Thursday, July 19, 2012

INTUITION, RESOLVE & ETHICAL INDIVIDUALISM

"People vary greatly in their capacity for intuition. In one, ideas just bubble up; another acquires them with much labor. The situations in which people live and which provide the scenes of their actions are no less varied. The conduct of a person will therefore depend on the manner in which one's faculty of intuition works in a given situation. The sum of ideas which are effective in us, the concrete content of our intuitions, constitutes what is individual in each of us, notwithstanding the universality of the world of ideas.

In so far as this intuitive content applies to action, it constitutes the moral content of the individual. To let this content express itself in life is both the highest moral driving force and the highest motive a person can have [i.e. Resolve] who sees that in this content all other moral principles are in the end united. We may call this point of view ethical individualism..."

The fore-going is from Rudolf Steiner's ...freedom philosophy...known as 'Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom'...a central paragraph within chapter 9 entitled "The Idea of Freedom". translation by Michael Wilson. I have taken the liberty to insert 'people' or 'person' where Michael had used 'man'.  This is my personal choice of meaning.

commentary:  In my blog, one field of my endeavors is to relate the principles of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy to the very same principles inherent in the ancient Wisdom of Chinese TAO. To assume that the Wisdom of the ancients is past, is a false assumption...in my view.

The TAO within is an ever-evolving...ever dynamic but silent inner power...it is our essential-self.

In this and the following blog posting, I have chosen several of Steiner's quotes to express some qualities of TE as dwelt upon by Lao Tzu in his world-known Tao Te Ching.  TE means the virtuous or ethical qualities of human action.

Is not Steiner's concept 'ethical individualism' just this?....a dynamic state of being where-by an individualized, human-in-balance allows a flowing into practical action as a free spirit [love for the action], his or her highest and best Moral Self...and in doing so, bridging heaven and earth....actualizing universal spiritual ideas in practical life...striving step-by-step to re-unify and heal some small part of what has been torn away by our human frailty from the Great TAO through our own incarnations as individuals, as peoples, as a whole humanity?

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MORAL IMAGINATION and FREE ACTION

"A free spirit acts according to his impulses, that is, according to intuitions selected from the totality of his world of ideas by thinking. For an un-free spirit, the reason why he singles out a particular intuition from his world of ideas in order to make it the basis of an action, lies in the world of percepts given to him, that is, in his past experiences. He recalls, before coming to a decision, what someone else has done or recommended as suitable in a comparable case, or what God has commanded to be done in such a case, and so on, and he acts accordingly.


For a free spirit, these prior conditions are not the only impulses to action. He makes a completely first-hand decision. What others have done in such a case worries him as little as what they have decreed. He has purely ideal reasons which lead him to select from the sum of his concepts just one in particular, and then to translate it into action. But his action will belong to perceptible reality. What he achieves will thus be identical with a quite definite content of perception...."

The fore-going is from Rudolf Steiner's ...freedom philosophy...known as 'Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom'...the first paragraph of chapter 12 entitled Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Ethics). Translation by Michael Wilson

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WU WEI: ACTION THROUGH NON-ACTION

Action through non-action can be a way of characterizing the concept of WU WEI.  It is a Chinese Taoist term which is often misunderstood in English translation since, at first, it may appear to be an  oxymoron...a misleading contradiction. But what does it really mean?

Offering my thoughts from life experience, from my 'most human' moments it means the following...being. actively creative with very little and at best with no involvement of my narrow petty personal self. My Higher Self, a divinely given principle...or the 'I AM principle' which should and will grow to become ever more consciously active in earthly life, flows into earthly creative activity as into water...love for the action or into my spoken words are 'born' into fluid harmony with the existing factors of space and time...transforming space and time..a living alchemy..

In this most ideal state of activity, WU WEI means consciously and willingly surrendering from out of inner necessity. This is a complete love for the action. One is acting from the 'over-personal', or from what I experience as my essential self. One's essential Inner-Tao-Self flows into the essential TAO of nature and cosmos.

Clearly this implies that one's heart-mind is fully engaged .....expressive to the full. No brain-bound intellectuality is at the helm. Here, a heart-intelligence only steers as a 'captain' this 'non-active yet active ship' upon the waters of life.. Through this heart intelligence we become truly human. And this heart-activity can deepen to encompassing community...the great Art of Life.

the following quote is from Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky 1821-1881 of Russia

"The destiny of art in our time is to transmit from the realm of reason [here he means brain-bound intellect] to the realm of feeling [meaning heart-mind] the truth that the well-being of humanity consists in their being united together, and to set up, in place of the existing reign of force [by false leaders and 'experts' in every domain of modern life] that kingdom of God--that is, of Understanding Love--which we can all [can] recognize to be the highest aim of human life." [and of the Mother Earth]  ....brackets added by editor
 
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