Meditation, Inner Work and the Temperaments

One thing that Steiner saw as very important for Waldorf parents and educators was to maintain a constant awareness of ourselves through meditation and self-reflection. The beginning of his work, “The Foundation Meditation” expresses his thought the best when he says…

Soul of man!
You live in the limbs
That carry you through the world of space
Into the sea of spirit-being:
Practice spirit remembrance
In the depths of soul,
Where in the reigning
Cosmic creator-being
Your own I
In God’s I
Is begotten;
And you will truly live
In the cosmic human being.

Phlegmatics are natural meditators. Remember Winnie the Pooh from the 100-acre-woods? He always seemed to be in a constant state of meditation – always looking at the clouds and seeing Hephalumps in them or something! People of the phlegmatic type don’t usually need instruction in meditating or finding time to meditate. For a phlegmatic, meditation happens when it will, throughout the day, alone or in a crowd, in the form of daydreams, short naps, sleeping in and sitting peacefully. While others may find this behavior irritating – phlegmatics are often told to “get up and do something useful” we could all learn a bit about meditating from their natural state of being. The phlegmatic’s challenge in meditation is to focus on themselves instead of distractions. If one is trying to center themselves they need to spend some time meditating on their own inner being and life. A phlegmatic can easily get distracted by thoughts of “Hephalumps and honeypots.”

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