Anthroposophy for Dummies

[LukeJTM]

Thank you, Federica. That is helpful. I haven't found Steiner's lectures on Esoteric Lessons before, I only know these exercises from the books, which are basically exercepts from different lectures compiled together in a flow. "Six Steps in Self-Development" and "Strengthening The Will" are the books I have on it. I think he might have mentioned some of them in An Outline of Occult Science but I haven't read it.

I will have a look at the Brian Gray video.

[AshvinP]

Does anyone have clearer understanding of Rudolf Steiner's exercises on maintaining emotional equilibrium? I'm not always sure how to do that without numbing or blunting feelings.

I think one way would be, say I am frustrated and impatient with something, I could take a moment and focus on the breath and silence to clear away the mind, let the feelings and thoughts pass. And, if going deeper is needed, I could query myself things like what is making me feel frustrated/impatient, and why? Where is it happening in my body, etc. Becoming conscious of the unconscious might be needed for some situations. But I suppose there are infinite possible techniques that could be created or imagined.

Luke,

These are very important exercises to practice. As Federica pointed to, they only still our personalized subjective feelings so that higher, archetypally objective, and sublimely moral feelings can flow into our conscious soul life.

I don't know if you are a sports fan or have a favorite team. One thing I started doing recently is, when I watch my favorite team play, I try to still my positive or negative reactions to what happens. I simply try to observe and appreciate the talents on display and the overall ideal context that has allowed for such sporting events to be carried out. This turns out to be surprisingly more difficult than I thought it would be. Especially with the profiteering and political messaging that is so common in sports now (usually I cheat here by putting the TV on mute and reading during advertisements).

I also have a cat who likes to be an overall pest and she gives me plenty of opportunities to practice maintaining emotional equilibrium I am sure that would be even more true of dogs or, most of all, human children.

In this way, we can turn many things in our daily life routine into helpful exercises.

[Federica]

Thank you, Federica. That is helpful. I haven't found Steiner's lectures on Esoteric Lessons before, I only know these exercises from the books, which are basically exercepts from different lectures compiled together in a flow. "Six Steps in Self-Development" and "Strengthening The Will" are the books I have on it. I think he might have mentioned some of them in An Outline of Occult Science but I haven't read it.

I will have a look at the Brian Gray video.

Yes - reading the lectures, rather than compilations of curated excerpts, is more demanding, but worth it. It provides a somewhat more direct, insightful understanding.

Luke, I was thinking about your example of frustration and impatience, that I can relate to (although my feelings are always more challenged by other people than by situations) and I thought I would comment. Please keep in mind, this is only a beginner, limited understanding. I am sharing it because it has led to some improvement in myself.

I believe the main task in this exercise is not so much to attend to this or that particular peak in feelings, this or that event that we experience as an overflow of feelings - and that we try to remedy with things like a deep breath, an attempt to enquire the deeper reasons, etcetera. I don't think it's harmful to do so. However, it may be scarcely effective, if the overall trend of our 'feeling curve' throughout the days is not brought into clearer and clearer awareness, and addressed.

So I believe it's first and foremost a matter of freely deciding to direct attention to the 'anatomy' of our feeling activity. I say 'freely' to mean that we don't wait to be compelled by an uncomfortable feeling peak. This ground work is best done when we are not overwhelmed by any particular feeling currents. It's a regular turning of the focus of attention towards our ground habit of emotional reactivity, with the intention to gain more control over it through aware observation, calm vigilance.

For me, this starts from the second Steiner quote I shared, by first realizing that the triggers of my feeling peaks are nothing other than the unfolding of karma, that I should strive to accept, and also conceive to interact with - in an inner stance that's both passive and active. In my experience, this preventive work already takes away a good part of restless reactivity to those triggers, the moment they do pop up in the flow of our daily events. I have notice that, when I start owning what comes to me as 'event from outside', positive or negative, instead of being saddedned, shocked, outraged, or completely elated, euphoric, or in disbelief, I can also start to somehow interact with the events. I get a sense of becoming able to steer them, to some minor extent. Surfing is a good analogy. I can orient the direction of events a little, rather than being only stuck in an emotional reactivity that occupies the whole feeling space and impedes any fruitful interaction with the flow of becoming, as it happens.

When one does that every day - summoning a sense of inner tranquility - out of free initiative (rather than waiting to be upset by this or that feeling) it becomes clear we are arbitrarily upset by feeling peaks, not by the events themselves. We are upset by our own reactivity to the events. So when we become more conscious of this reactivity, we skip falling prey to arbitrary emotional peaks. In my experience this work is actually not as demanding as it may seem. And it's almost immediately rewarding.

