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Contemporary interest in the meditative schooling of mindfulness is usually associated with Eastern traditions. Rudolf Steiner spoke of the same phenomenon, although he used the terms 'attentiveness' and 'dedication' – or, combining these two, 'pure perception'. This way of mindfulness and reverence is not in conflict with spiritual paths founded on thinking or pure thought. However, as the texts in this anthology indicate, methods based exclusively on thinking cannot be successful if they are not supported by perception, feeling and will. In counterbalance to today's increasing intellectualization, the meditative exercises featured here connect with the perceptive activity of the human being's sensory organs. They could also be understood as exercises for developing empathy, helping to make our relationship with the world around us more conscious and intense. Rudolf Steiner's texts are sensitively edited and arranged by Andreas Neider, whose introduction and notes add further clarity to the theme.
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RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.
From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.
MINDFULNESS AND REVERENCE
Steps in Perception
RUDOLF STEINER
Selected and compiled by Andreas Neider
RUDOLF STEINER PRESS
Translated by Johanna Collis
Rudolf Steiner Press,
Hillside House, The Square
Forest Row, RH18 5ES
www.rudolfsteinerpress.com
Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2017
Originally published in German under the title Andacht und Achtsamkeit, Stufen des Wahrnehmens by Futurum Verlag, Basel, in 2014
© Futurum Verlag 2014
This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2017
All quotations from Rudolf Steiner's Knowledge of the Higher Worlds are taken from the translation by D.S. Osmond and C. Davy, Rudolf Steiner Press 2011
All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Print book ISBN: 978 1 85584 536 7
Ebook ISBN: 978 1 85584 496 4
Cover by Morgan Creative
Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan
Contents
Introduction
1. The Preparation
2. The Light-Soul-Process
3. The Soul Lives in the Senses
4. The Soul Feels in Breathing
5. Enlightenment
6. Pure Perception
7. Intensifying Perception
8. Purifying the Life of Thought and of Feeling
9. Conversing with the Goddess Natura
10. Understanding Life as a Process of Breathing
11. Conclusion: Devotion and Love
Notes
Sources
Introduction
The Four Maxims of the Wisdom of the Pillars
J
In pure thought you find
The self that can support itself.
If you transform thought into image
You experience creating wisdom.
B
If you condense feeling into light
You reveal the formative force.
Objectify the will into being
And you create in world-being.
In the sense of these ‘four maxims of the wisdom of the pillars’,1 the anthroposophical path of schooling and meditation rests upon two pillars exemplifying the two trees which according to legend abide in paradise: the Tree of Knowledge (J or Jakim) and the Tree of Life (B or Boas). In view of the challenges facing us in today's civilization it does seem imperative that we should pay attention not only to the Tree of Knowledge but also, even more urgently, to the Tree of Life. The exercises, meditations and further indications given by Rudolf Steiner and quoted in this book are here intended as aids in this quest.
Many readers who are familiar with anthroposophy may perhaps as yet have paid little attention to the exercises for perception or the meditations included here, instead basing their work more upon those exercises directed specifically towards a transformation of thinking. That path has certainly been more prominent in anthroposophical tradition since Rudolf Steiner's time. In many lectures and books he himself repeatedly emphasized the path which takes its departure from pure thinking.
However, if we examine his basic work Knowledge of the Higher Worlds more closely, a rather different picture emerges. Immediately in the introductory chapter there is mention of a fundamental feeling of devotion.2 Ordinary thinking, and especially critical thinking, must be reined in to a greater degree in this connection. Therefore a relationship with the world founded not on thinking but on perceiving is the subject of the following chapters and of the schooling for meditative work.
The texts selected here, together with other descriptions by Rudolf Steiner, are presented with the aim of bringing these aspects to the fore. The purpose is not to contradict descriptions of a schooling path founded solely on thinking but rather to draw attention to the fact that a path based exclusively on thinking cannot be successful without being supported by the aspects of perception, feeling and will. The aspects of perception and feeling are clearly explained in the exercises described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds as being for ‘Preparation’ and ‘Enlightenment’.
In other meditative schooling paths, especially of an eastern character3 (such as those offered by the Buddhist monk from Vietnam Thich Nhat-Hanh and the American teacher of meditation Jon Kabat-Zinn), the aspect of perception is nowadays usually termed ‘mindfulness’. Rudolf Steiner chose to speak of ‘attentiveness’ and ‘dedication’ or, combining these two, ‘pure perception’. Above all he had the scientific considerations of Goethe in mind. With the meditative exercises in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds he was thus emphasizing the western, Rosicrucian, tradition of attentiveness which, however, in its loving focus upon what is perceived does also touch on the eastern path. Hence, in order to show that the western tradition of the Rosicrucian path also involves the eastern aspect of schooling, we have chosen to include the word ‘mindfulness’ in the title of our collection of texts since it is frequently used with reference to eastern traditions.
