Soul, Love and Heart Thinking

Love and Thinking as described by Rudolf Steiner

This is the central theme all esoteric traditions try to describe, but it’s an extremely difficult subject as thinking and soul are invisible, not possible to describe through pictures.

I have described Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,  Adyashanti,  Chögyam Trungpa,  Eckhart Tolle, and Socrates in the same way, although in Danish, and found that they say the same, but with very different words, and I hope their different descriptions of the soul makes it easier to recognize the thinking in ourselves, understanding our soul, and beginning to understand what love really is.

I will use the following terminology in the following, Ego or sentient soul is the mind for the body where our speculative word thinking takes place based on opinions and feelings, where our ‘I‘ or intellectual soul thinks wordlessly, and the higher I or Consciousness soul interfaces the wisdom in Spirit Self or Manas.

The ego creates the illusion through it’s opinions, and the veil of illusion covers the wisdom from the souls thinking.

But it is explained more detailed below.

Wordless Thinking

Rudolf Steiner	My Comments
Thinking… is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear.Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas.	This is more related to hearing than seeing as we can’t see the thoughts of the soul, they are invisible, but we know the thoughts, and we may know them in three dimensions, like looking at a structure.
To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.	when we look into ourselves we can study our lower physical organisation, astral, etheric and physical bodies. Clairvoyants even in pictures others through understanding, but we can’t see our soul, it’s invisible, we can only see it though the mirrors of other souls.
Theosophists also often tend to turn away from the outer world. But a loving interest in our surroundings is absolutely necessary if one wants to make progress. One doesn’t have to neglect what one is striving for theosophically thereby.	We shall live fully, not in the past, not in the future but here and now.
The first condition is the cultivation of absolutely clear thinking. For this purpose a man must rid himself of the will-o’-the-wisps of thought, even if only for a very short time during the day – about five minutes (the longer, the better). He must become the ruler in his world of thought. He is not the ruler if external circumstances, occupation, some tradition or other, social relationships, even membership of a particular race, the daily round of life, certain activities and so forth, determine a thought and how he works it out.	To make peace in our thoughts they should be absolutely clear, no noise from the bodily organisation, from the ego of the astral body, the sentient soul.
A person who darts from one impression of the outer world to another, who constantly seeks distraction, cannot find the way to higher knowledge. The student must not blunt himself to the outer world, but while lending himself to its impressions, he should be directed by his rich inner life.	We should be attentive on the outer world, but we should let our inner wisdom from the consciousness soul guide us.
This life of the soul in thought, which gradually widens into a life in spiritual being, is called by Gnosis, and by Spiritual Science, Meditation (contemplative reflection). This meditation is the means to supersensible knowledge. But the student in such moments must not merely indulge in feelings; he must not have indefinite sensations in his soul. That would only hinder him from reaching true spiritual knowledge. His thoughts must be clear, sharp and definite, and he will be helped in this if he does not cling blindly to the thoughts that rise within him. Rather must he permeate himself with the lofty thoughts by which men already advanced and possessed of the spirit were inspired at such moments.	The noise from the ego of the astral body should be stilled, the thoughts of the I of the soul should be come through clear and pure. We should orient our thoughts against the esoteric, and not think about practical things like food or money, as it involves the ego.
After Atlantis was destroyed by water, continued evolution resulted in our contemporary fifth race, during which deductive reasoning was a special achievement. This enabled the human race to bring art and science to a high level of development, which previously had not been possible.	Word thinking became first mandatory after Kali Yuga, when dreamtime stopped, what we know through the history of the Tower of Babel. Here we began speaking and thinking in words instead of the shared dream language.
Reality is not contained in the abstract concept; it is, however, contained in thoughtful observation, which does not one-sidedly consider either concept or percept alone, but rather the union of the two.	To live in the now is to join the physical reality with the wisdom of the soul.
We must especially acquire a sympathetic interest for the things which to us are important. Previously we developed a more mechanical memory, and the working of this mechanical memory was fully reliable for a time, even without any particular liking for the things observed; but this ceases. It will be noticed that when undergoing a theosophical or esoteric development it is easy to forget things. But only those things fly away for which one has not a sympathetic interest, which one does not particularly care for, which do not become part of one’s soul, as it were.	Our word memory will become less and less and it’s function will be taken over by the wordless thoughts of the soul, although it works a little different, as trivialities are not remembered easily.
