'WHAT IS MEDITATION?

- A Basic Examination of the Spiritual Scientific Expansion of

Consciousness' by Herbert Witzenmann. A Working Translation by Robert J. Kelder

Note by the translator: This work was originally published in German as "Was ist Meditation? - Eine grundlegende
Erörterung zur geisteswissesschaftlichen Bewusstseinserweiterung" in a second edition in 1986 by Gideon Spicker
Publishing in Dornach, Switzerland; the titles given here to the chapters are not from the original but from the
translator. 

In the Foreword below a short survey is made by the author of the theory and practice of meditation in both the East and
its offshoots in the West. To bring this overview up to date remains a task to be done, in doing so, some subjects for
research spring immediately to mind: mindfulness with its Buddhistic roots and advocate the Dalai Lama and his
admiring associate the anthroposophist Arthur Zajonc, writer of many books related to meditation and secondly the
Australian biologist Jeremy Wright, who with his book Freedom  has claimed in numerous ads online to have achieved
the greatest breakthrough in human evolution by finally solving the "human condition" by lifting and thereby liberating it
from instinct to intellect. Depending on the outcome of this research, it may  already be stated as a provisional hypothesis
that nothing has in that intervening period been brought forward that nullifies the bold claim developed here, namely to
introduce a new and truly modern type of meditative theory and practice suited to and developed out of the
consciousness, the Zeitgeist of our age, and if it has, please notify me.

Now that today (November 10, 2019) the translation has been finished (actually yesterday November 9 already), it must
first be proofread, after which the idea is to publish it with an updated Preface,  for example,  on Amazon or Lulu, and if it
sells, to donate the profits to setting up of a model oasis of humanity on a bio-dynamically farmed estate   as a prelude to
establishing more of them. This could then offer a perspective on a Threefold World Peace Union, as originally suggested
in part by Rudolf Steiner and further developed ideally by Herbert Witzenmann and as such proposed in my Preface to
his book The Virtues - Season of the Soul.   

Foreword
This essay is an enlarged representation of a lecture held by the author in the autumn of
1981 in Arlesheim, Switzerland. It is an interpretation and realization of the grammatical
meaning of the Latin word meditari, to ponder, reflect.  The Latin word is a depondent, a
verb with a passive form and active meaning. Depondents  are forms of expression with
great linguistic wisdom. For they state that performance  and experience, doing and
suffering can interpenetrate and interchange.  In this sense, the Latin word morior, I die, is
characteristically a depondent. Even prior to an exact motivation it can readily be seen that
a deepened reflection is a performance, undergoing a progressively enriching fulfilment,
thus possessing an passive impetus.  That and in which way doing and suffering are
interpenetrated in the practice of meditation is to be characterized here, what significance
this has for the meditants and in which sense the practice of meditation is part of the
reality to which we belong, is to be developed in the following pages.
            The essential determination of what meditation is as  carried out in this publication,
which is at the same time an introduction to the practice of mediation, claims to deserve
the title of modernity for the following reasons. It turns to the mindset of members of the
present western civilization,  thus to the alertness and self-consciousness that has arisen
through the worldwide influence of modern natural science of the last few centuries . It
demonstrates furthermore that underneath the surface of this mindset a subconscious
substratum is spread out and active, the consciousness raising of which already signifies
the entrance to the practice of  meditation. With that the evidence is put forward that the
current natural scientifically (meaning materialistically) imbued  state of consciousness is
based on a potentially meditative underground and that without the latter would not be
possible.  Hereby  however is at the same time expressed that everyone who, according to
his education and basic attitude, is part of the European cultural sphere can at any time
find in him- or herself  the point of departure and motivation for the practice of
meditation. And finally, the proclaimed contemporaneity aspired to here includes the
grasping of the meaning of meditation that corresponds to an understanding of reality,
which can be gained with the means of a natural scientifically orientated self-controlled
mode of cognition.
            Guided by this orientation, this publication will accommodate a currently
widespread meditative need. It will however at the same time distance itself from the
numerous meditative practices of Eastern or also occidental mystical provenance, which
are very often uncritically adopted or nurtured within a no longer contemporary tradition. 
Also there where (occasionally in the most grotesque and dubious fashion) it is attempted
to adapt these traditional forms of meditation to modern needs, there is (as far as the
author knows) nowhere a clear convergence with the quite original approach, which in
what follows shall in connection to the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner be worked out.
            Before the following indication concerning the nature and practice of modern
meditation shall be given, a few comments about its negative characteristic will be made.
What the meditation meant here is not, can be recognized by informing oneself about a few
meditative practices still committed to past traditions that have (partly with extraordinary
effect) advanced into the western world.
            Alexandra David-Neel, who informed herself for over twenty years about the
technique and character of Tibetan meditation, writes in her book “Mysticism and Magic in
Tibet”[1]: “The Lama’s have especially emphasized this doctrine of the Non-I or Non-Ego
by dividing the third article of their dogma[2] into two subconcepts. In the first stage of
understanding, they say, one perceives that one’s own person is a turmoil of permanently
changing structures, one believes however to be able to still behold the “I” here and there
in the environment. When one attains a higher understanding, one realizes that no form of
existence presents an “I”.[3] ”The Tibetans have broadened this formula to even stronger
emphasize its absolute, ultimate character. They say, ‘In no individual person lives an ego,
no separate things possess an ego.”[4] The perfection of the last, highest thought is silence
[…] In this silence lies absolute non-violence: Nirvana’”[5]. This extinction of
individualization and the process of individualization (which according to the following
deliberations permeate all of reality and gives it its meaning) contrasts in the strongest
conceivable way to the path of meditation represented here in connection with Rudolf
Steiner’s spiritual science. The latter is based on the insight that the evolution of the world
is a single tremendous process of individualization and that the meaning of human
existence is grounded in the transition from an individualization brought about by external
forces to self-individualization.
            Quite similar to David-Neel is what Gerta Ital expresses. As the “first woman from
the western world” to visit a Zen-Buddhist monastery in Kobe (Japan) she has in an
impressive way reported about her experiences that she gathered from the teaching of one
of the greatest living Zen masters.[6] The goal of the Zen-Buddhist path of meditation that
originated from Mahajana-Buddhism is according to her “the redemption from successive
reincarnations by merging into the Universal One.”[7] This path of meditation “signifies
the successive detachment from everything that is, the detachment from everything
imaginable, the detachment from everything, that the meditant believes to ‘possess’ in
terms of individual attributes, however excellent they may be. The destruction must
therefore in the end be so radical that one’s own nothingness has become absolute, that the
last barrier has thereby fallen and the breakthrough into the All-embracing One, as it were
something natural, can occur.  This occurrence is connected with a state of happiness
which earthly words cannot describe. And then the human being is free – and this freedom
is something absolute” (Satori).[8] This meditatively gained freedom is thus a liberation
from inhibitions (in the same way that this liberation according to Zen-Buddhism
represents every type of individualization) and attainable by shredding these inhibitions, -
but not that highest form of individuation attainable through that modern meditative
culture which depicts a completely new, nowhere pre-given consciousness- and reality-
content that is only realizable by the human being himself. The before-mentioned
detachment from representativeness is indeed also a modern meditative exercise,  which
however, as in Zen-Buddhism, leads not to de-individualization, but to super-
representativeness, to becoming aware of living concepts (archetypes, universals). This act
of awareness is not the path to irresponsible freedom from all independence, but towards
freedom as the highest responsibility for one’s own higher being and its eternal worthiness
in the way that it is certain to intuitive evidence. The experiences of absolute nothingness
in one’s own being and the act of complete emptying, discharging one’s consciousness  also
belong (as will be developed in what follows) to the experiences gained on the modern path
of meditation. However, what for modern psychic-spiritual development is only a stage of a
much farther extended path of experience, only a partial content of far and wide embracing
experience, is made here into an absolute in terms of the highest goal.
            Entirely in accordance with the foregoing is what D.T. Suzuki puts forward: “The
experience of Satori is thus certainly marked by irrationality, inexplicability and
immediacy.”[9] “When the Nambursu (‘thinking-about-the-Buddha’) has transformed itself
to be able to express a Dharani (magic formula) without any conscious indication to its
meaning in the literary or devotional sense of the word, then the psychological effect of it
will be to create a state of unconsciousness, in which the streams of thoughts and feelings
are wiped away. This is, morally speaking, a state of innocence, since there is no difference
here between good and evil; and in this way the Jodo instructors can establish that the
Nambutsu washes away all the sins that someone during his life in numerous past periods
has accumulated.”[10] The transition through successive reincarnations is therefore not
considered, such as in the spiritual life of Middle Europe as a path through continuously
progressing individuation (Lessing, I.H. Fichte),  but to the contrary as one of detachment
from individualness. “The worst enemy of the Zen experience […] is the intellect, which
consists of and insists on the separation of subject and object.”[11] The spiritual scientific
intuition is also supersubjective and superobjective experience, a becoming aware of
revelationary events that fulfill each other in the exchange-of-being. However, the intuitive
grasp is not something that was already present before the intuition in the same way and
therein asserting itself through the detachment from everything that is different from the
revelation of its being. On the contrary, the modern intuitive grasp is indeed complete
union-of-being (and in so far detachment from everything of a subjective nature), but also
the generation of a completely new mode-of-being that does not exist before and outside
the intuition. The intuitive unity-of-being is therefore for the grasping state of
consciousness as well as for the grasped consciousness-content the transition to a new
dimension of existence. This is mere humanness, which however is not pre-given and
which can only be reached and achieved as an effective transcendence of the pre-intuitive
mode-of-being with regard both segments of the unifying process. The deponent meditari
is valid for both consciousness-segments that merge in the intuition into a unity.
            At the end of his book Suzuki quotes a letter from the Zen master Hakuin, of which
the following passage reads as follows: “In this supreme moment (of Zen experience)
Nirvana and Samsara are, like yesterday's dream, and the ocean of worlds in the great
Chiliocosmos appears like a water balloon, and even all holy men from the past, present
and future are like flashes of lightning. This is the great moment of Satori that is known as
the instance for ho ti i hsia (the exclamation ‘Ho!’)”.[12] In accordance with that: “The
Buddha goes through the four stages of contemplation of the realm of pure form and the
four Samapatti of the realm of formlessness. He advances forward to the height of
existence, the serenity of cessation. All eight stages he again goes through backwards and
places himself once more in the stages of contemplation. From the latter, a karmic neutral
place (skr. avyäkrta), he enters Nirvana. The earth quakes, stars fall down, light of the
rainbow and music fill all four heavenly directions.”[13] The Sufi mysticism uses the
expression for this: “fana fi’l fana”- disappearing into the disappearance.
            Whether one defines, however, the supreme experience and the “final reality” as
absolute emptiness or utmost fullness is with regard to the character and goal of the
modern path of meditation not the decisive point. For in both cases it is a matter of an
experience (determined by something prior to it), which is indeed prepared and attained
by the path of meditation, but which completely absorbs the meditant leaving him with no
proper contribution of himself to the realm of the absolute. But for the path of meditation,
which is the object of the following presentation, this is already itself and not only to begin
with its goal (albeit with the highest significance), it is the authentic fulfillment, thus not
the experience but rather the exercise – which to be sure is not possible without an
experience. The decisive novelty that through this treatise is not only to be made
understandable but also practicable, is to provide access to a mode of meditation
understood to be the highest manifestation of individuation. Since this becomes at the
same time apparent as the meaning of the world and man, it is tantamount to the sense of
meaning of meditation. Only under the accompaniment of such a deeper understanding is
a cognitive form of meditation possible, not one only accompanied  by the blind (and in
principle egoistic) will to perfection. The significance of modern meditating lies simply not
in the experience but in the exercise, in executing the highest form of individuation. The
main characteristic of modern meditation is not reception, but execution and attaining and
indeed not only in its preparation, but also and above all in its result. The hereby emerging,
completely new consciousness-content is at the same time a completely new cosmic
content originating from free human execution. Upon this are based the value and
meaning of meditation as well as its social substance, not as the enrichment of a single
human being but of all humanity. This type of meditative individuation is not practicable
without an understanding of its nature, but is also distinguished by the fact that it is
completely shone through by knowledge.
            The main difference therefore between modern, spiritual scientific meditation and
the older, eastern one is that it, contrary to the latter, does not give up individual
consciousness, but that it preserves and enhances it. Its essential distinguishable feature is
rather that attains its most profound significance not as an experience but as an exercise
and that therein lies its understandability, its meaning and cognitive content, which is as it
were its aggregate state. When therefore E.J. Jungclausen (OSB)[14] characterizes
meditation in the liturgy as follows: “This final reality, experienced as holy presence, can
also be understood as utmost fullness” and to “this  basic form of all religious experience of
the holy God in the Bible up to Nirvana” ascribes an “eminently numinous quality”[15] that
it shares with the words of Buddha, then he is in so far right that he does not describe the
modern form of meditation. To understand the latter as the manifestation and fulfillment
of human freedom is the task that this treatise has set itself. Its objective is to explain the
emergence of modern meditation from human freedom as spiritual activity and to
interpret it through the use of epistemological means.  Only in this way can also meditation
be secluded from being lessened by its neighbors with their striving for perfection.
            From the numerous (partly grotesque) attempts by representatives of Eastern
meditative practices to render them understandable to western minds, only two will be put
forward. Paramahansa Yogananda’s publication “Meditations for Self-
Realization”[16] appeared in the publisher company of the Self-Realization Fellowship, Los
Angeles. In the colophon the following note is added: “The Self-Realization Fellowship is a
non-profit organization without a sectarian character which in year 1920 was founded by
Paramahansa Yogananda in America. Truth seekers interested in the teaching of
Paramahansa Yogananda can turn for a free prospect to the Self-Realization Fellowship.”
            The publication contains prayers and meditations, in which Christian (rather those
understood as such) and eastern notions are mixed together – mostly with indications
concerning bodily posture and concentration on certain organic spheres. One finds here an
“explanation about the concepts ‘Om’ and ‘Christ consciousness,” “Meditations on Christ”,
“Christmas meditations”,  a meditation with the title “The Transfiguration of Christ” and
others. The publication is a guide to happiness that expressly recommends itself as such.
“Oh, quiet divine laughter, shine on my face and shine through my soul. I want to become a
happiness millionaire and after your coins strive for eternal new bliss. With them I can
satisfy all bodily and psychic needs.”[17]
            Similar naive notions appealing to the coveting realms of the soul concerning
practices  to achieve perfection that lead back to the paradisiacal state of pre-historic times
cover a whole segment of the literature, e.g. Thorwald Dethlefsen “Destiny as Chance”:
“Love wants to overcome the polarity of contradictions and lead man back to that unity of
consciousness from which he once fell because of the paradisiacal sin.”[18]
            The other example for an approach by the eastern to the western mindset and the
attempt to gain an understanding of it, is Sri Aurobindo,[19] who gained world fame (even
though that has faded again today). Romain Rolland has greeted him enthusiastically: “He
is the greatest interpreter of India today, who has realized the most perfect synthesis that
the genius of West and East can achieve at all.” That his basic attitude as well is not one of
exercising freedom as spiritual activity but an experiential-desirous one, is attested to by
statements like the following: “One can only attain a greater perfection by the entry of a
higher power taking control of the complete actions of the human being. The second stage
of this Yoga consists of laying all actions of nature persistently into the hands of this
greater power, to let its influence, occupancy and activity take the place of personal efforts,
until God, to whom we aspire to, becomes the immediate Lord of Yoga and He Himself
produces the total spiritual and ideational transformation of our being.”[20]  Granted, the
personality of God (in the sense of a superpersonality) is emphasized (and here Aurobindo
endeavors to recognize western understanding) – without however recognizing the
problem that arises here. Because the notion of a superpersonality is confronted with the
question, whether such a consciousness-content (at least by approximation) is attainable
for a consciousness that does not through a free thinking will and action out of knowledge
attains an intuitive vision of itself – whether thus superpersonality for an experience that
has not itself achieved at least the preliminary stages of a supersubjective and
superobjective effort in one’s own being, can in its form be anything else but something of
a subpersonality. On this question neither the formulations like the following that
approach Western modes of thinking give any answer: “God is in any case Himself a
concrete and not an abstract being or a state of pure and spiritless infinity. The original
and universal existence is ‘He’. God is a Person above all persons, the home and fatherland
of all souls.”[21] “The essence of all spiritual knowledge is an inner conscious self-
awareness. Every action of man must be a self-formulating by himself of this self-
awareness.”[22] In a letter to a couple of Sadhakas  I have emphasized his novelty (the ‘new
Yoga’ represented by Aurobindo) in order to explain clearly  that a simple repetition of the
goal and overall idea of the old Yoga does not suffice in my eyes, that I am placing
something to be attained before them that was never attained before and clearly grasped as
a goal, even though that objective is a natural but nevertheless still hidden result of all
earlier spiritual efforts.”[23] This and many other statements by Aurobindo seem to clearly
depart from the eastern traditions, for he emphasizes after all himself: “Because there is
indeed no essential difference between the spiritual life in the East and the West.”[24] But
that the viewpoint and meditative practice represented by him bear nevertheless no
resemblance to the cognitive mode and practice  developed in the subsequent pages, is
borne out by the statements such as the following: “Since the power of consciousness is the
universal creatrix, the nature of a given world will depend on what kind of self-expression
this consciousness gives in the world. Accordingly for each individual the way it sees or
represents the world will depend on the mindset or the imprint that consciousness has
assumed in it.”[25]  Such a point of view clarifies the differences that are to be recognized
in sharp contours. Aurobindo’s designation of the universal creative mode of consciousness
is (under the premise of a spiritual world outlook) only just applicable to that state of
consciousness that precedes the meditative consciousness as is meant in the following
treatise. Pre-meditative consciousness (as are generally all modes of existence not shaped
by meditative self-formation) is indeed an expression of universal consciousness. The
modern meditative consciousness meant here is on the other hand an imprinting of
individuality into the universal consciousness. Aurobindo therefore designates in his
“New” Yoga an essentially old mindset and in the meditative mode of experience
represented by him an - in relation to spiritual scientific meditation – pre-meditative state,
which in a real advancement in consciousness must be overcome. For further clarification,
the following texts are cited: “The origin of the overmind is not able to completely
eliminate the ignorance in the earthly evolution.”[26] “The ultimate meaning of the course
of our life on the one hand, and the goals of the world on the other are beyond our
knowledge.”[27] “The root forces of human life, its most intimate origins lie deep beneath
us, are irrational, they lie far above, are superrational.”[28]  It is not to be denied that the
word “superrational” can be classified in a sensible context. The latter can in a
contemporary fashion, however, only be grasped through the further development of the
current object-orientated vigilant level of consciousness.
            This short overview did by no means endeavor to present an extensive and radical
appraisal of the varieties of the eastern state of consciousness and their corresponding
meditative techniques – and even less of their current wide-spread contortions and
degeneration. Merely a few examples will be put forward that today are (directly or as
frequently modified typical mindsets) influential in the Western world, from which an
anti-thesis will be sketched in the following treatise. In order that it in its particularity be
all the more emphasized by its antinomy, such views and efforts will be contrasted to it in
the following characterization and aspirations that are most of all suited to hinder a
modern development of consciousness.
            The now following deliberations lay claim to be understandable for an unbiased and
willing attentive mind. For they are unbiased and therefore appeal only to that what every
reader today can observe in his own consciousness and in connection to what is observed
can assess through his thinking. They make however no concession to the complacency
common today  that wants to be effortlessly provided with pre-fabricated facts. Instead, the
presentation has been consciously made in such a way that it (above all what concerns its
overview) requires for those wishing to become acquainted with it a certain amount of
effort. For that is part of the nature of the path of meditation sketched here, which does not
promise any picking of ripe fruits outside one’s own soul, but rather attains its essential
meaning  from the incessant effort.

