{"id":59914,"date":"2024-09-06T13:40:20","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T11:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=59914"},"modified":"2024-09-06T13:40:25","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T11:40:25","slug":"living-from-the-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/living-from-the-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Living From the Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gaining an understanding of the spiritual\u2014and living from it\u2014is the longing and goal of anthroposophy. The Annual Training: Philosophy of Freedom starts a new cycle on September 29. People from all over the world will take part in this training course together.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looking back on the Christmas Conference and the laying of the foundation stone in 1923, Rudolf Steiner wrote the following lines to the members of the General Anthroposophic Society on January 13th, 1924: \u201cThis could only be a laying of the foundation stone in terms of the ideal-spiritual. The soil in which the foundation stone was laid could only be the hearts and souls of the personalities united in the Society; and the foundation stone itself must be the view springing from the anthroposophic organisation of life. This view, as demanded by the signs of the present time, is the will to find the way to the contemplation of the spirit and to life from the spirit through the deepening of the human soul.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The core of anthroposophy, the essence of the foundation stone in the souls of human beings, could hardly be expressed more simply, freely and beautifully\u2014as if this said everything essential. This sentence reveals a duality, a dual nature of human development. The path to the contemplation of the spirit would remain incomplete if it were not accompanied by the will to live from the spirit. The meditative redemption from the challenges and confusions of life finds its fulfilment in the renewed turning to life and in its conscious shaping out of spiritual sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rudolf Steiner thus completes a major biographical arc. For the \u201cdual nature\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> of human development is the central theme of his early work, The Philosophy of Freedom<\/em>. The first part, The Science of Freedom, is a schooling path to the contemplation of the spirit. The second part, The Reality of Freedom, is a path to action, i.e. to living from the spirit. Beholding the spirit is science, for, in it, an essence is revealed. Acting from the spirit is freedom, because in it we realise the impulses of our own spiritual being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenges<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For many people, The Philosophy of Freedom<\/em> is a challenge for various reasons. One is that it is primarily a path for schooling thinking, i.e. the spiritual activity that underlies our thinking. Another challenge lies in the temporal context in which Rudolf Steiner travelled his own \u201cpersonal\u201d path to freedom.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> A path that aims to lead to the contemplation of the spirit and to life from the spirit must be a challenge because the goal is a high one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Impressions from the annual training. Courtesy photo<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Origin of Thinking<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Thinking in our time often shows itself in an abstract, calculating, analytical, cold or even cruel light. We use it to build nuclear bombs and war drones, to create factory farming and inhumane working conditions, to exploit the earth’s resources even more completely and to establish insidious financial systems that reinforce injustices. \u201cOnly the educated people destroy the world\u201d, the Indian mystic Sadhguru once said. In other words, only the people whose thinking was developed in our education systems are destroying the world. Amorality seems to be inherent in the thinking of our time. As if we had lost the soul, the essence of the world in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet thinking is the light that makes us aware of the connections in the world, that enables us to act clearly, creatively and constructively in the sense of the whole. It is as if thinking is a neutral force that illuminates things but does not judge them. It leaves us free to decide how we use it.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This freedom of thinking is one of the reasons for human freedom in general. We are less free in our feelings and volitional impulses because we are less able to see through them. Why do I have certain impulses while my friend has completely different ones? Why do I react to a specific situation with certain feelings, while another person reacts completely differently? It’s not for nothing that advertising and the media appeal so much to our feelings and volitional impulses and so little to our differentiated, alert thinking. If we want information about them, we have to question them with our thinking. The freedom of thinking thus reveals a profound spiritual fact that also has a decisive significance for our actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first part of The Philosophy of Freedom<\/em>, The Science of Freedom, the question of the \u201corigin and meaning of thinking\u201d is therefore at the beginning of the discussion.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Step by step, we are led to a vivid inner experience of thinking as our very own spiritual activity. This becomes the starting point for the contemplation of the spirit.<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The key to dealing with The Philosophy of Freedom<\/em> in this sense is not to study it abstractly, but to involve oneself step by step in the process of cognition.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It thus becomes a spiritual adventure<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> that leads us step by step to the experience of an essence, first in ourselves, then in the world.