Self-Knowledge E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Many spiritual traditions speak of a 'guardian' or 'dweller' who protects the threshold to the spiritual world, warning the unprepared to pause in their quest for access to higher knowledge. The Guardian reveals the consequences of our negative actions and points to the full reality of our untransformed nature. This experience is said to be one of the deepest and most harrowing on the inner path, but is an essential precondition to any form of true initiation.The words 'Know thyself' were inscribed at the forecourt of the ancient Greek Temple of Apollo. Those who sought initiation in 'the mysteries' were thus instructed first to look within themselves. Likewise today, as spiritual seekers we need true self-knowledge, to distinguish between what belongs to our consciousness and what is objectively part of the spiritual environment. Rudolf Steiner taught that as long as we draw back from such knowledge, our spiritual quest will be unsuccessful.When we begin engaging with anthroposophy, it becomes clear that Steiner's teachings are not a doctrine or set of dogmas, but a path towards deeper insights. In this essential handbook, the editor has drawn together many of Rudolf Steiner's statements on the intricate and arduous path of self-knowledge, offering ongoing support and guidance.Chapters include: The Importance of Self-Knowledge for Acquiring Higher Knowledge; Seeking to Form an Idea of the 'Guardian of the Threshold'; The Guardian of the Threshold and Some Characteristics of Supersensible Consciousness; Morality on the Path of Knowledge; Self-Knowledge and Nearness to Christ; The Powers of Christ in Our Own Life; Knowing Ourselves in the Other; Self-Knowledge – World-Knowledge.

Leseprobe

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.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

THE JOURNEY TO WISDOM

Higher Knowledge, the Guardian of the Threshold and the Power of Christ

RUDOLF STEINER

Selected and compiled by Andreas Neider

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translated by Matthew Barton

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

E-mail: [email protected]

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2015

Originally published in German under the title Erkenne dich selbst by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Basel, in 2010

© Rudolf Steiner Verlag 2010 This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2015

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 412 4 Ebook ISBN: 978 1 85584 453 7

Cover by Morgan Creative Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

Contents

About This Book

1. The Importance of Self-knowledge for Acquiring Higher Knowledge

2. Seeking to Form an Idea of the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’

3. The Guardian of the Threshold and Some Characteristics of Supersensible Consciousness

4. Morality on the Path of Knowledge

5. Self-knowledge and Nearness to Christ

6. The Powers of Christ in Our Own life

7. Knowing Ourselves in the Other

8. Conclusion: Self-knowledge—World Knowledge

Notes and References

Sources

About this Book

If we engage more fully with anthroposophy we will discover two things initially. First, anthroposophy is not a doctrine or set of dogmas but a path towards deeper insights supported by the countless suggestions, exercises and meditations that Rudolf Steiner gave. Secondly, we find, however, that astonishingly few of those who have been involved in anthroposophy since Steiner's day have arrived at their own independently acquired spiritual insights by pursuing this path.

Instead, from time to time, there have been individuals who presented somewhat dubious spiritual perceptions relating, say, to former incarnations or encounters with spiritual beings—the latter offering diverse messages to the individuals in question. Anyone who has a fleeting or superficial encounter with anthroposophy may well be inclined therefore to turn away from it again. But if we do not allow ourselves to be misled by such things, we will sooner or later find the underlying reasons for them.

Study of and preoccupation with anthroposophic spiritual science, and in particular carrying out the relevant exercises and meditations, starts to change our relationship with the world we perceive around us. In the visible physical world we are used to experiencing ourselves as separate from surrounding objects and phenomena. As we begin to have spiritual perceptions however—initially appearing in imaginative form and thus in pictures or images—we will inevitably find that these are not separate from our interior life but arise from and are influenced by it.

Here we discover the fundamental distinction between spiritual and sensory perception. With the latter, given the tangible reality of objects outside me, I can always distinguish between what I am myself and the outer object. In the case of spiritual perceptions by contrast, it is far less easy to distinguish between the productions of my own psyche and real spiritual entities. In fact, most objections to anthroposophy cast doubt on our capacity to perceive spiritual worlds at all.

Objections of this kind, however, are ultimately only barriers thrown up by ourselves to hinder our access to worlds of spirit. In the meditative texts compiled here, Rudolf Steiner shows us that, as we begin to know ourselves more fully, we can indeed approach the threshold to spiritual realities.

‘Man know thyself’ was the ancient Greek instruction to those who sought higher knowledge. Whoever wishes to gain spiritual insights has to learn to distinguish between what belongs to his own being or nature and what is part of his real spiritual environment. But as long as we draw back from this self-knowledge we will either gain only dubious spiritual perceptions—since it is unclear what the person concerned has himself introduced into these—or will have no such perceptions in the first place.

But why do we draw back in some alarm from insight into our own being? Answering this question brings us to one of the most important things that the meditant can gain from the texts gathered here:

You see, we have something within us that obstructs a deeper knowledge of ourselves. This is an urge that arises when we must acknowledge a characteristic trait in ourselves, and have no wish to allow any illusion to intrude, to reshape, reform this characteristic. If we do not heed this urge, but simply divert our attention from ourselves and remain as we are, we naturally also deprive ourselves of the means to perceive this particular quality in us. But if we penetrate our own nature, and become aware of this or that characteristic without illusion, we will either find we are able to improve it or will be unable to do so at our present stage of life. In the latter case, a feeling will insinuate itself into our soul that we must call a sense of shame.1

A feeling of shame always arises when we seek to hide from the gaze of the outer world something that we find disagreeable. Rudolf Steiner goes on to point out that a kind of hidden sense of shame exists in relation to self-knowledge: ‘This concealed feeling, though, works in a way similar to the more apparent kind we ascertained in ordinary life: it prevents our inmost being appearing to others in a perceptible picture.’2 This also explains why, in the absence of the necessary self-knowledge, we cannot gain access to spiritual perception:

Since a person's own inner being is concealed from him, he cannot perceive what would allow him to develop the means or tools for perceiving the soul-spiritual world; he is unable to reconfigure his being in a way that enables it to acquire spiritual organs of perception.3

Thus the kind of self-knowledge we are speaking of here seems an essential precondition for any form of higher knowledge. When we really engage fully with it, it can seem an awkward or unpleasant thing, since ‘... if we penetrate our own nature, and become aware of this or that characteristic without illusion, we will either find we are able to improve it or will be unable to do so at our present stage of life.’4

In the latter case a sense of resignation—a great danger in this form of self-knowledge—might easily arise:

As we enter the world of spirit, an aspect of self-knowledge comes about—as our first supersensible achievement—of which previously we can have had scarcely any inkling. And we discover all that we must leave behind if we really wish to enter with full knowledge into the world in which we are actually always immersed. There rises before the inner gaze a very sharp and clear awareness of what we have so far made of ourselves as a human being, both consciously and unconsciously, in the sensory world. Such an experience can often lead to us relinquishing all further efforts to penetrate supersensible worlds. You see, we also gain insight here into how we have to learn to feel and sense things differently if our sojourn in the spiritual world is to be successful.5

The soul's fundamental powers of morality—as described for instance in chapter 4 of this book—need to be strengthened for us to avoid giving up at this point. The path to higher knowledge is unavoidably connected with this. The certainty that working on the moral underpinning of our own inner life is the only thing that will enable us to confront our own psyche without any illusion is at the same time a strong motivating force in engaging with this work of self-knowledge.

Rudolf Steiner adds: