are concerned, they must follow the physical body in its strength and debilitation. Sleep extinguishes them. Life’s experiences show how dependent spiritual experience is on the physical body. One may therefore come to the conclusion that self-knowledge is lost amidst these everyday experiences. Then the essential question arises: whether self-knowledge and therewith certainty about the true self, beyond ordinary experience, is even possible. Anthroposophy wishes to answer this question based upon sound spiritual experience. It is not based on mere opinion or belief, but on experience of the spirit, which is as certain as the experience of the body. – Rudolf Steiner (trans. Frank Thomas Smith)
Another translation can be found at http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_a01.html [1]
Contemplative practices are becoming increasingly mainstream and pursued outside traditional religious contexts. Secular stress-busting therapeutic exercises are a well known example. There is a portly body of scientific research that has observed the effects of contemplative practices in the body and psyche of the practitioner. Other research has inquired into the effects of contemplative practices such as intercessory prayers for the healing of others. One interesting example suggested that praying for the effectiveness of the prayers of others made a difference in the quality of benefit received. This example was part of a TV documentary years ago and my memory does not divulge the details.
Today is Ascension Day. I am struck with a thought that demands a pointed question. Is the principle activity promoted as thinking in the Philosophy of Freedom fundamentally different from what is promoted by anthroposophical contemplative practices?
By anthroposophical contemplative practises I mean the work on those verses and meditative images that Rudolf Steiner offered in his lectures and as a response to personal need. There are several thick books of them. To consider contemplative practices further afield would be stretching my limited experience.
To those of you who cringe at wordplay I apologise in advance. I have been thinking about the word ‘sound’ among others. Cut straight to the quote at the end if you wish.
One common thread between meditating or contemplating verses and the approach of the Philosophy of Freedom is that of spiritual activity leading to ‘sound spiritual experience’ as mentioned in the Leading Thought above. Is this an example of all spiritual paths leading to the same destination? The answer to that depends, of course, whether one holds to the thought that apparently divergent spiritual paths are ultimately convergent. Can we assume that all spiritual practices from a common spinning wheel are threading towards a common loom? Is it too rude of me to call Rudolf Steiner a spinning wheel, and anthroposophy a loom? And what is being spun into thread? If I had asked whether all seeds grow into the same plant, you would probably have perceived that my thought was otherwise, but then again a rose is not just a rose but also a plant among plants.
Are we not seeking to awaken through contemplative practice to the intuitions that are always present but often unnoticed? From Rudolf Steiner we have received contemplative practises that turn our attention to thoughts anchored in language. If such practices are intended to lead us to ‘sound spiritual experience’ then the principle anchored in the Philosophy of Freedom must be at work because we can only grasp the language as thought.
The best method of awakening to intuitions has been debated of this site many times, but I would encourage readers to put their efforts into the aim of the work that they are willing to take up, and not expend too much effort worrying over the different methods. In this way we will approach Whitsun, the festival that celebrates a gathering together with one accord, or as I like to think: one chord.
A chord may be harmonious or dissonant. If we do not sound together, there may be several haunting melodies but no coherent harmony. Music without dissonance is quickly soporific. There can be dynamic resolution in dissonance. So I suggest that ‘sound spiritual experience’ will involve dissonance and that anthroposophy encourages us to gather together and sound out one another.
The printed translation of ALT005 uses the phrase ‘a firm basis of spiritual experience’. I experience that adherents of the Philosophy of Freedom and other anthroposophical practices can cultivate ‘a firm basis of spiritual experience’ through listening attentively to one another in addition to individual practice from a book. A sound experience will resonate back to us from life itself.
... there are possibilities enough of convincing oneself that what is acquired from supersensible worlds can be confirmed by the outer physical world. This is something which should not be taken lightly, but which we should look upon as an essential fact. We must in our own lives put to the test the facts that only a few can really investigate, we should not always be repeating the phrase: that must be taken on trust! Accept as little as possible on trust; examine, test and prove all the time! Only be sure that you do it in an open-minded, unprejudiced way. This, then, is the first thing upon which stress must be laid.
(The Tasks and Aims of Spiritual Science: Lecture by Rudolf Steiner in Stuttgart, 13th November, 1909) http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/TskAim_index.html [2]