The Foundation Stone Meditation and Daily Life

02 May The Foundation Stone Meditation and Daily Life

The Foundation Stone Meditation was the subject of a workshop led by Arie van Ameringen, General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada, on Saturday, March 10, 2018. The workshop was held at the Montreal Rudolf Steiner School and was attended by 11 participants. The previous evening, in the Society premises above the Grande Ourse toy store, Arie had given a talk to an audience of 14 entitled New Perspectives in Understanding the Foundation Stone. The Saturday workshop also included concentration exercises, form drawing with Jean Balekian, and eurythmy with Andrée Lanthier. Both of these artists worked with the straight line and the curve in their workshop sessions; these two elements can be used to form multiple artistic combinations, which the participants were able to experience in a joyful and festive mood.

The gathering was designed to encourage the members of the Anthroposophical Society to work more closely with the Rhythms of the Foundation Stone. And indeed, this verse can become a source of inner strength for any individual, whatever his or her field of activity. Arie is in the process of organizing a collaborative international research project aimed at exploring how the Foundation Stone can connect with various fields of human endeavour (medicine, education, etc.).

According to Arie, the Foundation Stone urges one to develop a daily practice in one’s own life. He recalled the context in which it was given at the time of the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach on December 25, 1923, before an audience of 800 individuals. “It is a meditative text, a strength-giving meditation, but also a prayer. Rudolf Steiner called it the Foundation Stone of Love,” Arie said, as he also referred to the Grail Stone and the Philosopher’s Stone. The meditation is constructed in such a way that it offers a picture of the human being in a process of becoming, giving an imagination of how the three human soul forces – thinking, feeling, and willing – are evolving.

The New Mysteries

But why did he give this meditation, since tradition has handed down to us many other powerful sacred verses (The Lord’s Prayer, the Prayer of Francis of Assisi, the Sayings of Buddha, etc.)? “Because,” Arie explained, “the Foundation Stone Meditation is unique in that it is the very basis of the New Mysteries.” A Mystery is a deed performed for the good of all mankind, an impulse brought by an initiate in order to bring balance and harmony to the world at a given point in time. It is a vision of how human beings are in the process of becoming truly human. He went on to say that although in ancient times Mystery wisdom had to be kept secret, it is now the case that every individual is free to gain access to the New Mysteries since humans have now achieved the capacity to emancipate themselves from traditional spiritual, societal and family ties. Every individual becomes his or her own guide. And working with the Rhythms of the Foundation Stone Meditation is in itself a practice. How can I, for example, work on improving my own thinking, willing and feeling?

The workshop also served to point out the multiplicity of the exercises indicated in the anthroposophical literature and their connection with the various life rhythms. An individual is free to choose the exercises appropriate to his or her life situation: the daily backwards review; the Soul Calendar and its yearly rhythmthrough the 52 weekly verses; the weekly rhythmof the exercises done during Holy Week, by which one can create a personal link with the various stages of Christ’s Passion; or the meditative contemplation carried out during the 12 Holy Nights – a12-fold rhythm corresponding to the signs of the Zodiac, etc.

Healing

The Foundation Stone concerns not only the individual human being, but also the evolution of mankind as a whole. Arie referred to the term “Anthropocene,” which is now used to designate our present geological era in which human activity is directly affecting nature and the environment, and not always for the better. The antidote to this condition will depend on the deeds of those free human beings who choose to become carriers of Christ. It is up to these individuals to make themselves and others more aware of their personal experience of the Christ Being as connected to the Cosmic Christ.

The physical Foundation Stone – a double dodecahedron – was laid in the earth prior to the building of the first Goetheanum; the Second Foundation Stone was set into words by Rudolf Steiner and laid into the hearts of human beings during the Christmas Conference of 1923-1924. Thereby, something was freed from the physical plane and given back to the spiritual world. And if the Meditation addresses the Human Soul, it is because the soul is the link between our physical constitution and our spiritual configuration, connecting matter to spirit. The Meditation incites the spiritual human being, which is in a state of becoming, to penetrate consciously into the entire process of evolution. The new aspect the Foundation Stone brings is founded in Rudolf Steiner’s will to connect knowledgeof the spirit to the reality of the physical world.

The rhythms spoken in the first three panels of the Mediation (spirit-recalling, spirit-sensing, spirit-beholding) can bring healing to wounds of the soul and guide us in our personal development. To heal means to find the appropriate rhythm, for rhythm harmonizes; and the three panels contribute to this healing gesture. In conclusion, Arie explained how the Foundation Stone Meditation can also become a guide in one’s own biography and can help an individual design his or her own path. He added that this could be a solution to the threat posed by the increasing influence of the virtual world on our daily lives.

Michel Dongois and Denis Schneider