Skills taught in Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy Of Freedom
Fall 2022 Aug. 29 - Dec. 19
Spring 2023 Jan. 2 - April 24
Summer 2023 May 1 - Aug. 21
Study Group Schedule
TRUE KNOWLEDGE
Week 1 HOW DO YOU DEFINE YOURSELF?
Week 2 HOW TO DEVELOP COURAGE (0. part 1 The Goal Of Knowledge)
Week 3 HOW TO STRIVE FOR INNER TRUTH (0. part 2 The Goal Of Knowledge)
Week 4 HOW TO QUESTION FREEDOM (1. Conscious Human Action)
Week 5 HOW TO QUESTION KNOWLEDGE (2. The Fundamental Desire For Knowledge)
Week 6 HOW TO OBSERVE THOUGHT (3. Thinking As The Instrument Of Knowledge)
Week 7 HOW TO REFUTE YOUR REACTIVE PROJECTIONS (4. The World As Percept)
Week 8 HOW TO HAVE TRUE JUDGMENT BY CORRECTLY APPLYING CONCEPTS (5. Our Knowledge Of The World)
Week 9 HOW TO FORM INDIVIDUAL REALITY-BASED IDEAS (6. Human Individuality)
Week 10 HOW TO SEE THE TRUE NATURE OF REALITY (7. Are There Any Limits To Knowledge?)
TRUE SELF
Week 11 HOW TO KNOW YOUR SELF (8. The Factors Of Life)
Week 12 HOW TO BE AN ETHICAL INDIVIDUALIST (9. The Idea Of Freedom)
Week 13 HOW TO OBEY ONLY YOUR SELF (10. Freedom Philosophy And Monism)
Week 14 HOW TO HAVE PURPOSE (11. World Purpose And Life Purpose - Human Destiny)
Week 15 HOW TO TRANSFORM THE WORLD WITH IMAGINATIVE GOALS (12. Moral Imagination - Darwinism And Ethics)
Week 16 HOW TO ATTAIN THE TRUE JOY OF LIFE (13. The Value Of Life - Optimism And Pessimism)
Week 17 HOW TO DIGNIFY FREE INDIVIDUALITY (14. Individuality And Type)
Comments
The Center For The Science Of Freedom
Research (program design, study material)
Community (learning circle)
School (learning sprints)
I want to incorporate what I had planned for a study course into modern learning science. I would like to discuss this. Below is what I have for 5 day chapter sprints over 17 weeks. Course offered 3 times a year; Fall, Spring and Summer.
Requirements for certificate
1. pass each chapter quiz
2. Tues-Wed-Thurs post in group private blog
3. Friday post in public blog
17 week course offered Fall, Spring and Summer
Introduction 1 week
True Knowledge 9 week sprint: preface and chapters 1-7
True Self 7 week sprint: chapters 8-14
9 week sprint objective 1: True Knowledge objectively unite the concept with the perceptual content (as it is only through the Self, as subject, that what is a whole appears split in two along a line between our perception and our concept, so it is the union of these two factors that will give us true knowledge)
7 week sprint objective 2: True Self actualize in life the concept of the free spirit.
5 DAY SPRINT
TOOLS
Pixton comics
Quiz app like bookwidgets (embed in website)
Zoom meeting (optional)
Group page
Private group blog
Public group blog
1. CHAPTER QUIZ: PASS Chapter Quiz
Example: I am familiar with BookWidget quiz app.
2. Monday: Set sprint GOAL Select one of 12 chapter topic "steps to freedom" to work with for a week.
Example: QUESTIONING FREEDOM - STEP 1.2 From freedom of choice To choice determined by desire.
Learning group ZOOM meeting (not required)
3. Chapter JOURNAL post in group PRIVATE blog)
Tuesday: Post insight or experience on POF group private blog
Wednesday: post group private blog
Thursday: post group private blog
4. Finished Product post in PUBLIC blog
Friday: Post experience of applying a "step to freedom" on POF public blog; writing, diagram or art.
CHAPTER SKILL ACQUIRED - each of the 12 chapter steps to freedom relate to the chapter skill acquired.
Skills listed above.
CREED
written by Rudolf Steiner in 1888 and titled “Credo” which means, “What I believe”.
(the idea is the spirit, immortality in this life, divine voice of the idea,
eternal deeds, selflessness, spiritual love, entering the divine life)
1. The world of ideas is the primary source
The world of ideas is the primary source and sustaining principle of all existence. Within it is never-ending harmony and joyous tranquility. Existence not enlightened by it, would be dead and lifeless, and would have no part in the wholeness of the world. Only that which stems from the idea has meaning as part of the universal tree of creation.
