Re: Anthroposophy for Dummies
Posted: Fri May 19, 2023 4:23 pm
So if "we experience something of Intuition even in this moment" surely this must be only "murky, convoluted shadows of pure intuitions". Otherwise, why bother with the development of higher cognition. Further, Steiner says, "In ordinary life man has only one “intuition” — namely, of the ego itself". Is Steiner here dismissing our moral intuitions for example?Cleric K wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 7:24 pmWe shouldn't imagine the stages of cognition as completely separate floors of existence. If we use the folding metaphor again, it should be clear that we experience something of Intuition even in this moment.Anthony66 wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 1:34 pm Cleric,
I'm still pondering this sense perception/intuition distinction. What I'm struggling with is how we understand intuitions that appear in our consciousness before we "undress the layers of conditioning". If we haven't reached the state of intuitive cognition, how do we have intuitions? Can we understand them as murky, convoluted shadows of pure intuitions?
So Intuition shouldn't be thought of as something which gives us consciousness only of the higher worlds. It is really the knowing essence of our existence. Probably the closest concept for those familiar with nondual philosophies would be 'awareness'. To be aware implies certain intuitive knowing. Of course, knowing not in conceptual sense. Maybe we can compare this with a kind of intuitive orientation. For example when you look at your room you don't have to think of anything in particular yet you feel 'oriented', you simply know what you're experiencing, it 'makes sense', you are not lost or confused about it.Steiner wrote:Lastly, at the fourth stage of knowledge Inspiration also ceases. Of the elements customarily observed in everyday knowledge, the ego alone remains to be considered. The attainment of this stage by the occult student is marked by a definite inner experience. This experience manifests itself in the feeling that he no longer stands outside the things and occurrences that he recognises, but is himself within them. images are not the object, but merely its imprint. Also, inspiration does not yield up the object itself, but only tells about it. But what now lives in the soul is in reality the object itself. The ego has streamed forth over all beings; it has merged with them. The actual living of things within the soul is Intuition. When it is said of Intuition that “through it man creeps into all things,” this is literally true. — In ordinary life man has only one “intuition” — namely, of the ego itself, for the ego can in no way be perceived from without; it can only be experienced in the inner life.
https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA012/Engli ... 2_c01.html
As the quote above goes, this kind of knowing, for the normal man of today, is experienced only in respect to our "I". The "I" is like the coherent intuition which makes sense of the stream of existence.
Today we understand the world as far as everything that we experience fits in the intuition of our "I"-existence. After all, we can't really speak of understanding of anything outside our experience. Even if we imagine that we understand the universe from a bird eye view, all of this is still the very human philosophical experience of our own "I".
We speak of Intuitive cognition when we know the true nature of the world in the same way we know our "I".