The path, the pilgrimage

Walking the thinking-path, making the thinking-pilgrimage

	A dedicated study of the Philosophy of Freedom, working through and thinking out the unfolding of ideas in the right order, can be imagined as walking a thinking-path, step by step.  The path laid out by Steiner leads us.  Each step is important and gives access to the next step, so that we progress, so that we find our way.  How can we approach this task?
	On the one hand, we can study the path on a map and do research about it and understand many things about it, without actually walking it.  We can develop theoretical knowledge about it, which is useful as preparation, but is not a substitude for walking it.

On the other hand, we can walk the path but be tempted to deviate from it, to stray from the sure path that Steiner has taken the trouble to lay out for us, in all sorts of ways.  We can become lost, branch off onto some other path entirely, perhaps without even realising it.

But if we decide to walk this path, the path that Steiner has laid out, we can experience this path, and we can go to where it is leading us.  If we manage to walk the path, we will see for ourselves and experience what appears along the way.

If we think of the walking of this path as a kind of pilgrimage which we set ourselves as a challenge, then when we set off, we are perhaps not exactly sure where the path is leading - the final goal of the pilgrimage is not what a pilgrimage is about!   We might feel motivated on a deep level without really understanding, we might never have looked at the 'map'.  We have some idea, but we won’t understand until we get there and experience it, and to do that we will go through the whole process of the pilgrimage, each unfolding moment of it, every experience along the way, and this itself will change us, and we won’t get there unless we walk the path all the way to its destination.  If we drove by the main road straight to the end point it wouldn’t be the same – it wouldn't be what is meant by a pilgrimage, it would be an experience of the end-point – yet, how well would we experience the end point without making the pilgrimage, and what would we miss?  The journey transforms us.

Imagine our pilgrimage is walking the labyrinth of Chartres cathedral.

 We can look illustrations or photos of the labyrinth seen from above.  This kind of vantage points tells us something of the 'what' of the pilgrimage, but not the how and the why.

In my experience, as we walk the thinking path, we humans need to bring our own life and experiences to our understanding of the Philosophy of Freedom, and if we are attentive, we will notice that the thoughts in Philosophy of Freedom are living themselves out in our lives, and sometimes we will want to research things which are not clear to us, we need all this to connect ourselves to the study, to make it live.  The question is, will we keep coming back to the path, to the words expressing the ideas, and walk it with our thinking, as process and goal, and continue it to its destination?