This study would remain incomplete if it were not to connect this one type common to all meditation with yet another type. Only then can a whole come about that conveys an overview of the nature of meditation.
Until now the meditative form of introspection was characterized that results
from the point of view of the With. This characteristic must be supplemented by
the other one from the viewpoint of the Without. For With and Without
belong together – for the With expresses the closed relationships and Without
the open ones. With and Without belong together like division and connection,
only what is separate can be connected, and only through the connection of the
separateness of every one of the interconnected objects can it contrast itself
to the other. In the connecting expression “head and hat” the contrast
also becomes clear through the correspondence, the hat is contentless, the head
contentful. If the opposite were to be the case, there is an And-relationship
as well, which by analogy applies to related cases. In view hereof,
distinction was already designated in the foregoing as the primal category,
since it is at the same time division and connection, With and Without. For
instead of distinction can, as has been shown, also stand And – so that therefore
all categories, all forms and tools of spiritual formation can be viewed as
metamorphoses of And.
Where With is, there is always also Without – where connections are made, there
always remain open connections as well. And this is in no way only the case
because of the context of both determinants, the inexhaustibility of the world
and the imperfection of our connectivity. It has a rather more profound reason
that will now be elucidated.
The concepts and ideas, with which we make the connections and formations of
the disconnected percepts, we single out from the thinking that encompasses
them – not from o u r thinking, but from the thinking of the underlying world
of universal beings. For the concepts and ideas form a context determined by
the fullness of their own self-contained content, which is – beyond out limited
discretion albeit accessible to our activity – sublimely at rest in itself and
nevertheless prepared to at all times lovingly unite with us. This
self-determination of thinking, we have to respect, if we do not want to elude
the context and fall into the abyss of mere representational speculative
fiction. The logical self-determination of concepts is not only a sublime realm
of perfection, but also the social unifying bond that embraces all people. They
all have, indeed, the same concepts, their grasp reaches the same universals.
And it is only on the basis of this commonwealth ordered through the absolute
peacefulness of concordance that people are capable of understanding each other
and that in general the attempt to reach an understanding is reasonable – only
this enables them to live in a well-ordered community nurtured by the
bottomless source of all creativity. What is different are only the
representations of people and it is only through this that discord can arise.
Yet the basis of this difference is formed by a self-consistent thinking
that is the same for all people. Where this is forgotten and disregarded people
are enmeshed in Babylonian confusion and the animosity of conflicting
interests. Misunderstanding, intolerance and war are, however, be they driven
by antipathy or set aglow with passion and disturbing power, after all nothing
else than the renunciation of creativity, whose endowing stream abides every
courageous thinker. Thinking is the world language in which all people can
understand each other. For o u r thinking (the comprehending action
of our thinking will) is co-executing t h e thinking. Yet this thinking as such
is not a tyrant who forces his laws on us, but a free shepherd of order, the
recognition of which, no matter how carefully he nurtures and protects it, he
leaves up to us. He does not expect our subservient but our free behavior, our
independent decision to become active in working together on his world watch.
For the thinking is only invoked in our consciousness (even though the
latter may often forget its own effort) through our own thinking will. This
enactment of thinking however is not an arbitrary command, but a free recognition
that in our action meets a field, a dimension of its manifestation. To be sure,
this manifestation appears in us only when we create it and is absent there
where we omit it. But in so far as o u r thinking is in general such a one,
thus not persevering in a biased, appetitive, intentional or in general
arbitrary concoction of mental images, it is concurrent with t h e
thinking. We speak therefore of “grasping” something, because we single out the
sacred threads of the spiritual order with our thinking and apply them as the
elements and tools of the earthly order in our life circles.
Without this singling out, without this grasp, there is no order and formation
of the unordered and unformed percepts – no coming about of reality, no
coming-into-being that out of the formless materiality of the perceptible
ascends to a spiritual permeated form-world. To consider hereby is that the
concept as the differentiation tool of the comprehending action of the
thinking-will becomes stimulated by the percept. It is precisely through
disorderlessness that our need for order is aroused. And in dealing with
disorderlessness we learn to create order, do we learn to listen to the saga of
the With and hear our own saga in hers, hers in ours and run through a course
in the School of Order and the Order of the School that is our life. And our
ordering ability, which is at the same time a capacity of discernment (because
insight is identical with becoming aware of context, thus with the properties
of things) increases as this course progresses, which we give to ourselves by
following the demands of our life and by comprehensively grasping the helpful
hand of the spirit. This means however that we learn to single out ever and
anew differentiational tools from the inexhaustible supply of thinking and that
our ability to grasp, to comprehend is progressively enhanced.
When studying this progression of our creative power of discernment more
precisely, we notice that this concerns a relationship between With and Without
that develop out of each other and enhance each other. From this results the
necessary supplement that was mentioned earlier. When we direct our attention
(that is immediately transformed in a discerning observance driven by
summarizing acts) to an oak tree, we notice that this occurs in a permanently
changing progression from devotion to avoidance. There is no doubt that every
more or less thorough observation is a process, since we do not grasp the
object of our observation completely with one single gaze, one perceptual
action but only gradually. The process of observation as well is never
completed even with seemingly simple (less subdivided, intricate) objects,
since every observation calls for interpretation through further observations.
