The last sentence of the original Preface to Steiner's The Philosophy of Freedom (or Spiritual Activity), reads: One must be able to confront an idea and experience it; otherwise one will fall into its bondage.
There are, in general, two different kinds of biographical circumstances where one is presented with moral choices: 1) situational - that is karmic and destiny related - the question seeks us, we do not seek the question - it (the question) is part of the necessary given of our lives; and, 2) proactive - we seek to act upon the world in a situationally free way - that is we are not reacting to something that has come toward us through the unfolding of the biography, but choose an ideal as a direction or purpose to the unfolding of the biography.
Examples of the first kind are easy: someone makes change and gives us too much; a co-worker lies to our boss and puts the mutual work at risk; we are attracted to someone outside of the already committed personal relationships etc. etc. etc.
The second was best exemplified in the film Pay it Forward. There one was to seek out people with certain clear needs for help, and seek to help them regardless of our own personal risk. There were important details in the film and it is quite instructional to rewatch or watch it for the first time if you've never seen it.
In either case, there arises the opportunity for the engendering, through our own thinking activity, a moral idea or ideal. What then is our relationship to this idea or ideal in either or both of the above cases (situational or proactive)?
We should keep in mind that not only does our soul life contain moral ideas and ideals, but as well points of view to which we become attached (we like the idea, and may never or seldom consider whether it is really true). Our attachment can be so strong that we idolize the complex of concepts (Steiner's definition of an idea as expressed in his "A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception"), and love this idea to the exclusion of other more true ideas. Our love of this idea becomes worshipful, and we violate in the process the advice given in the First Commandment of the Old Testament (thou ought not to have any other Gods before Me).
This attachment can be to moral ideas and ideals as well as points of view. All the concepts and complexes of concepts which we experience, need to be confronted - that is need to be experienced as separate from the I. To the extent we identify our I with certain concepts or ideas, we are not free, but in bondage to such an idea. This could (and does) include the idea that the study of a text is more important than the experience of life.
The text, The Philosophy of Freedom (or Spiritual Activity), is just that. Symbols on a page, often the result of the thinking of a particular individual human being. Life, the biography, is the result of the cooperation of ourselves and the Creator. It is also a Book, but a book written by a far higher and more developed Being than Rudolf Steiner. This book, the necessary given of our biographical life experience, teaches us more precisely and more existentially dynamically, than any human written text ever can or ever will. Our biography is made out of the whole complex of the processes of the Cosmos, just for us. It is unique and personal, and represents an Art of the highest order.
Within that biography resides our Soul, which is itself another even more personal Book, for it contains in the astral body (the Soul) all the past (and some of the future) connected to every incarnation. The Book of Life and the Book of the Soul must be illuminated with our thinking activity (via objective observation and scientific introspection). Only our thinking on these two Books will give us what is most important for our development. In these Books are buried treasures of a far higher value than any text, including the Gospels.
Moreover, if we view these Books, through the pre-thought lens of Steiner's epistemological works, we will miss important matters, for while PoF is remarkable, it is in itself insufficient for all questions that these Books (of LIfe and Soul) contain that the I must face. We may gain, for certain life questions, far more insight from a chance remark of a friend, a line in a poem we admire, or the mood engendered from watching the sun rise or set, than all the thoughts contained in the text of PoF.
Steiner's remark above (let me repeat it: One must be able to confront an idea and experience it; otherwise one will fall into its bondage), includes the idea and ideas of the book PoF. We can fall in bondage to this system of thought. PoF is not a panecea. Were it a panecea, and necessary for all human beings to know, then this would mean that the Creator Himself was unable to touch us or others through any other means - an idea which is clearly nonsense. The Love of the Creator is Boundless and cannot be fettered.
In saying the above, I am not trying to diminish in anyway what Steiner has accomplished here in this book. I am saying it is not the only (or best) Way to Learn Love. In Steiner's first Leading Thought he defines Anthroposophy as: "...a path of cognition from the spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the Universe." Note the indefinite article "a". Not "the", but "a".
We, who benefit from our encounter with this book (and I certainly am one), can choose as a moral idea or ideal the sharing of this text with others. I do not dispute that such action would be moral and valuable. Far better, however, to my thinking at any rate, is how I live my life - what is my example. Not what I say or think, but how I act, and how well my action is penetrated by the kind of thinking aided by the encounter with PoF. These actions will have far great effect than any words or quotes from PoF or any other source, that I might share with others. It is what I am that means the most to those I love. Not the favorite texts I love to read and study.
joel