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The special thing is that all these steps are not accompanied by great enlightenments, but by an intimate tenderness and a quiet feeling of bliss when a spiritual experience arises in individual moments. This feeling of bliss has to do with inner moments of freedom when we touch our own being, which is free from attachment to the world and \u201cbeyond subject and object.\u201d<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reality of Freedom<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If the contemplation of the spirit could be illuminated in individual moments, we come to The Reality of Freedom in the second part. This is intrinsically connected with acting from one’s own spiritual being. In this sense, \u201cwhat is called the good<\/em> […] is not what man ought to<\/em> do, but what he wills<\/em> when he brings his full true human nature to fruition.\u201d<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Life from the spirit in the sense of The Philosophy of Freedom<\/em> can be characterised by various qualities: It is an expression of our individual being,<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> productive,<\/span>13<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and creative.<\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/span> We ourselves give it the goal of its destiny.<\/span>15<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It is free from the conditions of the past<\/span>16<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and makes the future effective.<\/span>17<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It is socially compatible,<\/span>18<\/sup><\/a><\/span> it is based entirely on love<\/span>19<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and places itself in an intuitive connection with the world.<\/span>20<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthroposophically speaking, there is a Michaelic aspect to its way of looking at the spirit.<\/span>21<\/sup><\/a><\/span> We are free in our thinking\u2014it is up to us how we bring it to bear: cold and abstract or warm, constructive and full of love. We carry within us the possibility of achieving an initial essential realisation of ourselves by increasing our thinking activity and simply changing the direction of our gaze. This in turn connects us with the essence of the world. It is a way of redeeming thinking from its abstract activity to an essential\u2014spiritual\u2014experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The path to life from the spirit reveals an original Christian aspect<\/span>22<\/sup><\/a><\/span> if we associate this term with love of the world and not with a particular faith. Intuitive insight into the connection between our own spiritual being and the realities of the world gives rise to individual impulses. These are fuelled by \u201clove for the object\u201d<\/span>23<\/sup><\/a><\/span> to which they are directed. Love becomes the central motive for free action.<\/span>24<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Impressions from the annual training. Courtesy photo<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annual Training<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The key to The Philosophy of Freedom<\/em> lies in \u201cexperienced thinking contemplation.\u201d<\/span>25<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This means that we are called upon to liberate thinking from its mere representationalism and bring it to \u201cexperience\u201d within us. The annual Philosophy of Freedom<\/em> training programme has adopted this approach. It is a schooling programme based on working through the individual sentences of The Philosophy of Freedom<\/em> in a thoughtful and meditative way within oneself. This is done with the help of 600 thought cards in an individual way, while we are collectively connected with people from all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This path is accompanied and supported in many ways through weekly letters, tandem partners, regional groups, video conferences, exercises, an app, a login area and extra meetings for young people. In the last course, we accompanied 600 participants in 6 languages and 34 countries. It is very touching to see how we can meet in this way on such central topics as thinking, consciousness, intuition, individual impulses, love for action, freedom, humanity and much more across the boundaries of cultures, nationalities, religions and age on a deep level of harmony. We experience an important impulse of peace and understanding in this work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New course<\/strong> September 29th, 2024 to April 13th, 2025.
Languages<\/strong> German, English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Czech and Korean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More<\/strong> Annual Training: Philosophy of Freedom<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translation <\/strong>Jeff Martin
Title image <\/strong>Team of the annual training. Courtesy photo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gaining an understanding of the spiritual\u2014and living from it\u2014is the longing and goal of anthroposophy. The Annual Training: Philosophy of Freedom starts a new cycle on September 29. People from all over the world will take part in this training course together. Looking back on the Christmas Conference and the laying of the foundation stone in 1923, Rudolf Steiner wrote the following lines to the members of the General Anthroposophic Society on January 13th, 1924: \u201cThis could only be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20769,"featured_media":59834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817,8793],"tags":[11549,11547,8814],"class_list":["post-59914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-event","category-philosophy","tag-ausgabe-36-2024-en","tag-english-issue-36-2024","tag-musings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20769"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}