Many people make the mistake of thinking that to "be spiritual" or to "be an anthroposophist" that you must be 100% ready and act relatively perfect all the time, do the spiritual exercises you need to do on time all the time, or that you need to understand all the concepts through-and-through and otherwise you're "not ready" or "not committed" or "not serious enough", but the truth is plain and simple;

Nobody is ever ready!

And of course to someone who might have fallen into one of these traps, this might seem like floaty generic motivational nonsense quote, but you can't get there if you don't start, you wouldn't be human if you knew everything and managed to hit every mark.

And it may be a little pretentious to say but nontheless;

Everyone undergoing spiritual development forgets to do an exercise every now and then

Everyone researching spiritual stuff doesn't immediately understand every concept

We've gotten used to people saying "nobody's perfect" but when it comes to actually understanding the phrase, people.. aren't perfect. Don't take it personally and stop every exercise if you forget one or mess up in some other way, the point of this development is to develop and when you're not developed mistakes happen all the time, which is normal.

And another thing; in researching anthroposophy, things are not black and white and straightforward. There are many things which, upon first researching them, you won't understand as a concept, and then maybe you'll come to understand them a little, but you know you don't fully have all the info. Which is normal. And then you come to understanding the general idea and the general concept, and then you understand it deeply, and then after that you come to understanding the actual nature of what you're trying to comprehend, what it actually is on a real spiritual level.

I've seen many people who've been to courses, read books and articles, and yet somehow seem to think that they know nothing about these things and couldn't possibly talk about them. Yes, you're not going to understand them fully and on a real spiritual level immediately, but also you're not an idiot, and i would hazard a guess and say you probably know what you're talking about. People who have been working with these things for more years than i've been alive talk about how they still find new aspects and insights in these things. Deep understanding cannot really be rushed.

With all these things, you just have to continue. Just keep going. Do what you think is best, don't undersell yourself (don't oversell either), and just know that several hundred thousand people have also gone through what it is you're going through now.

Something something there is no secret formula.

And another thing; if, while reading steiner's work, or an article here, or a book, and you come across something you disagree with, or something you don't think you want to do; you are free to disagree with something, you are free to do whatever you want.

Society has developed a wildly unhealthy relationship with agreeing and disagreeing, and in anthroposophy, that framework is not applicable. Firstly, there is no dogma, nothing people have to believe (which is why sweeping statmements such as "anthroposophists believe x and y and z because steiner said it" are mostly unhelpful at best and sometimes malicious at worst), and secondly there's nothing anyone is really obligated to do or not do. If you're reading this, there will probably have been parts of anthroposophy that you find helpful, interesting, true, etc, and there may be a few things you disagree with; things where as a result of thinking, mulling over the ideas, research, and maybe even instinct, you disagree; cool.

There may be someone who disagrees with you, and maybe you'll have an interesting debate that'll change your opinion or theirs. As you probably know, anthroposophy is not really a tower of claims, where if you take one out the rest rely on it and fall down, it's moreso a web of things which each person is encouraged to do the spiritual research on each thing and use it, or not. If one string in the web breaks, it doesn't really matter.

The overarching idea is still the same, the purpose is still the same, the methods still work, this is something which is quite hard to write down properly but anthroposophy really as a thing isn't chained to what steiner or anyone else said, it's a field, dealing with reality, which doesn't care if it says this in this book, what really matters is the spiritual research, which with the proper inner development can be done by anyone.

So basically;

  • Don't be so hard on yourself
  • You probably know what you're talking about
  • If you want to do spiritual exercises, do them and don't stop for random nothingburger happenings
  • Anthroposophy is not just black or white absolute truth or complete lie and if you treat it like it is you don't really understand it
  • Your freedom is very important, as a foundational principle. There's nothing you have to believe or have to do. Anthroposophy is here to help, and if you don't want it then it's better for you to leave it alone, if you do want it, the writings, organisations, people, are all there. But it's your choice.

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