Being thinking men, we live in light. We see the external light with physical senses; the light which becomes thought we do not see, because we live in it, because as thinking men, it is ourselves. You cannot see that which you yourselves are. If you emerge from this thought and enter upon Imagination and Inspiration, you put yourself opposite to it and can see the thought-element as light. So that in speaking of the whole world, we may say: We have the light in us; only it does not appear to us as light because we live within it, and because while we use the light, while we have it, it becomes thought within us. You control the light, as it were, you take up the light in yourself which otherwise appears outside you. You differentiate it in yourself. You work in it. This is precisely your thinking, it is a working in light. You are a light-being. You do not know it, because you live within the light. But your thinking which you unfold, is living in the light. And I you look at thought from the outside, you see, altogether, light.	We are beings of light, our soul, our thinking, is light, and as we are light we can’t see our own light. Beautiful! If we could see our own beauty we risked falling in love with our own glory, like old Lucifer, but we can mirror ourselves in others souls beauty.
In earthly existence we live in a world that is but a copy of true reality [Astral world transformed holographically through the wisdom of the Etheric world into the physical.] Indeed, we only understand this physical world aright when we realize it to be this copy of reality. It behooves us, however, to feel the true reality within us [Astral world]; we must be aware of our connection with the spiritual world. And this is only possible if the bond that links us with pre-earthly existence remains intact.	The physical world is the lower worlds outer manifestation, the astral world is it’s inner cause. The outer mirrors in practise our inner!
We nurture and sharpen the thinking especially by the development of characteristics which seem to have nothing whatever to do with thinking, with concepts. The best method of developing good thinking is by complete absorption and insight, not so much through logical exercises but by observing one thing and another, using for this purpose processes in nature, in order to penetrate into hidden mysteries. Through absorption in problems of nature and of humanity, through the endeavour to understand complex personalities, through the intensifying of attentiveness, we grow wise. Absorption means striving to unravel something by thinking, by conceiving. In this connection, we shall be able to see that such mental absorption has a wonderfully good effect in later life.	We develops our thinking through understanding, not through speculative thinking. Through observation we recognize the patterns. We should not interpret what we see, not create opinions, just registrate what we see, as we see it, keeping our observations as puzzle pieces until we find a place for them.
Love is higher than opinion. If people love one another, the most varied opinions can be reconciled. Hence it is deeply significant that in Theosophy no religion is attacked and no religion is specially singled out, but all are understood, and so there can be brotherhood because the adherents of the most varied religions understand one another. This is one of the most important tasks for mankind today and in the future: that men should learn to live together and understand one another. If this human fellowship is not achieved, all talk of occult development is empty.	Love is part of the soul, opinion is part of the astral body. The soul is part of humanity, and if we can talk soul to soul, then there will be no conflicts, we are accessing the same wisdom.
Where knowledge exists, knowledge is imparted and there is no particular desire for discussion.Where there is desire for discussion, however, there is as a rule no knowledge of the truth. Discussion begins only when there is a lack of knowledge, and it is always and everywhere the sign of a decline regarding the seriousness of a subject when it is discussed. Disintegration of a particular trend is always proclaimed by discussions. It is important that in spiritual science we come increasingly to understand that the wish for discussion may really be taken as a sign of ignorance.	True knowledge are in the soul and here is no need of discussions. The knowledge of the ego are opinions, strings of words it has heard from others and not fully understood, if it had understood it would have been transformed into wisdom in the soul. Only the ego wants to fight for it’s opinions, those who know don’t have such desires.
The Christ says in the very highest sense: ‘You will know the Truth and the Truth will make you free.’	We will know the truth, we will not learn the truth, it will not be part of us, but we will have access to it.
The evolution of language has already passed its zenith. Language has indeed become an abstract thing; and all the efforts that are being made to classify societies in accordance with the languages of peoples represent merely a wave of deepest untruthfulness now passing over the earth. For men no longer have that relationship to language which sees through the language to the human being — to the inner being of man.	When i have talked with others, soul to soul, the words were only a kind of carrier, the deeper meaning went from soul to soul, giving an immense deep thought exchange. When you sometime later look at the text it contain nothing from the deep conversion.
zxy