In the compilation of meditative exercises contained here, which connect with the perceptive activity of the human being's sensory organs, especially those of seeing and hearing, and which aim to bring about an intensified experience of the breathing process, Rudolf Steiner develops the anthroposophical schooling path as an additional aspect of, or indeed as a counterbalance to, today's increasing intel-lectualization. In the twenty-first century, over one hundred years after the founding of this path of meditation and knowledge, its value is only now beginning to reveal its full import and scope.
Our present age is characterized by an overestimation of the powers of the intellect and an underestimation of those of perception and feeling. The ubiquitous presence of artificial intelligence in computers, mobile telephones and the internet has led to a worldwide predominance of a specific type of life and attitude founded on the agility of our nervous system which has come to be reflected artificially in the digital media. Conversely, the capacity to feel through the senses is being taken over by a virtual world of perceptions which are no longer physically real. The more these technologies are disseminated, even into the most poverty-stricken regions of our earth, the greater will be the threat to our sensory perceptions and the world of thoughts and feelings connected with them.
In view of the one-sidedness of today's digital civilization, younger individuals now becoming acquainted with anthroposophy will be attracted to the anthroposophical schooling path because it is more congruent with their often more empathetic mode of encountering the world. This is borne out by statements made by Rudolf Steiner early in the twentieth century in which he referred to the opening up of new capacities for perceiving the etheric world.4 However, the development of such capacities came to be massively suppressed by the history of that century. But as the twenty-first century begins, such new faculties of perception are indeed becoming increasingly noticeable, especially among the younger generation.
One might therefore also venture to describe the exercises discussed here as exercises for the faculty of empathy, for it is their aim to render more conscious and more intense the relationship the human being has with the world around him through his organs of sense perception.
Rather than a direct experience of the senses during the process of perceiving, however, what is meant more precisely is a deepening of what arises in the soul in connection with a sensory experience of, for example, a specific plant or a specific sound in nature. As an example of this, Rudolf Steiner quoted the ‘sensory and moral’ experience of colours described by Goethe and the after-images also described by him as sensory experiences. All in all, then, in most of the exercises discussed here we are concerned with a deepening of the after-images of sensory impressions by way of a moral feeling towards those sense-impressions.
As well as in his basic book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, Rudolf Steiner also spoke about the supersensible perception of nature in two wide-ranging lecture cycles: Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature (CW 136) and Harmony of the Creative Word (CW 230). A study of these two cycles in the present context would be well worthwhile.
Meanwhile, the endeavours of a number of authors have resulted in the creation of a great deal of anthroposophical literature focusing on the supersensible perception of nature. This has come to be referred to as ‘research into the formative forces’. Among these authors are Dorian Schmidt, Markus Buchmann, Jürgen Strube, Dirk Kruse, Thomas Meyer and Karsten Massei whose numerous publications are highly recommended. The texts from the works of Rudolf Steiner presented here have been chosen specifically to complement the research and suggestions of these authors.
The fact that every artistic experience can be enhanced by the schooling path described here, indeed that all artistic activity is closely bound up with the exercises, is mentioned by Rudolf Steiner at the beginning of the chapter ‘Preparation’ in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. Thus by their very nature these exercises can be of great interest in connection with all forms of artistic endeavour because they deepen and widen the sensory experience upon which all artistic creativity is founded.
In working with these exercises one is expected to discipline one's thinking in a way that takes seriously the reality and the invisible force of thought. Rather than strengthening it, Rudolf Steiner is more concerned here that clarity and orderliness should be brought into thinking. Who has not many times been aware of thinking as having as much force as a shot from a gun in the physical world? And yet how often have we acted in keeping with this? So in the present volume considerable significance is attached to the moral component expressed in the exercises discussed here as being especially concerned with purifying the life of thought and the life of feeling (Chapter 8).
Our collection begins with a brief quotation from a lecture in which the fundamental quality of reverence is described. This is followed by the exercises given in 1904 and 1905 in the section ‘Preparation’ in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds (Chapter 1). This basic text is then expanded by a description of the fundamental difference between the ancient yoga path and the anthroposophical path. The former aims to approach thinking through an intensification of breathing while the latter seeks to separate the processes of perception and thinking from breathing. This is then followed by three exercises in perception which Rudolf Steiner presented to his audience during lectures given in Helsingfors (Helsinki).
The selection then turns to the important theme of the ‘light-soul-process’ (Chapter 2). Here Rudolf Steiner describes the onward development of the ancient Indian path of yoga which enabled the individual to deepen his relationship with the world through regulating the physical process of breathing. However, as the I of the human being developed, his relationship with his surroundings, having previously been regulated by means of the breathing process, was now more influenced by his sensory awareness.
