Feeling

Feeling is a different level of movement within the astral body. If will is movement that is visible and perceptible in the outer world, then one can look at feeling as a movement in our inner world or inner life. Feeling is much more than an emotion or a sensation; it is a whole body of experience that we generally perceive within ourselves. While it is true we may reveal our feelings externally, it remains but a portion of the entire feeling activity that we experience and that happens.

This opens an interesting perspective on the nature of the astral body. On the one hand, will is what is generally perceptible in the physical material world, then it speaks of a particular relationship that the astral within us has with the external world. On the other hand, if feeling relates to the experiences within our inner world, so to speak, then it will speak about a particular relationship we have with the non-material world but with an experiential world that lives within. Thus, in a certain sense, our astral body has something to do about our relationship with both the external, material world as well as an inner experiential world. As this relationship is rightful always in movement, our astral body, for its own general well-being, will seek a harmonious balance between that which is without (the physical, material world) and that which lies within (our inner, experiential world).

Let us then put forth an imagination that willing is how the astral expresses itself in the physical world and feeling is how the material world expresses itself in the astral. With this picture, feeling life is about how we experience the world. Willing is how we transform that experience into the physical world. 

Of course we have will activities that will happen naturally or instinctively. These are will activities that arise from the material world. These are not willed from within but rather from that which surrounds us. On the other hand, we may argue that we have a feeling life that also “simply arises” or experiences. Then, in like manner, this feeling life must be moved or molded by our inner, non-material, non-physical world of experiences. For those will and feeling activities that we bring about consciously, then something more is at play than simply the material world or the experience world. 

More can be said about the feeling life. However, it is like a minefield fully of strong connotations. It is a widely active life with movement from extremes to movements of precise inner balance. When we listen to our feeling life, we will begin to sense this to be so.

So far, in the astral body, we have a form of movement; will where we express ourselves in the material world. We have a form of movement, feeling where we take the physical world and express it within in us as an experience. The obvious question therefore is how to make this wealth of experiences our own. To answer that, we will come to the third movement of our astral body: thinking.

Sources: The Study of Man by Rudolf Steiner.