H e r b e r t  W i t z e n m a  n n

Garmisch-Partenkirche, Easter 1982      

      

[1] The German title of this book is “Der Weg zur Erleuchtung, Geheimlehren und Zeremonien in Tibet“ (The Way to
Enlightenment, Secret Doctrines and Ceremonies in Tibet), of which it is not known whether this is the title referred to in
this essay. There is an incomplete PDF file of “Mysticism and Magic in Tibet” in which only the line on p. 23,  “No ego
exists in the person, nor in anything" could be found. As a consequence the quotations will be translated from the
German version with the footnotes pertaining to that volume.
[2] “Kanzak dag med pa; tschos dag med pa”: No thing is the “I”.
[3] Loc.cit. 1960, 107
[4] Loc.cit. 217
[5] Loc.cit., 220
[6] In her books “The Master, the Monks and I – A Western Woman’s Experience of Zen” and “A Way to Satori”
[7] In “Wege der Meditation heute” (Paths of Meditation Today), published by Ursula von Mangoldt, 1970, 51; it is not
known whether an English title exists.
[8] Loc.cit. 52
[9] “Zen Koan as a Means of Attaining Enlightenment”. The above quote is translated from p. 46 from the German
edition of 1957 entitled “Der Weg zur Erleuchtung” as will also be the others.
[10] Loc.cit. 203
[11] Loc.cit., 111
[12] Loc. lit., 223
[13] Mark Tatz  and Jody Kent, “Rebirth: Tibetan Game of Liberation” 1978. Quoted from the German translation “Durch
Wiedergeburt zur Befreiung”, “Das tibetische Orakelspiel“, 195.
[14] Ordinis Sancti Benedicti (of the order of St Benedict)
[15] “Wege der Meditation heute” 173. English title „Path s of Meditation Today” not known whether a translation exists.
[16] Quoted from the German translation, 3rd ed. 1971
[17] Loc. lit., 74
[18] Loc. lit., quoted from the German translation “Schicksal als Chance”, 1981, 267. From Catholic quarters as well
attempts are made to unite Christian and eastern notions and thus to legitimize the need for depersonalization, e.g. H. M.
Enomiya-Lasalle (SJ=Society of Jesus) “Zen meditation for Christians”. 
[19] Aurobindo is quoted from O. Wolff “Sri Aurobindo”, 1967 (Not translated.)
[20] Loc. lit., 87
[21] Loc. lit., 94
[22] Loc. lit., 100
[23] Loc. lit.,101
[24] Loc. lit., 128
[25] Loc. lit., 125
[26] Loc. lit., 130
[27] Loc,.lit., 136
[28] Loc. lit., 142

WHAT IS MEDITATION?
1. 

