by Joop van Dam
The fifth exercise - Being open-minded
Being open-minded is a capability little children possess in a natural way. Infants and toddlers always offer a rich display of the spontaneous power to experience every moment of the day as new. What is a natural thing when you are young must be practiced later on with much effort as a virtue.
The open-mindedness exercise is not an easy one. The more knowledge and skills you generate during your life, the harder it becomes to have an open mind. You have to acquire once again ‘the innocent eye of the child’, as the English art critic Herbert Read recommends, when looking at art. It is a gift to be able to see something new each spring when you are looking at a snowdrop. Abraham Maslow calls this ability ‘the continuous freshness of appreciation’.
Rudolf Steiner characterizes this fifth exercise in the series as an exercise for thinking and willing combined. Out of both something new must be born. In other words, what you know (thinking) and what you can do (willing) you seek to set aside for a moment, in order to be completely open for what may come on your way.
Knowledge, judgments, opinions, but also the skill you have developed to carry out specific actions can lead to a form of imprisonment: they can prohibit you from perceiving things differently, from making fresh judgments and taking a different approach. Often we barely realize how our judgments are colored by concepts and events from the past. Neither do we notice how much past experiences have condensed into habits and control our present ways and actions, for instance the way we react to people we know well. When you become more aware of this, it shows that in many situations your thinking and you actions stem from a certain pattern. Having an open mind means that you set yourself free from such imprisonment.
You can also describe this in a different way. As we are generating more insight, and as we have our own experiences and develop skills, our self consciousness is growing. In this internal processing of our experiences, the I has its fundament. Having our own frame of reference offers inner security. Understandably as time passes you get attached to these reference structures. The open-mindedness exercise demands that we have the courage at some point in time to set aside this frame of reference. This may call for a little self sacrifice.
How does this exercise work in practice? To start with, having an open mind means holding back your judgment. The teacher, when seeing a new child in his class, puts the thought about the child’s temperament aside for a moment. Or, to give another example, when you meet somebody who is unemployed, do not immediately start guessing what has caused his or her being unemployed. Endeavour with all that you encounter, and to preserve for as long as possible, an observant attitude. This attitude will allow for ‘the world’ to be able to express itself as completely as possible before you begin to say something yourself. This attitude is reflected by what Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven once said: ’If people were to find a little less of things, how much they would find’. (the Dutch verb ‘vinden’ is used here with its twofold meaning of forming an opinion, judging and subsequently of finding, coming across something new). The phenomenologist Dick van Romunde advised the world to learn ‘bezwijgen’, i.e. be actively silent. Holding back one’s judgment forms part of the thinking component of the open mindedness exercise.
The will component lies in what is called confidence in The Knowledge of Higher Worlds. ‘The student approaches every person, every being, with this type of confidence. And when doing so, they allow themselves to be filled by this confidence’. The open mindedness of the small child expresses itself in the urge to imitate. With absolute confidence the child imitates everything in its environment. When it becomes six or seven years old, this natural imitation urge diminishes. With the awakening of the ability to perceive one’s own inner world an early form of self confidence is born. Much later, starting from the middle phase of life, a different relationship with the world starts to grow: confidence is coming back in a new form.
You can speak here of confidence in life, in confidence in destiny. This is based on the inner conviction that in the encounter with the world, also if this does not happen harmoniously, there is always something new which can be discovered and developed. Already with controlling our feelings and also with the positivity exercise, it showed that looking back at the events of the day is an aid in becoming more awake for the moments when these two things are needed. Also in regard to being open minded, looking back can be a valuable aid. You can ask yourself for instance which ‘wonder’ has happened the day that is about to end. Surprisingly enough there is always something that can be harvested. People who have a tendency to take life too seriously often develop a new confidence in life’s destiny by discovering the wonder that occurs every day. By recognizing at the end of a day that you are connected to the world, you can enter the following day with a more open mind.
The art of being open minded as the last separately described exercise is usually experienced as the most difficult to carry out. Three access ways can be mentioned here, which can offer the first experiences in doing this basic exercise. The first door which you can open is that of perception. What is it that purely sense driven experiences can tell us, an odor for instance? Here we must seek not to link indiscriminately experiences from the past, like the memory of a smell, to an object, and say: this has the odor of a rose. By doing so we acquire nothing that is new. It is as if we would say: poverty is caused by not having any money. What can work as an aid here is that we make a pencil drawing of what this specific odor ‘does’. Lavender brings about a different gesture than the odor of rosemary. Lemon presents an entirely different gesture again. And the interesting thing is, when there is a group of people and each person in that group draws a picture, the characteristics of the various odors show a resemblance. There is indeed an element of objectivity in the perception. Likewise you can find out what impact colors have on your soul. What ‘does’ the purple of amethyst, the red of carnelian and the blue of aquamarine? Also there one will find objectivity. The qualities people experience and catch in one or two words, are very close together and complement one another. Sometimes even a profession can be named where these qualities are exercised.
