עברית Intimate Spiritual Experiences in Thinking, Feeling, and Willing
The Christ Event of the 21st Century
Intimate Experiences of Christ in Thinking, Feeling, and Willing
(Stuttgart 2012)
From: Spiritual Science in the 21st Century
Lecture 8
Each century begins with small waves, but each decade receives a larger new wave from the horizon in the middle of the century. In the first decade of the 21st century, we have already felt the first wave and the second is happening as we speak. Already we can feel that it is much stronger than the first. We can already experience that the Earth is beginning to shift under our feet. But we are only now experiencing the second big wave, then the next one and then another two will come before the middle of the century. By the middle of the century it will be a Tsunami; this is already visible on the horizon. And still we are strolling along the beach, building little sand castles or maybe even a courageous wall of sand, or little canals to channel the direction of the Tsunami. But when we really see what’s coming we’ll say, “Oh my God, this is a gigantic power!” What is more, if people are unprepared it will be a destructive power. But this is not because it is destructive of itself; rather it is the highest and most positive force that exists, it is our highest creativity. But this means that a massive development is necessary from our side, for if we are unprepared and suddenly a Tsunami rolls in, then times will be really difficult. So what capacities and qualities do we need to develop? What do we need to have in order to receive this power? I would like to describe this in what follows.
BEGINNING IN 2005, I needed to reduce my public activities in order to dedicate myself to the elementary or fundamental aspects of the School of Spiritual Science. Through this an updated foundation for the School of Spiritual Science came into being, in which I am now working, together with friends and colleagues in several countries. But in 2012, for reasons I will explain below, I resumed my public activity and this is why I can again speak at Forum 3. Today is in this sense a small beginning. And because it is a beginning, I want to speak simply and directly from my heart to your hearts about some experiences that the human soul can go through today.
Before I do this, however, I will give a short extract of what I have been presenting in other lectures this year in the US, Scandinavia, Europe and the UK.
What is coming from the future toward us today is enormous. I have myself observed it over the past 3 to 4 years. In the beginning, during 2007 and 2008, it was still very quiet like little droplets that one could feel, very tiny touches that quietly said, “Would you please pay just a small amount of attention to the future?” This grew stronger from day to day and by 2009 and 2010, it was definitely not just little droplets any longer: it had become a river. Since then it has continued to grow. Precisely because of the enormity of what is appearing on the horizon of this century, extending from its very middle, I want to express it so that it speaks directly to our humanity and all that is humane in us.
According to Ray Kurzweil, certain projected technological developments will lead, around the middle of the century (2045), to what he calls the “Singularity.” This will be the immersion of the human being as a whole in an infinitely powerful Artificial Intelligence, where the human being will possess unlimited intelligence and an almost unlimited physical life. The colossal acceleration of these technologies is itself a huge topic. If we examine what is coming towards us spiritually, and also what is being prepared on the other side, technologically, then we can already say a good bit about this subject matter today.
Those who promote the technological singularity are getting ready to capture the enormous waves of these new life forces so that they can immediately channel and utilize them within the framework of new technologies. I have seen that this enormous wave that will come in the middle of the century is made of the highest creative energy possible. It is a revelation of our higher self, the Christ-self. But people do not perceive this yet, and so it is not yet noticed acting among us, and we are still not preparing ourselves for what is coming toward us! Yet it is already perceptible. Only a very few people are awake enough in our own stream to perceive this. But those who support the technological singularity are already working toward this moment and are amazingly awake, creative, filled with energy, and enthused about what is coming. The difference between these two groups has made me somewhat concerned because the gap is far too large. It shouldn’t be so big. And if it remains like this, we will experience the same thing that happened in the last century, which is that the Christ-event was reversed into
its opposite. We should at least try everything we can to prevent that from happening. That’s what we should try to do!
This is the general picture. Today we are in the year 2012. It has been predicted that the singularity will come in exactly 33 years from now, in 2045. What will we do today and tomorrow and the day after, to develop the capacities, the qualities, and the strengths that will be all the more necessary to deal with these coming days, years, and decades? What are we doing with the young people? How is humanity going to reach the middle of the century after the next wave? What is going to happen in the next few years, the next 20, the next 30 years? Each century begins with small waves, but each decade receives a larger new wave from the horizon in the middle of the century. In the first decade of the 21st century, we have already felt the first wave and the second is happening as we speak. Already we can feel that it is much stronger than the first. We can already experience that the Earth is beginning to shift under our feet.
But we are only now experiencing the second big wave, then the next one and then another two will come before the middle of the century. By the middle of the century it will be a Tsunami; this is already visible on the horizon. And still we are strolling along the beach, building little sand castles or maybe even a courageous wall of sand, or little canals to channel the direction of the Tsunami. But when we really see what’s coming we’ll say, “Oh my God, this is a gigantic power!” What is more, if people are unprepared it will be a destructive power. But this is not because it is destructive of itself; rather it is the highest and most positive force that exists, it is our highest creativity. But this means that a massive development is necessary from our side, for if we are unprepared and suddenly a Tsunami rolls in, then times will be really difficult. So what capacities and qualities do we need to develop? What do we need to have in order to receive this power? I would like to describe this in what follows.
