2. Human beings as Spiritual and Soul Beings

This results, for example, in the following: if one arrives at a true observation of the soul or self in the manner I will describe later, one can see how, in ordinary life as human beings, we are indeed dependent in our soul experience on the ideas that life gives us. When a person leaves their soul life to its own devices in the present moment, the ideas that have entered their soul through impressions from the outside world play out within it. In a certain sense, they are truly a kind of slave to their ideas. Theodor Ziehen says, in a limited sense, but quite rightly: “We cannot think as we want, but must think as the associations that are currently present determine,” because this or that impression has been made on us, which evokes another impression. Thus, according to Ziehen, we are at the mercy of impressions. This is absolutely correct in a limited sense. In ordinary life, we are not as free in our thinking as we think we are. But we are also not as dependent as Theodor Ziehen believes. Those who are able to observe their souls know that although we are strongly dependent on the impressions we receive, this only lasts for a certain period of time. This is something that today's official psychology does not give much thought to. An idea that is evoked by an impression does, however, tyrannize us. When I have seen a friend, this idea haunts me, it evokes other ideas about other friends, about shared experiences with these friends, and so on. We are dependent on these ideas, but only for a certain period of time. And this period of time can even be determined, I would say, experimentally within ourselves. This period lasts only two to three days. For two to three days, however, we are devoted to a received impression like slaves. After this time, however, the power with which such an impression affects our soul changes. We then come into the inner mental position of behaving toward an impression as the impression previously behaved toward us. We were previously its slave; after two to three days, we become its master. One can do this in the following way, for example. If one has a feeling for inner soul life — and we will see how this feeling is attained — one can ask oneself: What is the difference between surrendering to inner soul life, which takes place as if by itself over a certain period of time, and reading a book? When I read a book, I cannot allow myself to be carried from one idea to another. I would not make any progress in reading if I allowed myself to be carried away by ideas that an impression has evoked in me; rather, I must devote myself to the ideas that flow from the book. Then I come under the power of the author. It is the author who then controls the flow of my ideas. Similar to what happens when my ideas are dominated by the ideas that flow from the book, I become my true self when I have lived through an impression for two or three days in relation to that impression. I then do not surrender to the association that this impression wants to evoke, but I have the inner strength to combine this impression with others. A complete transformation of an impression takes place in the human soul when this impression has remained in the soul for two or three days.