Subsidiary exercises

From AnthroWiki

The subsidiary exercises, also called the six qualities or the six virtues, serve to strengthen the life of the soul and are an essential precondition and constant accompanying exercise for anyone who aspires to the path of initiation. Practised consistently, they lead up to imaginative cognition and on to inspiration and intuition. These subsidiary exercises, which are by no means incidental but essential to any contemporary training of the mind, must always accompany the main meditative exercises. By practising these six qualities, the heart chakra is regularly trained, becomes active and begins to rotate in a clockwise direction, thus creating the basis for conscious, intuitive heart thinking that dives deeply into beings.

The six qualities

The subsidiary exercises were given by Rudolf Steiner in different variations. At the core it is always about the development of the following six qualities:

„Thought control. This consists in not letting all sorts of things wander through the soul, at least for a short time during the day, but in allowing calm to enter into the course of one's thoughts. One thinks of a certain concept, places this concept at the centre of one's thought life and then logically arranges all thoughts in such a way that they lean against this concept. And even if this happens for only a minute, it is already of great importance for the rhythm of the physical and etheric body.

Initiative of action, that is to say, one must force oneself to perform actions, even if insignificant, but springing from one's own initiative, to perform self-imposed duties. Most of the causes of action lie in family relationships, in upbringing, in one's profession and so on. Just think how little actually arises from one's own initiative! So now one must spend a short time in making actions arise from one's own initiative. These need not be important things at all; quite insignificant actions serve the same purpose.

Serenity. The third thing is called serenity. Here one learns to regulate the state of swinging back and forth between "rejoicing in heaven" and "saddened to death". Those who do not want to do this, because they believe that they would lose their originality of action or their artistic feeling, cannot undergo occult development. Serenity means being master in the highest pleasure and in the deepest pain. Yes, one only becomes really receptive to the joys and sufferings of the world when one no longer loses oneself in pain and pleasure, when one is no longer egoistically absorbed in them. The greatest artists have achieved the most through this serenity, because it has opened their souls to subtle and inner important things.

Impartiality (positivity). The fourth is what can be called impartiality. This is the quality that sees the good in all things. It goes for the positive in things everywhere. As an example, we can best cite a Persian legend that attaches itself to the Christ Jesus: The Christ Jesus once saw a dying dog lying by the road. Jesus stopped and looked at the animal, but the bystanders turned away in disgust at such a sight. Then the Christ Jesus said: Oh, what beautiful teeth the animal has! - He did not see the bad, the ugly, but found something beautiful even in this dark carcass, the white teeth. When we are in this mood, we look for the positive qualities, the good, in all things, and we can find it everywhere. This has a very powerful effect on the physical and etheric body.

Faith (impartiality). The next is faith. Faith in the occult sense expresses something different from what is understood by it in ordinary language. When one is in occult evolution, one should never let one's past determine one's future. In occult development one must, under certain circumstances, disregard all that one has hitherto experienced, in order to be able to face each new experience with new faith. The occultist must do this consciously. For example, if someone comes and says: The tower of the church is leaning, it has tilted 45 degrees - everyone would say: That cannot be. - But the occultist must leave a loophole open. Yes, he must go so far as to be able to believe every successful thing he encounters in the world, or else he will be obstructing the way to new experiences. One must make oneself free for new experiences; thereby the physical and the etheric body are put into a mood which can be compared with the voluptuous mood of an animal creature which wants to hatch another.

Inner balance. And then the next quality is inner balance. It is gradually formed by the five other qualities all by itself[1]. Man must be attentive to these six qualities. He must take his life in his hands and progress slowly in the sense of the saying: "Constant dripping wears away the stone.“ (Lit.:GA 95, p. 117ff)

Literatur
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

Weblinks

References

  1. ↑ According to (Lit.:GA 13, p. 251) not by itself. See Inner Balance
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