As living human beings, the most important thing we can do for ourselves – and everyone else – is to continue to learn and grow. Sometimes, all it takes is to apply an unaccustomed depth of attention to the world happening every second around us to open our minds to the new.
Scrolling through the various media is not sufficient. Yes, we encounter a cat doing something we’ve never seen before or a person falling in a stupendous way, or even a great vocalist performing, but this curated entertainment is two-dimensional, and you are not. We belong in the three-dimensional world, and that world is our best teacher. For example, did we see a squirrel dashing up the tree where we’d never seen one before? What color, red or grey? Why is it suddenly running; is danger chasing it? Is the day warm, is the sun shining, are there mountains in the distance, are birds singing in the trees, are there more small animals scuttling among the leaves? It belongs here—it is indigenous. Its needs are met here, yet danger still exists… As we pay close attention to the squirrel, our thoughts expand; we begin to see how we connect with everything in the world around us. As we observe the squirrel and its environs, we observe ourselves too.
This same attention can be applied to new ideas. Sure, we already know a lot, but we can build on what we know rather than argue against what we don’t already know. The only way to do this is to try to accept a new idea without judging it for a moment; to stop and give the idea some attention and room to breathe. How does the idea feel as I think about it? How does the person who believes it feel? How does this idea fit into the world? Is there any aspect of this idea that works for me? What would change about us if I believed this?
In this fifth essential exercise, Steiner leads us toward advancing soul capacities through accepting new thoughts and new experiences. We can perhaps imagine why this exercise follows the previous four.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
In the fifth month, efforts should be made to develop the feeling of confronting every new experience with complete open-mindedness. The esoteric pupil must break entirely with the attitude which, in the face of something just heard or seen, exclaims: “I never heard that, or I never saw that, before; I don’t believe it – it’s an illusion.” At every moment the student must be ready to encounter and accept absolutely new experiences. What he has hitherto recognized as being in accordance with natural law, or what he has regarded as possible, should present no obstacle to the acceptance of a new truth. Although radically expressed, it is absolutely correct that if anyone were to come to the esoteric pupil and say, “Since last night the steeple of such and such a church has been tilted right over”, the esotericist should leave a loophole open for the contingency of his becoming convinced that previous knowledge of natural law could somehow be augmented by such an apparently unprecedented fact.
If he turns his attention, in the fifth month, to developing this attitude of mind, he will notice creeping into his soul a feeling as if something were becoming alive, astir, in the space referred to in connection with the exercise for the fourth month. This feeling is exceedingly delicate and subtle. Efforts must be made to be attentive to this delicate vibration in the environment and to let it stream, as it were, through all the five senses, especially through the eyes, the ears, and through the skin, in so far as the latter contains the sense of warmth. At this stage of esoteric development, less attention is paid to the impressions made by these stimuli on the other senses of taste, smell and touch. At this stage it is still not possible to distinguish the numerous bad influences which intermingle with the good influences in this sphere; the pupil therefore leaves this for a later stage.
Lack of prejudice. We should remain flexible, always capable of taking in new information. If someone relates something to us which we think sounds improbable, we must nevertheless always keep a tiny corner of our heart open, in which we say: “He could be right after all.” This does not need to make us completely uncritical, for we can always examine and test such statements. When we practice this, a feeling comes over us as if something was streaming into us from outside. We draw this in through the eyes, ears and the whole skin.
Excerpt from: Guidance in Esoteric Training by Rudolf Steiner.
Next month we come to the last of these six exercises. Meanwhile, we can reflect on the reality that we are always becoming something anew—even when we do nothing. Put another way, doing nothing is impossible because we are always becoming. Who are we becoming? These exercises are teaching us to guide ourselves purposefully. The world around us is also eternally becoming. We can be either blindsided by the events of the day every morning when we wake up or we can become masters of the way we encounter every day. It’s our choice—which is pretty remarkable when we think about it.