articles: Anthroposophy

The Essence of Meeting in the present time.

At the beginning of the 21st century it becomes harder and harder for people to meet one another. One of the reasons for this is the ‘consciousness mist’ in our thinking, feeling and willing.

What, or who, determines the agenda of our thinking?

In a time when mass media (radio, television, internet and newspapers) is so dominant, people find themselves thinking about things which are not at all essential for their daily life.

What, or who, determines our feelings?

We find ourselves with anxieties, pressures, strong emotions and longings for things (products as well as prestige) which do not organically emerge out of our immediate reality.

What or who determines our deeds (which are a manifestation of our will)?

Why do we wake up in the morning and do what we do?

What motivates us?

When was the last time you stopped for a minute to ask:” What have I done today?” “What have I felt today?” “What have I thought today?”

All these elements play an essential role (mostly unconscious )into how we meet one another. In order to turn each human encounter into a true and meaningful one we must cross two thresholds: an inner one and an outer one.

The First Threshold: “Who am I?”

In order to answer that question we have to take an inner journey that requires honesty and courage. The process is like opening a Russian doll (a doll which, when opened, has a smaller doll inside to find yet another one and again another one). Inside it we always have to penetrate deeper and deeper as layer after layer peels away.

Here we can remember the meeting between Alice and the caterpillar, who sits under the mushroom, in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”.

“The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.

`Who are you?’ said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, `I—I hardly know, sir, just at present— at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’

`What do you mean by that?’ said the Caterpillar sternly. `Explain yourself!’

`I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir’ said Alice, `because I’m not myself, you see.’

`I don’t see,’ said the Caterpillar.

`I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,’ Alice replied very politely, `for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.’

`It isn’t,’ said the Caterpillar.

`Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,’ said Alice; `but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?’

`Not a bit,’ said the Caterpillar.

`Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,’ said Alice; `all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.’

`You!’ said the Caterpillar contemptuously. `Who are you?’

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, `I think, you out to tell me who you are, first.’

`Why?’ said the Caterpillar.

Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away. “

ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, By Lewis Carroll

The first layer is our nationality: am I English? , German? Chinese? Brazilian?, and so on?

If we are honest, we will see that many of our feelings, our habits of thought, and our will impulses are connected to our nationality.

Nevertheless, that’s not really us, we have to peel off that layer.

The second layer is our immediate family. How much do we resemble, not only in our body but also in our thoughts and feelings, the family we came from.

Nevertheless, that’s not really us; we have peel off that layer too.

The third layer is our gender (female and male). Here also, if we are honest enough, we see how strongly our gender determines our habits of thought, our emotions, our expectations, our longings, our obstacles and more.

Nevertheless, that is not really us; we have to peel that layer as well.

The fourth layer and the hardest one to overcome is our physical body. We can mention times when we went out of our house and we hadn’t combed our hair properly or are bit unkempt without noticing it, until someone make us aware of it. We do not think something is wrong with our appearance. This actually means that our self-consciousness is actually detached from our body until some outer element awakens us to our body.

Nevertheless, that is not really us; we have to peel off that layer.

Now, after we have peeled off all the outer layers, we must stand inside ourselves.

We are used to standing in front of ourselves, for instance in front of a mirror. However, the mirror does not show us our essence. Our essence is hidden from any mirror. In reality, our spiritual element, our true ‘I’, is what differentiates us from any other human being. Here we are only ourselves. meeting our true “I” is on one hand a deeply joyful moment (we are more than just a body, more than is present in time and a specific space) but on the other hand it can be sobering and even sad (we are very lonely there in the beginning).

There are great dangers in this inner meeting. We have built all those layers in order to defend ourselves, but now we have to be ready to meet ourselves. This meeting forces us to see all our imperfections, all our lies, our immorality and, our jealousies, our desires and, our hatreds, and all which live in our soul. Now we have to confront all this directly, in the light of our consciousness.

The most reliable way to prepare ourselves for this meeting is, by strengthening and deepening the will element in our thought (see Dr. Steiner’s books “How to Know Higher Worlds” and “The Philosophy of Freedom”) ,Then that meeting can be one of the happiest moments in our lives, because we find a glimpose of the infinite potential that lives in us.

The Second Threshold:” Who are you?”

In the second stage, we have to embed all the transformational work we have done on ourselves within our meeting of the other person. This means, first of all, to overcome our prejudices and prejudgments (we have to be fully honest with ourselves) when we see the other. Do we really not judge other people by nationality, color of skin, family they come from, the economic or academic status, how famous they are, and the hardest of all, to see the other person beyond his connection to a certain gender or having a certain body.

I had to peel off all these layers in order to find who I am, so why can’t I use the same criteria to find out who you are?

If we can answer the question ‘who am I?’

with the answer:” I am a special individual spiritual being who does not obey the laws of time and space”.

If we could answer the question: ‘who are you?’

With the answer: “you are a special individual spiritual being that does not obey the laws of time and space. Only then can we say:”We have really met”.

Then we have described the first aim of Anthroposophy:

“Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe. It arises in the human being as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling; and it can be justified only inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner need. They alone can acknowledge Anthroposophy, who finds in it what they themselves in their own inner life feels impelled to seek. Hence only they can be anthroposophists who feel certain questions on the nature of man and the universe as an elemental need of life, just as one feels hunger and thirst.”

Written by Chen Atid

(Based on a talk given to students at Emerson College on the 18/09/2008)

Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, Dr. Rudolf Steiner