With a Hat but Without an Umbrella

„With a hat but without an umbrella” – this is how one could characterize a man leaving
his house to go out. One has thereby also integrated him however in his environment, for
like in a dream one lets another with and without swing along. Because every expressed
With and Without form together, on the one hand, another unexpressed Without. They
designate what one can take into account regarding a person without considering his
environment. One places him in his environment by enclosing him inside the discarding
circle of the Without.   Every expressed With and Without however form, on the other
hand, together another unexpressed With. For, slipping away from under our hands in a
reverse function they shape no less the latter as well. Does not the previously regarded
discarding Without describe, after all, at the same time several features, which now
connect what was previously at home in another With and Without with the world, which
it now entrusts to itself? And at the same time this With also becomes a Without again,
since it only designates certain connections, which to be sure do not exclude but discard
others. If one becomes aware of this, then one catches sight under de daily drabness of our
sloth of a permanently bustling dream play of transformations sliding towards an
unforeseeable future – a self-looping web of relationships from alternatively flashing and
glimmering light sources. “He left the house with a hat but without an umbrella” – a
sentence certainly not sprung from any noble powers of expression then suddenly loses its
brittleness, it becomes malleable and worthy to be questioned. Does it present us with
something essential that ought be recognized? We want to examine it.
            The personal pronoun “he”, the nouns “house”, “hat” and “umbrella” – they all
indicate something visible, perceivable. Without the help of our senses we would not come
to the point of using them. They are words directed and supported through the help our
senses, insofar thus sensible words. And the same is also true (although under different
conditions) for the verb “left”.
            But what about the little non-descript words “with” and “without”? “With a hat” and
“without an umbrella” are statements  that usually do not pre-occupy us – yet moved us to
pose our question. Behind the stormy dynamics of the verb “left” and the self-
consciousness gravity of the nouns “hat” and “umbrella” these particles appear as modest
retiring and poor relatives, who should be ashamed of their torn clothes (for they are
unwarily dragged into their service) and their modest  appearance, whom it behooves to
step aside  when the high faces of the nouns proudly look down on them and the flying
garments of the verbs noisily swirling by.
            But if one looks more precisely then one notices that the smallest coins of the
treasury of words hide their light under a bushel (for they are content with but few letters).
For where do we find for their need something that corresponds to the hook on which the
nouns hang their sweeping headdresses and the verbs their splendid robes? Which one of
our senses would be capable to stiffen the back of the With, which must undertake
numerous services, so that its burden would not be too heavy - and what provisions
reimburse the Without for the never-ending deprivations that it is exposed to on its long
wanderings. No eye can see the Without, for it is that which lies, imperceptible and yet
perceptibly related, between the head and the hat – and no ear can hear the Without, for it
speaks about what is not heard and yet overheard. With and Without have no helpers and
friendly proponents and do not desire such help, they are instead the always unrewarded
volunteers.
            “With” and “without” are supersensible words, for they mediate, convey  what does
not appear to the senses, i.e. the connections, relations and also the diversities of the
numerous particulars, the multitude but not the union of which we owe to our senses. No
matter how great the richness of the world of the senses, how inexhaustible the harvest of
the numerous particulars may be, no sense grasps what connects the one percept perceived
by the senses with the other – be it through relationship or through non-relationship (for
the latter is also is a relation that leads beyond the particular). The senses divide the world,
they do not make it whole. The eye now mediates percepts of a red surface to us and
thereafter of a blue surface, now one part and then of the other part of the red or blue
surface. But the eye tells us nothing about the juxtaposition nor the succession of these
percepts. Space and time are alien to it, it always says only “this, this and this”. And also
the “this” remains, even though emphatically meant, nevertheless unexplained. For the
qualitative attribute and uniqueness of every percept are not disclosed either through its
sensoriality and through the senses seized by it. It is speechless and first requires the
inhaled breath before it begins to speak. A color percept expresses its particularity only in
connection with similar or unsimilar percepts. And this is true just as well for every other
realm of the senses. The connections in which the phenomena present themselves, in
which we unravel them, are not established by themselves, - they require an intermediary
that brings harmony between them without infringing on their characteristic feature. For
even the “and” between the particulars “this” and “this” remains unattainable for the eye.
The worldwide expanse of space that embraces us is also a building that is constructed with
the mortar of the “and”. It is not seen, it is a construct of manifold assemblage - : not the
precepts of things, but their order in a juxtaposition, superimposition and succession is
what we call space. The eye nor any other sense can perceive order, can perceive “above”,
“next” or “behind”. And the same is true for the order in time, the succession. Therefor the
inexhaustible “this”, “this” and “this” of the eye is, like every other sense, every time an
incomparable particularity, yet what it is and who it is, is not disclosed indirectly though
itself, but only in context with others that appear in the same need of unification.
            The great words, the nouns and verbs embrace indeed far more than the undisclosed
particulars of the senses. They explore wide-ranging realms and know how to relate of
their world trips. Yet without the help of the senses (the senses of entire nations are at
their disposal) they are powerless. The little words “with” and “without” on the other hand
fly with light wings over the greatest distances and bring the most remote areas together. 
And even the most inconspicuous and hackneyed of all words, the tiny word “and”, the
smallest copper coin of our treasury of words, makes from “with” and “without”, from “yes”
and “no”, irrespective of their inequality, a couple.
            Relieved from the senses, the supersensible words float in the etheric heights of
thinking, but with falcon eyes espying their prey, namely every gap in the world of the
senses on which they swoop down – yet not to snatch, rob and carry off the captured prey,
but to introduce to the sentence – the just and mild ruler of the world of context – its
members joining company in friendly communion. 

 2. 

The Most Powerful Word is “And”

Let us look a little more precisely at the supersensible words and the realm from which
they originate. They are children, messengers and agents of context – thus of thinking –
for the latter is the trustee of the world order with the power to unite all separateness, to
cross all borders, to conciliate all estrangement. All talk of limits of knowledge is utmost
foolish, because cognition is always the overcoming of a limit, the advancement from
disconnectedness to a connector and connectedness. Only not-knowingness is limited, but
ends where cognition begins. The percepts of the senses are admittedly limited, the notion
however that there could be perceived particulars that cannot be joined together (hence
cannot be inserted into the process of cognition) is frivolous, for we cannot become aware
of a particular without knowledge, hence of  integration into the context. Cognitive
advancement can indeed be hindered when perceptual interlinks are lacking that are
needed, or when our intuitive ability does not suffice to grasp the ready-made connection.
The hindrances to our cognitive advancement however are not a principal limitation based
on the nature of cognition. The percepts of our senses however are in principle limited,
because they lack context. On the other hand, we require them, if we want to cross their
limits. Where nothing is perceived, nothing can be known either. But where knowledge is
gathered, the limits of the percepts are crossed.
            Let us look somewhat more closely at cognition, whose assistants are the little words
that buzz around us with their supersensible wing beats.
            The most powerful of these little words, even the most powerful of all words is at the
same time the one that we are used to disvalue or even disdain the most. It is (that to begin
with may sound objectionable) the little word “and”. It is the most powerful word, because
from it originates the world. For this word is the context of all things – and where the band
is torn that entwines all beings with soft threads and tremendous webs, the world is
destroyed. All cognition is an And, for it is the gaining of context, a co-weaving of the world
web. Context, connectedness is but the transition from one to another, is addition, is just
an And. Before cognition began, before it succeeded we lacked this And. Cognition however
has the ability grasp how all things belong together, it creates order among them by adding
the one to the other. The With is also an And, for it adds the hat to the head. And also the
Without is an And, for it adds an open-ended relation to the closed one, which now does
not find its supplement, but may do so later.
            When we now view the And more precisely, however, we recognize that the With
and the Without are the pair of wings with which it carries out its supersensible flights. For
only what is separate can be connected and what is being connected is contrasted from
each other now by this connection. Who says “head and hat” can only establish this
connection because these are two different groups of percepts, and when the speaker
connects these different areas, he then expresses at the same time their cohesiveness (the
hat belongs to the head and the head belongs to the hat), but he at the same time draws
attention to their distinctness, for the hat fits the head on the basis of the latter’s positive
property, namely its convex curvature that corresponds to a content, on the other hand the
head fits the hat on the basis of its concave curvature that hopes for a content.
            The And is at the same time connectivity and disconnectivity as well, its statement is
a Yes and No, a With and Without. (We would recognize this from it, if we would want to
trace the expressive gestures of its sounds.) This similarity of dividing and connecting is
what we call discernment. For discernment connects separateness and divides
connectedness.
            Let us now examine still more precisely how cognition proceeds by observing how it
executes its basic act of discernment. What happens when with its supersensible binding
agents, with its And, With and Without, it approaches the unconnected constituents
conveyed to it by our senses?
            We would gaze helplessly and perplexedly at a tree, if we did not have the means of
discernment that incarnates it – i.e. creating order by determining its particulars as part of
whole. This means of discernment is the concept “tree”.  The concept tree is in the multiple
sense of the word a means of discernment. For it adds the  perceptual particulars of the
tree together and contrasts them thereby from one another, but it also contrasts the tree
from its surrounding and thereby inserts it therein. It can easily be shown that all other
concepts are similar means of discernment. For they all have the And-character, by which
they differentiate themselves from the percepts of our senses, which are the only suitable 
tools of our cognition. They all originate from the discriminatory function of the And, and
are at the same time means of connection and separation. The concept “tree” is such a
means of separation within the realm that it classifies inwardly as well as outwardly set
against the area in which it inserts the tree. The concept “tree” embraces the parts of the
tree, the root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, buds, blossoms and fruits. The concept “tree”
therefore binds many other concepts in its realm. For the precepts of the parts of the tree
are on their part groups that are classified by concepts, unified into totalities, constructed
into shapes. Many other concepts belong to the ones mentioned, such as bark or sap and
also those that do not specifically belong to the morphological construction of the tree, but
indirectly or nonspecifically condition it such as light or air, up and down.   This cannot be
otherwise, since the thinking from which the concepts originate is the constituent power,
and since its tools unite the concepts on the basis of their powers of discrimination with
one another and with all things. Since cognition is in principle a border crossing, since its
assistants are such border crossings, it follows that this union is nowhere interrupted, that
it has no  end except in its complete coherence. Since concepts are connections, there are
no isolated concepts and is thinking a unity.  The isolation within thinking solely arises
from our viewpoint that gives priority to the particularity of the concepts and not to the
universality of thinking.  Every concept, every idea therefore represents thinking as a
whole, the whole ideational world from a certain aspect.  The saying by Goethe is valid and
wise, “The idea is eternal and unique. To speak of idea’s is not well done.”
            This also applies to the concept “tree”. It subsumes the whole spiritual world under
a certain aspect. It can however also be assigned to those groups of percepts  which  belong
to a certain perceptible tree. It is then adapted to this perceptual realm as the structural
framework that extends its discriminatory function “inwardly” and “outwardly”. This
particular discriminatory shape, which the spiritual world in this case assumes, is one of
the numerous metamorphoses of the little word And. Hereby must be taken into
consideration that the scope and hence the power of conceptional discernment is capable
of unlimited differentiation – thereby resulting in hierarchical sub- and superordinate
distinguishing structures of a most finely chased subtlety and expanding into the
unforeseeable. For the And-function is on the one hand unlimitedly refined “inwardly” and
“outwardly” - on the other hand, complexes forever growing in seize are subsumed  and
superimposed on the respective smaller ones. The differentiation (that is each time
detachment as well as insertion) can with respect to a tree progress "inwardly” to
particulars becoming continually smaller: stem, crown, branches, twigs, leaves, buds etc.
And a similar progression in differentiation takes place “outwardly”: the ground (in which
the tree is rooted), garden, landscape, country, continent, earth etc. The differential-And
that “inwardly” subsumes the tree in arbitrarily refined subdivision and “outwardly” in
arbitrarily expanded envelopment is the hierarchical highest specific  distinguishing
feature in this realm. The concept “tree” is therefore the dominating And in a manifold
realm, the supreme distinguishing instance in a system of super- and subordinate
connections.
             If one sees this (only to begin with as an example of an arbitrarily conjugable distinguishing function), then one
gains respect for the significance and the extent of the issues and processes that are concealed behind the
inconspicuousness of their relation through the distinguishing title And. 

3. 

