The fifth center (vishuddha cakra) is gateway to the "new man", the gateway to the outside world.

To win a knowing insight about the outside world, the human being needs a certain force.

This force, to be able to maintain attention in the outer, to direct the consciousness towards the outside, is a substance sourced through the 5th center.

 

The vishuddha cakra is also associated with detachment and a new beginning. If the human being wants to continue to develop, they must release themself from certain things and thing, to develop that which they do not yet know and have not yet learnt. 

 

In "spiritual vision" one has to release oneself out of known experience, association and interpretation, and to newly see the object always again.  This step should be practiced and promoted by studying the vishuddha cakra.  For this reason, the theme for the 5th center accompanies the course "Spiritual Seeing’.

 

A geometric drawing for the vishuddha cakra from the book: "The signatures of the planets and soul spiritual development in education" by Heinz Grill, (The essence of Mars)

 

The swinging movement going from outside to inside. The ‘being’ of Mars, which stands in connection with the Vishudha cakra, wants in ‘old man’, that has also become complacent, to bring a light and wants always to create something new. In them lives an extra-ordinary urging desire. If you look to the movements in the drawing, so one can see that through the direction to the inside, will bring light to the dark inner circle - here are formed small white drop-shapes. The inside of the human being is brightened with a new substance.

 

 A summary of ideas from the Spiritual Seeing course held in May 2016

 

The 8 characteristics of the 5th centre

Martin M. opened his lecture with the 8 soul processes that Rudolf Steiner has described for forming the 16 petalled lotus flower (the 5th cente), introduced with the ‘dual-nature’ of man. The human being belongs with their thinking to the objective and conceptual world, and is subjected to feeling more with the subjective sensory influences. How do we come from the sensory to the meaningful or from subjective to objective content?

The first soul process is the way you acquire ideas, described as: 

“In this respect people usually allow themselves to be led by chance alone. They see or hear one thing or another and form their ideas accordingly.  As long as this is the case the sixteen petals of the lotus flower remain ineffective.  It is only when the student begins to take his self-education in hand, in this respect, that the petals become effective. His ideas and conceptions must be guarded; each single idea should acquire significance for him; he should see it in a definite message instructing him concerning the things of the outer world, and he should derive no satisfaction from ideas devoid of such significance. He must govern his mental life so that it becomes a true mirror of the outer world, and direct his effort to the exclusion of incorrect ideas from his soul.” (R. Steiner, “Knowledge of Higher worlds”)

 

Consciously keeping back the object.

Heinz Grill drew attention to the meaning of the statement, that one should see in the external world a customer. What does this mean? It concerns our self-education to right ‘seeing’.  How often do we interpret things into something that we think we have seen? It is the art of being able to really stay with the consciousness outside oneself,  it is to stand with all our strength of attention to the object. If I do not perform this step, the outside world can be to me no customer. Otherwise, I experience only my own projections.

 

The eight steps mean a disciplining of the individual, as he uses his sense organs and leads the consciousness. Consciously keeping back the thoughts was exercised in such a way with the course participants, the question was asked what spiritual forms have been produced by the Speaker (Martin M.) in his presentation? This ‘look’ requires points of reference, for example, one may wonder what thoughts the Speaker would particularly like to bring. If we have no reference points, it would be difficult for us to explore something. We need meaningful questions and thoughts that lead to our attention as a bridge to the object.

 

(The reader will know how it is, when gazing at something without asking themselves some questions. He will certainly win no knowledge about the object.)

When you recreate in memory an object or a quote from a lecture as a picture in front of you, such is this image, this object to the outside. Heinz Grill described it so, that through the thinking memory we create a bridge to the object.

He thereafter pointed out to us, that one may not transfer a moving(emotional) or a lively way of speaking onto the spiritual form, so that one thinks, the spiritual form was easy and in motion. Here one would conclude a way of working from the physical towards the spiritual.

 

In this exercise the difficulties were naturally apparent, which often lie in individual or collective opinions. One often thinks that you must go all the way to the inside if you want to behold something. But just the opposite is true.  Man must find the strength to rely entirely and to focus his full attention to the question on the subject or the object. The art exists therein, so said Heinz Grill, to bring yourself intensively in relationship, without loosing yourself.

