Cognitive Yoga: How a Book is Born E-Book

Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon

• Herausgeber: Temple Lodge Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 107

Beschreibung

'This little book relates some experiences I had during the spiritual research which was eventually published in my book Cognitive Yoga. Usually I am concerned with communicating the objective results of my research and not what I experienced whilst doing it. But an objective description of what the individual soul undergoes during spiritual research can be valuable to the study of anthroposophy and to those who pursue the spiritual path themselves.' Through faithful inner work, says the author, the path of spiritual science can become a living spiritual being – an intimate friend in the realms of soul and spirit. This being can blossom into an extended spiritual community or school. One can converse and co-create with this spiritual school, including the being of one's teacher, by learning its inner language. In 2012, Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon was confronted with a major obstacle in his research work. After struggling alone, he felt he could not progress without consulting his colleagues in the spiritual world. The intimate soul experiences described in this book took place during such a gathering – a special, festive occasion with an active and engaged community of spiritual beings. 'I want to share some aspects of what I experienced during this event, in the more personal and imaginative language of storytelling. It is a kind of new, individual, Christmas nativity tale, about the earthly ripening of a research problem, its heavenly conception, embryonic life, and finally the birth on earth of what becomes a physical book, printed black on white.'

Leseprobe

DR YESHAYAHU (JESAIAH) BEN-AHARON—spiritual scientist, philosopher and social activist—is founder of the anthroposophical community in Harduf, Israel, co-founder of the Global Network for Social Threefolding, director of Global Event College and contributor to the School of Spiritual Science. He is the author of Cognitive Yoga, Spiritual Science in the 21st Century, The Spiritual Event of the Twentieth Century, The New Experience of the Supersensible, America's Global Responsibility and The Event in Science, History, Philosophy & Art.

COGNITIVE YOGA: HOW A BOOK IS BORN

Heavenly Jerusalem and the Mysteries of the Human Body

Yeshayahu (Jesaiah) Ben-Aharon

Temple Lodge Publishing Ltd.

Hillside House, The Square

Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.templelodge.com

First published by Temple Lodge Publishing, 2017

© Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon 2017

The Publishers are grateful to Scott Hicks for his editorial work on the text

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

The right of Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 912230 12 9

Cover by Morgan Creative

Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

The paths of gods and men must merge in our time. Michael will be the great mediator between the paths of gods and the paths of human beings. Let us pay heed to his work! Then shall we be permitted to look to the future not merely with well-meaning enthusiasm but with courageous enthusiasm, then shall we find our will conjoined more and more with the divine will that has guided humanity from the beginning, then shall we feel our freedom join forces with the freedom of the gods. This is what we must feel. If we do, we shall be permitted to say each day when we have finished our daily work, hoping not for smaller but for greater things for the following day: Perhaps the gods are looking down upon us and saying: Yea, so be it.

Rudolf Steiner, lecture from 22nd September 1924, GA 346

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

1. Four Stages of Development

2. The Mystery of Conception

3. An Insurmountable Problem

4. Some Soul Experiences on the Threshold

5. A Co-Creative Journey

6. The Author is Pregnant

7. A Book is Born

Foreword

This little book relates some experiences I had during the spiritual research which was eventually published in my book, Cognitive Yoga-Making Yourself a New Etheric Body and Individuality (2016). Usually in my books and lectures I am concerned with communicating the objective results of my research and not what I experienced while doing it. But also, an objective description of what the individual soul undergoes during spiritual research can be valuable to the general study of anthroposophy and to those who pursue the spiritual path themselves. Anthroposophical spiritual schooling, if practised seriously over many years, gradually transforms all aspects of our soul life. The soul begins to experience a new life, which takes its course in previously unknown spiritual experiences and worlds. It also feels the need to understand itself ever more deeply, and from ever new points of view in this new existence. In this way, spiritual science becomes something different than its known physical expressions on the earth. First it becomes an intimate friend in the realms of soul and spirit, then it becomes a living spiritual being accompanying us, and finally, it grows to become an extended spiritual community composed of many varied beings. One gradually learns the inner language to converse and co-create with them, and receives in return cognitive and moral support. And the human soul develops a growing trust and confidence in this new companionship and community, because it feels itself ever more grounded in its own innermost independent being and becoming.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner founded and pioneered for humanity a fully modern path of spiritual development and research. This path is grounded in detailed and practical, individual spiritual and moral self-actualization. Being a fully modern path, it can and must be actualized freely by each person, and individualized in accord with his and her specific life conditions, capacities, and karma. Walking in this path and implementing its methods, one enters consciously into the spiritual worlds. In the spiritual worlds, one may also find the way to the spiritual being of his teacher, provided one already experienced it through one's own spiritual efforts during earthly life. If he brings this independently achieved earthly spiritual recognition with him to the spiritual worlds, he may be gracefully granted also the conscious spiritual apprenticeship in his spiritual school and community. This spiritual school, grounded in the spiritual world nearest to the earth, is an operative, active and creatively engaged community, in which the archetypal spiritual goals and plans are worked out, and constantly updated, in relation to the immediate, near, and far evolutionary possibilities afforded by human beings in the age of human freedom. The intimate soul experiences described below took place during such a co-creative consultation and instruction in this school, in a time when my spiritual research was ripe for energetic assistance and enhancement related to a specific task and problem.

