Home Remedy

What can we say now that hasn’t already been said about the massive social changes we are weathering as Covid-19 has spread around the world. Some of us live in hotspots with thousands of people dying and others don’t, but never before in our lifetimes have we shared a crisis affecting everyone on the planet. Whether or not we know someone who has suffered or died from their susceptibility to the virus, we have certainly felt compassion for those victims and their families.

We have been amazed by the dedication of all those people who are serving on the front lines. And we’ve probably felt confusion and fear about our own safety and the safety of our loved ones. What happens to our soul—the bearer of our emotions, our passions—under the stress of these biproducts of the pandemic? We know that when we allow fear and anxiety to infiltrate our soul, our physical well-being is affected, too. Is there a remedy for these soul ailments?

Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:

We have only to remember that feelings and sensations, fear and anxiety of the unknown future, gnaw at our souls. Is there anything that can pour some certainty about the future into our souls? It is what we may call the feeling of devoted acceptance of (that which) enters our souls from the hidden future, and it can only work properly if it arises as an attitude of prayer*. Let us avoid misunderstanding. We are not praising what here or there is considered to be acceptance, but a definite form, an acceptance of what the future can bring forth. If we look to the future with fear and anxiety, we strangle our development and hamper the free unfolding of our soul forces. Nothing so obstructs this development as anxiety about what may come to the soul from the future. Only actual experience, however, can judge the results of the right feeling of acceptance of the future. What does such devoted acceptance mean?

In its ideal form it would be the sort of soul attitude that would assure us that no matter what might come, no matter what the next hour or day might bring, were it unknown to us, we could not alter it by fear or anxiety. We should wait for it, therefore, in complete inner peace and utter tranquility…

If we develop (a) feeling of submission in regard to all that may come to us from the future, we shall find that we meet everything in the external world with the same certainty and hope. This we have gained from our submissiveness. We know that in everything it is the wisdom of the world that shines before us… Through our submission, we see how the feeling arises in us that all the wisdom of the world shines through what we long for and desire as the highest. Thus, it is hope for illumination of the entire world that comes to us in the devotions of prayer. When darkness encloses us within ourselves and narrowness and confusion surround us even in the physical, when we stand in the gloom and black of night, we feel when morning comes and we meet the light as if we are placed beyond ourselves.

* A true prayer can give everyone something. Even the simplest person, who knows nothing more than the mere prayer, can still feel its effect, which calls forth the power to raise him ever higher. But whatever height we may have achieved, we are never finished with a prayer. Our souls can always be raised higher.

An excerpt from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner in Berlin, February 17, 1910

We are living in an extraordinary time, yet we have no choice but to see that some of us become better, stronger examples of what it means to be human while others let fear manifest in hatred, distrust, and judgment toward others. The choice of the kind of person we wish to be is a choice only we can make. And we make that choice best when we are in a state of equanimity as the future approaches us. We can pray for this inner strength.

A Verse for Our Time

We must eradicate from the soul

All fear and terror of what comes towards man out of the future.

We must acquire serenity

In all feelings and sensations about the future.

We must look forward with absolute equanimity

To everything that may come.

And we must think only that whatever comes

Is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom.

It is part of what we must learn in this age,

namely, to live out of pure trust,

Without any security in existence.

Trust in the ever present help

Of the spiritual world.

Truly, nothing else will do

If our courage is not to fail us.

And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves

Every morning and every evening.

Balance

Work-Life Balance is one of the Topic pages of the Harvard Business Review indicating its importance along with other more traditional topics such as Managing People, Communication, and Technology. Lots of us are demanding that the “work” side of the balance be lightened, and employers are taking notice by offering their employees incentives like playful workplace environments, flexible hours, the chance to work off-site, etc. The “life” side of the balance—travel and adventure, scaling mountains or skiing down them, time with friends and families, eating good food, reading good books—comprises experiences that more and more of us consider to be essential to life.

Creating a healthy work-life balance requires us to think about which experiences we want to have and how to prioritize them, knowing all along that the experiences we choose now will vary over the course of our lifetimes due to circumstances, both inward and outward, that will change. We can think about our lives in this way because we are conscious beings who can act purposefully to create the experiences, both inward and outward, that we wish to have.

Back in the third post, Seeing Red, we explored how the outer world is perceived through our senses and how our thinking attaches meaning to that which we perceive; this is consciousness. If we couldn’t attach meaning to our perceptions, we wouldn’t be human. Steiner says that what we feel about our experiences belongs to our soul, and what we learn from our experiences belongs to our spirit. In other words, we are spiritual beings because we have experiences, we feel something about them, and we learn from them.

Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:

The soul nature of man is not determined by the body alone. Man does not wander aimlessly and without purpose from one sensation to another, nor does he act under the influence of every casual incitement that plays upon him either from without or through the processes of his body. He thinks about his perceptions and his acts. By thinking about his perceptions, he gains knowledge of things. By thinking about his acts, he introduces a reasonable coherence into his life. He knows that he will worthily fulfill his duty as man only when he lets himself be guided by correct thoughts in knowing as well as acting… Nature subjects man to the laws of changing matter, but he subjects himself to the laws of thought. By this means he makes himself a member of a higher order than the one to which he belongs through his body. This order is the spiritual.

The spiritual is as different from the soul as the soul is from the body. As long as only the particles of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen that are in motion in the body are spoken of, we do not have the soul in view. Soul life begins only when within the motion of these particles the feeling arises, “I taste sweetness,” or “I feel pleasure.” Likewise, we do not have the spirit in view as long as merely those soul experiences are considered that course through anyone who gives himself over entirely to the outer world and his bodily life. This soul life is rather the basis of the spiritual just as the body is the basis of the soul life. The biologist is concerned with the body, the investigator of the soul—the psychologist—with the soul, and the investigator of the spirit with the spirit. It is incumbent upon those who would understand the nature of man by means of thinking, first to make clear to themselves through self-reflection the difference between body, soul, and spirit.”

Excerpt from: Theosophy, Chapter 1: The Essential Nature of Man, 1904 by Rudolf Steiner.

Natural science still hasn’t found the answer to human consciousness. David Chalmers*, who coined the phrase “hard problem” when referring to the question of consciousness itself, wants to understand what experiences are. Thus far, looking at the operation of the brain and trying to find out how and why it would create an experience out of perceptions and concepts, hasn’t yielded any results. In fact, Chalmers, who has been looking at this hard problem for decades, is now proposing that consciousness may be a fundamental like time and space; that maybe it isn’t brain-based. This is radical thinking for natural science, but it will be spiritual science that provides the means by which we will understand human consciousness and how it evolves.

Immanuel Kant recognized the soul; he simply said we can never know about its origin. Steiner says we can. Not through some kind of blind faith, and not through a materialist science, but through a spiritual science that develops our consciousness to perceive the whole world, not just the material one. Imagine the work-life balance we might achieve if we expanded our consciousness? If you want to know more, you can read Steiner.

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* David Chalmers is a philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University, and a Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. He is also well-known for introducing the "hard problem" of consciousness, which has sparked immense discussion and research in the philosophy of mind, psychology, and neuroscience.

“Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousness

“How do you explain consciousness?”

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalmers_how_do_you_explain_consciousness/discussion?c=62080#t-272575