 

He emphasized the therapeutic value, which is that the astral body is put into an order if you can keep the attention to the outside. (In this context particular attention is drawn to the book "The mysterious-essence of the soul" by Heinz Grill, p.70) The resistances, the "guardian forces" that are of collective nature and interfere, should not be taken so seriously. In practice one should not be deterred by fatigue, nervousness or the feeling that one cannot do it.

 

Studying the vishuddha cakra

With the following questions you can also study how the 5th center is formed in someone. Where do you keep back the consciousness? Is it in the body or outside the body? We can distinguish two directions of movement. We must pay attention to the differences. Is the consciousness working freely, or is the consciousness dominated by the body? When one is with the consciousness outside, and when is one open to the outside? With the statement: "I've got a feeling" the movement is more inward, it’s halted by the body and emotionally bound to the existing conditions. In the astral body there is a space inside and outside, it includes a conscious and an unconscious area. With the astral body the human being works outwardly towards his fellow human beings and this in turn acts inwards towards him. By his thinking, feeling and acting man always creates subtle forms. The astral body guides inwardly and is organized to the outside. He creates always proportions and balance and new relationship. This idea can be added as an imaginative idea for consideration. The outwardly directed attention is free of these bindings, and realising knowledge lies from outside the human being. The consciousness shall move inwards, however, to the outside it is capable of socially orientating and subsequently keeps to the outside. Staying at the outside ensures the movement inwards. The astral body is comparable with the consciousness.

 

Recollection

How does the recollection or also the reflecting backwards work?

We begin with the concentrated and detailed consideration of a thing, an idea, an event.

Thoughts wander, distracting associations of the mind occur, first signs of fatigue interfere with the perception exercise. The guidance of the accompanying thought or question is clouded. The practitioner must in the present take themselves together, in the true sense of the word to pull together. With time associations lessen, the concentration becomes more successful, the distracting emotions pass away and so we can slowly, from the sensuous, come to sense-arresting, or from subjective to objective content. The consciousness stays with the object, in the object that we want to recognize. On the object it stays.  After this observation exercise, we remember and build again the contents that result. For this reconstruction we take some time. We recall exactly in a qualified way. The human being becomes active himself  and  creates with the thinking memory an active task.

 

Observations on the plant world

Heinz Grill drew our attention to nature, and the question was, what is seen here?

In the plant, we could recognize a certain growth tendency. The formative forces seem to be not so distinctive, as if something is missing. The question: ‘How and when engage the structure forming forces? continued to accompany the study. It became visible that something was insufficient and built up in a disturbed way. It was followed by descriptions of exact observations and of experiences connected with the observation of nature. We observed this phenomenon and discovered something, as if the forces were not properly penetrating themselves, as if the structure is not really taken hold of.

Improper forms and diffuse structures were perceived. Something was observed in nature, which could not be captured in words in the moment.

The sphere we experienced was as so,  through the fog and a hazy atmosphere the sun could not really shine through, the thoughts were foggy and a sinking tendency was discernable. So that you always quickly fall back into yourself or go dreamy. The rampant growth of plants, which we experienced as a growth, placed itself also in the thought-life, continuing as a proliferation of ideas, which are not actually intended.

 

Christian-Spiritual

One principle of the eight characteristics was the right striving in life. It concerns the question of the motive of the individual studies. Is one using the study only for oneself or do I want to get something useful to the  outside.

“The seventh soul process in the soul life concerns striving, to learn as much as possible from life. Nothing gets past the pupil, which does not give him an opportunity to gain experiences that are useful to him for life. If he has carried out something wrong and imperfect, then this becomes a reason to do something similar later proper and perfect. He sees others act, so he watches them for similar objectives. He tries to gather a wealth of experience and always carefully draws on him for advice. And he does nothing without looking back on experiences, which may be of a help in his decisions and tasks. "

 

Heinz Grill suggested to course participants, to let it become  a life principle that one creates this reciprocal construction. The danger exists that someone, for example, seeks spirituality to escape from the outside world, which is experienced as a burden. An ideal way would be an orientation, that you go on such a course because you want to do something for development.

In this context, a quote from Rudolf Steiner gained a central position:

 

‘All knowledge that you seek,

Only to enrich your knowledge,

Only to accumulate treasures in you,

Takes you away from your path;

All knowledge, however, that you seek,

To become more mature on the path,

human refinement and world development,

brings you a step forward.’