The second doorway to open mindedness utilizes another human soul power. Perception stems from the upper end of the head. In the human lower part, doing and willing are vested. Open mindedness can express itself there in spontaneous acts. To this end in The Netherlands the expression was coined: ‘the unintended successful act’. When you look back at the end of a day you may discover that, particularly in the midst of a difficult situation, you acted in a way you had not thought of. An example: a teacher crosses the road with his class to play a game in the park. An overactive boy does not stay in line but instead runs all over the place. The teacher decides if this should happen again on the way back, that he will interfere. This appears necessary and he picks up the boy and places him on his shoulders. The boy immediately becomes quiet and he says: ‘Master, here I can see everything. I can already see the school and if one of the children steps out of line, I will give you a wink, and then you will also know’. Later on it occurs to the teacher that it was having the overview that relieved the boy of his unrest. It became a permanent pedagogical principle for this child. When you begin to become aware of these types of unintended successful acts which occur regularly in life, you can harvest them.
The third doorway lies in between both poles of head and limbs, in the middle area of our organism. With our lungs we exhale the world and make this enter again. In our heart lives the force of empathy, which creates a warm, inner bond with the world. From out of the centre encounters happen. It is an art to deal with what is coming on our way from the world and to do this with an open mind. The world constantly offers us situations whereby we can develop further. These possibilities stem from the ‘future’. The open mindedness of the centre lives in the ability to receive what destiny brings us, then to say ‘yes’ to this and get to work while being present.
When doing the first three exercises, you are looking as it were over your own shoulder at how you handle thinking, willing (doing) and feeling as ‘instruments’. In doing so, not only do you exercise and refine these powers, but you also strengthen them. This increased strength is used in the fourth and fifth exercise in joining thinking and feeling, respectively thinking and willing. When it becomes hard to practice positivity and open mindedness, experience tells us that it is a big help when you resume doing the first three exercises. This way you increase within yourself the strength to improve carrying out the fourth and fifth exercise. You are giving it a new go as it were.
Like the positivity exercise offers a new look at the world, from a new vantage point, exercising open mindedness creates an openness for looking at things from all vantage points. Your mood toward the whole world becomes one that is filled with expectation. You are not just learning to see, but also to listen. Positivity relates to open mindedness as seeing does to hearing.
Open mindedness finds its source in the confidence that each day you can develop and renew yourself. In the true sense of the word you are curious (the Dutch equivalent ‘benieuwd’ which Van Dam uses means being eagerly interested in something new). The world starts today is the title of a book by Jacques Lusseyran in which this open and expectant relationship to the world is described. The courage it takes to embark on adventure awakens a rejuvenating power in the soul.
The fifth exercise - Being open-minded
Being open-minded is a capability little children possess in a natural way. Infants and toddlers always offer a rich display of the spontaneous power to experience every moment of the day as new. What is a natural thing when you are young must be practiced later on with much effort as a virtue.
The open-mindedness exercise is not an easy one. The more knowledge and skills you generate during your life, the harder it becomes to have an open mind. You have to acquire once again ‘the innocent eye of the child’, as the English art critic Herbert Read recommends, when looking at art. It is a gift to be able to see something new each spring when you are looking at a snowdrop. Abraham Maslow calls this ability ‘the continuous freshness of appreciation’.
Rudolf Steiner characterizes this fifth exercise in the series as an exercise for thinking and willing combined. Out of both something new must be born. In other words, what you know (thinking) and what you can do (willing) you seek to set aside for a moment, in order to be completely open for what may come on your way.
Knowledge, judgments, opinions, but also the skill you have developed to carry out specific actions can lead to a form of imprisonment: they can prohibit you from perceiving things differently, from making fresh judgments and taking a different approach. Often we barely realize how our judgments are colored by concepts and events from the past. Neither do we notice how much past experiences have condensed into habits and control our present ways and actions, for instance the way we react to people we know well. When you become more aware of this, it shows that in many situations your thinking and you actions stem from a certain pattern. Having an open mind means that you set yourself free from such imprisonment.
You can also describe this in a different way. As we are generating more insight, and as we have our own experiences and develop skills, our self consciousness is growing. In this internal processing of our experiences, the I has its fundament. Having our own frame of reference offers inner security. Understandably as time passes you get attached to these reference structures. The open-mindedness exercise demands that we have the courage at some point in time to set aside this frame of reference. This may call for a little self sacrifice.
How does this exercise work in practice? To start with, having an open mind means holding back your judgment. The teacher, when seeing a new child in his class, puts the thought about the child’s temperament aside for a moment. Or, to give another example, when you meet somebody who is unemployed, do not immediately start guessing what has caused his or her being unemployed. Endeavour with all that you encounter, and to preserve for as long as possible, an observant attitude. This attitude will allow for ‘the world’ to be able to express itself as completely as possible before you begin to say something yourself. This attitude is reflected by what Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven once said: ’If people were to find a little less of things, how much they would find’. (the Dutch verb ‘vinden’ is used here with its twofold meaning of forming an opinion, judging and subsequently of finding, coming across something new). The phenomenologist Dick van Romunde advised the world to learn ‘bezwijgen’, i.e. be actively silent. Holding back one’s judgment forms part of the thinking component of the open mindedness exercise.
