Initiative: A Rosicrucian Path of Leadership

By: Torin M. Finser, PhD

December 01, 2011

Category: Leadership - Initiative, Current Events

“Hear me God, I can’t take it anymore...” -- the introduction to this new book from SteinerBooks.

“Be a person of initiative and beware, lest through hindrances of your own body or hindrances that otherwise come in your way, you do not find the center of your being, within which lies the source of your initiative. Observe that, in your life, all joy and sorrow, all happiness and pain, will depend on finding or not finding your own individual initiative.” This should appear, as if written in golden letters, constantly before the soul of anthroposophists. Initiative lies in their karma, and much of what meets them in this life will depend on the extent to which they can become willingly, actively conscious of it." —Rudolf Steiner, August 4, 1924

 

Leadership today is a modern Rosicrucian path of development. Those in positions of responsibility have to work with matter and the daily circumstances of the workplace. Yet in the face of the given realities of limited resources, they do their
very best to manage people, the life forces of an organization, in such a way as to make progress. As will become more apparent further into this chapter, creating new value between the physical realities and the life-giving forces of human initiative is a modern Rosicrucian task.

Never has the challenge been greater. With acute financial pressures, many positions have been combined and people are having to do more with less. At times, it seems as if everything is measured by the bottom line, and yet leaders know how important it is to have motivated, spirited employees. How can life and matter coexist? How can we foster inner vitality in the face of mounting external pressures?

From August 4 to October 14, 2010, many of us followed the story of the thirty-three miners trapped deep underground in a mine in Chile. The story was riveting, not only in it’s inherent human drama, but also in terms of unmistakable symbolism.

Through the pneumatic tube-like devices the miners used to communicate, one of the miners wrote: “I was born again at thirty-three years. . . . It is a coincidence, like a miracle, and for that, it gives me more strength to go forward.” [Wall Street Journal, Oct. 8, 9, 2010, p. a10] Their call from deep in the earth was heard around the world, prompting donations and compassion from people regardless of nationality, race, or religion. This became one of those opportunities to experience the universal human, our “united-ness” as one people on this Earth. The cry that went straight into the hearts of people across the globe was the short phrase: “Hear me God, I can’t take it anymore.” 

What is it that humanity cannot take any more? It is the feeling of being trapped under many feet of matter. Imagine being in a cavern deep in the earth. Imagine the smells of coal dust, stagnant water, human perspiration and waste. . . . Then there is the emotional roller coaster of hope and despair, of hearing the doubts of others and the excruciating passage of time. To try and live with the existential question of life or death: rescue or not?

Then picture the gradual ascent in a capsule and the reemergence on Earth’s surface. The indescribable joy of seeing one’s loved ones again, the radiant sunshine, living plants and flowers, the splendor of the natural world. Imagine holding one’s child and partner in a long embrace.

These two contrasting pictures are worthy of some soul space, not only in our compassionate carrying of those coal miners, but also because of their educative value in themselves. We need to break out of our routine, our apathy of soul, or overmedicated inner life. The challenges of our time will not be overcome by conventional means. We need something really new, a spirited inner awakening.
The suffering of the thirty-three coal miners gives us yet another invitation for such an awakening. This is beautiful.

The miles of earth above and around the miners was real in our normal sense of what constitutes reality. One could feel, touch, and measure it. Yet modern human beings are surrounded by a similar weight, though one that has a mirage quality, a shine that deludes us into thinking it is appealing. The weight of which I speak is materialism.

All around us we have people rushing to and fro, hurrying through their days, many in the pursuit of material things. Many people today work long hours with the hope of “rewarding” themselves with new gadgets, good food, cars, and vacations. These things have an apparent “shine,” like sparkling images of light dancing on the surface of a lake. They sparkle, entice, and yet prove so fleeting that soon one has to get something else to satisfy the incessant craving.

Materialism haunts even some who are on a professed path of spiritual development: the fixation on the latest diet that results in counting what one eats and talking on and on about what one can and cannot consume, the so-called purchase of a private-school tuition for one’s children, or buying self-help books with self-ambition in mind. There are many who have a “my family first” internal operating plan that can be ruthless when at a Little League game, or when standing in line at a children’s fair and our dearest is shunted aside by a bully. Even if a person has managed to make progress with all of the above temptations of materialism, one has to also honestly assess one’s thinking. Am I craving the food that I have declined, the money I am not earning? Materialism can live invisibly in our thoughts and feelings, and those are just as potent (if not more so) as the tangible objects many desire.

Above all, materialism eventually leads to a feeling of being trapped. It is like one of those escalators in an airport, the ones going up or down with masses of people and suitcases on them. It is very hard to get off once one is half way up or down.

The Rosicrucians did not deny matter (as was the case with many mystics). They did not attempt to flee the physical world, but instead they worked at the transformation that can come when life forces work in certain ways with material processes. They looked for that hidden element that lives between life and matter. Leaders today need to work with that third element, that space in-between, if they are to succeed. We need to develop a new science of leadership that calls upon cosmic, planetary wisdom, yet can work effectively on Earth in the here and now.

The first and third chapters of this publication are devoted to the questions raised in this introduction: living a spiritual life, Rosicrucian wisdom for today, and finding new resources for what I call planetary leadership.

Leaders today need to be people of initiative who are able to step forward, speak with purpose, and act with insightful courage. Where does initiative come from? How can leaders promote innovation in their organizations so we are not like little hamsters just running harder and faster on the wheels of life?

As is demonstrated in the second chapter, the question of initiative is intimately bound up with how we view the human being. How can we act out of freedom and in such a way that even with the most inspired initiative we still respect the freedom of the other? Where are we mistaken in our usual notions of freedom and how can Anthroposophy help us discover the inner conditions for freedom?

So, although the three chapters of this booklet started out as three separate speeches to three different audiences, they have a continuous thread: spirited leadership that can help transform the world.

It is my hope that the pages that follow will be used for discussion in groups as well as self-reflection and contemplation. After all, it is not the words themselves or the pages themselves that count (they, too, are simply more matter), but it is the work that ensues when readers take up the thoughts out of conscious intention. The inner work, depending on how it is done, can then lead to self-aware, living, insightful leadership prepared to perform new deeds of service.

Today we need to take that journey from the depths of the coal mine to the light of spirit day. Many people are doing this every day, and we need to join hands with these like-minded spirit seekers who have traveled up one mine shaft or another to emerge with new light of wisdom. Let us learn to recognize each other as spirit seekers. Let us see the eternal in each and every human being on this Earth.

 

TORIN FINSER is Chair of the Education Department of Antioch
University New England and founding member of the Center for
Anthroposophy in Wilton, NH.