Maybe it's self-evident why this work doesn't numb the life of feelings, why it actually allows it to flourish. It’s because the beneficial, all-round expression of feelings does not reside at all in the peaks. The emotional peaks disperse the power and intensity of Feeling, therefore they need to be brought back to equanimous balance. I’m not sure if the following is correct, but I would say that, as much as the idea of verticality is helpful for Thinking, and how to lift it above the flat, reality-mimicking mode, for Feeling it’s more useful to imagine that we want to give it breadth, span, and roundness. We want to forge Feeling into a large and warm foundation, taking away the random, angular peaks, making it round, and full, and equal, and self-contained. We want to give Feeling the quality of being always sufficient and abundant at the same time, like a circle is. In a word, we want to elevate Feeling by making it equanimous. So by mastering the peaks, we are going to experience more intense, conscious, round, and rewarding feelings, that better support active, vertical Thinking and work in concert with it, and don't drag it down to uninspired intellectual thought sequences.


I would also like to say, I have taken a look at a few other Vimeo videos from Brian Gray, who teaches the Foundation Program in Anthroposophy at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA. I think he’s a great teacher!

[Federica]

I will have a look at the Brian Gray video.

In fact, someone put that video on Youtube, so I can share the link.

This past weekend, I have watched half of Brian Gray's three video lectures on Esoteric Christianity. Let me know, anyone, if you are watching them, I am really enjoying these lectures (though I think they are great for beginners like me, maybe less interesting for those who are very familiar with the topic).

[LukeJTM]

Luke,

These are very important exercises to practice. As Federica pointed to, they only still our personalized subjective feelings so that higher, archetypally objective, and sublimely moral feelings can flow into our conscious soul life.

I don't know if you are a sports fan or have a favorite team. One thing I started doing recently is, when I watch my favorite team play, I try to still my positive or negative reactions to what happens. I simply try to observe and appreciate the talents on display and the overall ideal context that has allowed for such sporting events to be carried out. This turns out to be surprisingly more difficult than I thought it would be. Especially with the profiteering and political messaging that is so common in sports now (usually I cheat here by putting the TV on mute and reading during advertisements).

I also have a cat who likes to be an overall pest and she gives me plenty of opportunities to practice maintaining emotional equilibrium I am sure that would be even more true of dogs or, most of all, human children.

In this way, we can turn many things in our daily life routine into helpful exercises.

I don't watch a lot of sports, but I'm sure there are things I can use the exercise for. Dogs are one for me. Certainly not easy to apply this exercise to.

The bit that is tricky for me to understand is how do I do this without repressing feelings. Your example with watching the game makes sense. So what you're trying to say is that you are trying to look beyond just who is winning, and taking into account the skills and talents people have, how is the game being weaved together, or what makes tonight's match possible, etc.

So I believe it's first and foremost a matter of freely deciding to direct attention to the 'anatomy' of our feeling activity. I say 'freely' to mean that we don't wait to be compelled by an uncomfortable feeling peak. This ground work is best done when we are not overwhelmed by any particular feeling currents. It's a regular turning of the focus of attention towards our ground habit of emotional reactivity, with the intention to gain more control over it through aware observation, calm vigilance.

That makes sense. Do you think it harmonizes well with the review exercises? As in, connecting our feeling peaks from the day's activities (or perhaps the week), and seeing what can be learnt from in the broader picture. If that makes sense.
I believe all the exercises were intended to work as a whole anyway.

[LukeJTM]

When I have done the control of thinking exercises, I feel the sensation in the head that Rudolf Steiner mentions. But he suggests spreading that sensation throughout the body. Is that necessary? Or is it an optional addition for deepening the mental focus? I don't understand fully why he is suggesting that.

[Federica]

So I believe it's first and foremost a matter of freely deciding to direct attention to the 'anatomy' of our feeling activity. I say 'freely' to mean that we don't wait to be compelled by an uncomfortable feeling peak. This ground work is best done when we are not overwhelmed by any particular feeling currents. It's a regular turning of the focus of attention towards our ground habit of emotional reactivity, with the intention to gain more control over it through aware observation, calm vigilance.

That makes sense. Do you think it harmonizes well with the review exercises? As in, connecting our feeling peaks from the day's activities (or perhaps the week), and seeing what can be learnt from in the broader picture. If that makes sense.
I believe all the exercises were intended to work as a whole anyway.

It surely harmonizes with the review exercise, since the review is meant to evaluate ourselves as if another person was doing it. Going through the daily events in reverse, we can certainly gauge how we have reacted to situations in feeling, and how well we have been aware and in control of those reactions. Also, we can attempt to judge how well we've been able, during the day, to give rise to feeling intentionally, without the prompting of any external situation. This is the other side of our improved control-awareness of Feeling. For example, when meditating on some supra-human virtues, and how incomparably more intense and pure they are in relation to their human equivalent, we can come to know in feeling a tiny bit of that greatness by letting our heart be lifted up and awed by it, until it runs over.

The exercises were certainly intended to work as a whole, which is well symbolized in the star/petalled form used in the video above.

[Federica]

When I have done the control of thinking exercises, I feel the sensation in the head that Rudolf Steiner mentions. But he suggests spreading that sensation throughout the body. Is that necessary? Or is it an optional addition for deepening the mental focus? I don't understand fully why he is suggesting that.

