49. The Practical Training of Thinking
GA 68b/1909-02-13/p055
·1909-02-13
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Da keine professionellen Stenogramme vorliegen, handelt es sich oftmals um notizenhaft festgehaltene Zusammenfassungen oder Berichte.» (Since no professional shorthand transcripts exist, these are often summaries or reports kept in the form of notes.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68b). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
This is very difficult and requires a great deal of energy. But it is of immense value to suppress all those errant thoughts that surge up and down within us and to think nothing at all. What is thinking in us is also there when we are not thinking along with it. This is best achieved when we are not present for a while. Because then we do not stand in the way through our personality, through our individuality. Just as it is work when we consider various possibilities and then let the thoughts work by themselves, it is essential that we let the power of thought work without us being there, that we let the thinking being develop in us, even if only for a few moments, without our intervention. Anyone who does this for a long time will notice the great benefit of such a thing.
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