Today, therefore, rather than emphasizing the physical process of breathing it is more important to pay attention to the soul-spiritual breathing process which comes about between perception through the senses and perception through thinking. Thus Steiner also spoke of a new yoga path which relates to the processes taking place in our consciousness nowadays.
This new yoga path consists of a breathing of spirit and soul. First one concentrates one's entire attention on an object, examining and observing every detail (inhalation). Then one dedicates oneself utterly to the impression gained through the enhanced attentiveness and meditates it (exhalation). In the first step, of exact observation, thinking is reined in and remains in the realm of registering what is being observed. In the second step, that of actual meditation, thinking begins to metamorphose, taking on the form of a receptacle opening itself to receive the actual spiritual content of the meditation. Here the two trees mentioned earlier, the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, begin to fructify and permeate one another.
Through the depictions which follow the descriptions of the ‘light-soul-process’, it becomes clear that Rudolf Steiner is speaking not merely of a thinking that is free of the body and unfettered by the brain, but of pure perception which is free of the body and disengaged from the brain. Steiner also discusses this in a number of instances from the point of view of physiology by describing the organism of our senses as having a breathing relationship with the external world (Chapters 3 and 4).
The other exercises aimed at enlightenment given in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds are also directed towards pure perception. They are supplemented in this volume by further exercises from lectures given later (Chapters 5 and 7).
As already mentioned, Rudolf Steiner links these exercises with the Rosicrucianism of Goethe.5 It was the aim of historical Rosicrucianism to comprehend and transform the sense-perceptible world of matter and of nature in a manner that would transcend intellectual thinking. In former times this involved renouncing intellectual thinking. It was Rudolf Steiner's achievement, in the present time, to link ancient Rosicrucianism with a form of spiritualized thinking that can be combined successfully with what is nowadays a generally comprehensible way of thinking.
Thus the exercises in this volume, which are concerned with the sense-perceptible world and pure perception, have to be founded on the refined, pure thinking which Rudolf Steiner always postulates, as for example in his pivotal depiction of pure perception in The Boundaries of Natural Science (see Chapter 6). The art of the schooling path depicted here is revealed, especially in the moment when perception is being practised, in the way thinking must be reined in so that the meditant can devote himself entirely to the sensory process and the resulting after-images. Only then can the ‘light-soul-process’ become a genuine ‘light-soul-breathing’. Whereas in the ancient yoga tradition it was a matter of restraint in physical breathing, in this new yoga path it is the thinking which has to be reined in so that the perception can become more profound.
By means of this way of breathing, which might be termed a new yoga path, the soul gains new, hitherto unfamiliar feelings and thoughts, which previously only flitted past unconsciously. In this way the increasingly overheated speed of the processes of intelligence, caused by the digitization of civilization, can be countered by an element of conscious slowing down of the breathing process that comes about unconsciously between perceiving and thinking in the deeper recesses of the unconscious. Whereas, during the process of ego development, the old yoga path proceeded inwards from the outside through breathing, the new yoga path now sets out along the path of perception from the newly created ego-consciousness towards the external world so that it may there merge with it in loving devotion.
Through the deepening within the soul of the feelings and thoughts that accompany perception through the senses, the soul arrives at a perception of a supersensible world which is immediately adjacent to the world revealed by the senses. Steiner's statements quoted in Chapters 3 and 4 tell us that our senses are part and parcel of the etheric world, that supersensible world with which the human being is bound up through his senses. It is solely his intellect, which is bound up with his brain, that initially prevents him from becoming aware of the supersensible. As Goethe said, ‘There is no need to look behind the phenomena; they themselves are the doctrine.’ That is why his way of perceiving in the natural sciences became the example to be followed along Steiner's path of knowledge. As the exercises show, this path leads to a recognition and a deepening of our perceptions of the world. Thus Steiner addressed himself to a theme which had already been known within Christian mysticism as the ‘conversation with the goddess Natura’. He deepened this so that it became a modern science which can be further developed spiritually (Chapter 9).
Finally, the ‘seven conditions’ (Chapter 10) described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds show in this connection how such an attitude to everyday life can come to form a continuous breathing process which helps the individual to build a healthy, loving relationship with nature and with the human beings all around him. In all this Rudolf Steiner knew himself to be in touch with the Archangel Michael, the being who had formerly been in charge of the original cosmic intelligence. Michael is watching over human evolution with great concern inasmuch as what was once cosmic intelligence has become human intelligence which is now increasingly threatening to become an intelligence dominated by machines. That is why Rudolf Steiner describes as ‘Michael's Mission’ the path depicted here as a new yoga oriented towards the processes of sense perception. Those who are true to Michael will cultivate love towards the external world through developing ‘light-soul-breathing’. Through this new breathing the individual will increasingly be enabled to unite in love with nature and with his fellow human beings.
Andreas Neider
1. The Preparation
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