Rudolf Steiner's Exercises For Spiritual Development - Meditative Path

Meditative Path

Steiner described three stages of meditative progress: imaginative cognition, inspiration and intuition.

• In imaginative cognition, the meditant aims to achieve thinking independent of sensory perception through concentration on either visual forms of symbolic significance never encountered in the sensory world (e.g. a black cross with a circle of seven red roses superimposed upon it), metamorphoses (e.g. the growth cycle of a plant from seed to mature flower), or mantric verses spoken aloud or silently (e.g. verses for each week of the year intended to connect the meditant with the rhythms of nature).
• In inspiration, the meditant seeks to eliminate all consciously chosen meditative content to open a receptive space in which objective spiritual content (impressions stemming from objective spiritual beings) may be encountered. The meditative activity established in imaginative cognition is set forth without concrete content.
• The stage of intuition is achieved through practicing exercises of will (e.g. reviewing the sequence of the day's events in reverse order). At this stage, the meditant seeks unity with the creative forces of the cosmos without any loss of his or her individualized consciousness.

This sequence of meditative stages has the ultimate goal of the meditant experiencing his or her own karma and previous incarnations, as well as the "Akashic record" of historical events.