Strengthening the Will E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

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

Seitenzahl: 145

Beschreibung

The review exercises bring the experiences of our daily lives to full awareness. By directing our attentive gaze to what has happened - whether in a single day or in whole phases of life - we kindle light in our will. Undertaking such a review backwards, in reverse sequence, or from an 'external perspective', requires a huge inner effort as we establish distance between ourselves and our daily experiences.In this essential handbook the editor has drawn together virtually all Rudolf Steiner's statements on the review exercises, supporting them with commentary and notes. Described from different perspectives and approaches, there are a surprising range of suggestions for carrying them out. Individual chapters focus on reviewing the day (transforming the power of memory); reviewing events in your life (awakening the higher self); reviewing the other's perspective (awakening social impulses); exercises in thinking backwards (illuminating the will); and more.

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.

STRENGTHENING THE WILL

The ‘Review Exercises’

RUDOLF STEINER

Selected and compiled by Martina Maria Sam

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translated by Matthew Barton

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

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

Originally published in German under the title Rückschau, Übungen zur Willensstärkung by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, in 2007. This authorized translation is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Verlag 2007 This 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 280 9

Cover by Andrew Morgan Design Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

Contents

About this book

1. Review of the day—transforming the power of memory

2. Review of events in your life—awakening the higher self

3. Review from the other’s perspective—awakening social impulses

4. Review exercise to comprehend karmic connections

5. Exercises in thinking backwards—illuminating the will

6. The review and kamaloka

7. The review and education

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 importance of Rudolf Steiner’s review exercises for the path of anthroposophical schooling cannot be valued too highly. Review and meditation can be seen as the two pillars of self-development which, with the supplementary or accompanying exercises spanning them like an arch, form the gateway through which we can enter into conscious experience of the spiritual realm.

Meditation leads thinking back to its living source by thoroughly warming it. The supplementary exercises educate our life of feeling by establishing a healthy balance between inner and outer, sympathy and antipathy, while the review exercises cultivate the will by penetrating it with powers of consciousness.

Whereas meditation enlivens thinking by intentionally creating an interior space in which a thought or image can unfold, review brings the sleeping experience of our daily lives to awareness. By directing our attentive gaze to what has happened—whether in a single day or in whole phases of life—we kindle light in our will life. Heeding Rudolf Steiner’s suggestion that we undertake this review backwards, in reverse sequence, or also look on what has happened from a kind of ‘external perspective’, requires a huge inner effort as we distance ourselves from daily experiences.

The very strong effects of the review exercises, which Steiner highlights, can be explained by the ‘jolt’ to the psyche from freeing oneself from events in this way. As the following compilation shows, over a period of about 20 years Steiner gave a surprising range of suggestions for carrying out such exercises, whose specific qualities can also develop other corresponding capacities.

The first form of the exercise is the review of the day (Chapter 1) as an end to each day for those pursuing a path of spiritual schooling. This sort of review was originally laid down as follows as a requirement for every member of the ‘Esoteric School of Theosophy’: ‘Before going to bed, the pupil must look back on the day and evaluate his own conduct.’1 But the very diverse ways in which this can be done become apparent through Rudolf Steiner’s different, specific suggestions. What is common to all the exercises of this type is that the review of the day should be conducted in reverse sequence—a requirement not yet contained in the rules of the ‘Esoteric School’. In this way, a pupil not only makes his daily life into a continual schooling but also gradually acquires a new sort of ‘imaginative memory’ to replace what one might call ‘mechanical memory’. This prepares him for modes of perception in the world of spirit. The review exercise enables us to pursue ideas beyond the threshold of conscious awareness and grasp them in their original vitality.

To complement this, Rudolf Steiner recommends that from time to time we undertake life review exercises (Chapter 2). In other words, we can conjure up our own past deeds and experiences as though another person had done or experienced them. In this type of review, we have to encounter ourselves as we would another. By this means our higher being is awoken within our daily self, and we can become aware of the ‘overlighting I being in the ordinary ego’.2

This life review exercise can be enhanced by focusing during meditative contemplation on the impact of others in our own biography, vividly imagining ‘what each person by our side has done for us’ (Chapter 3). By this means we develop the capacity, when we encounter another person, to receive a picture of his ‘true being’.