2. The idea is the spirit
The idea is the spirit, which is clear and lucid in itself and independently sufficient in itself. The individual must have the spirit within, otherwise he will drop from the tree like a withered leaf, and would have existed for no good reason, and without purpose.
3. Longing for the idea
The human being feels and recognizes himself as an individual when he becomes fully conscious. In the individualization process there is implanted within him a longing for the idea. This longing drives him to overcome his separateness and to let the spirit come to life within him, and to be in accord with it.
4. The divine voice of the idea
Everything that is selfish, that makes him a separated being, this he must shed and cast away, for it is this that darkens the light of the spirit. The egotistic self desires only to follow his sensual lust, instinctive drives, greed, and passions. He must root out this selfish will, and instead, as an individual, seek what the idea wants, the spirit within. Let the individuality move there, and follow the voice of the idea within, because only the idea is divine.
5. Eternal deeds
What one wills as a separate-being, is an insignificant point in the circumference of the universe as a whole. It is without value, and therefore worthless, fast disappearing within the flow of time. Whatever one wills in the spirit is in the center, because the central light of the universe lights up within us. Such a deed is independent of time.
6. Living in world harmony
When we act selfishly in isolation, we lock ourselves out from the closed chain of creation, and separate ourselves off. When a human being acts in the spirit, he lives ever more into the universal working of the world. The banning from oneself of all self-centeredness is the foundation for the higher life.
7. Immortality in this life
Whoever deadens the egotistical within himself, lives in eternal existence. To the extent to which we can let the selfishness within us die, to that extent we are immortal. That which is mortal in us is selfishness. This is the true meaning of the saying: “he who does not die before he dies finds extinction when he dies.” This means, whoever does not end egotism during his lifetime, plays no part in the universal life, which is immortal. A person who has never existed within this greater life, has never experienced true existence.
8. The search for knowledge is devotion to the universal in thought
There are four fields of human activity in which the human being devotes himself to the spirit, while giving up selfish activity: science, art, religion and the loving devotion, spiritually, to a personality. Whoever does not live within one of these four activities, does not live at all. The search for knowledge is devotion to the universal in thought, art is devotion to the universe in beholding, religion in the depths and breadths of the soul, and dedicated love is devotion with all ones’ spiritual forces directed to something, someone that appears to us as a treasured member of the universal whole.
9. Devotion to knowledge, spiritual love
Knowledge is the most spiritual form of selfless devotion, love is the most beautiful form. For love is truly a heavenly radiance shining into ordinary daily life. Sacred, truly spiritual love ennobles our being to its inmost core; it uplifts all that lives within us. This pure and holy love transforms our whole being into something that is in touch with the world spirit.
10. Spiritual love carries the breath of divine life to the most repulsive regions
To love, in this most exalted sense means to carry the breath of divine life into regions where only the most repulsive egotism and the most disrespectful passions are found. One has to know something of the holiness of love before one can speak of spirituality.
11. Freedom is to enter the divine life of the ideal
If a human being has made his way out of the separated condition, through one of these four fields, and entered into the divine life of the ideal, then he has reached that for which the seed of longing was placed in his heart; the union with the spirit. This is the true destination of the human being. Whoever lives in the spirit lives freely, for they have removed themselves from subordination. Nothing can compel him or her to act, other than what he wishes to be freely compelled by because he recognizes it as the highest calling.
12. Let truth be lived
Let truth be lived: lose yourself to find yourself once again in the spirit of the world!
Thoughts of Carlos on Chapter 0 The goal of Knowledge.
0.1 How to develop courage.
It talks about having the courage of owning your ideas about the world, the outer truth. My own experience and your comment the other day about lacking the courage to become the representative of the science of freedom movement, speaks clearly about this courage to know the world. A very interesting and valuable concept about this is the 12 worldviews because it is real and that is what makes this personal quest for knowledge very challenging. Stand on your own according to the individual intuitions you get.
0.2 How to strive for inner truth.
I had a problem translating this concept: Inner truth? What is that? Then, I got this excerpt this morning from my reading of the book the third septennial:
"So what is really the most inwardly beautiful thing in the world? Without a doubt, the human being in development, in growth. To see this human being from the spiritual world entering the physical world through birth, to observe how what lives in him, what he has brought in definite form, gradually becomes more and more definite in his features and movements, to contemplate in the right way the divine forces, the divine manifestations acting through the human form in the physical world, all this has something in the deepest sense that we can call religious. It is not surprising, therefore, that wherever there is an effort toward purer, truer, more intimate humanity, such an effort exists as the very foundation of any anthroposophical activity, one contemplates the enigma of the growing human being with a sacred, religious fervor, and one donates all the work of which one is capable."
Human Values in Education GA310. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1971
So, can the inner truth be being yourself? Knowing yourself so that you can really own everything about you and live consciously and happy with it?
Carlos