Luke, are you referring to the blue below?

The first condition is the cultivation of absolutely clear thinking. For this purpose a man must rid himself of the will-o'-the-wisps of thought, even if only for a very short time during the day - about five minutes (the longer, the better). He must become the ruler in his world of thought. He is not the ruler if external circumstances, occupation, some tradition or other, social relationships, even membership of a particular race, the daily round of life, certain activities and so forth, determine a thought and how he works it out. Therefore during this brief time, acting entirely out of his own free will, he must empty the soul of the ordinary, everyday course of thoughts and by his own initiative place one single thought at the centre of his soul. The thought need not be a particularly striking or interesting one. Indeed it will be all the better for what has to be attained in an occult respect if a thoroughly uninteresting and insignificant thought is chosen. Thinking is then impelled to act out of its own energy the essential thing here, whereas an interesting thought carries the thinking along with it. It is better if this exercise in thought-control is undertaken with a pin rather than with Napoleon. The pupil says to himself: Now I start from this thought, and through my own inner initiative I associate with it everything that is pertinent to it. At the end of the period the thought should be just as colourful and living as it was at the beginning. This exercise is repeated day by day for at least a month; a new thought may be taken every day, or the same thought may be adhered to for several days. At the end of the exercise an endeavour is made to become fully conscious of that inner feeling of firmness and security which will soon be noticed by paying subtler attention to one's own soul; the exercise is then brought to a conclusion by focusing the thinking upon the head and the middle of the spine (brain and spinal cord), as if the feeling of security were being poured into this part of the body.

If yes, I believe the exercise would remain useful even without the recommended conclusion. But why cut it off? I think it's a great opportunity to exert our cognition vertically, as Ashvin just explained in his latest post. It's a chance of participation, of acting creatively, by embodying (literally in this case) the imperceptible connections existing across our four bodies, and our three activities of Thinking, Feeling, and Will. We can start knowing those connections by 'doing' through direct cognition, first person. You spoke just above of your understanding of the interconnectedness of all 6 basic exercises. Well, this is an opportunity to make that understanding living, as opposed to theoretical. By bringing the focus of the thinking intention in specific areas of the body, we actualize that interconnectedness, in this case, between Thinking and Will, between consciousness and physical body. As Ashvin pointed out:

Generally, we grossly underestimate how much our intentional thought-life influences our soul-body organism, positively and negatively, and relatedly how much thought-control we can exercise over our organism with imaginative development, wholesome spiritual habits, and persistent effort.

Now if you ask why the middle of the spine in particular, I have no idea. But I also have no issue trusting the recommendation. It's the reasoned faith that, even if we don't yet fully understand why he is suggesting that, it surely is a worthy practice.

[AshvinP]

Luke,

These are very important exercises to practice. As Federica pointed to, they only still our personalized subjective feelings so that higher, archetypally objective, and sublimely moral feelings can flow into our conscious soul life.

I don't know if you are a sports fan or have a favorite team. One thing I started doing recently is, when I watch my favorite team play, I try to still my positive or negative reactions to what happens. I simply try to observe and appreciate the talents on display and the overall ideal context that has allowed for such sporting events to be carried out. This turns out to be surprisingly more difficult than I thought it would be. Especially with the profiteering and political messaging that is so common in sports now (usually I cheat here by putting the TV on mute and reading during advertisements).

I also have a cat who likes to be an overall pest and she gives me plenty of opportunities to practice maintaining emotional equilibrium I am sure that would be even more true of dogs or, most of all, human children.

In this way, we can turn many things in our daily life routine into helpful exercises.

I don't watch a lot of sports, but I'm sure there are things I can use the exercise for. Dogs are one for me. Certainly not easy to apply this exercise to.

The bit that is tricky for me to understand is how do I do this without repressing feelings. Your example with watching the game makes sense. So what you're trying to say is that you are trying to look beyond just who is winning, and taking into account the skills and talents people have, how is the game being weaved together, or what makes tonight's match possible, etc.

Right, but even more important I would say is to pay attention to the course of our inner life as we engage in various daily activities. We should enter into all such familiar experiences with the attitude that it is a great mystery, a 'black box' of occurrences which project into our surface consciousness as dim reactions with sympathy or antipathy, negative or positive emotions, approving or disapproving opinions, etc. But now, since we are on a spiritual path, we have the opportunity to pay closer attention and expand our consciousness, however slightly at first, into the deeper movements. We can try to sense the depth of passions or feelings before they are encrusted into the concepts by which we report them to ourselves via the inner voice. And after the fact we can continue reflecting on this differentiation. There is definitely no use in trying to forcibly avoid any and all reactions to events we observe. What is most important is to simply observe our reactions as well and gradually develop an inner sense for anticipating them before we are reporting on them after the fact with our concepts.

[LukeJTM]

Ok thank you Ashvin and Federica for the detailed and excellent responses. That clarified everything now.