Observation of the spirit (inner self-observation)

When we then pass over to an observation of our inner, non-physical life, we must direct our perception not to our body but to our consciousness. We have already shown so- called inner experiences as perceptions of an outer world. If we therefore here speak of inner observation, we always mean the purely inner observation of our consciousness. That the human being can turn his gaze towards  his inner experience is a specifically human capacity. It is given to us as a possibility by nature, but its development depends on practice. When we practise observing our consciousness, it becomes all the more exact and intensive. Whoever reads these lines should actually not want to read further without himself attempting this observation of his own consciousness. Then he could experience for himself what is being written about here. Whoever does not want to make this step towards his own activity will find this book boring and will perhaps not notice his own indolence. One can thus from now on certainly remain in one’s comfortable chair, but one will have to bestir oneself inwardly and want to stand up, otherwise one will not find much satisfaction in this work and will not experience the effect of the book. It is not a matter of giving a description of the results of observation of the mind; the point is to carry out this observation itself while reading. Thus we turn our gaze inwards, and the first thing we encounter there is our mental images. We meet a great wealth of mental images which clothe themselves in inner spoken words and pictures which, when we do not exert ourselves, string themselves together naturally and give us an image of ourselves and of our being merged together with the world. This view of our thought life clearly shows us at first sight that we can indeed close our senses to the world – we can close our eyes, seek silence from the outer world etc. but that our mind is nevertheless filled with remembrances of the outer world, is even exclusively filled with them. We observe a colourful miscellany of memory pictures, items of knowledge, mental images related to intentions, our sensations and feelings, our wishes etc. At first, our consciousness is filled with mental images, not with feelings or with deeds, but with mental images of feelings and deeds. All these mental images, these mental representations live in pictures derived from the outer world. I myself live in these images actively or passively; I am the one who brings something about in these images, experiences something, remembers something, everything relates to my I, while I experience at the same time that the mental images string themselves together outside my will. Is it human destiny that we must always keep on riding such a carousel at this colourful fair?

Our emotional life reveals itself in our consciousness less directly than the display  of our mental images. Behind the mask of images of feeling such as ‘I am sad’, ‘I am happy’ live feelings themselves as forces which are far more real than the mental images. Feelings are naturally awakened by something outside myself or inside myself. I translate them into mental images in order to explain them, but I experience them directly as forces. These forces can even have a direct physical effect: for example, warmth due to happiness, or cold due to sorrow. Feelings bring me as subject into a relationship with the objective world; they determine my personal relationship to it. Feelings, therefore, are forces which are experienced as more real than thoughts, but they lie deeper in consciousness and their meaning only becomes clear when they have clothed themselves in a mental image. Yet through this mental representation they lose their real character.

Quote fom my book 'Seek the light that rises in the West', p. 40 ff.

Observation of the spirit (inner self-observation) by Mieke Mosmuller