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‘The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities which we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change. In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.
In our relationships to other men, too, the crucial question is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship. The feeling for the infinite, however, can be attained only if we are bounded to the utmost. The greatest limitation for man is the "self"; it is manifested in the experience: “I am only that!” Only consciousness of our narrow confinement in the self forms the link to the limitlessness of the unconscious. In such awareness we experience ourselves concurrently as limited and eternal, as both the one and the other. In knowing ourselves to be unique in our personal combination – that is, ultimately limited – we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite. But only then!’
Reason is not the bane of spirituality but its abiding source and light. Rudolf Steiner invites you to think about thinking so you can intuit the highest truths of all.
The human mind has often been decried as a scalpel dissecting reality. Mystics have sometimes seen thought as the source of false duality, for the sublime unity of things is too great for the mind to grasp all at once, and so we break reality down into digestible and distinct parts. These rational distinctions subsequently create irreconcilable conflicts between subject and object, divinity and humanity or appearance and reality. In contrast to this traditional narrative, Rudolf Steiner believed that thought not only sunders the world but sews it back together again. He argues in Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path that thinking lights a spiritual path leading us out of the mire and into a glimpse of a unified eternity.
Steiner was an Austrian Renaissance man in a period of increasing professional specialisation, attempting to merge science, religion, politics, history, literature and architecture. Emerging from a theosophical background, he went on to found his own movement, Anthroposophy. He drastically influenced the course of Western esotericism through institutions such as Waldorf Schools and was widely embraced by a broad range of artists and thinkers, including Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow, theologian Albert Schweitzer, environmentalist Rachel Carson, painter Wassily Kandinsky, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky and Inklings member Owen Barfield.
Steiner refers to the raw data we perceive through our sense of sight, sound, taste, touch or smell as percepts. Our senses feed these percepts to our mind, and the mind forms concepts out of them. For example, our sight receives dozens of different percepts of oceans, skies or blueberries and then our mind distils from them the underlying concept of blueness. But this traditional view of reality confines us to a binary interpretation of the world merely in terms of subject and object – separating our minds from what they are thinking about. Only when we turn our perceptions towards the mind itself and start thinking about thinking can we free ourselves from this limitation.
When thinking about a book, you are thinking about an object outside of and distinct from yourself. But when reflecting upon your thoughts about the book, you become the object of your own thoughts. As such, when we turn inward and think about thought itself, we overcome the duality of subject and object. The subject who thinks becomes the object of thought. When thought perceives itself, concepts become one with percepts.
From here, Steiner draws several other strong conclusions. For example, when we think about our thoughts, we are not just picturing neurons firing in a material brain. To think about thought is to conceive of an abstraction that is void of physical flesh or objects that could be distinct from the process of thought itself. As such, our deeper identity as thought cannot be limited to the deterministic, physical world of objects but instead reaches a unified realm of spirit.
Connected to this higher realm, we intuitively grasp the source and logic behind all our choices, taking full responsibility for them as our own, rather than something imposed on us externally. Embracing our own thoughts – instead of being governed by habits, peer pressure, social mores or other outside forces – is what ultimately allows us to know ourselves. In this way, independent thought is the basis of becoming an authentic individual. This is what fundamentally defines Steiner’s ‘philosophy of freedom.’
In contrast to many contemporary and ancient thinkers, Steiner did not pit thought against spirit. In his view, growing up need not mean abandoning the inherent faith born in our childhood, nor should chasing the hopes and longings of our hearts mean abandoning our minds. Rather than restricting us, thought liberates us.
Our report quotes from an edition titled Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom, published by the Anthroposophic Press.