The will component lies in what is called confidence in The Knowledge of Higher Worlds. ‘The student approaches every person, every being, with this type of confidence. And when doing so, they allow themselves to be filled by this confidence’. The open mindedness of the small child expresses itself in the urge to imitate. With absolute confidence the child imitates everything in its environment. When it becomes six or seven years old, this natural imitation urge diminishes. With the awakening of the ability to perceive one’s own inner world an early form of self confidence is born. Much later, starting from the middle phase of life, a different relationship with the world starts to grow: confidence is coming back in a new form.
You can speak here of confidence in life, in confidence in destiny. This is based on the inner conviction that in the encounter with the world, also if this does not happen harmoniously, there is always something new which can be discovered and developed. Already with controlling our feelings and also with the positivity exercise, it showed that looking back at the events of the day is an aid in becoming more awake for the moments when these two things are needed. Also in regard to being open minded, looking back can be a valuable aid. You can ask yourself for instance which ‘wonder’ has happened the day that is about to end. Surprisingly enough there is always something that can be harvested. People who have a tendency to take life too seriously often develop a new confidence in life’s destiny by discovering the wonder that occurs every day. By recognizing at the end of a day that you are connected to the world, you can enter the following day with a more open mind.
The art of being open minded as the last separately described exercise is usually experienced as the most difficult to carry out. Three access ways can be mentioned here, which can offer the first experiences in doing this basic exercise. The first door which you can open is that of perception. What is it that purely sense driven experiences can tell us, an odor for instance? Here we must seek not to link indiscriminately experiences from the past, like the memory of a smell, to an object, and say: this has the odor of a rose. By doing so we acquire nothing that is new. It is as if we would say: poverty is caused by not having any money. What can work as an aid here is that we make a pencil drawing of what this specific odor ‘does’. Lavender brings about a different gesture than the odor of rosemary. Lemon presents an entirely different gesture again. And the interesting thing is, when there is a group of people and each person in that group draws a picture, the characteristics of the various odors show a resemblance. There is indeed an element of objectivity in the perception. Likewise you can find out what impact colors have on your soul. What ‘does’ the purple of amethyst, the red of carnelian and the blue of aquamarine? Also there one will find objectivity. The qualities people experience and catch in one or two words, are very close together and complement one another. Sometimes even a profession can be named where these qualities are exercised.
The second doorway to open mindedness utilizes another human soul power. Perception stems from the upper end of the head. In the human lower part, doing and willing are vested. Open mindedness can express itself there in spontaneous acts. To this end in The Netherlands the expression was coined: ‘the unintended successful act’. When you look back at the end of a day you may discover that, particularly in the midst of a difficult situation, you acted in a way you had not thought of. An example: a teacher crosses the road with his class to play a game in the park. An overactive boy does not stay in line but instead runs all over the place. The teacher decides if this should happen again on the way back, that he will interfere. This appears necessary and he picks up the boy and places him on his shoulders. The boy immediately becomes quiet and he says: ‘Master, here I can see everything. I can already see the school and if one of the children steps out of line, I will give you a wink, and then you will also know’. Later on it occurs to the teacher that it was having the overview that relieved the boy of his unrest. It became a permanent pedagogical principle for this child. When you begin to become aware of these types of unintended successful acts which occur regularly in life, you can harvest them.
The third doorway lies in between both poles of head and limbs, in the middle area of our organism. With our lungs we exhale the world and make this enter again. In our heart lives the force of empathy, which creates a warm, inner bond with the world. From out of the centre encounters happen. It is an art to deal with what is coming on our way from the world and to do this with an open mind. The world constantly offers us situations whereby we can develop further. These possibilities stem from the ‘future’. The open mindedness of the centre lives in the ability to receive what destiny brings us, then to say ‘yes’ to this and get to work while being present.
When doing the first three exercises, you are looking as it were over your own shoulder at how you handle thinking, willing (doing) and feeling as ‘instruments’. In doing so, not only do you exercise and refine these powers, but you also strengthen them. This increased strength is used in the fourth and fifth exercise in joining thinking and feeling, respectively thinking and willing. When it becomes hard to practice positivity and open mindedness, experience tells us that it is a big help when you resume doing the first three exercises. This way you increase within yourself the strength to improve carrying out the fourth and fifth exercise. You are giving it a new go as it were.
Like the positivity exercise offers a new look at the world, from a new vantage point, exercising open mindedness creates an openness for looking at things from all vantage points. Your mood toward the whole world becomes one that is filled with expectation. You are not just learning to see, but also to listen. Positivity relates to open mindedness as seeing does to hearing.
Open mindedness finds its source in the confidence that each day you can develop and renew yourself. In the true sense of the word you are curious (the Dutch equivalent ‘benieuwd’ which Van Dam uses means being eagerly interested in something new). The world starts today is the title of a book by Jacques Lusseyran in which this open and expectant relationship to the world is described. The courage it takes to embark on adventure awakens a rejuvenating power in the soul.
