Читать книгу Stages of Higher Knowledge - Rudolph Steiner - Страница 6

THE Path to Higher Knowledge has been followed up to the meeting with the two Guardians of the Threshold.^* The connection between the soul and the different worlds, as knowledge by degrees is acquired, will now be described. This may be summarized as the Theory of Spiritual Science.

Before the Path to Higher Knowledge is entered upon man knows only the first of its four stages, that which in ordinary life belongs strictly to the world of the senses. Even science has not progressed beyond this point, for it only claims to deal with ordinary knowledge in a well ordered and detailed way. The microscope and telescope render man’s senses more effective, since by what they reveal he learns what he could not otherwise perceive, but he is still at the same stage of knowledge whether he sees large objects with the naked eye or minute ones by means of instruments. Also in the application of thought to facts and things science still remains in the field of everyday life. Man merely arranges, classifies and compares objects, notes their variations and so forth. The ablest of naturalists does nothing fundamentally, in this respect, beyond bringing to a fine art the methods of investigating everyday life. His knowledge takes a wider range, becomes more complex and logical, but he does not advance to any higher method of cognition.

In Spiritual Science this first stage of knowledge is called the Material. It is followed by three higher stages, and there are yet others further on. Beginning with the ordinary method of scientific cognition, of apprehension through the senses, we distinguish the following four stages:

1. Material Knowledge, or Cognition.

2. Imaginative Knowledge, or Cognition.

3. Inspirational Cognition, called also “Knowledge which resembles Will.”

4. Intuitive Knowledge, or Cognition.

Before considering the higher stages beyond we must be quite clear as to the different kinds of cognition we are dealing with. In the ordinary “sense knowledge” four elements are to be noticed: (1) The object which makes an impression on the senses; (2) The picture that we make of this object; (3) The concept whereby we come to a spiritual comprehension of the object or event; (4) The “Ego” which forms for itself the picture and concept based upon the impression of the object. Before we can make for ourselves an image, picture or a representation, there must be an object that induces it. For we do not make the object but only perceive it, and it is on the basis of the object that the picture is formed. So long as we are looking at a thing we are dealing with it itself; the moment we turn away we possess only the picture of it. We have left it behind, but the picture remains fixed in our memory. We cannot however stop at the image-making stage—we must go on to concepts, and it now becomes essential to distinguish between an image and a concept. For instance, let us picture to ourselves an object that is circular in form; then turn away and keep an image of the circle in the memory. We have not yet the “concept” of a circle. This we can only arrive at by reminding ourselves that a circle is a figure in which all points are equidistant from its centre. There are innumerable circles—large, small, coloured, and so forth—but there is only one concept “Circle.” This will be dealt with more fully later; for the present only an outline will be given of what is necessary in order to characterize the first four stages of knowledge.

The fourth element in Material cognition is the “ego.” In this is effected the union of pictures or images and concepts. The ego preserves its images in the memory. If this were not the case there would be no possibility of continuous inner life, for the images of things would remain only so long as the things themselves produced some effect on the soul. The inner life indeed depends upon the linking of one perception with another perception. The ego orientates itself in the world to-day because, with the seeing certain objects, the images come up again of similar ones of yesterday. We must surely realize how impossible the life of the soul would be if we could retain the image of a thing only so long as the thing itself stood before us.

The ego also serves to unify concepts; combining them and thus making a survey, it arrives at an understanding of the world. It is this linking up of concepts that brings about the formation of a “judgment.” Separate concepts do not help man to find his way; his activity depends upon his capacity to combine them, that is, to form judgments.

Material cognition consists in receiving through the senses impressions of objects and images of the outer world. We possess the faculty of perceiving, or “sensibility.” The impression received from “outside” is also called “sensation.” Therefore four elements have here to be considered: Sensation, Picture, Concept and Ego. In the next higher stage of knowledge, the impression made upon the physical senses, the “sensation” is absent. There is now no longer any external sense-object, and only three of the factors remain to which man is accustomed in ordinary knowledge: Image, Concept and Ego.

Ordinary knowledge in a healthy individual creates no image and no concept when there is no object present to the outer senses. The ego is then inactive. To form images of sensible objects which do not actually exist is to live in fantasy. It is this very faculty of forming images which the occult student acquires, even in the absence of an outer object. Something else in him must take the place of external objects; he must be able to call up images when no object affects his senses. Something else must take the place of sensation, and this something is Imagination. At this stage images appear to him exactly as though a sensible object were making an impression upon him; they are as vivid and true as sense-images, yet they come not from the material world but from the world of soul and spirit. The senses then remain wholly inactive.

It is obvious that this faculty of having comprehensive images without sense-impressions must first be acquired, and it is attained through meditation and the exercises which have been described elsewhere.^* The man restricted to the world of sense lives within the limits of a sphere of images which have gained access to him through the senses, but the “imaginative man” draws his images from a higher source.