These experiences reached a certain culmination during the holy days and nights of 2012, which was for me an especially rich and productive year. They took place ‘behind the scenes’ in my ongoing spiritual scientific investigation and practice of Cognitive Yoga, when I was confronted with a major obstacle and problem on the path of research. After struggling alone, so to speak (one is never alone in spiritual life and work), for several years, with this spiritual roadblock, I felt that I could not progress any further without consulting my spiritual teacher and colleagues. Such a consultation is a special, indeed, a festive occasion, and one must be sure in one's heart that the cause and timing is truly appropriate. Sometimes while our daily relations go on as usual with their manifold meetings, interests, and work, we feel the need for a special gathering to celebrate a holiday, create something new together, or commemorate a special person or historical event. This happens also in our spiritual life. And so it was during 2012. I felt that the time was ripe and that it would be proper and productive to prepare and wait for such a festive meeting with my spiritual colleagues. I want to share some aspects of what I experienced during this event, in the more personal and imaginative language of storytelling. It is a kind of new, individual, Christmas nativity tale, about the earthly ripening of a research problem, its heavenly conception, embryonic life, and finally the birth on earth of what becomes a physical book, printed black on white. The tale is what follows.

Introduction

‘The Word becoming flesh is the first Michael revelation; the flesh becoming Spirit must be the second Michael revelation.’

Rudolf Steiner (GA 194, 22 November 1919)

Before I begin the tale, let me give some necessary background. In Chapter 4 of my book The New Experience of the Supersensible, I describe three main aspects of the meeting with the being of the living, resurrected Christ (the Higher Self of humanity). In this meeting, Christ stands by you to encourage you to awaken yourself to new life as a whole human being, in spirit, soul and body. It can also be said, that he gracefully offers you a unique gift, made of three potent golden seeds that you can plant in your spirit, soul and body, which—this depends of course on your own free creative spiritual activity—you may develop further independently. This is what I tried to accomplish in my anthroposophical work in my 20s and 30s, and The New Experience of the Supersensible offered a summary of the main investigations undertaken during this process. In that book, I could describe the independent planting and cultivation of the first two golden seeds: those planted in the spirit and soul. But the cultivation of the third seed in the body proved to be much more difficult, because it was hindered by strong obstacles. This required a development of higher and deeper cognitive-moral faculties which at that time I couldn’t yet fully actualize.*

To be more specific, the cognitive-moral capacities that I could develop before my 40s were not sufficient to properly cultivate the third bodily seed. But this complete cultivation is required to fulfil through spiritual scientific work the most important spiritual task of our age, which the anthroposophically grasped impulse of the etheric Christ makes possible for the first time to free human beings. The task is to learn how to apply spiritual science to individualize the Christ Impulse not only in the spirit and soul but also in the spiritual forces of the bodies. Only by means of modern anthroposophical spiritual science is it possible today to explore, discover, and activate these deeply hidden spiritual forces, slumbering in the primordial foundations of the bodies, and bring them to full imaginative consciousness.*

In hindsight, I can say that this third, bodily aspect of the work, had to wait, until I reached my eighth seven-year period, in the age of 56-63, in which—usually wholly unconsciously—the forces of Spirit Man (Atman) are activated. During these years, I could experience how I was supported by forces activated through the development of Spirit Self (in the age of 42-49) and Life Spirit (49-56). This brought about a change in my faculty of Imagination, on which I was working for decades, because it could be supported by more potent spiritual forces than before. This enabled me to grasp imaginatively—but this faculty of Imagination was now increasingly saturated by stronger inspirative and intuitive elements—also some aspects of the potential spiritual forces of the three bodies. As I describe in detail in Cognitive Yoga, I could then overcome some of the powerful obstacles found in the bodies, composed of desires, drives and instincts, and penetrate consciously deeper into them. I felt that the more this eighth seven-year period progressed, for the first time I could reach my goal, to complete—in certain limits—the development of that aspect of the modern faculty of Imagination that was given to me to individualize and spiritualize by means of spiritual science. Then I could use the forces of this Imaginative Soul, supported and enhanced by the inspirative and intuitive forces, to awaken some aspects of the pure, virgin, forces hidden in the depths of the three bodies, and unite them—through the free cognitive activity of spiritual science—with the forces of the etheric Christ. And this is what I described in my book, Cognitive Yoga.