A specific variant of the review exercise can also be found in the so-called greater karmic insight exercise (Chapter 4), which can develop our insight into karmic connections and the spiritual workings of destiny.

A key aspect of review exercises which Rudolf Steiner increasingly accentuated over the years—whether through the daily review or through imagining plays or tunes in reverse sequence—is that of a general cultivation of the will (Chapter 5). When we detach our conceptual powers from the external course of events, the will can free itself from its body-bound state. By doing so it gains strength and becomes more ‘transparent’, thereby itself becoming an organ of spiritual perception. In this way the pupil achieves the stage of intuitive knowledge at which he lives his way into the world of spirit, as a being among spiritual beings. The pupil can support this type of will exercise by others such as ridding himself of particular habits.

The review exercise enables us not only to prepare ourselves for participation in the world of spirit but also for life after death (Chapter 6). The daily review integrates into our awareness what the soul experiences every night. Whether we know it or not, at night our soul gazes back on the events of the day in reverse sequence, at the same time passing moral judgement on our own experiences. This nightly experience in turn forms the basis for kamaloka after death: the period during which, after laying aside the etheric body, we work through the life that has just passed. The review exercises during our lifetime can, as it were, enable us to accomplish some of this after-death work in advance.

The few suggestions Steiner made for will exercises in education, and getting children to imagine things in reverse, offer further insights (Chapter 7). However, his astonished and almost annoyed reply to a question shows clearly that children should never be asked to practise the review exercise as part of some kind of spiritual schooling.

I have not included here anything relating to the so-called ‘will’ or ‘initiative’ exercise that forms part of the supplementary exercises. The companion volume on these six exercises contains all passages relevant to this.

The seven chapters of this book are an attempt to compile and thematically arrange Steiner’s numerous suggestions for practising review or reverse-sequence exercises. The passages in each section are arranged chronologically (although excerpts from written works are placed first because of their greater authenticity as compared with lecture transcripts). What became clear in this process, surprisingly, was that the sequence of chapters also gives rise to something approaching chronological order.

Thus, over the years of Rudolf Steiner’s activity, the review exercises acquire a kind of spiritual time-body.

Chapter 1, on the review of the day, contains written stimulus for Rudolf Steiner’s pupils and instructions drawn from the early period of his esoteric work. Gradually, alongside this, general life review exercises arose with the aim of awakening the pupil’s higher being. At the time of the First World War, with its attendant social catastrophes, Rudolf Steiner modified the review exercises to awaken the social capacities we so sorely need today. This involves acquiring true imaginations of the other that can form in us during human encounter. The karma exercises which Steiner suggested at a later date have a similar effect, and can lead to a conscious grasp of karmic connections. In public lectures in the 1920s, Steiner went on to emphasize the two pillars of inner schooling: the enlivening of thinking through meditation and the cultivation and illumination of will life by means of the review exercises. These now find their place as key exercises for will development, and Steiner repeatedly emphasizes how greatly they aid the pupil in grasping essential qualities of the world of spirit.

It is of course not true to say that each new aspect of this progression overrides the validity of a previous one. Instead, the outstanding importance of these review exercises is accentuated by the diversity of Steiner’s suggestions, from which each of us can choose what speaks individually to us.

When reading this compilation we should not of course forget that the majority of excerpts are drawn from the larger and often complex context of whole lectures, which were presented to a specific group of people in response to a particular situation. For further study the reader is referred to relevant volumes in the complete edition of Steiner’s works. However, in collected works as rich and extensive as Steiner’s, a comparison between his comments on particular themes invariably gives rise to surprising new perspectives and insights. One can say that the dynamic qualities of a living spiritual configuration only become discernible when observed and illumined from a range of different angles, through the fact that individual aspects mutually illumine, shape and support one another. This applies equally to the will exercises on the path of inner schooling, with the ‘review’ exercise at their core.

