Stoking the Fire

The world seems to be conspiring to make us angry. The very earth itself seems angry now. Vicious storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, heatwaves, tidal waves all seem to echo the blistering storms and heat of our political, economic and social lives. The third decade of the third millennium could be seen as a conflagration of the worst of us. Rudolf Steiner has much to say about this particular time of earth and human evolution, but today we are going to once again look at the inner work we might do to manage it all.

We cannot ignore the injustices and tragedies going on around us, but we don’t have to become victims of them either. Bad things can befall us without our believing we are victims. When we fully understand that we have asked for these hardships of life—that we have placed ourselves in the midst of them to gain mastery of ourselves—we come to an inner realization that is a rich source of empowerment allowing us to extract ourselves from the outer feelings of blame or victimhood.

Many of us feel we have every right to be angry by the injustices we perceive. But anger isn’t a solution; it always makes things worse. We may not be active perpetrators to the injustices, fear and hatred we witness, but with deeper insight, we inevitably find our own culpability. We come to see how our own behaviors and beliefs now and in our past lives have contributed to the problems of our time.

What now?

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

Whenever I am angry or irritated, I build a wall around myself in the soul world and the forces that should develop the eyes of my soul cannot approach me. If, for example, someone annoys me, he or she sends a soul current into the soul world. But I cannot see this current as long as I am still capable of anger. My anger hides it from me. This is not to say that if I master my anger, I will immediately perceive such soul (or astral) phenomena. For that, I must first develop an inner eye for my soul.

Each of us possesses such an eye in rudimentary form, but it remains ineffective so long as we are still capable of anger. Not that it appears as soon as we have begun to combat the anger in ourselves. Rather, we must continue on, struggling patiently with our anger, until one day we notice that this inner eye in the soul has opened…

In addition to anger and irritation, we must also struggle against other traits, such as fearfulness, superstition, prejudice, vanity, ambition, curiosity, the urge to gossip, and the tendency to discriminate on the basis of such outer characteristics such as social status, gender, race, and so on.

We may have difficulty in understanding that the struggle against such traits has anything to do with increasing our cognitive abilities. Yet every occultist knows that much more depends on these things than on our ability to expand our intelligence and practice artificial exercises.

Misunderstandings can easily arise if, for example, we believe that the injunction to overcome fear means becoming foolhardy; or that to fight against discrimination based on social status or race means becoming blind to the differences among people. The fact is that we learn to recognize these differences for what they are only when we are no longer caught up in prejudice.

Even in ordinary life, fear of a thing prevents us from seeing it properly. In this sense, racial prejudice prevents us from seeing into a human soul. The esoteric student must take such ordinary common sense and perfect it inwardly with great sensitivity and precision.

Excerpt from: How To Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation, Chapter 4: Practical Considerations, by Rudolf Steiner.

Anger, fear and division are the tools being used in our time to dominate us all. When fear and division are our go-to tools, we do not act in anyone’s best interest, especially our own. If each of us would refuse to pick up these tools, all the useless rhetoric from all sides of an argument would disappear. We cannot make anyone drop a tool they want to use, but we are the only ones who can decide to drop it from our own hand. When we do, we gradually gain a clearer perspective, one that allows us to become a healthful force in the universe instead of a source for more anger and hatred and intolerance.

Later in this book, Steiner expands on this idea. In fact, in more than 6000 books, lectures, and articles, Steiner has made it clear over and over that the goal of all humanity is to achieve mastery over ourselves so that we can consciously cross the threshold into the spiritual world and see what the world is really like.

The world looks as it does today because we have not, as a whole, achieved anything close to that. Yet, every single one of us that begins to work in this way changes the world for the better. We need to decide who we shall be—that is the freedom of our time.

Unintended Consequences

Once we lived with the gods of our mythology; the gods spoke to us, guided us, rewarded and punished us. Most of us believe we’ve outgrown such nonsense; however, the stories of these times were based on real experiences, experiences we had as part of our nature, part of our lives. Those capacities allowing us to know the spiritual world have since faded away from our consciousness as our scientific reasoning developed into our new ideas and eclipsed those of yore.

