Six Steps in Self-development E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 108

Beschreibung

The so-called 'supplementary exercises' - to be carried out alongside the 'review exercises' and meditation - are integral to the path of personal development presented by Rudolf Steiner. Together they form a means of experiencing the spiritual realm in full consciousness. Meditation enlivens thinking, the review exercises cultivate the will, whilst the supplementary exercises educate and balance feeling. Conscientiously practised, this path of self-knowledge and development has the effect of opening a source of inner strength and psychological health that soon make themselves felt in daily life. In six stages these exercises enable the practise of qualities that can be summarized as: control of thoughts, initiative of will, equanimity, positivity, open-mindedness and equilibrium of soul. When carried out regularly, they balance possible harmful effects of meditative practice and bring inner certainty and security to the soul. They are also of inestimable value in their own right due to their beneficial and wholesome effect on daily life. In this invaluable small book, the editor has drawn together virtually all Rudolf Steiner's statements on the supplementary exercises, supporting them with commentary and notes. With a chapter devoted to each exercise, they are described in detail and from different perspectives.

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.

SIX STEPS INSELF-DEVELOPMENT

The ‘Supplementary Exercises’

RUDOLF STEINER

Selected and compiled by Ates Baydur

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translated by Matthew Barton

Rudolf Steiner PressHillside House, The SquareForest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

Originally published in German under the title Die Nebenübungen, Seeks Sehritte zur Selbsterziehung by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, in 2007. This authorized translation is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Verlag 2007This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 85584 279 3

Cover by Andrew Morgan DesignTypeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

Contents

About this book

Prelude

First supplementary exercise

Second supplementary exercise

Third supplementary exercise

Fourth supplementary exercise

Fifth supplementary exercise

Sixth supplementary exercise

The six supplementary exercises

Developing the twelve-petalled lotus flower

Sequence and duration of the exercises

The protective function of the supplementary exercises

The supplementary exercises and the Anthroposophical Society

Notes and references

Sources

Note to the Reader

Given that this volume is largely made up of quotations from Rudolf Steiner’s works, in order to keep a consistent flow to the language, tone and terminology we judged it best to translate afresh Rudolf Steiner’s words from the latest and most accurate German editions. To aid English readers in finding English editions of the relevant works, a list of published translations is given on Sources.

(‘GA’ stands for Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner in the original German.)

About this book

The so-called supplementary exercises are of key importance in the path of knowledge and self-development which Rudolf Steiner proposed. He gave them to pupils right from the start of his work as an esoteric teacher, suggesting that they should be carried out alongside the primary meditation and concentration exercises. He repeatedly highlighted their significance, saying that they were capable of balancing any harmful effects of meditative practice and of lending inner certainty and security to the soul. Those for whom these supplementary exercises have become a constant companion know that they are also, in their own right, of inestimable value in their beneficial and wholesome effect on daily life.

In six stages these exercises enable one to practise qualities we can summarize as: control of thoughts, initiative of will, equanimity, positivity, open-mindedness and equilibrium of soul. The path involved is one of self-knowledge and self-development, thus opening a source of inner strength and psychological health that soon make themselves felt in daily life. As such, continual practice can become a natural, self-evident need.

Ever new discoveries await those who engage in these supplementary exercises: less an experience of developing new qualities that are merely added to our existing personality but more, it seems, as if each separate exercise places us into a spiritual reality in which we now participate. An aspect of the self that was previously concealed is activated and becomes a real point of departure for the way we lead our life. Such practice can then be experienced as a process of spiritual birth.

The supplementary exercises form an organism. Each of them presupposes capacities acquired in the previous stages. Thus progress relies on having properly understood and practised what went before. The present compilation of as near as possible all Rudolf Steiner’s relevant comments on these exercises can be helpful here. Diverse aspects of repeated yet often somewhat differently formulated comments can offer ever new stimulus for the specific way in which we approach and carry out these exercises.

I have attempted to give comprehensive quotations wherever Steiner offers detailed guidance for carrying out the supplementary exercises; and I have made a representative selection from his numerous other comments about their importance.

This compilation offers excerpts without their full, original context. As long as one remembers this, the new juxtapositions presented here can be very helpful for illuminating each exercise.

After Occult Science was published in 1910, Rudolf Steiner mostly referred people to that book for guidance on the supplementary exercises. For this reason, extracts from it are placed at the beginning of each chapter. This is followed in a first section by passages drawn from the rest of Steiner’s written oeuvre. In a second section, in chronological order, come passages on the supplementary exercises taken from lectures. A third section cites comments made during esoteric classes. This latter section starts in each case with excerpts from the written instructions he recorded in 1906, entitled ‘General requirements that each person who wishes to undergo esoteric development must make of himself’ (abbreviated here as ‘general requirements’ directly after the relevant passage).

At various places in Steiner’s complete works, he merely lists the supplementary exercises—but such enumeration can also be informative since he often gives the exercises slightly different names. I have therefore given a selection of such references at the beginning of each chapter.

The final chapter contains passages chosen to illumine specific aspects of the supplementary exercises.

The nature of the lecture transcripts can be seen by referring to the complete edition of Rudolf Steiner’s works. In particular one should note that the esoteric classes given within the Esoteric School between 1904 and 1914 were retrospectively recorded recollections by participants. Different recollections of the same classes show the extent to which these deviate from each other.

