עברית ‘Only when man opens himself to this cosmic process, when he consciously experiences it in his inner life, when he recognizes that his inner life is of a cosmic nature will it be possible to arrive at a Philosophy of Freedom’.
The Event of Thinking's Cosmic Rebirth
The reason for the complete lack of interest of most people in the current new revelation of Michael and Christ (not to mention the active opposition...), can only be understood if we realize that true spiritual science leads to this revelation in a fully conscious way. Our dead earthly intellect, that we cherish so much, and our visionary fantasies and speculations, that we cherish even more, cannot lead us to this revelation. Only the brightest and exactest, liveliest consciousness, developed by means of the spiriutalization of thinking, feeling and will, opens the portal to this revelation. What Rudolf Steiner said about it more then a century ago, is not yet grasped, let alone practiced and experienced:
‘Only when man opens himself to this cosmic process, when he consciously experiences it in his inner life, when he recognizes that his inner life is of a cosmic nature will it be possible to arrive at a Philosophy of Freedom’. (Lecture of 27 October 1918, GA 185).
COGNITIVE YOGA
From Chapter 5: Etherization of Thinking
We experience what becomes of the potential forces that underlie and motivate thinking, when thinking is no longer used in order to synthesize, reflect, represent, name or define an object or process, externally or internally. What becomes of thinking when we stop ordinary thinking altogether and yet remain conscious (that is, not fall asleep)? Our representations and experiences centred around the `I think therefore I am' unfreeze, melt, evaporate and thinking becomes `gaseous'. We learn how to follow thinking's emerging stream of becoming as it develops into the etheric `exhalation' process of cognitive yoga. We share her bliss of cosmic flight, as she takes us with her to join the joyful expansion of our whole being through her liberated new life, emerging out of the narrow confines of the brain-bound intellect.
Now, this bliss will be morally justified, as long as IT (the etherized, liberated thinking) take us with her as a gift of grace. Pressing for more bliss just because we desire this enjoyment and want to continue to intensify it for its own sake, will not bring us more real knowledge of ourselves and of the world. Sooner or later it will begin to cloud our etheric cognition and imaginative consciousness. Therefore, if we do not surrender at this stage to the one-sided temptation to fly away and escape the body and the earth through the enjoyments of etherized thinking, we will be able, when IT releases us from its graceful cosmic flow, to stand still, as it were, and balance our soul between the powerful upward pull of Luciferic etheric levity and the downgrading force of Ahrimanic gravity. It is far easier to surrender, either to the tempting bliss of etheric flight, or to being pulled back to the physical body, than it is to find the free moral etheric balance in the middle between them. But once this balanced position is achieved (it is intensively dynamic inwardly and must be repeatedly established, using all the etheric cognitive forces created thus far) we are able to `look back' at the physical body. Instead of falling back to the body, or flying away from it, we balance ourselves on the etheric edge in between levity and gravity, grounding our middle position in that part of the etheric body which we have already individualized and spiritualized. This per- spective reveals to us other aspects of the formative forces that shape and condense our physical and etheric bodies. If we consciously confront the temptation to immediately seek the source of cosmic life far out there in the tempting cosmic light forces, we will be able to approach, in ever new ways, the riddles and problems of becoming truly human in the universe.
At that moment we experience a significant spiritual event: the event of thinking's cosmic rebirth, its release and metamorphosis, its becoming world, its cosmization. Now we can modestly let ourselves fly with thinking's released life stream into the cosmos, and celebrate `the event of cosmic thinking' without forgetting the creative cosmic significance of human life and becoming on the earth. This flight takes us in two different directions at once: higher in the direction of the existing cosmic etheric sun, and deeper into the new `sun in the earth'. If we avoid putting these orientations into spatial representations, we can feel that their spiritual essences are one and the same. We experience only one sun-line, arch, and circumference through midday and midnight, sunrise and sunset, spread out there through the whole radiant etheric universe and `down there' in and through our physical body that has become transparent. This also lets us see through the transparent etheric depth of the earth that lights up and reveals the indwelling, earthly sun life of the etheric Christ.
Cognitive Yoga: Making yourself a new etheric body and individuality