עברית "The paths of gods and men must merge in our time. Then shall we feel our freedom join forces with the freedom of the gods"
COGNITIVE YOGA: HOW A BOOK IS BORN
Heavenly Jerusalem and the Mysteries of the Human Body
As we shall see in detail in Chapter 3 below, when the problem is ripe, growing out of a prolonged time of productive spiritual research, the soul develops a special mood that can be described as active, courageous resignation. We give up the self-willed desire to achieve progress and success. This mood of creative resignation and surrender, when we let go of our personal control of the research process, frees the riddle from our intentional grip, ideas and representations, and therefore it can begin to reveal to us its true essence in the spiritual worlds. Such ripened research is always accepted by the beings that guide and support human evolution in our age. They are Michaelic beings, characterized by the fact that they accept only the creative, fully individualized, human work accomplished by means of free and conscious spiritual activity on the earth. Michael, says Rudolf Steiner, doesn't influence the human will; he expects humans to develop their spiritual work in full freedom:
“We carry up into a spiritual world the knowledge of Nature here attained, or again, the creations of naturalistic art, or the religious sentiments working naturalistically in the soul... And as we carry all this upward- if we develop the necessary faculties- we do indeed encounter Michael ... Michael is a being who reveals nothing if we do not bring him something from our diligent spiritual work on Earth . . . Michael will be the true spiritual hero of Freedom; he lets men do, and he then takes what becomes of human deeds, receives it and carries it on and out into the cosmos, to continue in the cosmos what men themselves cannot yet do with it . . . But when man does things out of spiritual activity or inner freedom, then Michael carries the human earthly deed out into the cosmos; so that it becomes cosmic deed”. (Lecture from 13 January 1924, GA 233a)
And this applies of course also to Rudolf Steiner, the leader of Michael's stream on earth and the `headmaster' of the human department in his cosmic school. Once human beings have sown, grown, and rightly cultivated a creative, spiritualized and truthful fruit in their human garden, Michael and his partners affirmatively accept it, develop it further in the spiritual world, and invite us to participate in its continuous spiritual development. We must bear this in mind when I describe below the spiritual side of the event of cooperative spiritual fertilization and conception, since this is an attempt to describe such a creative mutual interaction between a human being and the Michaelic school in the spiritual worlds, because, indeed, “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 feel our freedom join forces with the freedom of the gods”. (Lecture from 22 September 1924, GA 346).
Now, the following fact must be emphasized: fertilization and conception take place only if the spiritual world offers them freely as a loving act of grace. The ripe problem must fully release itself from the soul and be transformed into an independent spiritual being that opens and offers itself in loving surrender to the higher worlds and beings. Then, like a flower opening to the sun's rays, it can be fertilized by the higher worlds `without sin', that is, without being coloured any further by my soul's personal desires, wishes and expectations. In this way, the problem signals that it is ready for a sacred meeting and consultation with the teachers and colleagues of the Michaelic school through which the holy spirit- the divine macrocosmic spirit-works. The meeting with these colleagues can therefore be compared to a virginal conception. One can receive truly new impulses purely from the higher worlds. This is experienced as a serious, sacred and festive marriage, a mutual, reciprocal, giving and receiving between humanity and the spiritual worlds, earth and heaven. The marriage is followed by spiritual fertilization and conception, taking place wholly in the supersensible world, between the human soul and the spiritual world.
That is, the fertilization and moment of conception takes place when the ripened problem, developing in the human soul, opens and discharges its spiritualized essence, sending it upward to the spiritual world. We know that it is accepted when we experience that a spark of creative impulse lights up, rapidly conciliating between the spiritual world and the expanding and self-surrendering spiritual soul. To begin with, the origin of this spark is shrouded in mystery because it is not immediately clear where it is coming from, and the spiritual search for its origin finds it neither in the soul nor in the spiritual worlds. On further investigation, it turns out that the spark only springs forth when the human soul and the spiritual world have come to a specific, determined, proximity to each other. This proximity creates a positive tension that leads to the event of fertilization and conception. When this proximity has been reached, and we can zoom in closer to observe it, we see that what appears from afar as one spark is really a multicoloured, multifaceted messenger being, which is made of a composition of many sparks that cohere together but do not mesh entirely; they retain their multiplicity despite their intimate composition. First, I could observe that there were actually two sparks that were flashing back and forth from one pole to the other, from the spirit pole to the soul pole and from the soul to the spirit, simultaneously. They merged together in such a way that they reciprocally exchanged a soul potency and spirit impulse with each other, and it is this exchange- hat doesn't extinguish the singular being of each but rather enhances it- which appears as one radiant and multicoloured being, a composite spark. Furthermore, at the same time, many other sparks are flashing to and fro, like shooting stars, through the whole cosmic periphery, illuminating the spirit firmament with magnificent fireworks. As they merge their forces together they become part of the composition of the spark, welding their cosmic seeds into the event of conception. You can also say, metaphorically speaking, that they congratulate the spirit bridegroom and soul bride on their coming together and they consecrate the moment of their union. They paint and compose a starry canopy and aura enveloping and sheltering the soul of the spiritual investigator and the beings of the spiritual world, as they interpenetrate and mutually fertilize each other, cele- brating this event of graceful destiny.
Read the whole chapter in my book: Cognitive Yoga: How A Book Is Born