Concepts Are the Master-Builders 

of the Perceptible World
The “inwardly” and “outwardly” extending differentiation builds (in the case of the
example that was considered) the tree in its own configuration within its world. What
occurs during this construction must however be considered even more precisely.
            As cognitive beings we do not find such a world that would be ready-made, pre-
given. This finished pre-given world, of which one assumes (depending on the evaluation
of our cognitive abilities) that in our striving for truth and reality we can either copy or not
copy, is a false premise that still widely dominates under the influence of Kant the current
scientific paradigm and disposition. Unnoticed but with a tremendous expressive force, it
has taken possession of the mentality of the entire civilized world as well as its
civilizational vibrancies. It is one of the greatest hindrances to a meditative culture of one’s
personal life. Therefor these deliberations, which purport to be an incentive to pursue a
modern path of meditation, must deal at least to some extent  with this mistake.[1]
            The unbiased introspection of our cognitive behavior shows something else than
what the notion of a ready-made pre-given world would want to suggest to us. As cognitive
beings we do not, as is usually assumed today, copy a finished world pre-given to us with
necessarily insufficient means or even with those means altogether restricted to
punctuation. As cognitive beings we rather construct reality (in a subconscious, continually
formative web-of-being) from both of its basic components: the incoherent percepts
conveyed to us by our senses, and the concepts of our thinking that on the basis of their
own nature are coherent. By virtue of their binding ability as well as their ability to adapt to
the percepts they are the tireless master-builders of the perceptible world. They
differentiate and integrate the phenomenal richness of the world from a subordinated state
of materiality to the fullness of intrinsically subdivided shapes incorporated  in a universal
structural fabric. It is through our conceptional activity, our thinking will as cognitive
beings that we put this structural event to work.
            Reality is therefore, in so far as we become aware of it in the waking state of mind,
our continual  structural enactment. Granted, we perform this for the most part
subconsciously.  When one (as is done here) understands under cognition to be the
unification of percept and concept, then one must therefore distinguish a conscious and an
unconscious pat of the cognitive process. One becomes thereby aware that our
consciousness realm, independent on its degree of wakefulness, is permeated by a
formative event of a cognitive nature. Through introspection of our cognitive conduct we
can raise our subconscious structural act retrospectively to fully elucidated
consciousness.    
            The consciousness raising of and the research into this structural enactment of
human cognition (that for the human beings of today proceeds initially to a great extent
subconsciously), is dealt with in the first main part of “The Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity”[2], that work by Rudolf Steiner which forms the basis of his entire research. In so
far as in the framework of these deliberations about the nature and practice of meditation a
characteristic of the productivity of human cognition must be given, these deliberations
can also be taken as a sketchy introduction into that work. This introduction is in our
context indispensable, because without insight into the nature of cognition nobody can
form appropriate notions about the nature and practice of modern meditation. This will
become clear from the following.
                What happens when the conceptual binding components (the means of
discrimination or And-metamorphoses as hierarchically structured forms of discernment) 
are unified with the disconnected percepts? They are connected – yet on the basis of a
process that is only possible because the hereby proceeding change is pre-disposed in the
conceptual binding components. The concepts as contents in each case of a general sort are
linked to each other according to their own intrinsic context. They are therefore in this
form not assigned to individual things.  Each concept embraces rather a whole range of
individual examples (of which on their part each one is a structured group of concepts) for
which it is qualified. The concept tree embraces in its universality all trees, the concept dog
all dogs, the concept bud all buds. Concepts are according to the usage of the Scholastics
universals. However, when the general concept tree is connected with the perceptual realm
of a certain tree, a certain oak in a correlation enacted in an attentive cognitive fashion, it
then loses its universality through this individualized determination. It no longer possesses
this mobility with which it can be connected to numerous trees. It has coagulated in the
open joints of the as yet unconnected partial percepts and has congealed between them in
the solidified state of such a solid bond. This can be recognized by the fact that after the
unification of concept and percept, one no longer has a mobile formative element that like
a Proteus can assume numerus shapes.  Instead, our morphogenic wealth of forms now
also belongs to the shape adapted to the individual case. After the unification process we
can, like a plastic material hardened in a counter die, detach this shape again from its
perceptual  traps and, independent of its detention, make us conscious of this with the help
of its imprint. We become aware of this when without an outer percept we remember the
tree to which we have cognitively connected ourselves.[3] We are capable of these
remembrances, because we can not only form the general fluid concept ”tree”, but also its
individualized and hardened form. Our thinking will has not only access to the universal
“tree”, but also to the representation of a certain tree, the “individualie”[4]. The
representation is an individualized concept. From the unformed materiality of our percepts
has originated through the process of individualization, on the one hand, the structured
shape of the tree and from the mobile universal, and on the other hand, a hardened
individualie.
            The process of individualization demands an even more detailed examination. This
process, as has been shown, is significant for the concept as well as the group of percepts
assigned to it. The individualization of the concept corresponds with respect to the
percepts to an opposite process. For the latter are universalized. For every percept
belonging to a certain tree, a certain oak is a solitary one as long as it is not integrated by
the concept in the process of individualization into a structural framework. Though this
conceptual act every single percept is spun into the manifold structural fabric of the oak, 
making it a part moreover of the multi-membered  and multi-related surroundings.
Through the individualization of a concept the particulars apprehended by it are
universalized. For from each one of them now run connecting threads to other percepts
and through their connections they partake of an expanding relational fabric of an ever
more dilating generality. Therein now streams however the previously concealed, now
disclosed property manifestation of every perceptual particular on and on.
            The proper evaluation of the morphogenetic process sketched here is impaired
above all by two prejudices that have nestled into the current scientific, but also general
mode of consciousness. Since they are not only suited to raise doubt concerning the reality
content of the fore-going, but also to lead to serious disorders of a modern meditative
undertone, it is necessary to briefly deal with them here.
            One of these prejudices concerns the intrinsic nature of the general concepts, the
universals. One sees in them, according to a highly influential theory, namely only abstract
summaries of uniformities or essentials of the perceptible things. This theory of
abstraction therefore does not concede any proper content to the concepts, which is only
supposed to appertain to the perceptible things. The so-called general concepts would thus
not possess any objective reality, they would merely have a subjective significance as
orientational patterns of cognitive human beings. The theory of abstraction fails to
recognize the process of becoming aware of reality as characterized in the foregoing. It
presupposes this as something ready-made, from which individual components can be
abstracted for subjective use. It does not practice the introspection of the unification
process of percept and concept, which does not copy reality but brings reality about. It
moreover does not observe the distinctness of the basic elements that merge into this
unification process. Unprejudiced introspection namely demonstrates that, contrary to this
theory of abstraction, contentless patterns of orientation from the supposedly contentful,
perceptible available reality is not possible. For the pure concepts are on the basis of their
incoherence completely contentless. They can therefore not be the contentual precept of
the process of abstraction. The general concepts are therefore the conveyors of content,
and generality as such precedes logically and also processually the forming of
individualized formative structures. Not generality is posterior but individuality.
            The other prejudice to be considered here is namely determined by the still to this
day continuing influence of Kant, even though it has roots with a long history. According to
this prejudice, all conceptual means of classification that we have at our disposal are
ascribed to the human species. Our general human psychic organism is supposedly
natured in such a way that we become aware of the impressions of an outer reality
conveyed by our senses in certain structural ways of a conceptional nature, which are
characteristic for human perceptive behavior, but which have no similarity with reality as
such. All ordering features of the contents of our consciousness would accordingly be of a
subjective nature. This hypothesis contains numerous defects, of which only the following
are mentioned:

1. It likewise presupposes a reality that for the human process of cognition is ready-made
and pre-given, whereas the content of consciousness that exhibits the characteristic of
reality, also according to Kant’s construct, originates first within the cognitive process and
is afterwards transposed to a hypothetical beyond.

2. This supposed reality beyond our consciousness must be represented within the – as
subjectively premised – consciousness realm necessarily without consciousness-like
features, thus totally contentless. It is therefore an outwardly transposed element of the
cognitive content, namely the totally contentless percept, which is thereby arbitrarily
duplicated.

3. The concepts are admittedly grasped through a subjective act of the thinking will, yet
present themselves in their logical legality inaccessible to subjective arbitrariness. They are
a spiritual realm based on its own foundations that within its order (which Kant fails to
notice) assigns to the subjective as well the objective element its proper conceptually
befitting place and rank in this supersubjective and superobjective realm.  What is first
capable  of explaining the nature of human cognition and even the nature of the human
being as an instance superior to them, cannot in turn be explained from human nature,
which after all cannot be understood out of itself. The conceptual world is such an absolute
instance of self-determination from which all other determinations first contingently
emerge.

4. The unification of percept and concept cannot be attributed to the activity and nature of
our organism.  For in the forming and handling of concepts we suppress the activity of our
organism. It is the latter that through our nervous and sensory system  conveys us the
percepts, to which on the basis of their incoherence must first be directed the constructive
structural function of the concepts. The context, which as such pertains to reality and
which is driven back  by our organism, is therefore returned to the derealized reality by the
suppression of our organism. The contextualization is therefore not part of our organism,
but is contrary to the latter. Now it could indeed be objected that hereby merely one of the
systems of our organism suppresses another one, the constitutional-subjective realm
would thus not be exceeded. This objection overlooks the self-determination of the world
of ideas that is  superordinate to all other determinations. The absoluteness of this order,
from which all other structures are only derived, is evident from the fact that after the
conceptual grasping of the objectively corresponding context we are capable of making
predictions and result-oriented preplanning. If our structural means were only of a
constitutional-subjective nature, they could not achieve objective successes. Thinking is
therefore a superconstitutional structural element that empowers us to grasp a subject and
object overlapping reality and thus to harmonize the subjective and objective in a
predictable procedure.
            With that enough may have been said for the present context to refute these
disturbing prejudices. What has been put forward here could in a more elaborate cognitive
scientific and anthropological context be motivated in much more detail. Especially the
significance and activity of our organism within our overall constitution and the total
reality would become understandable. From this would in the face of doubt emerge solidly
ascertained criteria of discernment about the constitutionally contingent and the
constitutionally unspoiled and untouchable.           

[1] The author has dealt extensively with this matter elsewhere, e.g. in his works “Intuition und
Beobachtung”, Vol. I and II, Stuttgart 1977 and 1978. Partly translated as “Intuition and Observation”,  by
Sophia Walsh, Spicker Books 1986 (sold-out).
[2] This was the original title suggested by Rudolf Steiner. It was subsequently also translated as “The
Philosophy of Freedom” and more recently in “Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of
Freedom”.
[3] The process involved here can in the framework of this essay not be covered in detail. Extensive
presentations can be found i.a. in the following books by the author “Struktuurphänomenologie”, Dornach
1983 (“Structural Phenomenology”, not yet translated) and “Goethes universalästhetischer Impuls”, Dornach
1987 (“Goethe’s Universal Aesthetic Impulse”, not translated either.) 
[4] This is the German spelling for which there is no English equivalent. (Tr.) 

 4. 

Behind Blossoming Apple 

Tree Branches Rises the Moon
The foregoing characterized movement and significance of the morphogenic process
requires even more exploration. For the event streaming in it is the penetration of growth
and decay. Only by paying attention to this, does  one become aware of the seriousness and
jubilation, the drama and appeal to one’s conscience of the cognitive happening. For the
introspection of our cognitive experience there develops, on the one hand, a growth.
Because through the universalization of its percepts the tree shape is developed, it reveals
next to its natural-living a second psychic-spiritual growth – from the particulars having
previously died away in isolation the abundance of their properties is revived, a common
thread like a life-giving sap begins to flow through the parts of the tree. Yet the
introspection of our cognitive experience, on the other hand, also follows a passing away.
The many-sided mobility of the general concept is, through the relationship to a certain
case of its scope, deprived of its spiritual order and adapted to the other material disorder
– but beyond that however is also congealed in the representational fabric that flows into
the perceptual realm of the tree. The process of a revival on the perceptual side
corresponds to process of dying away on the conceptual side.
            When we turn our introspection to the formation of the tree shape, which owes its
realization to our cognitive experience, we then not only observe the growth of a tree shape
– in fact two tree shapes appear before our eyes with entirely different life cycles. For the
supersensible tree shape passes away, while the sensible tree shape grows, while the latter
comes to life, the former dies.
            This is the lovely and serious saga that the little word With relates to us. It is the
saga of the intertwining of growth and decay. It is the saga of the word With, because it
tells that the one is joined to the other and how and by which means the one occurs with
the other. And this saga is true for all world phenomena. For there is no thing and neither
no being that through such a formative process would not come into reality, such as we
concur in cognition as a cycle of growth and passing away, occurring in us through the
unification of percept and concept. This unification however is one of universalization and
individualization, perfused and penetrated by a reviving and dying out.
            The secret background of every revival is thus formed by a dying out, every growth is
shimmered through by a decay. Our introspection whispers incessantly the saga of the
marriage of conception with contraction.
            Arno Holz[1] has expressed this (probably more out of a genial instinct than artistic
conscious awareness) in a superb verse:

            B e h i n d   b l o s s o m i n g   a p p l e   t r e e  B r a n c h e s   r i s e s  t h e   m o  o n.

In the foreground of our concurring inner awareness of this poetic expression shines the
sun-like jubilation of the vibrant apple tree blossoms. Behind its branches we become with
deep earnestness conscious of the slowly rising moon of the contrary happening that
manifests the spirit dying out in the life of the sensible world.  

[1] Arno Holz (1863 - 1929) was a German author, poet and playwright. His most important work belongs to
the school of naturalism, with influences from impressionism.

5. 