Loneliness and solitude are two different things.

When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely.

But eventually it is the best to find a person who will be your mirror. Remember only in another person’s heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you.

~ Shams Tabrizi

Rudolf Steiner on Heart thinking

In ordinary life we have the feeling that we think with the head. That of course is a pictorial expression, for we actually think with the spiritual organs underlying the brain; but it is generally accepted that we think with the head. We have a quite different feeling about the thinking that becomes possible when we have made a little progress. The feeling then is as if what had hitherto been localized in the head were now localized in the heart. This does not mean the physical heart but the spiritual organ that develops in the neighborhood of the heart, the twelve-petalled lotus-flower. This organ becomes a kind of organ of thinking in one who achieves inner development and this thinking of the heart is very different from ordinary thinking. In ordinary thinking everyone knows that reflection is necessary in order to arrive at a particular truth. The mind moves from one concept to another and after logical deliberation and reflection reaches what is called ‘knowledge’. It is different when we want to recognize the truth in connection with genuine symbols or emblems. They are before us like objects, but the thinking we apply to them cannot be confounded with ordinary brain-thinking. Whether they are true or false is directly evident without any reflection being necessary as in the case of ordinary thinking. What there is to say about the higher worlds is directly evident. As soon as the pictures are before us we know what we have to say about them to ourselves and to others. This is the characteristic of heart-thinking.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA119/English/RSP1968/19100329p01.html

