by Joop van Dam
The first exercise of the six fold path aims at the control of our thinking. It is advisable before you start the exercise that you read the description given by Rudolf Steiner in ‘An outline of occult science’. The highlights are given at the end of the exercises.
It is really quite evident why the exercises start with thinking. In doing so you depart from the area in your consciousness where you are most awake, where your presence happens to be the most active. Only after you have become lord and master here, can you descend to the deeper and less conscious layers of your being. Like a miner who has to gauge his lamp before he enters the mine.
Generally speaking, the quality of our thinking in our daily life is not very focused. If you look closely, you will find that your thoughts often consist in a lot of rambling. What we see around us and the memories that keep coming to us lead us from one association to the other. The essence of the thinking exercise is that you stick with one specific subject. You then verify if you have successfully managed to do this. When you perform this exercise over a longer period of time, let us say for a month, and you do this five minutes a day, you will notice that your power of concentration and the objectivity of your thinking will increase.
How does this first exercise work? Rudolf Steiner recommends that we focus our thinking on ordinary utensils; concrete, earthy objects which serve a specific purpose and allow us to easily verify the correctness of the pictures we have of them. We are speaking here of a cup, a spoon, a paperclip, a match, that sort of thing.
For some people it is helpful to choose a fixed moment of the day to perform the exercise. Others manage to employ the ‘empty’ moments of the day, the time when you are waiting for the bus or the train, making that time useful. At such a moment you withdraw from daily life for a short while, literally and figuratively you close a gate that is between you and the outside world and you enter your own inner workshop. Now you can switch on your thinking light and aim this at the object you have chosen.
You can do this in two ways. Either you place the object of your choice in front of you, or you call it up in your mind from your memory. In the second case, when looking at the object in reality at a later point in time, you will often be surprised how much more there is to observe regarding the object involved.
So you have chosen a certain object, like for instance a spoon and you now observe carefully its characteristics: its size, its color, its form and so on. To make your observations accurate and concrete, for starters what you can do as an aid is to pretend that you are describing the object to a blind person.
The next step is not just to observe the object, but to develop thoughts about it. To this end it is necessary that you ask questions. Asking questions helps to lead your mind from associative thinking to focused, creative thought. I could ask myself, staying with the object we’ve chosen: ‘Why does a spoon have this form? What material is it made of? Sometimes, to answer a question, it will be necessary to consult with others, or a dictionary or an encyclopedia. This is not part of the actual exercise, but obtaining information forms a contribution to making your thought life sober and to the point.
Like with the repair of a tire, it is handy to have the necessary tools ready before you start and it is helpful to have a few questions ready before you begin the exercise, like: How is this thing made? When was it made? Was it used previously for the same purpose? Does its name carry any significance?
When you have done the exercise a couple of times with the same object – let us just stick with the spoon for the moment – you will notice just why the spoon has a given size and form and exactly what type of material it is made from will become clearer to you.
The ‘idea’ spoon is becoming visible behind its external appearance. By sheer observation of the object you arrive at last at a state of clear thinking. You will notice when you have chosen the same object a few days in a row that you can arrange your thoughts in a more logical way.
In the beginning, if you have difficulty in developing thoughts that come from your observation, it is often better to chose for a start a more complex object, like for instance a bicycle, which consists of several components, each with its own purpose. This way you can initially think with a wider focus. Only later can you then resort to a simple paperclip.
The important thing in doing this type of exercise is to stay with it for quite some time. When you begin this is not that hard, because the discoveries of such an ordinary object lead to offer sufficient joy and energy to create the concentration needed to progress your thinking step by step. The object itself causes the interest and it will keep you focused. When the important finds are over and no new thoughts arise about the object, it becomes more difficult. You may feel tempted now to choose another object. However, the exercise becomes all the more meaningful when you stay with the same object a few more times for several attempts at the exercise. In some way, the exercise now really begins, because now the concentration must come out of yourself; creating the interest becomes your own activity.
Another problem you will have to face after some time is that your thoughts become a routine. This expresses itself in speaking certain words automatically and without your hearing them anymore, for instance hard, soft, hollow, sharp, without giving this any further thought. It may be helpful then when you replace your more or less dreamlike producing of words into think movements. Let me explain. Taking a sharp knife in your hand, you can say aloud the word ‘sharp’, but you could also perceive the quality of something being sharp in your mind as a motion. You can occupy your mind with ‘sharp’ as a process, as motion: sharpness separates, it cuts, it divides, thus carrying out as an inner action what the word indicates.
Which inner experiences can you gain by doing this exercise? In the first place you will notice that your power to experience your own inner world, to ‘live’ as it were more in your inner world, will become stronger. In a way you will feel less dependent on the outside world and more self supporting. As for your physical and mental state, you are better incarnated and thereby more awake. Since you will be able to take active control of your think movements more firmly, each time this will result in your feeling comfortable and at ease. The will in your thinking has been mobilized.