People with the ability to grasp complicated contexts in a flash possess this
faculty, not because they smack some holistic entity with platitudes as with a
fly swatter on the shallowness of their understanding (that is not how
observant minds proceed but rather biased souls), but precisely from the
opposite reasons, because they are capable of quickly connecting many
percepts to the many concepts proper to them. The unity of their overview is
not one that is pre-given, but the result of a quickly proceeding, sometimes
very complicated process.
A demand is hereby made to our observation of this observational process,
however, that in the present context is of crucial importance. It is to
consider namely that every process does not elapse in a similar realm, in which
one particular element progresses to another similar in its isolationist
character. The observational process proceeds rather as a to and fro
oscillating change-in-focus of the comprehending action. This rhythmicity
remains indeed subconscious in our habitual observant behavior. However, it can
be brought to light through introspection and be understood in its intrinsic
nature peculiar to the observational process.
Since that rhythm in the present context is of great importance, it requires
more precise consideration. That there is no observance without attention is
something that nobody will really deny. It may well be less obvious, however,
that avoidance, turning away is also part of observance. Yet this can easily be
explained. Every observation, be it through the eye, the ear, the sense of
touch or through another sense, demands to begin with the turning of our
attention towards the intended percept by means of the relevant sense
organ. But this focus remains blind, deaf and dumb, if it does not
quickly turn away – towards the concept that through our thinking-will singles
out the means of differentiation from the universal realm of thinking, which
gives the broad multiplicity of the formless percept its deep uniformly structured
shape. When we step out of a dark forest into a brightly lit clearing, our
glance still dazzled by light falls initially onto something as yet completely
undetermined. But we soon inwardly turn away (even with an outwardly held line
of vision) from it to look in the treasure chamber of thinking for help.
Even when we determine what we sighted only to begin with as an It, as
Something, we have already done so with the help of these concepts. And the
latter have – through their intertwining with what we sighted – been changed.
For after their connection to the perceived, no matter how undetermined, they
are no longer the general It and Something, but this completely determined It
and Something – they have lost their mobility (their arbitrariness within a
certain scope) through individualization and have thereby formatized the
perceived through universalization (which is also unification). For the as such
perceptually and conceptually determined It or Something is in
contradiction to the conceptually yet unattained mere perceptible (that is
thereby lying at the border of perceptibility) of an inwardly and outwardly
ordered realm. This is a realm of properties or attributes, which
inwardly determine a uniformly closed structural framework and outwardly a universally
open realm, thus what we (to begin with in a merely dreaming conscious
awareness) call a “whole”.
But the observation remains poor in content and comes in opposition to its own
aspiration, if it is contented with its initial conceptual success. It presses
forward through itself, which however can only happen on the condition that o u
r (representational) thinking loosens itself from the rigid grip of its
percept-bound individualization and from there focuses on the realm of t h
e thinking, of the mobile concepts, the universals. The intention and
meaning of this refocus is to grasp new means of differentiation (and these are
formative tools) in their original realm. The foregoing dwelling on the
individualization of the concept or concepts, which was or were led to the
perceptible, must therefore be let loose so that a new concept, a not yet
individualized formative tool can be engaged. The observance cannot be
contented with the largely undetermined Something or It, an advanced determination
attempt must rather be made with a new conceptual formative tool, somewhat with
a “more elongated object”. The observer thereby returns to the realm of the
perceptible in order to try it out in this formatizing attempt. It will then
emerge whether it has made a suitable or unsuitable choice. If the concept that
was introduced demonstrates its cognizance, thus if it is accepted by the
perceived, it will then be retained by the latter in an individualized form and
thus its mobility lamed. However, during the progress of the observation, the
recent dwelling by the observance in the place of origin of the individualized
concept is once more converted by again reaching out for the mobile element of
the concept. This grasp can now arrive at the differential tool “tree” and
apply it to the perceived. Then the same thing happens to this formative tool
as to its predecessors. But now, as before, the observation also progresses. It
namely causes the applied concepts to ever and again solidify in the realm of
the perceived, and loosen the solidified observant thinking in each new attempt
again from its embrace by returning to the mobile concepts, grasping them in
order to apply them anew to the starting point of the observance. This
alternation of solidification and desolidification proceeds in most
observational cases in a flash and largely subconsciously, until such time as
it has reached a certain level (determined by epochal criteria of existential
consciousness). Only then does it slowly and consciously progress (if at all).
The formative process can also be one that is initially inhibited and inching
forward under doubt.
To consider hereby is that each successive conceptional success in establishing
order is not effaced by returning to grasp a new regulatory tool. Instead, each
outcome in this respect dwells as an inherent representational entry into the
objectified field of representation. It is precisely therein that the potential
for acquiring new conceptional regulatory tools is prepared. It is thus not the
already established order that in each case is effaced, but one’s own activity
in the progress of the observation. The regulatory results are therefore
superimposed in the perceptible realm and accordingly a subdivided conceptual
context is also formed in the realm of ideas. The perceptible realm is
therefore progressively disclosed and the ideational realm progressively
assigned to it.