Rudolf Steiner tells us that in our time, we have spiritual powers that are waiting to be called into consciousness; powers that we may sense and yearn for but that lie hidden deep in our souls. No longer freely given, we need to work on ourselves to access those spiritual powers.

We gain strength for life when we begin to understand the concepts of spiritual science. The ideas discussed in the blog over these past years have given us concepts to ponder about waking and sleeping, birth and death, karma and reincarnation, our four bodies: physical, etheric, astral and ego “I”. We can bring the unsettling chaos of life into perspective when we begin to understand these concepts. The advantages to obtaining this knowledge are obvious to all who have begun on a path leading towards it. We might wonder if any disadvantages exist for ignoring this knowledge during our lives

What if what we don’t know can hurt us?

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

The human being of the present time needs a different relationship to the world than that which the human soul could have in past times in order to find inner satisfaction, calm in the stream of existence. Spiritual science shows us that in the human souls of the present time a certain sum, a kind of fund, of spiritual powers rests hidden within us. These spiritual powers want to emerge from this human soul so that they do not remain hidden. These powers wish to step forth into human consciousness so that people not only feel them as an inner urge, as an inner compulsion, but can place them in their world of ideas, in their world of concepts.

In these deep foundations of the human soul rests a whole sum of forces, which, when brought up into human consciousness, show for the first time what moves us inwardly, what inspires us inwardly. Truly, we are richer and more full of content than we often imagine.

There is now a law, an important essential law, which will gradually be recognized as governing all of existence: that which can be beneficial in one state can have a destructive effect when it asserts itself in another state, as it were in another place.

In what remains hidden from our material consciousness, invisible supersensible forces rest. They rest in what we release into the spiritual world when we sleep, and bring insecurity to us in our behavior, in a lack of direction in life. When these forces are brought up into consciousness, when they are transformed into conscious knowledge, concepts and ideas, then they become beneficial, then they become healing, then they give the person direction and purpose, peace and security in life. It is a peculiar law, and it must be admitted, a difficult law to understand.

But it is true nevertheless: spiritual science gives the spiritual knower deep satisfaction when it enters consciousness, it is an unsettling element, an unsettling force, if it rests below only, unconsciously, in the dark regions of the soul. If it rests unconsciously in these regions, which spiritual science wants to raise to clear knowledge, then it remains without influence on the human ego (“I”); then it surges and billows in the subconscious, then it cannot have any influence on what the person experiences in terms of happiness and pain, of successes and failures. Then we can bring only that part of our nature into successes and failures, into happiness and pain, which goes along with happiness and pain in such a way that the soul loses itself in happiness or sinks in pain, becomes numbed by its successes, filled with pain by its failures. Then the soul goes everywhere with us, then it rocks and floats in the stream of life.

But when the soul’s powers of knowledge about the spiritual world which lie dormant down there in the dark regions are brought up into the ego so that this ego can take the spiritual knowledge with it when life smiles on us in happiness or challenges us in suffering and pain, then the “I” no long rocks and swims in happiness and unhappiness in the stream of life; then it carries a strengthened inner being into happiness and unhappiness, into pain and suffering, and happiness and pain are then experienced differently.

Excerpt from: From a Fateful Time, Lecture 6: Intuitive Insight in the Happy and Serious Hours of Life. By Rudolf Steiner. Berlin. January 15, 1915.

Steiner goes on to explain that we experience happiness and pain differently once we have learned some of the ideas of spiritual science. In a nutshell, we slowly gain control over these emotions. We still experience happiness in all its fullness and joy, but we don’t lose ourselves in it. The same goes for pain. We still suffer just as fully as before, but we don’t lose ourselves in it. We are no longer avidly pursuing more and more happiness, nor are we scared to explore or try to avoid the depths of pain.