 

At this point a lecture by Rudolf Steiner can be mentioned: Norrköping 14. Juli 1914 Christ and the human soul – here this Christian aspect is very beautifully explained, like the act and eventually even the life of man will be a Christian.

 

Unmotivated thoughts and their consequences.

The orientation of our motives and the fact that we always put something in the world with our thoughts and feelings, was discussed in detail. We walk through nature and think "What a stupid weather", we go through the pedestrian zone and say "What is this only for ignorant people".

It makes a difference, whether one is interested with appreciative thoughts as you pass by a piece of architecture, and they consider sincerely or whether they thoughtlessly pass by. What’s going on exactly?

 

In the case of careless or inattentive looking, or judging, a person in his folly will to the area thereto,  give a veil to the plant, the building up will fall faster and everything can be perceived as grayish. The pure character, the attentiveness, and the interest will bring towards the human being and nature appreciation. The "disorderly" character with his ignorance places a load on nature.

When a person carelessly goes over to a thing, it causes a kind of loading. However, when someone passes attentively he takes this burden away. So your own position and action reaches far into the whole scene. One thought leads to shading, the other is sun-like and takes the shading away. Every single person is involved with his thoughts on these events, every thought will be effective in its own way.  We open up a field of encounter and can thus directly have a liberating effect on these errors or expressed technically in these "bound beings".

 

What happens when the human being re-orders themself towards an object, a person, an architecture? Where do the shape forces that stimulate, for example, a plant come from? Do they come from the plant or from the person who considers them? The thought works on the plant, the ether radiates back. We can imagine a kind of eversion, a coming towards. What do we bring towards the plant? The actively engaging, imaginative thought is presented to the plant and thus the habitual reaction is left behind. The result can be described as something like, when the sun rises.

 

We can add something or we can take something away. The human being must again open the meeting, so that a bright space is created in which the relationship is established. How is being present or presence possible today without the mediation ability, without the thought that delivers the substance? We give something back to the plant, and at the same time we do not want to convert  matter. It is basically the reverse, when one thinks that one must give the plant something. It is exactly the opposite, one must even take something away from the plant, it’s not to afflict or impose something on her. What is it that is taken away? Going carelessly over, we loaded nature with our folly. Through attention and devotion we again redeem something, from these bound beings.

 

To conclude

The question, what being is living in nature, was answered by Heinz Grill, he suggested that we should check this statement in ourself. We have to go searching, searching, how is nature? Can we describe it’s shape, it’s color, it’s effect?

The space in nature seems to be cramped, the contact from top to bottom cannot take place because the watery element is in a rotation, a rotation that shields the outside and the light can not engage properly. The light does not come through properly. It presses something on the self-confidence, it presses on itself, something lies there, a burden, a burden pressing into the sphere of nature, as if the consciousness itself stays at a place, where it does not belong. This shows up in the natural phenomena. The water becomes independent in an independent movement and prevents the development and structure formation.

 

As a result a person is held back and exhausted. The question of the spirit is the question of the essence, independent from if one likes it or not. We see the manifestations of living things, we do not see life itself. The spiritual world consists of spiritual beings and their deeds. It’s essence is the creation and the manifestations of the physical world.

Painstaking attention is reached in the observing and remains in the contemplation. It again will leave behind, it again will lead the way, the realisation of knowledge comes. It’s a kind of thinking connected to non-thinking in association with the object and it takes time and confrontation.

 

Heinz Grill told of his spiritual research and meetings with Otto Wolf, who he recalled a statement from: "The individual themself does not venture far out into precisely unknown areas". This is a characteristic of vishuddha cakra that we develop the courage to move into the new, the unknown.

 

In conclusion, Heinz Grill opened a wider perspective:

The clarification of opposites can only occupy a small space. The vast majority needs the search for the common. For this a particular attention is required, to be ready for the other, for the new and seemingly threatening, whose overcoming lies rooted in the formed-encounter, pursued through interest in other people.

Therein lies the future of relations, without giving up yourself, to gain the feeling that the other is promoted by me.

The world is waiting for a dialogue that builds up and exchanges between people.

 

Thomas von Dall'Armi

Starnberg, den 24. Juni 2016