“Tat twam asi”, “That Is You”

Note from the translator: This is what I came across in a blog “Reality check: the
existentialist Colin Wilson and consciousness theory in the 21st century” by Geoff
Ward while translating this chapter (September 24, 2019) : “What [Colin] Wilson was
searching for all his life as a philosopher was the means by which, through an elevated
consciousness, we could meet our deep-seated, primeval need for transcendence without
the use of drugs or other stimulants or the aid of religious institutions, and how we could
assist what he saw as an evolutionary momentum towards this goal. Ever since his first
book The Outsider (1956), he was sure that humanity was on the point of an
evolutionary leap to a higher phase. Integral to this was the ultimate question that lay
behind the ‘Outsiders’: how can humans extend their range of consciousness?” Is this
question not exactly what is answered in this essay?
Another quote: “Once, in an interview (‘Life after death’, 2003, under the Interviews
section at Colin Wilson World), Wilson told me: ‘Our purpose in the world is eventually to
enable spirit to conquer matter, to get into matter to such an extent that there is no
longer any matter.’” This is an indication to the next planetary phase of the earth, the
New Jerusalem, where the physical no longer exists and the “bottom is the etheric.
Also relevant to what is developed here: “I [Geoff Ward] was prompted finally to write
this essay after reading three new books by post-materialist authors: The Idea of the
World: A multi-disciplinary argument for the mental nature of reality (2019) by the
philosopher-scientist Bernardo Kastrup in whose work I find much that is
complementary to Wilson’s; Digital Consciousness: A Transformative Vision (2018) by
Jim Elvidge; and An End to Upside-Down Thinking: Dispelling the myth that the brain
produces consciousness and the implications for everyday life (2018) by Mark Gober, all
of which I would recommend to the reader.”

I left an, as yet unanswered, comment with a link to this translation in progress saying,
“You’ll find many of the questions that Colin Wilson raises answered in the essay “What is
Meditation? — A Basic Examination of the Spiritual Scientific Expansion of
Consciousness” by the anthroposophist/philosopher and poet Herbert Witzenmann
(1905–1988) that I am in the process of translating from the German.”

This essay might also be interesting to those concerned with the eminent danger posed to
human consciousness and thereby to the whole human race by the steadily encroaching
phenomenon of transhumanism, because the author Herbert Witzenmann, in advancing
the great Platonic tradition of the medieval scholar Alanus ab Insulis with his work
“Anticlaudianus or the Books of the Heavenly Creation of the New Man” (as the subtitle
reads of the German translation by Wilhelm Rath), succeeds in exactly formulating a
viable consciousness theory of the sort that Colin Wilson sought but not quite managed to
find.

If we give in all seriousness the proper weight to what introspection tells us, then we
become aware that through our ability to think we are connected to all world phenomena,
to the whole of reality. Thinking is after all the unifying bond permeating all world being –
and is only interrupted in the moment of origin of our cognition. For in the latter, the
formative and cohesive power only becomes active when we generate it through our own
activity. In our cognition we participate  in weaving the bond that unifies all beings, here
this bond is woven together in us and here we cooperate in interweaving it in the things.
This signifies, however, that we as thinking, spiritual beings are connected to our destiny
through ideational co-creation, thus not only in an enduring way. For the world
phenomena and world events are our destiny. In the slings and arrows of our destiny we
face ourselves as its co-creating contributor.
            We are, however, connected to world phenomena, which are our destiny, in
a twofold manner. This emerges from the foregoing.
            By looking at one of these modes of connections, we can become aware of the fact
that we (consciously or subconsciously) participate in everything that comes into being, 
the construction of all forms through the unification of the cosmogenic with our own
cognitive spirit. We thereby gain a universal mode of existence, an affinity with all beings.
For through the co-production of the spiritual formative powers that are active in all
existence, through the active reconnection of the spiritual bond that is torn from our
organism without our individual activity (thus as a result of a constitutional subjective
process), we are (because of our participation in a process that overlaps subject and object)
part of the whole world. For nowhere does this bond in virtue of its self-contained infinity
and adaptability to all beings leave an open space. We therefore have through our thinking
co-formation of world phenomena a total existence in the universe – indeed not in full
consciousness of its immeasurable content and scope (since we always realize only parts of
the totality), but in a more or less subconscious, yet through clear knowledge justifiable 
existential feeling. “Tat twam asi”, “That Is You”, this Brahmanic  formula expresses the
latter with regard to the world. And it is this connectedness with world phenomena that we
become aware of by observing our cognitive co-creation.
            We must, however, in our context also consider the other mode of connection. For,
as has resulted from the foregoing, our power of realization is not only united with the
emergence of world phenomena, but also with the dying away of the spirit therein. This
dying away is the individualization of the concepts, the spiritual formative powers of the
world. Through our activity of thinking we participate in the processes of dying away and
of coming about. In this context we must focus our attention on a factual matter of the
greatest significance. The dying away of the spirit in world phenomena, the
individualization of the universals, remains connected to the universalized percepts.
Nowhere does the dying spirit appear as something detached from the perceptual-material.
A dead spirit does not exist, only its dying away in world phenomena, there exist only
dying metamorphoses of the immortal spirit. Also there where we observe decomposition,
decay and putrefaction, it is not the spirit decomposing and decaying. What decomposes
and decays is rather that what the spirit previously formed and maintained, from which it
now retreats leaving its dissolving remains behind. It may be that anti-spiritual powers
nestle in the decaying matter, but the cosmogenic spirit does not partake in the decay. It
does not know death detached from the reviving formative process. Proper to the spirit is
only the passing away connected with the coming about and its detachment from its
previous formative work. For, when a form is dissolved nothing is present anymore in the
remaining, previously formed perceptible components of the structural power and
therefore no longer attainable to human cognition either. To be sure, the remains that
appear at every form decomposition again assume the level of form, yet the latter is no
longer suitable to the original structural fabric, but to the one appearing anew in each case.
In so far as this is the case, it has also to do here with formative processes, in which the
states of coming about and dying away are intertwined,  which can be concurred with in
cognition as well as followed by introspection becoming attentive to it – a creation gently
flaring up from the consumption.
            Even though it was previously stated that there exists no dead spirit, it is now,
however, necessary to consider a highly significant exception for which this is not true. The
place (in an exaggerated sense of the word) where this exception takes place is the human
being. It is only in the human being that this unique exception of the dead spirit, detached
from its formative reality, is manifested. For from the foregoing it has emerged that the
paralyzed, congealed, no longer mobile concepts can be manifested in a dead
representational form in human consciousness. This is of the greatest significance, because
of the fact that this is connected with the origin of our independent individuality. Through
the observation of our spiritual formative power that shapes reality within our
consciousness, we have an actualistic consciousness, the emergence of which we attribute
to ourselves. Through this actualistic consciousness, we are connected to the universals
and through the latter to the general evolution of the world, with the powers shaping
destiny, but only as co-creators of their work. In so far as we are co-creators, we are not
self-formators, designers of our destiny. This  co-creation of our destiny is synonymous
with our cognitive co-creating share of reality. Through the fact, however, that
individualized thought-forms can manifest in our consciousness arises the basic condition
of our wholly fulfilled independence. For the individualized concepts, the representations,
are in two respects detached from the general context – and this detachment is in relation
to their original  transformable class type a process of dying away. The representations no
longer possess, on the one hand, the mobility of the general concepts by virtue of which
they belong to the self-enclosed organism of the spiritual world in which they merge into a
unity. They are, on the other hand, also drawn out of the formative process of reality, in
which they led their formative activity to the world phenomena permeated by them. As the
originator of these processes the human being develops the ability to produce psychic-
spiritual figments that are detached from the context of the pure spiritual (ideational)
world as well as from the formative process of the sensible world of appearances. This
ability is the power to form representations that are not connected (apart from their own
proper psychic existence) to any reality, which the human being can first concretize
through his action. He can therefore develop visionary-conceptual imagination through
which he can imbue the world with new impulses that without him would not come about.
It is immediately evident that the human being thereby enters into a relation with the
world, which includes the possibility of  constructive creative power as well as the other
possibility of a most dangerous false path. The human being thereby enters also into a
relation with himself.
            In order to sufficiently gain an understanding of what hereby occurs, it is to begin
with necessary to take a look at the different types of actuation, through which the human
being (without preliminary self-observation as yet subconsciously) works on gaining his
independence. The human being develops self-independence by grasping the general
concepts, for he hereby brings his personal thinking will to bear in contrast to the influence
of his bodily organization as well as within the spiritual world. He develops self-
independence, furthermore, in the co-creating construction of world phenomena through
the cognitive unification of percept and concept, because he enacts something that without
him cannot come about, and in which he thus manifests, asserts himself. The advantage
gained from these processes of acquiring  independence, however, is largely lost to him,
because he activates them in most cases subconsciously. It is only in the introspection of
his cognitive behavior that he becomes fully conscious of them and that they unfold their
full activity within his soul life. This transforming influence is everywhere fully active
where the human being with his representations, mental images intervenes in
transforming his environment. For here he is fully aware of his own activity and its origin
in his own being (albeit not yet of its ideational interwovenness). This is the case with all
inventions with regard to a previously unknown state of reality. For the inventor pries
himself away from customary views and reveals what was previously hidden. For the
inventor himself the accompanying change in consciousness is unmistakable. It can with
regard to great inventions be epochal and change the state of consciousness of humanity.
This is true e.g. for the new representations about our planetary system that go back to
Copernicus. Not only our astronomical world view, but also the existential consciousness
of humanity has hereby undergone a decisive change towards gaining self-independence.
The transformative intervention in our environment, which we continually execute with
greater or less success, is however as the daily toll for our journey through life not only the
indispensable tribute to the conditions of our existence, but also the permanent gaining of
self-independence  - the full significance, of which we are indeed to begin with not inclined
to honor. It is notwithstanding obvious that, through our creative ability to transform the
world based on our own representations, we give ourselves a spiritual content, which
originates from our own creative power. This is the continually and therefore with priority
active source of our self-independence. For our psychic-spiritual condition the results of
our action are less important than the strengthening of our creative power, which is
independent from success and which increases while being exercised. Yet for the world it is
important that, by turning ourselves into self-independent beings, we can contribute to its
advancement – and that with all the more creative power, the more we change ourselves.  
            The human being is, therefore, not only the co-formator of his destiny by cognitively
co-formatting reality as destiny coming his way. He is also the acting self-formator of his
destiny, in as much he imparts new impulses to the latter and by adding a new destiny out
of himself to what comes his way. He is capable of imparting these impulses by virtue of his
power of independence, to the increase of which the destiny coming his way is constantly
appealing, and the significance of which however he only gauges  through the destiny
proceeding from him, thus through his faculty of individualization to the extent of its
spreading power.
            Yet while become aware of this, we are also becoming conscious of the great severity
overshadowing our power of independence. For we attain the latter, after all, only because
the spirit dies in us. We approach this fact with the proper appraisal only when we become
aware of the fact that the spirit is the all-pervasive primal vitality – that the phenomena of
life we observe in and around us are only derivative forms of appearance of the great
stream of life, the formative power of the idea that creates and maintains the world.
            The seriousness  that permeates us while becoming aware of this process of dying
away can, however, also fulfill us with hope. For the dying away of the spirit can be
transformed into a resurrection, in the course of which we can resurrect ourselves out of
the dead world of our representations. Of this we can be sure when through the growth of
our individual independence we let creative new things enter the course of world events for
the true progress of humanity.

