Ancient and Modern Exercises

This year our winter seems to have come without strength, there are a couple of weeks of cold temperatures but then, here and there, the warmth of the 40 degrees keeps peeking up, even though we are in the middle of the season; it looks like winter did not grasp the Midwest area this year and on the opposite part of the globe, in the Mediterranean coast, famous for its mild winters, there is a sweeping cold bringing snow to the shores and paralyzing the cities with a white cloak.

Weather comes and goes in cycles, and so does our history of humankind, yet looking through it we can also see a direction, an evolution or change that has happened during our civilization, marked by centuries of one particular current or another. Nowadays we are in the epoch of the consciousness soul, and as citizens of such epoch it would be good to know what differs from the past epochs and what it is that we are called to do.

In the ancient times, people had a connection with the spiritual world, called atavistic clairvoyance, which was automatic, there was no way of stopping it out of free will, and it made them “see” the spirit behind everything material: rivers, flora, fauna, stars….Nowadays there is a semi-resurgence of these aspects in what we can call as a generalization the New Age movement, where the idea behind is that we are spirit and we can create what we want ( positive talk, law of attraction, psychic readings, etc…), these techniques are an attempt to go back to the past atavistic clairvoyance but we lack the form of organs that humans had in the past for one thing, and for another, they are ignoring the other side of the equation, that is the environment; one cannot create what one wants if there are other forces in the cosmos that have also something to say about it!

There are also an increasing number of practitioners of yoga and related exercises. The ancient yogi (white) of the eastern traditions was connected to the spiritual world through the breathing patterns; the breath was the vehicle that would bring inside his body the spiritual, and with the rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, an apprehension of the spiritual world (blue) through the stronger sense of the “I” (red) was accomplished.

Nowadays we do not have the ability to breathe in the world, our air does not bring the qualities that were brought in the past times, and so even the posture exercises of yoga, which in the past gave a direct orientation in space to the practitioner, and allowed him to have an inner idea of the 12 senses in a spiritual way, are to some extent outdated.

Steiner describes the method by which the modern man (white) can attain the connection again to the spiritual worlds; it is out of observation, observation that carries the subject (blue) out of its body and into the world, and as thus can apprehend the spiritual world directly (red). This observation, called Goethean Observation in many cases, is the first step in attaining Knowledge in Higher Worlds as described by the first of the Basic Exercises”…..to contemplate the germination and growth of a plant. This meditation works towards separating thinking from the breath and letting it dive down into the growth forces of the plant itself.”R. Steiner Modern and Ancient Spiritual Exercises GA 212. In this way we are out in the world, and the perception leads us to an imagination in thinking.

Another way that in the past man was attaining knowledge of higher worlds was out of suffering, the body was let to suffer in such a way that a spiritual experience ensued. Some of these techniques were used by the ascetics, and also by other religious or lay men, as in fasting. Nowadays, we could do good in taking the reins of that education by training our wills, by self-discipline, so instead of physically causing the effect of seeing the spiritual through our physical bodies, we can work in our habits for the training of the will.

One example of this is the upcoming season of Lent. In the past fasting was a common vehicle for the exercises training the will that accompanied the season before Easter, nowadays, we can work consciously to change one trait of our character, one habit, and to help us by the colors we are surrounded, by the sense impressions we are receiving, to make an inward space that continually works in our souls, in the purification of our lives.

 

Last year we sewed Lenten outfits to help us in the journey, and as we took the season for reflection and inner work, we hopefully accomplished something of value, that we will take up again this year, because in matters of the soul, the goals are usually, well, long term goals; just as every year the seasons come and go one after another, yet always different, also every year we direct our soul’s strive to improvement.