[stbpro id=”download” shadow=”true” bwidth=”2″ color=”F0FAFF” bcolor=”1F2DA6″ bgcolor=”78C0F7″ bgcolorto=”2E7CB9″ image=”null” mtop=”1″ mbottom=”1″]Exercise Two[/stbpro]

Developing our Ability to take Action
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[stbpro id=”download” caption=”1. The Exercise” image=”null” collapsing=”true” collapsed=”true”] Every day at a certain time, command yourself to carry out an action which had not particular point of purpose for our daily activities.

What needs to be done

• Decide upon one or several actions, and determine exactly (to the minute) that each action should be carried out. Think of a simple, insignificant action, which you will not otherwise do, and which bears absolutely no relation to daily life.
• Carry out the actions at the times decided upon, and see whether you have kept to the exact moment you intended.
• If you do not keep to the practice moment you intended, decided immediately on another time and place to carry out the action, However, do not continue trying to keep your ‘appointment’ more than three times in a row.
• Choose very simple actions that can be carried out in all sorts of circumstances. For example: bringing the ring finger on your left hand to touch your nose, adjusting your tie, touching a shirt or a blouse button, tapping your left hand on your right hand three times, drawing a circle in the air with your left hand, standing up and taking in three deep breathes.
• Always look at the clock after carrying out the action and not before!

What should be avoided

• All usual, routine, necessary actions, such as brushing your teeth, cleaning the sink, or emptying the waste paper basket.
• All moments in the which are connected with a daily routine, such as waking up, meal times, finishing of office hours, etc.
• Always choosing the same time or the same action; for several identical actions are really the one and the same.

What is important

This exercise can strengthen the will and help to overcome dissatisfaction and restlessness. But one can only achieve what lies within one’s capacities. Stability and inner fulfilment are dependent on striving to attain only what is within the bounds of possibility.

Practical Suggestions

• At the beginning it is better not to undertake more than two actions per day, so as to have enough time to allow for the repetitions necessitated by missing the right moment.
• if you notice that you cannot remember the commands, it is helpful to write them down somewhere, for example in your pocket diary, until this becomes no longer necessary.

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[stbpro id=”info” caption=”- A Typical Practice” image=”null” collapsing=”true” collapsed=”true” ccolor=”2e7cb9″]

Precondition: Having a watch with you.

1. The Decision

Each day, before breakfast, I will give myself the commands for the day ahead- that is, I will choose certain actions and times when they are to be performed.

2. The Command

Firstly, at 10h45, I will draw a triangle in the air with my left index finger. Second, at 14h00, I will stand up and breathe deeply three times. Third at 16h52…

3. Frequency

Three to five actions per day. More is unrealistic, at least to begin with, because of necessary repetitions by missing the right moment.

4. Failure

If the right moment is missed, then you should immediately, on the spot, choose a new time when the action will be repeated. It is advisable to avoid similar times, i.e. if you missed carrying out an action at 11h30, it is better not to choose 12h30 or 14h30, but 12h53 or 14h44.

The outer aim is to gain mastery that you can set your watch by your own developed sense of time, and be correct to the minute.

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[stbpro id=”download” caption=”2. Etheric Stream – Feeling Energy Exercise” image=”null” collapsing=”true” collapsed=”true” ]

A feeling of initiative and energy, like a stream of rushing water passes from head down over the forehead to the heart, and flowing into the whole upper portion of the body.

Exercise

One will notice a feeling arising from doing this exercise, which is something like: ‘I’m capable of something’, ‘I’m more capable that I used to be’, and ‘I feel an urge to be active. One actually feels this in the whole upper part of the body. One should then try to allow this feeling to flow down to the heart.

Once more one becomes aware of a certain feeling, a steadiness and an urge to be active. One should raise this feeling into consciousness, then pour it like water from head down to the heart to embody it more fully.

Once again, the awareness of this feeling, should follow immediately after carrying out the exercise.

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[stbpro id=”download” caption=”3. Gesture – ‘I speak'” image=”null” collapsing=”true” collapsed=”true” ]

The Second Position of ‘I think speech’

‘I speak’

The words

The expression ‘I speak’ points to action per se, to the process of willing. Through speech, a thought goes out into the world as language, thus appearing as the first manifestation of human will. Only when an idea has been formed as speech can it be transformed into activity.

We always think in words and through words, even when these are not audible or visible, that is, written. The thought flows out into the world upon a stream of breath and speech. Speaking unfolds in time, it is a time process.

The position

The arms slightly raised and brought slightly forward with the hands at larynx height, point to the organ and activity of speech, a slightly leaning forward, and very slightly spread legs loosen the fixed quality of the first position; action now becomes possible. The power of the etheric body now streams forward.

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[stbpro id=”download” caption=”4. The Effect of these Exercises” image=”null” collapsing=”true” collapsed=”true”]

By bringing this exercise to a certain degree of perfection, one frees oneself more and more from the tyranny of time, thereby creating time in the process.  One learns to mastery over one’s own will impulses, thus taking control of the activity of the etheric body, which is one’s own time-body. The capacity for willing takes root in a new foundation, and is no longer sucked continually into the onward rush of time.

There is in fact a difference between this ever onward, ongoing flow of chronological time, to which we are subject, and the kind of time which is ‘right’ for our destiny.

The ancient Greeks had two terms for ‘time’: the one, which was measurable, physical, chronological time they called chronos, and the other, the immeasurable, qualitative, right time which they called kairos. (The time connected in Gospels with the life and deeds of Christ is always kairos, and is therefor not subject to the laws of physical time.) We can all experience the elasticity of time, the way it often does not seem to correspond to measurable clock-time. Sometimes is contracts to an unbelievably short instant and sometimes it stretches out unbearably.

The real aim of the exercise, then, is to overcome the hold that time has on us and to find for oneself the kairos of one’s own destiny, the ‘right’ moment. Once this aim has been attained, one becomes able to create the time for oneself. Then one no longer needs to say, ‘I don’t have time,’ but, ‘I have time because I will it (I create it).

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