            It is indeed clear that this self-formatting share of the human being in his destiny
also causes a changed relation of the general destiny forming powers with respect to him. 
 6.
Listening to the Saga of With

By way of the foregoing, the possibility arose to answer the basic question of this treatise W
h a t  i s  m e d i t a t i o n? from an essential viewpoint. This requires, to be sure, as will be
shown, an equally essential supplement.
            Meditation is generally understood to be an inner-psychic, repetitive and
concentrative exercise that ought to render the meditant capable of penetrating into the
initially hidden spiritual nature of the world and into the spirituality of his own nature.
However, nothing is as yet said by this technical description about the significance and
attitude with respect to the practice of meditation.
            There are countless instructions from ancient wisdom of the past that teach a
progressive path of schooling on how to gradually enter the world of spiritual beings. All
these instructions, however, are traced back to t w o basic forms of all meditation. Yet both
of these basic forms of meditation remain, even though they are the sources of every true
meditation, up till now with respect to the meditative attitude and technique largely
unconscious. It is one of the main tasks of this treatise to highlight these fundamentals
common to all meditation, but thereby also to create a new meaning and a new attitude
with respect to meditation, a new truly modern type of meditation.
            One of these two forms of meditating has in the foregoing already begun to become
apparent. As an advance into the spirituality of the world, meditation is a process of
becoming aware of the connection of the spiritual formative forces to the forces that create
all there is in the world. Compared to all older meditative practices and their approaches to
the highs and lows of experience, it marks an extra-ordinary step forward that the modern
form of meditation represented here is not (based on a perceptual sort of awareness or
devout bedding in a religious tradition) simply presupposed and that further acquaintance
with it is relied on by following the instructions of the authoritative teacher. Today one can
convince oneself in a scientific and yet generally accessible manner of the existence of a
spiritual world. We acquire, as was developed here, this information through the
observation of the essential difference  between percept and concept and furthermore of
their union in our cognition. It is the observation of the origin of reality through our
spiritual activity. This concerns the first basic type of all meditation that Rudolf Steiner has
developed in the first part of his Philosophy of Freedom. The practice of this meditation on
each thing, being or process that can forever and always anew be carried out is one of the
decisive recommendations that we owe Rudolf Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom. This is the
meditation that introduces the meditant to the saga of the With. In the fore-going, it was
discussed that this saga encompasses  each thing and being of our world.  It was
furthermore shown that this saga tells of the intertwining of generation and perishing, of
growth and decay in each thing and being. If one regards generation as gradual formation,
the rising of a form out of the formless (even such nondescript items as a match are
gradually built up in our consciousness from a random multiplicity of objective percepts),
then the growth and rise of a tree can be chosen as a generally valid image for this process
of generation. In the fore-going, it also became clear, however, that to every process of
generation is also connected a process of perishing, namely the solidifying of the vital
mobile concept into a perceptually fixed and individualized form. Therefore this image
must be supplemented:  the living, rising tree form as an image of generation must be
united with another tree form, which is always intrinsically connected to it, whose life
forces are in the process of solidifying, dying away. It was furthermore brought forward
that this double form can also be an image for showing how we are connected with our
destiny. For by co-creating all world phenomena, reality in general, we are on the one hand
engulfed in that part of our destiny which comes to expression as its origin.  These
processes that shape our destiny, are on the other hand also unified with those processes
that are perishing. And these are the means out of which we develop our individual
independence and through which we are capable of imparting new impulses to the world.

            The meditation that listens to the saga of With, to the construction of that which is
formatized from the separateness to a holistic structure, is a b a s i c  t y p e   o f  a l l m e d i
t a t i n g. It is practiced on every arbitrary object, a glass, chair, crystal or flower by
differentiating in an ever waking act of observation what is with respect to these shapes
percept and what is concept, and how these two components for the construction of
holistic objects are unified, as well in what way they are thereby mutually modified.

7.
From the setting of the moon  
arise the branches of the world in bloom

This study would remain incomplete, if it were not to connect this one type common to all
meditation with yet another type. Only then can a whole come about that conveys an
overview of the nature of meditation.
            Until now the meditative form of introspection was characterized that results from
the point of view of the With. This characteristic must be supplemented by the other one
from the viewpoint of the Without.  For With and Without belong together – for the With
expresses the closed relationships and Without the open ones. With and Without belong
together like division and connection, only what is separate can be connected and only
through the connection of the separateness of every one of the interconnected objects can
it contrast itself to the other. In the connecting expression “head and hat”  the contrast also
becomes clear through the correspondence, the hat is contentless, the head contentful. If
the opposite were to be the case, there is an And-relationship as well, which by analogy
applies to related cases.  In view hereof, distinction was already designated in the foregoing
as the primal category, since it is at the same time division and connection, With and
Without. For in place of distinction can, as has been shown, also stand And – so that
therefore all categories, all forms and tools of spiritual formation can be viewed as
metamorphoses of And.
            Where With is, there is always also Without – where connections are made, there
always remain open connections as well. And this is in no way only the case because of the
context of both determinants, the inexhaustibility of the world and the imperfection of our
connectivity. It has a rather more profound reason that will now be elucidated.
            The concepts and ideas, with which we make the connections and formations of the
disconnected percepts, we single out from the thinking that encompasses them – not from
o u r thinking, but from the thinking of the underlying world of universal beings. For the
concepts and ideas form a context determined by the fullness of their own self-contained
content, which is – beyond out limited discretion albeit accessible to our activity –
sublimely at rest in itself and nevertheless prepared to at all times lovingly unite with us.
This self-determination of thinking, we have to respect, if we do not want to elude the
context and fall into the abyss of mere representational speculative fiction. The logical self-
determination of concepts is not only a sublime realm of perfection, but also the social
unifying bond that embraces all people. They all have, indeed, the same concepts, their
grasp reaches the same universals. And it is only on the basis of this commonwealth
ordered through the absolute peacefulness of concordance that people are capable of
understanding each other and that in general the attempt to reach an understanding is
reasonable – only this enables them to live in a well-ordered community nurtured by the
bottomless source of all creativity. What is different are only the representations of people
and it is only through this that discord can arise. Yet the basis of this difference is formed
by  a self-consistent thinking that is the same for all people. Where this is forgotten and
disregarded people are enmeshed in Babylonian confusion and the animosity of conflicting
interests. Misunderstanding, intolerance and war are, however, be they driven by
antipathy or set aglow with passion and disturbing power, after all nothing else than the
renunciation of creativity, whose endowing stream abides every courageous thinker.
Thinking is the world language in which all people can understand each other. For  o u r 
thinking (the comprehending action of our thinking will) is co-executing t h e thinking. Yet
this thinking as such is not a tyrant who forces his laws on us, but a free shepherd of order,
the recognition of which, no matter how carefully he nurtures and protects it, he leaves up
to us. He does not expect our subservient but our free behavior, our independent decision
to become active in working together on his world watch.  For the thinking is only invoked
in our consciousness (even though the latter may often forget its own effort) through our
own thinking will. This enactment of thinking however is not an arbitrary command, but a
free recognition that in our action meets a field, a dimension of its manifestation. To be
sure, this manifestation appears in us only when we create it and is absent there where we
omit it. But in so far as o u r thinking is in general such a one, thus not persevering in a
biased, appetitive, intentional or in general arbitrary concoction of mental images, it is
concurrent with t h e  thinking. We speak therefore of “grasping” something, because we
single out the sacred threads of the spiritual order with our thinking and apply them as the
elements and tools of the earthly order in our life circles.
            Without this singling out, without this grasp, there is no order and formation of the
unordered and unformed percepts – no coming about of reality, no coming-into-being that
out of the formless materiality of the perceptible ascends to a spiritual permeated form-
world. To consider hereby is that the concept as the differentiation tool of the
comprehending action of the thinking-will becomes stimulated by the percept. It is
precisely through disorderlessness that our need for order is aroused. And in dealing with
disorderlessness we learn to create order, do we learn to listen to the saga of the With and
hear our own saga in hers, hers in ours and run through a course in the School of Order
and the Order of the School that is our life. And our ordering ability, which is at the same
time a capacity of discernment (because insight is identical with becoming aware of
context, thus with the properties of things) increases as this course progresses, which we
give to ourselves by following the demands of our life and by comprehensively grasping the
helpful hand of the spirit. This means however that we learn to single out ever and anew
differentiational tools from the inexhaustible supply of thinking and that our ability to
grasp, to comprehend is progressively enhanced.
            When studying this progression of our creative power of discernment more
precisely, we notice that this concerns a relationship between With and Without that
develop out of each other and enhance each other. From this results the necessary
supplement that was mentioned earlier. When we direct our attention (that is immediately
transformed in a discerning observance driven by summarizing acts) to an oak tree, we
notice that this occurs in a permanently changing progression from devotion to avoidance.
There is no doubt that every more or less thorough observation is a process, since we do
not grasp the object of our observation completely with one single gaze, one perceptual
action but only gradually. The process of observation as well is never completed even with
seemingly simple (less subdivided, intricate) objects, since every observation calls for
interpretation through further observations. People with the ability to grasp complicated
contexts in a flash possess this faculty, not because they smack some holistic entity with
platitudes as with a fly swatter on the shallowness of their understanding  (that is not how
observant minds proceed but rather biased souls), but precisely from the opposite reasons,
because  they are capable of quickly connecting many percepts to the many concepts
proper to them. The unity of their overview is not one that is pre-given, but the result of a
quickly proceeding, sometimes very complicated process.
            A demand is hereby made to our observation of this observational process, however,
that in the present context is of crucial importance. It is to consider namely that every
process does not elapse in a similar realm, in which one particular element progresses to
another similar in its isolationist character. The observational process proceeds rather as a
to and fro oscillating change-in-focus of the comprehending action.  This rhythmicity
remains indeed subconscious in our habitual observant behavior. However, it can be
brought to light through introspection and be understood in its intrinsic nature peculiar to
the observational process.
            Since that rhythm in the present context is of great importance, it requires more
precise consideration. That there is no observance without attention is something that
nobody will really deny. It may well be less obvious, however, that avoidance, turning away
is also part of observance. Yet this can easily be explained. Every observation, be it through
the eye, the ear, the sense of touch or through another sense, demands to begin with the
turning of our attention towards the intended percept by means of the relevant sense
organ.  But this focus remains blind, deaf and dumb, if it does not quickly turn away –
towards the concept that through our thinking-will singles out the means of differentiation
from the universal realm of thinking, which gives the broad multiplicity of the formless
percept its deep uniformly structured shape. When we step out of a dark forest into a
brightly lit clearing, our glance still dazzled by light falls initially onto something as yet
completely undetermined. But we soon inwardly turn away (even with an outwardly held
line of vision) from it to look in the treasure chamber of thinking for help.  Even when we
determine what we sighted only to begin with as an It, as Something, we have already done
so with the help of these concepts. And the latter have – through their intertwining with
what we sighted – been changed. For after their connection to the perceived, no matter
how undetermined, they are no longer the general It and Something, but this completely
determined It and Something – they have lost their mobility (their arbitrariness within a
certain scope) through individualization and have thereby formatized the perceived
through universalization (which is also unification). For the as such perceptually and
conceptually determined It or  Something is in contradiction to the conceptually yet
unattained mere perceptible (that is thereby lying at the border of perceptibility) of an
inwardly and outwardly ordered realm. This is a realm of properties or attributes, which 
inwardly determine a uniformly closed structural framework and outwardly a universally
open realm, thus what we (to begin with in a merely dreaming conscious awareness) call  a
“whole”.
            But the observation remains poor in content and comes in opposition to its own
aspiration, if it is contented with its initial conceptual success. It presses forward through
itself, which however can only happen on the condition that o u r  (representational)
thinking loosens itself from the rigid grip of its percept-bound individualization and from
there focuses on the realm of t h e  thinking, of the mobile concepts, the universals. The
intention and meaning of this refocus is to grasp new means of differentiation (and these
are formative tools) in their original realm. The foregoing dwelling on the individualization
of the concept or concepts, which was or were led to the perceptible, must therefore be let
loose so that a new concept, a not yet individualized formative tool can be engaged.  The
observance cannot be contented with the largely undetermined Something or It, an
advanced determination attempt must rather be made with a new conceptual formative
tool, somewhat with a “more elongated object”. The observer thereby returns to the realm
of the perceptible in order to try it out in this formatizing attempt. It will then emerge
whether it has made a suitable or unsuitable choice. If the concept that was introduced
demonstrates its cognizance, thus if it is accepted by the perceived, it will then be retained
by the latter in an individualized form and thus its mobility lamed. However, during the
progress of the observation, the recent dwelling by the observance in the place of origin of
the individualized concept is once more converted by again reaching out for the mobile
element of the concept. This grasp can now arrive at the differential tool “tree” and apply it
to the perceived. Then the same thing happens to this formative tool as to its predecessors.
But now, as before, the observation also progresses. It namely causes the applied concepts
to ever and again solidify in the realm of the perceived, and loosen the solidified observant
thinking in each new attempt again from its embrace by returning to the mobile concepts,
grasping them in order to apply them anew to the starting point of the observance. This
alternation of solidification and desolidification proceeds in most observational cases in a
flash and largely subconsciously, until such time as it has reached a certain level
(determined by epochal criteria of existential consciousness). Only then does it slowly and
consciously progress (if at all). The formative process can also be one that is initially
inhibited and inching forward under doubt.
            To consider hereby is that each successive conceptional success in establishing order
is not effaced by returning to grasp a new regulatory tool. Instead, each outcome in this
respect dwells as an inherent representational entry into the objectified field of
representation. It is precisely therein that the potential for acquiring new conceptional
regulatory tools is prepared. It is thus not the already established order that in each case is
effaced, but one’s own activity in the progress of the observation. The regulatory results are
therefore superimposed in the perceptible realm and accordingly a subdivided conceptual
context is also formed in the realm of ideas. The perceptible realm is therefore
progressively disclosed and the ideational realm progressively assigned to it.
            The progressive observance is thus a rhythmic process, a pendulum swing of
execution that continually moves to and fro between the polarities of the percept and the
concept thereby attaining the enhanced synthesis of structuralization. It is one of the most
important and most efficient exercises of self-awakening from the dreamlike state of
everyday consciousness to raise through introspection this semi- or subconscious rhythm
on the basis of any object of our daily need into the brightness zone of our conscious
awareness. Through the amplitude to the percept the observational movement causes the
concept to become individualized and the precept universalized. This was already
established in the foregoing – likewise as well that hereby generation and perishing are
intertwined. World phenomena originate in such a way that the concepts of the spirit
perish in them, for they enter into a process similar to a dying away – they are deprived of
their spiritual mobility, estranged from their place of origin and directed into the realm of
the sense world. The reviving of sensuality is at the same time the dying away of
spirituality. A spiritual poetic formula was found for this:

B e h i n d   b l o o m i n g   a p p l e   t r e e   b r a n c h e s   r i s e s  t h e   m o  o n.

