{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 65/1915-12-10/p008","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"On the other hand, one can say that it is just as intimate an inner experience of the will as that which I have described was an inner experience of thinking. In ordinary life, one performs actions that arise from impulses of will, from wishes and desires. But one does not pay attention to the fact that there is something special in this will. That there is something special in the will of man comes to one when one withdraws from life, even if only for minutes, in meditation, and looks at how one has willed; when one inwardly directs the soul not to a willing that passes into the outer action, but to an inward beholding of the willing. Incidentally, anyone who performs their thought meditation in the right way will automatically come to this inner contemplation of the will. For meditation, in so far as it is also just a placing-in-the-middle-of-consciousness of a thought, is at the same time an intimate summoning of an inner volitional process. One experiences the volition in such a way that one is inwardly together with it. Through the intensification, through the strengthening of that which has already been called meditation for the previous soul experience, it follows quite naturally that one learns to direct one's attention to the inner process of willing in such a way as one never directs it when the willing simply passes over into outer action, because there one directs one's attention to what one wills in the outer sense world. But one must direct one's attention to a volitional process, insofar as the essence of this volitional process takes place within the soul. It must again be a very intimate process. And it is precisely this volition that one recognizes best of all in the meditation process itself, if one really experiences the meditation process only inwardly. And then it turns out that by doing this again and again with inner perseverance and energy, one finally comes to a point where one discovers an inner observer within oneself. It is difficult to express this, because it is so far removed from ordinary thought habits that it seems as if one is speaking of something terribly fantastic, whereas one is speaking of a reality that one really comes upon. Thus one discovers an inner man in oneself, who continually looks at what is going on in our volitions, in our whole volition, an observer of whom one is unaware in ordinary life because one does not direct one's attention to him. Not a thought, but a real being is constantly watching us and is in our will. Just as we relate to the things of external perception with our thoughts, so something in us relates to our will. What color and sound are for the senses and for the consciousness that perceives the external world, that is our will for an inner observer. There is an inner observer in us, for whom we provide the material for observation in our decisions of will and in our executions of will, just as colors and sounds provide the material for observation for us in the outer world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"4. The Human Soul and the Human Spirit","site_heading":null,"date":"1915-12-10","location":null,"word_count":527,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/65/1915-12-10/p008","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"From Central European Intellectual Life","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA065/English/SOL2024/19151210p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/65/1915-12-10/p008"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/65/1915-12-10/p008","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 65/1915-12-10/p008","passage_number":8,"text":"Von der anderen Seite kann man sagen: sie ist ebenso ein innerlich intimes Erleben des Willens, wie das, was ich geschildert habe, ein innerliches Erleben des Denkens war. Im gewöhnlichen Leben verrichtet man seine Handlungen, die aus den Willensimpulsen, aus Wunsch und Begehren hervorgehen. Aber man wendet die Aufmerksamkeit nicht darauf, daß in diesem Willen etwas Besonderes steckt. Daß in dem Wollen des Menschen etwas Besonderes steckt, darauf kommt man, wenn man sich, sei es auch nur für Minuten, meditierend aus dem Leben zurückzieht und darauf hinsieht, wie man gewollt hat; wenn man innerlich die Seele nicht auf ein Wollen richtet, das in die äußere Handlung übergeht, sondern auf ein innerliches Beschauen des Wollens. Derjenige übrigens, der seine Gedankenmeditation in der richtigen Weise vollführt, kommt ganz von selbst zu diesem innerlichen Beschauen des Wollens. Denn es ist das Meditieren, insofern es auch nur ein In-die-Mitte-des-Bewußtseins-Stellen eines Gedankens ist, zugleich ein intimes Aufbringen eines inneren Willensvorganges. Man erlebt das Wollen so, daß man mit ihm innerlich beisammen ist. Durch die Verstärkung, durch die Erkraftung desjenigen, was schon für das vorige Seelenerleben Meditieren genannt worden ist, ergibt sich ganz von selbst, daß man die Aufmerksamkeit lenken lernt auf den innerlichen Vorgang des Wollens so, wie man sie niemals darauf richtet, wenn das Wollen eben in das äußere Handeln übergeht, weil man da seine Aufmerksamkeit auf dasjenige richtet, was man in der äußeren Sinnenwelt will. Aber man muß seine Aufmerksamkeit auf einen Willensvorgang richten, insofern das Wesentliche dieses Willensvorganges im Innern der Seele abläuft. Es muß wiederum ein ganz innerlich intimer Prozeß sein. Und gerade dieses Wollen erkennt man am allerbesten im Meditationsprozeß selber, wenn man nur den Meditationsprozeß wirklich innerlich erlebt. Und da stellt sich denn heraus, daß man dann, indem man dies immer weiter und weiter in innerlicher Ausdauer und Energie vollbringt, endlich zu einem Punkte kommt, wo man einen inneren Beobachter in sich entdeckt. Es ist schwierig, so etwas zu sagen, weil es so ferne den gewöhnlichen Denkgewohnheiten liegt, so daß es aussieht, als ob man von etwas furchtbar Phantastischem spräche, während man von einer Realität spricht, auf die man wirklich kommt. Man entdeckt also einen inneren Menschen in sich, der fortwährend hinschaut auf dasjenige, was in unseren Willensentschlüssen, in unserem ganzen Wollen vorgeht, — einen Beobachter, von dem man im gewöhnlichen Leben nichts weiß, weil man eben nicht seine Aufmerksamkeit auf ihn richtet. Nicht ein gedachtes, sondern ein reales Wesen schaut in uns wirklich fortwährend zu und steckt in unserem Willen. So wie wir uns mit unseren Gedanken verhalten zu den Dingen der äußeren Wahrnehmung, so verhält sich etwas in uns zu unserer Willensentfaltung. Was die Farbe, die Töne für die Sinne sind und für das Bewußtsein, das die Außenwelt wahrnimmt, das ist unser Wollen für einen innerlichen Beobachter. Da steckt ein innerlicher Beobachter in uns, für den wir genau so in unseren Willensentschlüssen, in unseren Willensvollführungen das Material der Beobachtung liefern, wie uns die Farben, wie die Töne das Material der Beobachtung uns für die Außenwelt liefern.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":499,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/65/1915-12-10/p008"}],"english":["GA 65/1915-12-10/p008"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":499,"en_words":527,"ratio":1.06,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.04,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":11977,"original_word_count":11532,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"From Central European Intellectual Life","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA065/English/SOL2024/19151210p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 65/1915-12-10/p008"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}