Stepped into the Saturday morning study group that had been meeting monthly for 10 plus years. Held my copy of “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or The Philosophy of Freedom” and a small notepad. The doctor who expanded The Fellowship Community was central to the discussion. As was a retired butcher with forearms as large as my thighs. They were the two most verbally active. 20 others were in a large circle, some with dementia, sitting in wheelchairs in the circle. Others were bedridden in the final stages of dying with bedrooms right off the Great room where the discussion was held and they could hear it all from their beds.
Every now and then a person with dementia with head tilting in rest to the side would break into the discussion, never an interruption, and say to one of the main speakers “BS” as to what they were saying and then go on to make a detailed philosophical argument precisely on point and return immediately to head bowed to the side. It was in this rigorous lively accepting discussion where disagreement was welcomed, that I heard it for the first time like a bolt of lightning: “SENSE FREE THINKING” is what Steiner is talking about in the second half of the book. The first part of the book is sense bound thinking.
These were impressive self-developed people. They currently worked or had worked in the world as doctors, butchers, nurses, farmers, gardeners, lawyers etc. They rarely drank alcohol. They studied Anthroposophy with rigor. Anthroposophy is the scientific study of the spiritual wisdom of the human being. The community had large gardens that fed the members of the community with fresh and /or canned vegetables year-round.
I had discovered the existence of such a thing as Anthroposophy in the ghetto in Omaha, Nebr. in a conversation with a Black man. He had just returned from an Anthroposophical community in Sacramento where he had been doing bio-dynamic gardening. I had just finished my undergraduate degree in psychology with an emphasis on Jung. The first book I picked up was “Cosmic Memory.” I immediately knew I had to know more.
I was accepted into the Peace Corp to go to the Philippines and run a YMCA. But that fork in the road did not at all seem to respond to the burning questions of who I am and so many more. The year is 1973 the war and draft have just ended. Much new thinking was occurring with new paradigms to view the world. My search for Truth which I believed had some objective quality was making me thirsty for a knowing that I had an inkling existed, but I did not know the how or what.
Due to further Anthroposophical reading I found myself 6 months later in Spring Valley, NY working at the Weleda (Weleda Wikipedia) in the Threefold Community and living and working in the Fellowship Community which was one of the first hospice communities in the Country. Vibrant all around. Study Groups. Lecture Cycles. Meaningful work that required being conscious whether it was making remedies at Weleda or attending to the needs of a dying community member. The immersion was fabulous. The learning was main-lining. I was hearing and absorbing more than I could retain, but as years passed, I learned I had retained far more than I could imagine.
I knew a nugget existed in understanding “SENSE FREE THINKING” but it would be years later that I would discover what it really meant. I also attended many lectures one was by a most fascinating developed person Werner Glas. He said at a lecture on Easter Sunday to the whole community in a large impressive no right angles auditorium that Anthroposophist’s (those that study Anthroposophy and are members of the Anthroposophical Society) think that thinking about thinking is the higher self or the I AM. (Blog 27 The Mystery of I AM) He said, “No it is not — Thinking about Thinking Inwardly in a Sense Free manner REVEALS the higher self or I AM.” There it was. Sense Free Thinking again. Aha!!! These two nuggets: 1) Sense Free 2) Thinking about Thinking REVEALS the I AM.
Then I left NY for Minnesota and attended Law School. I engaged in meditation inspired by Anthroposophy. I also continued journaling that I had begun three years earlier. Talking to a few mentors allowed me to find the book “Guidance in Esoteric Training” by Steiner. The meditations in this book would unlock and bring forward the two nuggets. One in particular:
More Brilliant than the Sun
Purer than the Snow
Finer than the ether (the big Blue Sky)
Is the Self
The Spirit in MY Heart
This Self Am I
I Am this Self
Through years of working with this meditation and others, one fine day I discovered and experienced “sense free thinking.” It was magnificent. It was repeatable. Yet over time it changed. It was The I AM — Divinity, Infinity and Eternity. It was pure, joyful and perfect equanimity. I have come to know this ever changing yet always the same space over the past 30 years. It took from age 25 with the two nuggets and the More Brilliant…meditation until about age 45 for this dawning to occur. A PATH which I was on takes time to emerge and bloom. I had confidence in the PATH that was active, disciplined, practiced, flexible, and individualized. I received inward indications that it was an open path. Gratitude!