עברית After struggling 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.... So it was during 2012.
Seven Years Later... Christmas 2012-19
Cognitive Yoga: Building Yourself a New Etheric Body and Individuality (2016)
Cognitive Yoga: How A Book is Born (2017)
“After struggling 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”.
From the Foreword to Cognitive Yoga: How a book is born
My little book, Cognitive Yoga: How a book is born, 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 under- goes 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 practiced 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 inner- most independent being and becoming.
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.
I felt a need to share some of those experiences with my colleagues. This sharing, which has also now been fully born as the younger brother or sister to Cognitive Yoga in the form of the book which you are reading, has this goal: to make us aware that we are taking part in this same creative process all the time. This knowledge may heighten our shared consciousness and deepen our feeling of mutual creative, joyful, responsibility, and help us to become conscious co-creators with the creative beings that support and nourish this new and great earthly-human sun work. In this way, we may rightly feel that we are taking part in the realization of the present, second, Michaelic revelation:
“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)
Cognitive Yoga: Making yourself a new etheric body and individuality
Cognitive Yoga: How a book is born