The progressive observance is thus a rhythmic process, a pendulum swing of execution that continually moves to and fro between the polarities of the percept and the concept thereby attaining the enhanced synthesis of structuralization. It is one of the most important and most efficient exercises of self-awakening from the dreamlike state of everyday consciousness to raise through introspection this semi- or subconscious rhythm on the basis of any object of our daily need into the brightness zone of our conscious awareness. Through the amplitude to the percept the observational movement causes the concept to become individualized and the precept universalized. This was already established in the foregoing – likewise as well that hereby generation and perishing are intertwined. World phenomena originate in such a way that the concepts of the spirit perish in them, for they enter into a process similar to a dying away – they are deprived of their spiritual mobility, estranged from their place of origin and directed into the realm of the sense world. The reviving of sensuality is at the same time the dying away of spirituality. A spiritual poetic formula was found for this:
B e h i n d b l o o m i n g a p p l e t r e e b r a n c h e s r i s e s t h e m o o n.
The secret of the beauty of this sentence is that destiny is sounding in it.
Yet we must again become aware of the fact that the pendulum swing of
observance that sways to the side of the percept cannot occur without the other
pendulum swing to the side of the concept. The pendulum swing of the With can
only happen in connection with the pendulum swing of the Without – the closed
connections must always be opened anew in order that by the thinking grasp new
mergers can succeed connections that are not yet closed. And here too
generation and perishing are intertwined, yet in a way that is contrary to the
previously observed pendulum swing. The loosening of our thinking activity from
the perceptible leaves the latter behind in its state of formlessness that has
not yet been reached by the concept. For every time that we look for a new
concept, we loosen ourselves from what has already been comprehended, whereby
from the point of the view of a newly attained conceptual design possibility
there appears a new blank in the observed perceptual complex. Every
detachment of our activity from the sensibly perceived therefore signifies a
revelation of formlessness, which although it does not delete the previous
formative effort, does however weaken its value (just as objective as in the
[subjective] experience of the observer), because the inadequacy of the
preceded formative effect is expressed in it. And this falling back into
formlessness is, as it were, a form of perishing. But it is precisely from this
perishing that our thinking-will gathers the individual power with which it can
do the properly orientated grasp into the vitality of the superindividual realm
of thinking. This turning to the vital, primal thinking is a revival from the
lethargy of sense-bound individualization. Yet this revival continues to
carry within it the individual dynamics that was gained from the interaction
with the world of the senses. The gain from an ideational structural tool is
thereby the thinking of an individual human being, whose activity causes the
universal thinking to become active in a certain perceptual situation. The
dying away of sensoriality is here the revival of spirituality, perishing and
origination enter into a relationship, which is contrary to the one with the
other pendulum swing.
The foregoing contained a reference to the relationship of this presentation to
the first part of “The Philosophy of Freedom” (“The Science of Freedom”) by
Rudolf Steiner. This relationship rests on the fact that the basis of this work
is formed by an anthropological science of reality. In as much as this
presentation interprets the introspection of structuralization and its
meditative significance, it is connected to the content of this work dealing
with the science of reality. In a similar way, the last deliberations made here
are related to the second part of “The Philosophy of Freedom”. The latter is
devoted to “The Reality of Freedom” and describes the origin of freedom
as human self-realization through reality-forming acts (moral intuition, moral
imagination and moral technique), which bring about a non-causal premeditated
connection between the ideational and the sensory world. The meditational basis
developed here as the structuralization of our world traces its pre-given
formation. However, it is notwithstanding free in a twofold manner. Firstly, as
an appearance in human consciousness, thus as a cognizance it is something new,
therefore not previously present. It is however not only free in terms of its
cognitive content, but on the other hand also because the grasping concept
introduced as the formative tool of the universals enters into the observed
structuralization process as an individual, thus not pre-given effort. The fact
that the cognitive content, which results from the
structuralization, is conditioned by the respective perceptual elements, does
not detract from the freedom of the cognitive act through
which it is formed. In so far as the last deliberations made here concern the
observed pendulum swing in the direction of the archetypal thought contents,
they therefore correspond to the second part of “The Philosophy of Freedom”.
The rhythmicity of meditation that forms the basis of all meditative
experience, its movements in the direction of the With and the Without, draw
from the meditative content of both parts of this work.
When previously the image of the rising moon was chosen for the origin of blooming and perishing, then the following transformation of the significant sentence can now in conformation to the lastly designated direction of the observational movement (and in view of the changed unification of perishing and generation characteristic of it) be coined:
F r o m t h e s e t t i n g o f t h e m o o n a r i s e t h e b r a n c h e s o f t h e w o r l d i n b l o o m.
The union of these two sentences fully expresses the result of the meditative realization of what transpires during a process of observation.
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