The first exercise of the six fold path aims at the control of our thinking. It is advisable before you start the exercise that you read the description given by Rudolf Steiner in ‘An outline of occult science’. The highlights are given at the end of the exercises.
It is really quite evident why the exercises start with thinking. In doing so you depart from the area in your consciousness where you are most awake, where your presence happens to be the most active. Only after you have become lord and master here, can you descend to the deeper and less conscious layers of your being. Like a miner who has to gauge his lamp before he enters the mine.
Generally speaking, the quality of our thinking in our daily life is not very focused. If you look closely, you will find that your thoughts often consist in a lot of rambling. What we see around us and the memories that keep coming to us lead us from one association to the other. The essence of the thinking exercise is that you stick with one specific subject. You then verify if you have successfully managed to do this. When you perform this exercise over a longer period of time, let us say for a month, and you do this five minutes a day, you will notice that your power of concentration and the objectivity of your thinking will increase.
How does this first exercise work? Rudolf Steiner recommends that we focus our thinking on ordinary utensils; concrete, earthy objects which serve a specific purpose and allow us to easily verify the correctness of the pictures we have of them. We are speaking here of a cup, a spoon, a paperclip, a match, that sort of thing.
For some people it is helpful to choose a fixed moment of the day to perform the exercise. Others manage to employ the ‘empty’ moments of the day, the time when you are waiting for the bus or the train, making that time useful. At such a moment you withdraw from daily life for a short while, literally and figuratively you close a gate that is between you and the outside world and you enter your own inner workshop. Now you can switch on your thinking light and aim this at the object you have chosen.
You can do this in two ways. Either you place the object of your choice in front of you, or you call it up in your mind from your memory. In the second case, when looking at the object in reality at a later point in time, you will often be surprised how much more there is to observe regarding the object involved.
So you have chosen a certain object, like for instance a spoon and you now observe carefully its characteristics: its size, its color, its form and so on. To make your observations accurate and concrete, for starters what you can do as an aid is to pretend that you are describing the object to a blind person.
The next step is not just to observe the object, but to develop thoughts about it. To this end it is necessary that you ask questions. Asking questions helps to lead your mind from associative thinking to focused, creative thought. I could ask myself, staying with the object we’ve chosen: ‘Why does a spoon have this form? What material is it made of? Sometimes, to answer a question, it will be necessary to consult with others, or a dictionary or an encyclopedia. This is not part of the actual exercise, but obtaining information forms a contribution to making your thought life sober and to the point.
Like with the repair of a tire, it is handy to have the necessary tools ready before you start and it is helpful to have a few questions ready before you begin the exercise, like: How is this thing made? When was it made? Was it used previously for the same purpose? Does its name carry any significance?
When you have done the exercise a couple of times with the same object – let us just stick with the spoon for the moment – you will notice just why the spoon has a given size and form and exactly what type of material it is made from will become clearer to you.
The ‘idea’ spoon is becoming visible behind its external appearance. By sheer observation of the object you arrive at last at a state of clear thinking. You will notice when you have chosen the same object a few days in a row that you can arrange your thoughts in a more logical way.
In the beginning, if you have difficulty in developing thoughts that come from your observation, it is often better to chose for a start a more complex object, like for instance a bicycle, which consists of several components, each with its own purpose. This way you can initially think with a wider focus. Only later can you then resort to a simple paperclip.
The important thing in doing this type of exercise is to stay with it for quite some time. When you begin this is not that hard, because the discoveries of such an ordinary object lead to offer sufficient joy and energy to create the concentration needed to progress your thinking step by step. The object itself causes the interest and it will keep you focused. When the important finds are over and no new thoughts arise about the object, it becomes more difficult. You may feel tempted now to choose another object. However, the exercise becomes all the more meaningful when you stay with the same object a few more times for several attempts at the exercise. In some way, the exercise now really begins, because now the concentration must come out of yourself; creating the interest becomes your own activity.
Another problem you will have to face after some time is that your thoughts become a routine. This expresses itself in speaking certain words automatically and without your hearing them anymore, for instance hard, soft, hollow, sharp, without giving this any further thought. It may be helpful then when you replace your more or less dreamlike producing of words into think movements. Let me explain. Taking a sharp knife in your hand, you can say aloud the word ‘sharp’, but you could also perceive the quality of something being sharp in your mind as a motion. You can occupy your mind with ‘sharp’ as a process, as motion: sharpness separates, it cuts, it divides, thus carrying out as an inner action what the word indicates.
Which inner experiences can you gain by doing this exercise? In the first place you will notice that your power to experience your own inner world, to ‘live’ as it were more in your inner world, will become stronger. In a way you will feel less dependent on the outside world and more self supporting. As for your physical and mental state, you are better incarnated and thereby more awake. Since you will be able to take active control of your think movements more firmly, each time this will result in your feeling comfortable and at ease. The will in your thinking has been mobilized.