Ates Baydur

Prelude

An appropriate path of schooling will refer to certain qualities to be acquired by those who wish, through practice, to seek their way into higher worlds. Such qualities are, above all: the soul’s mastery of its thoughts, of its will and its feelings. The manner in which this mastery can be practically achieved has two aims: firstly our psyche should be informed by certainty, security and equilibrium to such a degree that we continue to retain these qualities even when a second I is born from us. Then, also, this second I should receive strength and inner stability for its further path.

(GA 13, 1910)1

Below I will characterize the conditions that must underpin esoteric development. No one should think that he can make progress by any outward or inward means without fulfilling these conditions. All meditation and concentration exercises, and suchlike, are worthless and may even be harmful in a certain sense if we do not regulate our lives in accordance with these conditions. We can’t receive powers: we can only unfold those that already lie within us. Due to outer and inner hindrances, they do not develop by themselves. The outer hindrances are removed by following the rules given below, while the inner hindrances are addressed through specific instructions relating to meditation and concentration, etc.

(General requirements, October 1906)2

First supplementary exercise

Control of thoughts

Regulating the course of thinking

Mastery of thought processes

Objectivity

Concentration

Focused thought

Objectivity is of primary importance for human thinking when engaged in the path of spiritual schooling. In the physical and sensory world, life is the great teacher of objectivity for the human I. If the soul were to let thoughts wander hither and thither at random, it would soon have to accept correction from life’s realities or else find itself at odds with them. The soul must think in accordance with these realities. But when we direct our attention away from the physical and sensory world, the latter’s inevitable corrections fall away. If our thinking is then unable to act as its own corrector, it will inevitably lose itself in arbitrary flights of fancy. For this reason the spiritual pupil must practise thinking that determines its own direction and goal. Inner stability and the capacity to stay focused on a particular subject3 is needed for educating our thinking. Corresponding ‘thinking exercises’ should not therefore be focused on distant and complex subjects but on simple ones that are near to hand. If we overcome our resistance and, over several months, turn our thoughts for at least five minutes each day to a mundane object (such as a pin or pencil, etc.), excluding all other, unrelated thoughts as we do so, we have already achieved a good deal. (You can take a new object each day, or keep to the same one for several days.) Even someone whose academic training means that he regards himself as a ‘thinker’ should not consider it beneath him to prepare his spiritual schooling in this way. If we focus our thoughts for a while on something very familiar to us, we can be sure that we start thinking in an appropriately objective way. Someone who asks himself what a pencil is made of, how its materials are produced or prepared, how they are then assembled, or how and when a pencil was first invented—and so on and so forth—is surely adapting his ideas to reality much more than someone who thinks about the origins of man or the meaning of life. Simple thinking exercises, far more than complex, scholarly ideas, make it easier for us to properly conceive such things as Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution.4 Initially it is not a question of thinking about this or that subject, but of thinking objectively and appropriately, and invoking inner strength. If we develop the capacity for objective thinking in relation to an easily grasped, sensory, physical process, then thinking will acquire the tendency to be objective when it is no longer subject to the sway of the physical, sensory world and its laws. At the same time we rid ourselves of the habit of letting our thoughts wander erratically.

(GA 13, 1910)5

The first thing of this kind that the esoteric pupil undertakes is to regulate his thought processes (so-called ‘control of thoughts’). Just as the sixteen-petalled lotus6 unfolds through true, meaningful thoughts, so the twelve-petalled lotus develops by inner mastery of one’s thinking processes. Thoughts that flit about randomly and are combined in a purely accidental way rather than purposefully or logically, spoil the form of this lotus flower. The more one thought proceeds from another, and the more anything illogical is avoided, the better this sense organ acquires its appropriate form. When the esoteric pupil hears illogical thoughts expressed, he immediately corrects them inwardly. But he ought not to withdraw unlovingly from what may be illogical surroundings in order to cultivate his own development. Nor should he desire to immediately remedy everything illogical in his environment. Instead, very quietly and inwardly, he will bring the thoughts storming at him from without into a logical train of thought. And he will take pains to continually follow such trains of thought in his own thinking.

(GA 10, 1905)7

One achieves control of the world of thoughts if one takes pains to counter what is, in most people, an arbitrary flitting, a surging and subsiding, of thoughts and feelings. In daily life we tend not to be in charge of our thoughts but are driven by them. This is quite natural, for life drives us, and as active participants in it we have to give ourselves over to life’s activity. This will inevitably be so in ordinary life. But if we wish to rise to a higher world, we must make space for at least short periods when we take mastery of our world of thoughts and feelings. We can do so by placing a thought into the clear focus of our soul in complete inner freedom, in contrast to the usual process whereby thoughts and images impinge on us from without. We can try to keep all arbitrarily surfacing thoughts and feelings at a distance, only connecting with our original thought what we wish to connect with it. Such an exercise has a beneficial effect on the soul, and thus also on the body. It endows the latter with such harmony that it can fend off harmful influences even when the soul does not directly act upon it.

(GA 12, 1906)8

a) Control of thoughts. The chela9