The secret of the beauty of this sentence is that destiny is sounding in it.

            Yet we must again become aware of the fact that the pendulum swing of observance
that sways to the side of the percept cannot occur without the other pendulum swing to the
side of the concept. The pendulum swing of the With can only happen in connection with
the pendulum swing of the Without – the closed connections must always be opened anew
in order that by the thinking grasp new mergers can succeed connections that are not yet
closed. And here too generation and perishing are intertwined, yet in a way that is contrary
to the previously observed pendulum swing. The loosening of our thinking activity from
the perceptible leaves the latter behind in its state of formlessness that has not yet been
reached by the concept. For every time that we look for a new concept, we loosen ourselves
from what has already been comprehended, whereby from the point of the view of a newly
attained conceptual design possibility there appears a new blank in the observed
perceptual complex.  Every detachment of our activity from the sensibly perceived
therefore signifies a revelation of formlessness, which although it does not delete the
previous formative effort, does however weaken its value (just as objective as in the
[subjective] experience of the observer), because the inadequacy of the preceded formative
effect is expressed in it. And this falling back into formlessness is, as it were, a form of
perishing. But it is precisely from this perishing that our thinking-will gathers the
individual power with which it can do the properly orientated grasp into the vitality of the
superindividual realm of thinking. This turning to the vital, primal thinking is a revival
from the lethargy  of sense-bound individualization. Yet this revival continues to carry
within it the individual dynamics that was gained from the interaction with the world of
the senses. The gain from an ideational structural tool is thereby the thinking of an
individual human being, whose activity causes the universal thinking to become active in a
certain perceptual situation. The dying away of sensoriality is here the revival of
spirituality, perishing and origination enter into a relationship, which is contrary to the
one with the other pendulum swing.
            The foregoing contained a reference to the relationship of this presentation to the
first part of “The Philosophy of Freedom” (“The Science of Freedom”) by Rudolf Steiner.
This relationship rests on the fact that the basis of this work is formed by an
anthropological science of reality. In as much as this presentation interprets the
introspection of structuralization and its meditative significance, it is connected to the
content of this work dealing with the science of reality. In a similar way, the last
deliberations made here are related to the second part of “The Philosophy of Freedom”.
The latter is devoted to  “The Reality of Freedom” and describes the origin of freedom as
human self-realization through reality-forming acts (moral intuition, moral imagination
and moral technique), which bring about a non-causal premeditated connection between
the ideational and the sensory world. The meditational basis developed here as the
structuralization of our world traces its pre-given formation. However, it is
notwithstanding free in a twofold manner. Firstly, as an appearance in human
consciousness, thus as a cognizance it is something new, therefore not previously present.
It is however not only free in terms of its cognitive content, but on the other hand also
because the grasping concept introduced as the formative tool of the universals enters into
the observed structuralization process as an individual, thus not pre-given effort. The fact
that the cognitive content, which results from the structuralization, is conditioned by the
respective perceptual elements, does not detract from the freedom of the
cognitive act through which it is formed. In so far as the last deliberations made here
concern the observed pendulum swing in the direction of the archetypal thought contents,
they therefore correspond to the second part of “The Philosophy of Freedom”. The
rhythmicity of meditation that forms the basis of all meditative experience, its movements
in the direction of the With and the Without, draw from the meditative content of both
parts of this work.
            When previously the image of the rising moon was chosen  for the origin of
blooming and perishing, then the following transformation of the significant sentence can
now in conformation to the lastly designated direction of the observational movement (and
in view of the changed unification of perishing and generation characteristic of it) be
coined:

F r o m   t h e   s e t t i n g  o f  t h e   m o o n  a r i s e  t h e  b r a n c h e s  o f  t h e   w o r l d  i
n  b l o o m.
The union of these two sentences fully expresses the result of the meditative realization of
what transpires during a process of observation. 

         8.

Spirit Man Is The Absolute Meaning Of The World

  
In the foregoing chapters, both pendulum swings of our activity were characterized in
which the rhythm of observance proceeds, through which observation arises in the first
place. These are the pendulum swings of the With and the Without. One cannot
consciously speak of observation without being aware of this swing sequence. By no means
everything that must be considered in this process during a careful research could be
brought forward here. This presentation had to limit itself to the most essential aspects
within the framework  of the given theme. From the plentitude that presents itself to a
careful exploration of the process of structuralization, some further aspects must be
singled out in order to round off this contemplation and fulfill its main purpose.
            It has emerged that our cognition is not a reproduction but a production, that it is
therefore in its realm a generation of the real. With that, however, the origin of our own
spiritual individuality is at the same time also a free part of it – to wit of its subconscious
activity bound to the origin of shapes of the sensible world as well as through its fully
conscious observation and cognitive activity. The fountainhead of our spiritual
individuality is the spiritual world from which we draw all the formative force of the
sensible world developed in our cognition. In step with this formation and in progress with
the process of realization, we construct our own spiritual stature and form and strengthen
the constitutional components in which the harmonious fabric of our being unfolds. For
this self-formation we require the individualized and individualizing impulses of our
activity that we attain in contact with the sensible world.
            It has furthermore emerged that the concepts which we comprehend with our
individual thinking power, that the grasp of our thinking-will through which we in
attaining the archetypal universals spiritually individualize ourselves, arrives in this
contentually fully determined particularity (thus in contrast to other conceptual contents)
– but that the latter is also always an (in each case special) representation of the whole
spiritual world. This can in virtue of the universal (thus as context characterized), even
though in each case singular (thus special) nature of concepts not be anything else.  In each
concept, as was delineated in the foregoing,  the spiritual vitality of the whole spiritual
world became active – just as the efficacy of each concept accordingly is also imparted to
the whole spiritual world.  The whole spiritual world (albeit in very different quality and
intensity) is therefore individualized in every member component, from which we
construct our spiritual stature. Granted, this constitution of our being will be realized with
respect to its conscious awareness and content by various people in vastly different time
spans, it is in any case a gradual process and its completion is for us contemporaries a long
way away. But behind what today is already attainable appears spirit man, the in the
human total individualization again manifoldly membered individualization of the
spiritual world as the primal conception of our being and at the same time as our highest
ideal goal. Spirit man is the membered context of the world-shaping forces in every mode
of activity and being, which for the latter is immanent as a natural tendency in a certain
period of the evolution of the world, but which must first be made structurally manifest by
man. Spirit man is the absolute meaning of the world, in which the meaning of the world
and man is realized in equal measure. It is the evolutionary progress, in which we
transform ourselves by ourselves to ourselves and give the world what it needs for its
advancement. Evolution is not a mechanical but a consciousness process and the human
being is not a peripheral coincidence of evolution but its central event.[1] The decisive
novelty of these deliberations is only properly evaluated when one bears in mind that they
are not content with the intellectualistic combination of borrowed contents and their
sentimental pious acceptance. They rather point to the results of introspection of the
structuralization in our cognitive life that are accessible to every contemporary human
being and the unique significance of this soul observation for a meditative discipline of our
frame of mind.
            Whoever does not bear this in mind is likely to object that he merely hears        
grandiloquent words that, even if they would be true, are irrelevant, because they pertain
to something in an infinite future – which moreover could become dangerous, because
through their intoxication they divert our attention from things that are attainable,  from
the dire needs and dangers of our time. Such an objection completely overlooks the fact
that the longing for a basic meaning to our lives is one of the most pressing demands of our
time. And precisely the question concerning the nature of meditation and even more its
meditative practice require a sense orientation. For the danger of an egotistical striving
towards perfection immediately suggests itself by every practice of this kind. The egotism
of this striving for self-perfection and not the insight into the meaning of meditation is
from the viewpoint of social responsibility and readiness to help questionable. Whoever is
capable of applying only the smallest measure, but does not know the rule according to
which the latter is determined,  cannot neither trust himself nor his statements about the
world: the results of his measures remain dubious.
            The understanding developed here for the nature of meditation is however not only
contemporary with regard to the mode of consciousness, but also does full justice to the
basic social demand of our time. For the latter demands after all (sometimes deeply
subconscious, sometimes as a widely audible outcry) the motivation of the meaning of our
existence, thus the recovery of our human dignity destroyed by the materialistic world
outlook, the renewal of the confidence in our humanity.
            It is from this point of view that the leading remarks are to be understood. They
have developed that modern meditation can be the realization of a process that proceeds
subconsciously in the construction of our objective consciousness. This realization is at the
same time the recovery of meaning, because it leads to the insight that world and man are
orientated in a uniform process of evolution towards individualization, towards a goal that
is at the same time a world and human principle that can be realized, achieved, which is
man in his true own being. The ever anew exercised meditation of the construction of
reality in human cognition is not only a progressive approach of man to his true nature, but
also (and as a matter of fact long before the attainment of his goal) the granting of absolute
meaning that man himself presents. It [i.e. this reality meditation] grants the certainty that
there is an absolute meaning, for it progressively realizes this meaning. This signifies that
the nature of meditation is not something to attain, but to achieve – an achievement by
which man accomplishes himself. Modern meditation does not desire an entrance into a
spiritual world antecedent to it, but rather freely gives itself the responsibility for the origin
of a spiritual world, which can only arise out of man accomplishing himself in meditation
as a world first.  Modern meditation does not object to a desire for self-perfection for
reasons that renunciation might expect an all the more richer welcome – but from the
insight that neither desire nor renunciation can attain a real meditative content, since only
the meditation itself can give this to the latter. This is not the loan that awaits it, but the
gift that it offers to the world. Modern meditation is not the path into a pre-meditative
world, but the formation of a new metamorphosis of the world. The nature of modern
meditative experience is neither one of creaturely  emerging from the creative powers of
the world nor the dissolution therein, but the transformed emergence of creative
spirituality from human self-formation. Meditation is the moral intuition of the human
being, the moral imagination of the transmutation of the world process in man and the
moral technique of freedom. Herein lies the difference to all previous forms of meditative
life.                         

[1] Vladimir Solovieff, the great Russian philosopher has expressed this as the result of his spiritual research
in a quite similar way, albeit on a different ground, in connection to motives of German theosophy and
German idealism, namely Schelling.     

              9.

