The 7 Exercises of the Meeting with the Other

The 7 Exercises of the Meeting with the Other

Lecture at the Global School of Spiritual Science

September 26th, 2024

I would like to introduce the 7 exercises of the human meeting, that everyone will have the whole picture. Let us recall what we repeatedly practiced, not preached, for many years, when we insisted on the clear distinction between theoretical knowledge and praxis. The human meeting is praxis, the most important praxis on which our entire social life is based. In our time, the human meeting can only happen if based on consciously developed spiritual skills. Therefore, like any physical and artistic praxis its requires the development of concrete practical skills. When you learn to play the piano, you make sure first of all that you understand the instructions. Of course, you will not expect to succeed in your first, second, or third practice; you will always make mistakes. And after each exercise you will read the instruction again, review your last practice, and recognize your mistakes. After each practice you understand better the exercise, and you try it once more, make a new mistakes, correct yourself, and continue to practice until the moment comes when you realize that the training has become skill and repetition has become ingrained habit.

The practice of the conscious human meeting is the absolute condition to develop true human and social life in our time. This praxis, like any other real praxis, takes time. Why should we think that the fully human, soul-spiritual meeting with another person, that requires the development of much more complex set of skills, should be easier and take less time than playing an instrument? We must create real practical skills, not play with mere ideas; we are developing the most fundamental skills required to actualize the wholly new conscious human meeting; we create the social foundation stone of the Michaelic movement in this century. And real, practical, spiritual skills, are created in repeatedly actualized training to finally become embodied habit and instinct.

  Recall what it takes to develop the genuine activity of thinking, not the theoretical ‘I know what it means’, but as a practical skill, that Rudolf Steiner demonstrates in The Philosophy of Freedom; consider the practical, concrete exercises given in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, how to develop the basic meditative skills. If we are to reach out to the general public in the coming years, based on the impulse of the renewed foundation stone laid in Christmas 2023, this human meeting must become our first nature. It is the foundation stone of the new Michaelic community. It must become down-to-earth spiritual praxis, accomplished in daily life, overcoming the most common human and anthroposophical ‘knowing everything and doing the opposite’ routine.

The First Exercise

 Before we start each exercise, we make sure that we perceive above our heads, and deep in our hearts, the threefold golden script, in which the golden rule is inscribed in golden letters: Devotion to truth, devotion to the truth of self-knowledge, and devotion to the true being of the other. We actualize this threefold rule in practice before each exercise; we would never dare to approach any human being- or any being at all- without fiery sacred devotion to his and her true spiritual being. This devotion can be based on the repeated practice of the renewed foundation stone, planted in our etheric hearts in Christmas, that we cultivate since intensively. This must become in our souls a deeply embodied and ingrained passion and inclination, habit and disposition, drive and instinct.

 The first exercise has two parts: the first realizes truthful self-knowledge and the second takes the first step to meet the other.

The first part aims to bring to consciousness the most essential ingredients of self-knowledge. This we practiced for years. Honest, courageous, self-knowledge is the absolute precondition to meet the other. Our trust in ourselves and in our partner can only be based on the fact that both of us practice true self-knowledge. It also gives us robust Michaelic courage. We don’t hide in cowardice the fact that we project our prejudices on the other and we know that we are responsible that his true being is hidden from us.

  After we share honestly and courageously our self-knowledge with each other, and discard our projections, biases, antipathies and sympathies and so on for a while, we can ask him really from our heart: ‘What do you need? What can I do for you? I want to be there for you, I want to serve your true being and becoming. Kindly tell me: What can I do for you?’ We experience in the college’s members demonstration today of how they struggled to get to this point. Yet when they came to this point, I felt that it was a very authentic and truthful moment. They did not try to remember what they should do, guiding themselves by the formerly planned and remembered concept; they actually practiced it, and it worked. Miracles happen when we are courageous, fear blocks the spiritual path of progress, and all human meetings are paralyzed today by the fears and mistrusts inspired by the deceitful Ahriman.  

  Nobody should feel that it is a failure if you did not realize this exercise in its ideal from. Of course it takes time; we are beginners, we are sinful mortals, and so forth. Take your time peacefully, don’t push yourself, don’t criticize and judge yourself, especially you don’t want to blame your partner, the government and global warming. Accept failures and growing lessons as natural part of the practice. If we are not really convinced that we are beginners, we live in illusions. Am I a beginner, you may contend, after so many years of practice? Aren’t we already accomplished experts in matters of self-knowledge? It takes true self-knowledge to realize to what extent you are a beginner in self-knowledge also after many years of practice.

What is more, self-knowledge is also the great equalizer of people; it brings us all to the same human level. We are all equal in face of ourselves, because in self-knowledge you realize what a long way awaits you to change, improve, and transform in your being. There we are all beginners. I can tell you honestly from my own experience, that facing myself, I always feel like a total beginner. Because when I see myself I also see how many incarnations I would need, slowly and gradually, to change this appalling creature into the divine being that it should one day become. Therefore, when we face each other courageously as mortal human beings, overcoming, repeatedly, our Luciferic illusions of grandeur and Ahrimanic self- devaluations, we are fully mortal, fully human, and celebrate the creative joy of knowing that we are all equally beginners. This is the best soul Stimmung and disposition required by the exercises of meeting the other because self-knowledge makes us all one. It fosters brotherhood and sisterhood based on practically developed mutual trust, instead of the common mutual fear and envy. Then we can meet the spiritual-soul being of the other and ask, ‘What can I do for you?’ And eventually, if it comes up, to experience the emerging riddle and mystery of this cosmic, divine, eternal spiritual being that is the other, and feel the second question rising up in our hearts: ‘Oh, my God, who are you?’