Some unintended consequences of staying unaware of our spiritual souls were stated clearly in the excerpt above: insecurity in our behavior, lack of direction in life, losing ourselves in our emotions. The forces trapped in our unconsciousness create disturbances in our waking lives. When spirit flows into our consciousness, we become masters of our own lives. Our destiny shines before us, and the hindrances begin to fall to the wayside. For our own good, we should begin the work.

We Are The Ones

On the temple at Delphi, the Greek mystery student would read: “Know Thyself.” That is still the most basic requirement of spiritual science. Today, however, this requirement is especially daunting because we are so distracted by the culture of our time. Many are content with believing that they are the sum of their upbringing, their place in society, their interests and opinions. Without thinking about why. Why they were brought up in a specific society or why certain things interest them or why they hold this or that opinion. Why they belong to this race or this gender or this religion or this nation or this family.

Spiritual science provides us with a way to find ourselves as we have discussed many times in these posts, including the six basic exercises we shared together from April through September last year. One way to see ourselves now in these divisive times is poetically given to us, and though some attribute it to Hopi elders, it is anonymous. It goes like this:

“You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Yes, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And we are the ones who went before. And we will come again to live in the future we are now preparing. This points to the depth of the demand, “Know Thyself”. This means we need to begin to understand ourselves by accepting the karma we have thus far created for ourselves and how it has extended to all humanity and all the earth. This points to each one of us, not to everyone else.

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

If people today want to feel what they really are, the first thing they think of—whatever other nice theories they might have—is what is within their body, within their skin, really within their skin. It is difficult to get a clear idea of this, in particular, because it is true, and no one believes it in our time because people like to develop all kinds of idealism to hide the fact that basically they only believe in themselves in so far as they are enclosed in their own skin…

What people will experience as their karma in the future will connect them consciously with other people. People will have to experience their karma consciously as something real.

As you can easily imagine, experiencing their karma consciously is still very difficult for people today. As I once said, let us assume that someone gives us a slap in the face. Outwardly, of course, in so far as we are enclosed in our body and are beings between birth and death, we have to defend ourselves against that. But a higher perspective has to be applied beyond that: who was it that gave you the slap in the face? Who put the person who gave you the slap in the place where he could do that? He would not be standing there if you had not put him there through the way you are connected with him through karma.

Just think how incredibly difficult it is for people today to think that. Christians believe that they are people of the present, but truly very few of them follow the one who counsels them: if someone strikes you on the left cheek, turn the other one also (Matthew 5:39)—in thought; outwardly it is not possible. People do not yet differentiate in this way between what is inward and outward. It becomes incredibly difficult for them to live in karma in some way.

And yet, as we enter life from the embryonic period through birth, through early childhood, then that which helps to form our body is our karma. Between our last death and our present birth, we have gone through, and have even taken an interest in going through, how we should experience karma and what kind of body we should have so that we can live out our karma.

In this way, we work on kneading, in a manner of speaking, our body through the soul forces. We even act in a localizing way in that we place ourselves at the location in the world where we can live out our karma. We thus act on our personal destiny with the consciousness which we have between death and a new birth.

Excerpt from: Unifying Humanity Spiritually, Lecture 10 by Rudolf Steiner. Dornach. January 7, 1916.

What does turning the other cheek mean? It means that we have helped form that which befalls us in this lifetime. And we are helping to form what will be when we return. So, yes, we cannot allow ourselves to lie down and be trampled by the outside world, but we need to acknowledge our inner responsibility for why whatever is happening is happening. Knowing ourselves is the only path to freedom. And knowing that we chose this time to live is a key to knowing ourselves. It is a good meditation to think about the truth of that and to respond purposefully to what the times are asking of us.

What does it mean to let go of the shore? To push off into the middle of the river? We have a destination as ourselves and as the human race. When the river is flowing great and swift, we have to be braver – something we’ve also been talking about. Let’s get to it!

Fearlessness

Fear is sewn into the fabric of our everyday lives with ever more intention by the web of voices in media governing all aspects of our lives. Most of us struggle to have any knowledge of ourselves at all because we haven’t figured out how to throw off the heavy blanket of fear and distraction bearing down on us every second we are awake. Maybe this is what will finally motivate us to seek higher knowledge—a way to conquer the fear; a way to make sense of the world.