Consciously Picking the Fruits of Self-Realization

Concerning this, some more supplementary remarks must be brought in.  From the
foregoing, it emerges that the origin of the true human being by means of the meditative
realization of the subconscious processes of today’s objective consciousness can only
proceed rhythmically as the pendulum swing of our activity between percept and concept,
between the sensible and the spiritual world. Someone  m e r e l y  observing performs this
process subconsciously, only the one becoming aware of it first fulfills its meaning and
consciously picks the fruits of self-realization. From the spirit dying in the revival of the
sensible world, we are always creating new impulses of revival in the spiritual world that
just wrest the impetus for an upswing out of the dying sensible world away from the dying
spirit. This rhythm, in which origination and perishing are intertwined in a twofold
manner, is substantiated by the relationship between the percept and the concept. For
introspection shows how the spiritual world shapes the sensible world. To the entities that
are shaped within the total reality belongs also the human body that in its nervous-sensory
system  (precisely because of its decompositional activity) is natured in such a way that it
makes the reconstruction of reality for cognitive man possible as his co-creation and
through this co-creation the self-creation. Our physical body however is natured in such a
way that it only grants us a portion from the full scope of self-creation. Through our
abilities we are, after all, connected to certain realms of the spiritual world and through our
destiny (to which also the endowment with a certain bodily organization belongs) we are
integrated in a certain way in the sense world. However, since we formulate through the
process of individualization a certain form of realization of our own being within the
spiritual world, we predispose thereby in the latter due to its coherence the pre-condition
of the supplementation of the as yet fragmentariness of our being.  This means, however,
that  a new body and with that a new destiny is predisposed within the spiritual creative
forces of the world. For thereby the objective starting points are given for the progressive
perfectioning of the preceding fragmentary individualization.  This new destiny ties on to
the traces that our co-formation of a previous destiny in the ground of reality has left
behind. It is after all the process of complementation that he who is now co-creating his
new destiny has precipitated through the self-creation of a previous destiny and who now
sets it himself as the task of a new self-creation.
            What has been briefly indicated here, would require further treatment. This
would  lead however beyond the framework of this treatise into the field of general
anthropology. Yet at least an indication was necessary to the effect that from the insight
into the nature of meditation also emerge other insights into the nature of human destiny
and reincarnation of the human spirit. The indication ought not to fail that the modern
meditative practice develops an awareness of destiny and reincarnation in conformity to
the meaning of this practice, to the realization of the destination of the human being. 

         10. 

“ALL THIS I AM NOT” AND “ALL THIS I AM”

Yet another indication cannot be ignored. It also extends beyond the narrow framework,
but since its content becomes visible within the observational context pursued here, it has
been included in its sense perimeter.  In order to comprehend it, the following explanation
must therefore be considered.
            In the foregoing, the polarity of origination and perishing and the culmination
thereof  in shapes of our world in two different forms of their interpenetration was
conceived. The performance of the corresponding observational processes as the
realization of concrete structuralizations was characterized as the modern form of
meditation and at the same time its practice. The death motive touched on thereby as an
essential formative element of individualization is on the one hand indispensable for
understanding the meaning of meditation, it can on the other hand not be fully consciously
practiced without this understanding and therefore not be unfolded either in a fully valid
manner.
            The death motive entwined in all coming-into-being has its function within
evolution indeed generally as a formation condition of every type of individualization. But
since the general process of individualization reaches the fulfillment of its meaning in the
human libertarian individualization, the death motive only gains its full significance
through the latter. The preceding observations have shown how the death motive appears
within the human being. It became apparent in two ways, on the one hand as the
unfoldment (decomposition) of the structured reality towards the complete formlessness
of the purely perceptible under the influence of the human nervous-sensory system – on
the other hand as the formation of mere mental representations, lamed conceptual
derivatives devoid of their formative power. But now a third type of death motive must still
be conceived. For the aforementioned processes of destabilization, paralysis and perishing
can only appear within the human cognitive process if they are observed. Without carrying
out the observation that is focused on them they remain unnoticed. The latter is from the
start, if it does justice to its task of objectively becoming aware, necessarily completely
empty, since it would otherwise (as this indeed does occur by observing imprecisely) falsify
the observed by subjective additions. This emptiness is always repeated anew in each
observational instance, even though the succession of the observational attempts in the
way presented here makes the observational progress possible by introducing conceptional
formative tools. The emptiness of observational attempts is therefore true for every type of
objectivity, it becomes apparent in its relation to the purely perceptible as well as to the
ideational (the universals) and to mere mental representations (likewise with regard to
their formation as well as to their observation, since both go back to the empty active
attempt). If one becomes aware of this, then one catches sight of the mortality of absolute
emptiness within the human being, without which there is no individuation, and of the
fulfillment of meaning of the evolutionary death motive. This belongs to the meaningful
events and experiences of modern meditation.
            The answer to the question as to how this dependence within the human being could
arise, leads beyond the scope of this examination. The point here was on the one hand to
establish  this experience, which with respect to the shock caused by it is incomparable to
any other, as an observational fact. On the other hand, it was necessary to point to its
sensemaking significance.  The question as to its origin could without doubt only be
answered with regard to the involution of all evolutionary processes. However, it would be
frivolous to make only logical or borrowed statements about this that are not based on
one’s own survey. A presentation dealing with this question in terms of an observational
methodology would demand a special treatise.
            The absorption in the experience of death,  the origin of our activity out of
nothingness, belongs to the explanatory content and sense of meaning of modern
meditation. The nature of the human being as such of bringing reality arising from death
becomes evident. This is the current substance of life that is present at each moment yet
remaining largely subconscious. In the experience of arising from death the human being
arising in that moment of life becomes aware of the revival through the spirit uniting with
him. The gaze directed upon this becomes conscious of two basic meditative experiences
(just as much epistemologically confirmed as experientially certain). One of them can be
expressed in the sentence: “All this I am not”. It emerges from the  realization of the
absolute emptiness, the void that is at the same time absolute differentiation. The other
one can be expressed in the sentence: “All this I am”. It emerges from the realization of
absolute fulfilment that is at the same time absolute activity in becoming one with the
spiritually active forces of the world. It constitutes the basis of the soul life of the human
being. These two experiences are (graphically speaking) in the vertical direction of the
freedom engendering dimension of humanity related to the horizontal direction of the
form engendering dimension of the world (whereby the effects of the processes proceeding
in various extensions are in turn interchanged). The erection of man towards his own being
is intersected as it were with the expansion of the world in its abundance of forms. Just as
human cognition has a share in the latter through co-creative devotion, so in the former
the world of universals through essence imbuing affection.

11. 

MODERN MEDITATION IS CHRISTIAN 

This study wanted to present an overview of the basic forms of all meditation. This was
done in the following manner, as will now be summarized:

1. By using the method of introspection the progressive construction of the shapes of our
world was brought to an understanding that occurs through the union of percept and
concept. It became apparent that this is a rhythmic process that now turns to the side of
the percept, now to the side of the concept.

2. It became furthermore apparent that this rhythm can characterized as one of With and
Without. Of great significance hereby was that in With and Without, as well as in the
closing and opening of the connections, origination and perishing, reviving and dying away
are intertwined.  This intertwining is differently natured, depending on whether the
pendulum swing of our activity moves in the direction of the sensory world or in the
direction of the spiritual world.
3. From observantly tracing these pendulum swings of our activity emerged the highly
significant fact that by fully becoming aware of the pendulum swing which can be
characterized as one of With, of the focus on the sensory world, insight in and
consciousness of destiny can be gained – and that by fully becoming aware of the
pendulum swing which can be characterized  as one of Without, of the focus on the
spiritual world, insight in and consciousness of reincarnation can be gained.

4. With that, the two primal forms of all meditation are designated. For meditation can, on
the one hand, be nothing else than gaining insight in how the spiritual world is connected
to the sensory world – and, on the other hand, gaining insight in how we ourselves connect
ourselves to the spiritual world, how we connect the latter to ourselves. We gain these
insights, when we generate for ourselves complete awareness of the rhythmic process of
our observance and the structure of objects that are built by the latter. The continually
revised observance of our observation of our everyday’s objects and of the creatures of the
kingdoms of nature surrounding us is the basic modern meditation. This basic meditation
is divided into one of With and into one of Without. From this it emerges that human life is
the more or less subconscious rhythm swinging to and fro between gradually rising
conscious and enactment of destiny on the one hand, as well as gradually rising
consciousness and enactment of reincarnation on the other. The realization of what the
school of life conveys to the subconscious part of our being is the basic modern meditation.
This is thus the equivalent to the realization of what the supersensible little words With
and Without express, when one understands them. What they harbor, harbors, even more
difficult to overhear, yet all the more significantly resonating for the listener, the little word
And. For the latter is, as has emerged, the riddle and keyword for the basic category of
differentiation.

5. Who wants to know what meditation is, does well to frequently meditate on And. He will
then in the screening and enduring of this basic category learn to recognize that in each
one of our experiences (no less in the smallest than in the greatest) the world and man are
always being disguised and unraveled, encoded and decoded. In every build-up of the
shapes of our world the basic construction of the world and man is replicated.  In the
continual process of becoming, from which all things emerge, in which all submerge, the
original and future process of the becoming of world and man is repeated. Behind and
within the basic word And (more powerful and contemporary that the Eastern syllable Om
and Mu) everything is revealed that we can include in the words meaning,
transformation and responsibility. In becoming aware of it, we experience the heartbeat of
the world that, embraced in And, constantly throbs between With and Without. We
become aware of how everyone of these pulsebeats in alternating modes of unification
penetrate origination and perishing. This heartbeat of beingness is the original world
perishing and a new world arising, and this origination and perishing of the world is at the
same time material man perishing and spiritual man arising. A rhythmically polarized and
enhanced fabric of origination and perishing as the never arresting heartbeat permeates
the world and man. As With, it is the formation of reality, that half of the universal process
which is the origin of man from the world, in which the world becomes man, since all its
forces are condensed in man; it is the process of destiny. As Without, the formation of
humanity is the other half of the universal process, in which the origin of the world out of
man is depicted, in which man becomes the world, since through the meditative self-
realization he not only develops a new state of consciousness, but also a new
metamorphosis of beingness: it is the process of reincarnation.

6. In And sounds the saga of becoming and perishing – yet no matter how sublime and
intimate its sound, it does not want to please us, but to call on our willingness for active
devotion. It includes the absorption in the consciousness of death. For man experiences his
true nature as a perpetual arising from death. Modern meditation is Christian.

7. The main attribute of modern spiritual scientific meditation that distinguishes it most
clearly from all other older types of meditation is its productivity. It is not the reception of
something existing antecedent and external to it. It is rather, not only in its preparation,
but with decisive significance precisely in its result, a fulfilment and generation. It is the
path on which the meaning of humanity is not found but brought forth.  Modern
meditation establishes, unfolds and shapes freedom. Its basic conviction is the absolute
superiority of a completely self-fulfilling striving over any other type of dwelling.   

12. 

The Philosophy of Freedom,

The Most Important Book of Meditation

No attempt was made here to give a theoretical answer to the question what meditation is,
rather the nature of meditation was characterized by using the method of introspection in
such a way that itself is meditation.  As such, the two types of meditation underlying all
others, the meditation of With and of Without and their union in the meditation of And
were developed. This attempt to give a characteristic of meditation proceeding to its
practice would like at the same time to be an attempt to give an introduction to The
Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner, the most important book of meditation that we
owe to him.[1]

[1] See also the author’s The Philosophy of Freedom as a Basis of Artistic Creation as a congenial and
creative commentary on that book, available as a translation in progress with more than half finished.

13. 

WITH AND WITHOUT

M a n  a r i s e s  a t  e a c h  m o m e n t  o f   h i s  l i f e  o u t   o f   d e a t h   t o   h i s    o
w n   t r u e   b e i n g.
M a n   a r i s e s   t h r o u g h   t h e   u n i o n   o f   t h e   s p i r i t ,   w hi  c h   e v e n   g
o e s   t o   o n e ’ s  d e a t h,   w i t h   t h e   m o r t a l   g r o u n d   o f   h i s  f r e e d o
m.

B e h i n d   b l o o m i n g   a p p l e   t r e e   b r a n c h e s   r i s e s  t h e   m o  o n.

F r o m   t h e   s e t t i n g  o f  t h e   m o o n  a r i s e  t h e  b r a n c h e s  o f  t h e  w o r l
d  i n  b l o o m.
 WITH
AND
WITHOUT

Posted 9th September 2019 by Willehalm