Martina Maria Sam

1. Review of the day—transforming the power of memory

Each day one should review one’s daily experiences. You can do this by picturing to yourself the most important things you experienced during the day and the way you behaved in relation to them. All this is done in a frame of mind that wishes to learn from life. How can I improve on something I did today? This is the kind of question one asks oneself, and it does not dull one’s sense of either joy or suffering. On the contrary, you will become more sensitive. But you will not harbour anxiety and regret about what you did, instead transforming such feelings into the intention to do things better in future. Thus you work on yourself like a builder. Just as a builder does not sit down disconsolately in front of a house he has built, complaining sadly about it, but instead, when he comes to build again, uses the experiences he has gained to do it better, so a person can do the same in regard to himself. Sorrow and regret can drag us down whereas learning builds us up. Sorrow and regret are of no use. The time we waste in entertaining these feelings should be used instead for our own improvement. All this requires no more than three or four minutes and then you will fall asleep with a manas3 that has received the capacity to progress. If one can add to this an important precept for life or also a good thought for others, this is especially good. This gradually as it were transforms us, since we have endowed the manas liberated in sleep from all personal limitations with a worthy content that nurtures our development.

(Early April 1904)4

[...] Then you can take four or five minutes to undertake a review of your experiences during the day. I would ask you to let these daily experiences pass briefly before your soul and to be clear how you relate to them. Observe yourself and ask to what extent you are satisfied, how you could have experienced things differently, what you could have done better. Thus you become your own observer. The point of this is to observe yourself from a higher perspective so that gradually the ‘higher self’ comes to hold sway over your everyday self. At the same time, all worry, sorrow or suchlike about what you experienced should fall away. We should simply learn from our own lives, read them like a book. We should not think back regretfully to the past—we can do that the rest of the day if necessary—but courageously use this past for the future. Then we will learn something that benefits our current, personal existence, and that will, above all, bear fruit in the period after our death.

(2 August 1904)5

In the evening before falling asleep, one should briefly review what one experienced during the day. There is no need for this to be comprehensive but it is important, instead, that one evaluates and judges oneself as if one was someone else. One should learn from oneself. Life should increasingly become a lesson. One starts with the evening and works backwards to the morning.

(End of 1904)6

In the evening before falling asleep each pupil should cast his gaze back to how he lived during the day. This is not about allowing the maximum number of events to pass before your soul but about doing this with the most important events. We can ask ourselves what we can learn from what we experienced or did that day. In this way life becomes a lesson for us. Our stance towards ourselves is that of learning from each day to benefit every new day. By doing this we take our past with us into the future and prepare our immortality. Then perhaps we can end the day by thinking of other, beloved people who might need our good thoughts.

If you fall asleep during this exercise it really doesn’t matter. If you do, then you take a tendency to progressive development with you into sleep—and that’s good too. Only the morning meditation must take place from beginning to end in an alert and wakeful state. I would just ask you to accomplish the evening review backwards, in other words starting with events that just happened, in the evening, and working your way back to the morning.

(2 January 1905)7

If you intervene in your own life of soul in this way and regulate it, you will also develop the ability to observe yourself so that you regard your own affairs with the kind of composure with which you would regard someone else’s. To be able to look at one’s own experiences, one’s own joys and sufferings, as though they were someone else’s is a good preparation for spiritual schooling. You will gradually achieve what is necessary here by daily reviewing the images of what you experienced. In doing so you should perceive yourself pictorially within your experiences; in other words, observe yourself in your daily life as though from without. You can gain a certain practical capacity for such self-observation if you start by imagining specific, small details of this daily life. You can increasingly develop your ability to conduct this kind of review so that after much practice you will find you can accomplish it fully in only a short space of time. This reverse review of experiences is especially important for spiritual schooling because it allows the soul to free itself from its otherwise inherent tendency to trace in thought only