A very careful training is necessary in order to distinguish delusion from reality in this higher world of images. When such images first enter a man’s mind he is inclined to dismiss them as only fancy, a mere outcome of the imagination. This is easily understood, for at present man is accustomed to call that alone “real” which he finds, without his own effort, on the sure foundation of the perceptions of his senses. He must first train himself to accept as real things which are caused in quite another way, and in this matter he cannot be too careful to avoid falling into fantasy. The capacity to decide between reality and illusion in these higher regions can only come by experience, and this experience must be gained in a quiet, patient inner life. He must be prepared to find illusion playing sorry tricks with him, and images presenting themselves which are the result of some delusion of the outer senses or of abnormal life. Once, however, he has learned completely to choke the sources of fantasy he will have achieved Imagination, and it will be clear to him that the world which he has now entered is not only just as real as the world of sense but more so.

In the third stage of knowledge images no longer appear. We now have to deal with Concept and Ego. Whereas in the second stage there was still a world of images around us, reminding us of the moments when a vivid memory conjured up impressions from the outer world without ourselves receiving such impressions, these images are absent in the third stage. We live henceforth in a purely spiritual world. Those accustomed to confine themselves to the senses will be tempted to believe that this world is pale and colourless, but such is far from being the case. Neither is there anything pale or shadowy about the image-world of the second stage, although this is what the images of the memory are for the most part, when the physical objects have vanished. The pictures of the imagination possess in truth a vivacity and a comprehensiveness which far surpass those of the shadowy memory-pictures of the sensible world, and even the glowing and ever changing physical world itself. As compared with the realm of imagination the latter is but a shadow.

But how to portray this world of the third stage of knowledge ! Nothing in the world of sense can give any idea of its wealth and abundance. That which was provided by Sensation in the first stage, and by Imagination in the second, is here provided by “Inspiration.” Inspiration gives the impression, and the ego forms the concept. If we really insist upon a comparison with the realm of sense this other world is that region opened up to us by the sense of hearing, the world of tones, not the tones of earthly music, but with those which are purely spiritual. We begin to “hear” what is going on within the various objects; the stone, the plant and so forth, become “spiritual words.” The world begins to express its own true nature to the soul. Grotesque though it may appear, it is literally true that at this stage of knowledge we “hear” in spirit the growing of the grass. The form of the crystal is perceived as sound, and the opening blossom “speaks.” The inspired man is able to perceive the inner nature of the world, and his soul beholds the resurrection of all things in a new form. He speaks the language of another world, a language which alone can make the everyday world comprehensible.

Lastly, in the fourth stage of knowledge, Inspiration also ceases. Of the several factors which man observes in everyday knowledge the ego alone now comes into consideration. The attainment of this stage by the occult student is marked by a very definite inner experience. This manifests itself in the feeling that he no longer stands outside the things and occurrences which he recognizes, but is within them. Images are not the objects themselves, but only what the objects express. Again, what Inspiration gives is not the object, but only an utterance of it. But that which now lives within the soul is indeed the object itself. The ego has poured itself forth over all things and has merged itself in them. The life of things in the soul is now Intuition, and it is literally true to say of Intuition that “through it man glides into all things.”

In ordinary life man has but one “Intuition,” that of the ego itself. For the ego can in no way be perceived externally; it can only be experienced within. A simple consideration will make this fact clear: in the outer world the same name may be applied by different people to the same thing. Psychologists do not lay sufficient stress on this, and at first sight it may appear unimportant, in but to those who fully understand it is of the most far reaching significance. Anyone may refer to an object or person by name, but there is only one word which each can apply to himself alone, and that is the word “I.” No other can say “I” to me, since to everyone else I am “you,” just as everyone else is a “you” to me. Only of myself can I say “I,” and this is because each one of us lives not outside but within the “I.” In the same way, in Intuitive Cognition, a man lives in all things, and this perception of the ego is the type of all intuitive knowledge. And in order thus to enter into all things we must begin by coming out of our self, must become “selfless,” before we can blend with the self the ego of another being.

Meditation and Concentration constitute the sure method by which this stage, as also the earlier ones, may be attained, and it is essential that these be practised in quietness and patience. None may violently and forcibly ascend to the higher worlds. The realities of those regions do not approach us in the same way as do those of the sensible world, which is coarse and crude; rich and vivid they are, but also rare and subtle. The vital point is to accustom ourselves to regard as “real” something quite other than what we so designate in the realm of sense, and it is because it is not altogether easy to do so that many who would fain tread the Occult Path are frightened away at the first steps. Expecting to encounter objects that are like tables and chairs, for example, they find “spirits” in their place and straightway dismiss the latter as “imaginings.” The fault lies only in unfamiliarity with spirits. First, then, must be acquired a right attitude to the spiritual world, and then that which is spiritual will not only be beheld but recognized. A great part of occult training is connected with this proper acknowledgement and assessment of the spiritual.

^* See Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment; The Road to Self Knowledge; The Threshold of the Spiritual World.

^* See Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment.