Study - Thought Training

"Now what kind of reader approach did The Philosophy of Freedom count on? It had to assume a special way of reading. It expected the reader, as they read, to undergo the sort of inner experience that, in an external sense, is really like waking up out of sleep in the morning."

"One has to try with all of one’s human strength to activate one’s inner being, to bring one’s whole thinking into motion."

"Freedom dawns when we enable the will to become an ever mightier and mightier force in our thinking."

“This text leads first through abstract regions where thought must draw sharp outlines if it is to reach clearly defined positions. But the reader is also led from arid concepts into concrete life. I am certainly of the opinion that one must also lift oneself into the realm of concepts if one is to experience every aspect of existence. Someone who knows only how to enjoy use of the senses does not really know the sweetest part of life. Oriental sages have their students first spend years in renunciation and asceticism before they share with them what they know. The West no longer requires pious exercises or asceticism to attain knowledge, but it does demand the willingness to withdraw oneself awhile from the immediate impressions of life and enter the world of pure thought.”