143. Development of Contemplative Consciousness

The first requirement is the realization that in the ordinary life of an average person, inner experiences do not show their reality, but only images of this reality. The actual self, the “I”, does live in our daily life; but it lives as an image – any sleep can convince us of this –; this “I” does not live differently in our daily life than it does in deep sleep. – And thinking, feeling and willing, insofar as they are imagined, are like dreams.

In the world of perception, we experience the effect of an external world on our organism; in the impulses of the will, the inner world – that which is actually real – does not come to light. In the world of perception, reality is hidden from us; in the world of the will, it hides itself from us.

The nature of the world of perception means that science can never arrive at anything other than a view of the world that distances itself from true reality, which makes all its ideas feel like ingredients of reality. The nature of the world of will requires that man cannot understand himself, that he cannot form ideas out of the dark depths of his being; but ideas that cannot free themselves create instability and weakness of the inner being.

It is a matter of leading the hidden world of the inner being through the ceiling of the world of perception – just as the soul world hidden in the sleeping human being is placed in the environment of the outer world through awakening.

An awakening to a more intense soul life is taking place. The thinking consciousness is joined by the seeing consciousness.

It is sufficient for life to be informed of the results of the seeing consciousness, because these results justify themselves to the thinking being.

The ordinary life of the soul must be grasped by the hidden one. The corresponding science is acquired through inner soul work.

The beginnings for this are certainly there. — Goethe:

The blue gives us a feeling of cold, just as it also reminds us of the shade. Blue glass shows the objects in a sad light.

The effect of this color (red) is as unique as its nature. It gives an impression of both seriousness and dignity, as well as of grace and charm. It achieves the latter in its dark, condensed state, and the former in its light, diluted state.

Developing this beginning leads to an awakening of the soul in the external world. And to the realization that in ordinary perception through sense impression, something spiritual is hidden.

In this way, the soul can be pushed into another reality, just as one pushes the unconscious soul into the reality of the day when awakening. Another beginning lies in Goethe's theory of metamorphosis. Blossom transformed plant.

In man, what is only imagined in the external world can be experienced.

Thus, what is hidden in the physical organism is found — supersensible forces that work on its structure —: these forces are the being that, from the moment man turns his senses to the external world, turn inwardly in creation — the not yet born man looks at his inner self a being that does not live in the outer world. Seen from the outside (with the inner self), death intervenes; seen from the inside (with the soul life rooted in the spiritual world), the becoming of the new human intervenes.

The faculties are acquired when:

1. When thinking becomes so strong that it is alive, lives independently, can then, as it were, be sent as a messenger into the world and bring back its experiences. (It must live without perception.

2. When the will becomes so spiritual that it develops its own consciousness, it then observes how the soul arises when the physical passes away.

3. Ordinary thinking lives in the perceptions of the senses with the strength it has discarded when it ceased to animate the organism.

4. The ordinary will develops a consciousness with the help of the organism in order to break away from it. It begins its life in the organism and continues it outside of it. (Thus: thinking becomes stronger to the point of having a life of its own; the will becomes more independent to the point of having a meaningful consciousness).

An inner sense of responsibility develops in thinking. One rejects certain thoughts, just as one rejects certain actions. One feels obliged to others to have them. This (alternately) accommodates: an experience of how one thought is fruitful, bearing, bearing reality; the other cancelling reality.

Learning knowledge: living with connecting in the emergence; living with distinguishing in the passing away. Adding: like an invigoration – subtracting: like a destruction.

Ideal: (valid for the experience of the spiritual world – and for this) – thoughts only for the development of the soul life.

Judging (in which the will lives) in such a way that one lets already existing experiences speak – lets only the facts judge –

1. Thoughts as causes: in this way thoughts lead into the spiritual world.

2. Judgments as results: in this way the spiritual world enters into consciousness.

3. You don't allow yourself any theories at all — you just watch. You switch yourself off: you observe how another judges. —

The point of view of another person becomes important to you – your own recedes. – The manifold points of view. – You learn to see that thinking from the outside must be met with something like speaking – and from the inside: understanding what has been said. –

Common sense: the will not just to dream life instinctively, but to understand it. –

Instinct: If one could let one's present will not speak about a present experience, but rather the matured one from an earlier period of development, which has become calm. —

What one experiences now, one does not know; one only knows what one experienced years ago – what one experiences now, one will only know in later years.

This inner mood gradually brings about that vision which is independent of us, the object of which is what cannot yet be seen, what death covers.

In being born, we are psychically ripe to see the world behind death; but it is only through physical life that we become aware of what can be seen.

With the development of thinking, all powers of imagination strive to unfold. With the development of the will, the powers of egoism and everything that furthers it unfold. When properly developed, thinking stops when it wants to lapse into fantasy. — And the will becomes lonely, alienated from the world.

The world is without the spirit
For man like a book
Written in a language
He cannot read
But of which he knows
That its content is life-determining
And spiritual science wants to strive for
The art of reading
She considers herself necessary
Because she must believe
That she is demanded by the life
Itself
Into which humanity
Through the developmental forces
Of the present
Has entered.