Soul and Love

Rudolf Steiner	My Comments
The sensory world is the school, without which the human being would never come to the spirit.	The wisdom of the soul are created through the physical world.
An advanced stage of development must have been reached before the soul can experience joy in performing deeds of love from which there is nothing to be gained for itself. The impulse for this is not strong in humanity…..	The soul should be highly developed and the soul should have been drawn down into the heart before love can work into the physical world.
Our egoism gains nothing from deeds of love – but the world all the more. Occultism says: Love is for the world what the sun is for external life. No soul could thrive if love departed from the world. Love is the “moral” sun of the world. To disseminate love over the earth in the greatest measure possible, to promote love on the earth – that and that alone is wisdom.	The soul with the I have a special connection to the physical world, it’s also why we are conscious in the physical world, why we sense the physical world. The more love we can channel down into the physical world the more the physical world come in accordance with our soul. Love is the creative power!
A Spiritual Science without love would be a danger to mankind. But love should not be a matter for preaching; love must and indeed will come into the world through the spreading of knowledge of spiritual truths.	Spirituality that don’t connect to the soul would be a catastrophe. Black magic and satanism tries to master the soul, try to keep it from gaining power through the heart.
Love mediated by way of the senses is the wellspring of creative power, of that which is coming into being. Without sense-born love, nothing material would exist in the world; without spiritual love, nothing spiritual can arise in evolution. When we practise love, cultivate love, creative forces pour into the world. Can the intellect be expected to offer reasons for this? The creative forces poured into the world before we ourselves and our intellect came into being. True, as egoists, we can deprive the future of creative forces; but we cannot obliterate the deeds of love and the creative forces of the past. We owe our existence to deeds of love wrought in the past. The strength with which we have been endowed by these deeds of love is the measure of our deep debt to the past, and whatever love we may at any time be able to bring forth is payment of debts owed for our existence. In light of this knowledge we shall be able to understand the deeds of a man who has reached a high stage of development, for he has still greater debts to pay to the past. He pays his debts through deeds of love, and herein lies his wisdom. The higher stage of development reached by a man, the more does the impulse of love in him increase in strength; WISDOM ALONE DOES NOT SUFFICE.	Love is the creative power in the universe! Through creativity love pours into the physical world. The creative hierarchies poured creative love into the universe before we became co-creators. When we pours our love into the world we help the original creators with their development, the wisdom we create becomes part of them and it will give form to the new Earth incarnation.
LOVE IS THE CREATIVE FORCE IN THE WORLD.	Love is active wisdom, wisdom transformed to creative activity.
Besides love there are two other powers in the world. How do they compare with love?The one is strength, might; the second is wisdom. In regard to strength or might we can speak of degrees: weaker, stronger, or absolute might – omnipotence. The same applies to wisdom, for there are stages on the path to omniscience. It will not do to speak in the same way of degrees of love. What is universal love, love for all beings? In the case of love we cannot speak of enhancement as we can speak of enhancement of knowledge into omniscience or of might into omnipotence, by virtue of which we attain greater perfection of our own being. Love for a few or for many beings has nothing to do with our perfecting. Love for everything that lives cannot be compared to omnipotence; the concept of magnitude, or of enhancement, cannot rightly be applied to love.	There are three powers in the universe, Strength, Wisdom and Love. Love develops in the field between strength and wisdom, Tao between Yin and Yang, the Son between the Mother and the Father, between Ahriman and Lucifer. Love is different than wisdom and strength, it’s pure being, as it is what our soul is, just as our body is physical in the physical world.
The all-encompassing attribute of the God-head is not omnipotence, neither is it omniscience, but it is LOVE – the attribute in respect of which no enhancement is possible. God is uttermost love, unalloyed love, is born as it were out of love, is the very substance and essence of love. God is pure love, not supreme wisdom, not supreme might. God has retained love for himself but has shared wisdom and might with Lucifer and Ahriman. He has shared wisdom with Lucifer and might with Ahriman, in order that man may become free, in order that under the influence of wisdom he may make progress.	God or the Son is love. Lucifer is wisdom and ahriman is strength. God has shared wisdom and strength with Lucifer/Yang and Ahriman/Yin and by that given man possibility to develop in freedom. Lucifer symbolizes the spiritual world, Ahriman the physical world and God or the Son the soul world, lover Devachan.
Let us imagine that there is a man who knows nothing of the name of Christ Jesus, nothing of what is communicated in the Gospels, but that he understands the radical difference between the nature of wisdom and might and that of love. Such a man, even though he knows nothing of the Mystery of Golgotha, is a Christian in the truest sense.	One who understands soul and love is an initiate.
To understand the nature of love – that is to be a Christian!	The initiate have love in his heart.
A good man is one who can bear his own soul over into the soul of another.	When the noise from the ego is purified, the soul can merge with another soul.
Love starts when we push aside our ego and make room for someone else.	When we have learned the ego that it’s cravings don’t make it happy, and thereby stopped it’s noise.
But let us take the Ideal; the man’s ‘I’ has voluntarily, with complete free will, allowed the Christ’s force to flow into him. When the I has progressed so far that it has filled itself with the Christ, then this Christ force irradiates the astral body also. In that same astral body, into which the Luciferic powers had formerly implanted their deeds, the Christ power is now radiating from within outwards.	This means that the soul enters the heart (chakra), and for many old souls it happens around 27-29, but sometimes we press the soul out again, giving rise to The Dark Night of the Soul around 49.
The Christ is a God whose action is such that one is not absolutely forced to follow His Impulse, one follows it only when one understands it, and in freedom. He is, therefore, the God who never seeks to hinder the free development of the I in this or that direction.	Love can only be developed in freedom.
zxy

See also Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it – on Thinking