First of all, saying that ‘everything is alright’ is useless. In our time people are still fooling each other, pulling the wool over their eyes. This is the main problem of our spiritual and social life. We must admit that we did not take great steps forward in the 20th century. Furthermore, we haven’t developed the capacities for the 21st century. We simply have not developed them yet. That is really the point. It’s really not about new programs, or economic, social, political, cultural or spiritual regulations. The most important thing that is needed is attentiveness. One must become attentive to that fact that a great deal is already possible today. Much of what is coming toward us is already here and has been active between us for some time. But our attentiveness has not sharpened enough. So it is not a question of programs, rules, or exercises. It is rather a question of practicing attentiveness. Let us look at this in more concrete detail.
We have a huge intellectual head. It’s very necessary and we love this intellect, we love our heads. No criticism will be leveled at our intellectual capacities, as we need this huge head in our technological time to regulate and order our physical lives. But spiritually seen this intellect is something quite different. Spiritually seen the intellect is something which deadens us, which turns us cold as people, and the more we have to use it, to order our outer lives, to research, construct our technologies and so on, the more we have to admit that we do not sufficiently feel the human-spiritual reality behind it. We are so fascinated by the inhumanness, the speed, and the brilliance of this intellect that we don’t notice that the very opposite power lies behind it. The first essential thing is to feel, to notice, to become aware of what lives in our feelings when we recognize something. I re- cognize my world! Re-cognizing means remembering. It’s always the same world, and it has to be, right? When I get up in the morning, I should enjoy the fact that it is the same room, and the chairs and table are the same as they were yesterday. When I look in the mirror, I’m happy to see that, with a few exceptions, it is the same face that I see and recognize. That is you, the same person, and the same self! Then when we see our fellow men we say — There you are again! The same as yesterday!
We need this sameness. I don’t want to criticize our faculty of recognition. But it is dead and can only know that which is dead. When I recognize you as the same person, then it is only that which is dead that arises in me. This dead picture of you is not really fitting for humans or nature, even if it is suitable in the case of other objects. We simply don’t experience this very strongly; it’s a question of experiencing a real problem. We should reach the point of being sufficiently attentive in the moment when we say — There you are again, the same old subject or object — that one feels something and this inner experience comes to consciousness. It’s always there! You don’t have to do anything to create it. This experience is always present just below the threshold, but we don’t notice it and we don’t want to notice it? We want things to go on as they are, in the same way. But then over and over again, human society collapses.
If we are attentive and listen to our feelings in this moment, then it’s possible to become aware of something different. These are intimate feelings, but it is exactly these intimate feelings that count. It is a matter of not continuing to move toward the future in a totally insensitive, unperceptive manner. These enormous waves from the future are rolling toward us and they need people with open senses and hearts to receive these forces. In the moment itself, I need to feel a real problem because I actually can’t perceive who you really are, because I constantly only produce the same image of a person according to my habits and my past, and because I cannot take hold of the new moment that is totally alive. People will increasingly experience this as a form of blindness. You will experience something and may hear a voice, it could be a very quiet and gentle voice, in the moment when you recognize and ‘know’ the other as the same old self. If you really listen to this quiet voice, it will say, ‘You have re-cognized and identified this as the same object or person, and therefore you have become blind!’ To feel this experience of cognition as blindness, that is what is absolutely necessary.
Once you have experienced it and heard this voice that says, ‘You have re-cognized this as a subject or object, you have recognized your fellow man as the same being as yesterday and have thus made yourself blind in that moment!’ When you experience this, the process reverses and you gain sight. You begin to see. You stop thinking, reflecting, and repeating the same cognitive process. One becomes clairvoyant which means ‘clear-seeing.’ There are of course different types of clairvoyance. In the social, human, and inter-personal fields it is perhaps the most important strength there is. This also applies to our relationship to nature, but I will remain in the field of humans.
When you really see another person, you experience something cosmic, something unprecedented about the individual that you meet. The other person becomes a real revelation, a real spiritual experience, which acts and creates in a whole cosmos of utmost beauty. The other person becomes a revelation of the highest and the deepest of our world. Because I have experienced and recognized my blindness, I can now experience him with my new vision. In that moment he arises within my own being. He arises within my being as his true self and I arise with him. We both arise. The dead intellect that kills, binds, defines, orders, rationalizes, and explains everything; this same place becomes the place of resurrection. In this place of resurrection where you arise in me and I arise with you, there the human meeting becomes a true revelation.
This is the first Christ-experience that comes to us, and actually is already there. It has been there for ages! It is only our attentiveness that isn’t sufficiently awake. This has nothing to do with exercises, meditations, regulations or ideals. One should not try to prepare for this in the usual, rational sense as if I could say, “Ahh, that is lovely, I want to see you! I’ve heard a lecture about it, and read some stuff and now off we go! I’ll set up a program, a meditational practice, then I’ll do it and tomorrow I will achieve it. I will see you.”
If you do this you are already in the known, in the dead identification. Attentiveness can only be the Event. Attentiveness is Event! I have to experience that something is not right, that there is something untrue in my knowing: there you are again! This has to be experienced, you cannot prescribe this. You must experience it, and then it can be a real feeling experience. I am blind when I re-cognize you. Precisely where I think I know you, I do not see you. I am blind and this impossibility of sight has to shock us. Something has to happen within us, which shocks or jolts us a bit, an Event, and then this seeing wakes up, and one really “sees.” But this seeing of the other, comes from the tremor, from the problem, that comes with the painful realization: I am
blind, I experience myself as blind! That is a true Event, and not anything that one can or should enforce…
Read the whole lecture in
Spiritual Science in the 21st Century
Transforming evil, meeting the other, and awakening to the global initiation of humanity