We are afraid to ask questions of the medical “experts” who, when we think about it, rarely have considered the spiritual natures within and without us that play the most important roles in our health. We are afraid of being out in nature, of believing something different than our peers, of stepping off the competitive ladder of acquiring more and more things, of having children, of war, of climate change, of the government, of other people, of anything new. We are afraid.

In his book, How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation, Rudolf Steiner laid out guidelines to safely acquire higher knowledge. The excerpt below speaks about conquering fear, and he lists it as one of the requirements to pursue this path.

Candidates for initiation must bring with them courage and fearlessness. These have a certain relationship with each other and must be developed together. As esoteric students we must be able to look danger calmly in the eye and overcome difficulties without hesitation. When facing a danger, we should immediately be stirred to the conviction: “All fear is useless. I must not let it take hold of me. I must think only of what is to be done.” In fact, we must reach a point, in situations that earlier would have caused us to be afraid, in which the very idea of fear and lack of courage become things impossible for us to conceive in the core of our soul.

Such self-education in courage and fearlessness develops quite specific forces that we need for initiation into higher knowledge. Just as we need healthy nerves as physical beings to make use of our physical senses, so—as beings of soul—we need the strength that develops only in courageous and fearless natures. For as we penetrate the higher mysteries, we see things that were previously hidden from us by the illusions of the senses. In fact, it is a blessing that our physical senses do not allow us to perceive the higher truths. In this way they protect us from things that, if we saw them unprepared, would cause us great dismay, things we could not bear to see. As students of spiritual science, we must train ourselves to bear these sights.

In the process, we shall inevitably lose some of the supports that the external world provided for us as long as we were caught up in its illusions. What happens is literally the same as when people are made aware of a danger that was present for a long time, but which they knew nothing of. Unaware of the danger, they were of course also unafraid. But once they know about it, they are overcome with fear—even though the danger has not increased by their knowing about it.

The world’s powers are both destructive and constructive; the fate of sense-perceptible beings is to arise and pass away. The initiate must see and understand how these forces and this fate work themselves out. For this, the veil that lies before our spiritual eyes in ordinary life must be removed. Of course, we ourselves are closely interwoven with these forces and with fate. Our individual natures, like the world, contain destructive and constructive forces. As initiates, our own souls will be revealed before our seeing eyes as nakedly as all other things.

Students must not lose strength in the face of such self-knowledge. They must come to meet it with a surplus of forces. In order to have this surplus, we must learn to maintain our inward calm and certainty in difficult life situations and cultivate an unshakable trust in the good powers of existence.

We may often have acted out of conceit, but we now come to realize how unspeakable useless all vanity is to the initiate. We have been motivated by greed; now we realize how destructive greed is. We have to develop completely new grounds for acting and thinking. This is what involves courage and fearlessness.

Above all, we need to cultivate courage and fearlessness in the inmost depths of our thought life itself. We must learn not to be discouraged by failure. We should be able to think: “I will forget that I have failed again and will try once more as if it never happened.” In this way we struggle to the conviction that the sources of strength in the world that we can draw from are inexhaustible. Again and again, we aspire to the spirit, which will lift us up and carry us, regardless of how often our earthly being proves to be weak and powerless.

We must become capable of living into the future and not let any past experiences disturb our striving.

Excerpt from: How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation by Rudolf Steiner.

What does Steiner mean by living into the future? We can spend time thinking about this question within ourselves. This is one way to start down the path. We have lots of paths to choose from. Self-knowledge is required by all of them. If we begin to name the things we are afraid of and think about rising above them, we may get glimpses of living into the future.

These are scary times. Maybe we’re living in them for a reason. After all, we did choose to be here at this time. What are we supposed to be learning? We may want to read—or re-read—the book referenced above, which was the edition translated from the original German by Christopher Bamford. Getting started is a fear we may wish to overcome in this new and fraught year 2025.