Healing the Human Being

Notes from a talk by Simon Bednarek at the second Thai Anthroposophical Conference 6-7 August 2011.

Understanding the human being allows us to change it, thereby changing the world at the same time. Different aspects of the human being develop in stages and we need to understand the polarities within this development. If these three aspects are not developed in a healthy way, in balance, throughout childhood, we cannot transform them in adulthood. This causes one of these areas to become retarded and this makes us ill. In the first 21 years we are building up our physical nature; in the next 21 years working on our soul; and in the next 21, our spiritual life. When were born we bring with us a genetic potential from our parents, which includes the potential for disease or certain illnesses. When we incarnate we also bring with us an ego potential, or task for our life: our individuality. The environment also affects us the culture and location where we live. All these factors contribute to our character and our feeling life and our health is affected by them too. However, we have control over many of these factors. Our actions and feelings will affect others too. If we see a child or a patient as a problem, this view becomes self-fulfilling. We need to be observant and open to the child or patient we are working with to do this we must be awake. The doctor doesnt heal the patient; they walk with them on their individual life path. If the patient is following a different path than they wanted to before coming to earth, they get sick. Increasingly, people find it more difficult to ask deeper, more spiritual questions about themselves, and find other ways to mask the unhappiness, becoming drowsy and dull. There is a lot more anxiety now; tension between what is happening in the outer world and inside. More and more people are coming and asking the same big questions. Around age 9, uncertainty comes in and the child doesnt feel at home in their surroundings or as comfortable in themselves anymore. Some people never get over this. Its the supporting adults job to help them understand their physical and spiritual potential and individual nature. Spirituality has become a much more accepted part of medicine; more people are asking for a deeper understanding of who they are, a clearer sense of their identity, but this cannot be answered from outside. You get to know yourself much more deeply under extreme stress and conflict. Another way we learn is when we get sick. An important thing to remember, even and especially with genetic illnesses: the illness is your friend. It will tell you that you need a rest or that you are on the wrong path. Van Gogh said, The vast majority of people are asleep and do not wish to wake up. After this question of identity, a second big question is about relationships and the nature of destiny. The work karma in Sanskrit is related to movement. Goethe, aged 26, met Charlotte von Stern and had a deep knowing about her:

Tell me what destiny is preparing for me. Ages since you were my sister, sharing kin with me, or else my wife so dear. We can either be asleep or awake in our relationships; where there is love there is also hate. The third question is about purpose or meaning in our life on earth. A lot of young people are asking about this now. In Steiners Philosophy of Freedom he says we no longer want to believe, we want to know. By allowing children to accept or reject what we give them as teachers, we are allowing them to come to their own meaning. Being healthy is a balance point between two polarities. For the question of identity we want to develop truth, as the counterbalance or way to answer this question. For the question of destiny we must bring beauty, and for that of meaning, the answer comes in goodness. A healthy development in the first 7 years will develop a sense of security and lead to the ability to realize that what is good can also be meaningful. In the next 7 years the sense of reverence, grace and belonging leads to feeling for beauty, in the world and in ones destiny. In the last period, recognition shows us the truth of ourselves. A lack of security or goodness in childhood leads later to greed, its shadow side. A lack of identity or truth will become delusion. In the middle realm, an imbalance becomes aggression, because of the lack of a sense for beauty.