Cognitive Yoga: How a Book is Born


Book Description

'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.’ Chapters include: Four Stages of Development – The Mystery of Conception – An Insurmountable Problem – Some Soul Experiences on the Threshold – A Co-Creative Journey – The Author is Pregnant – A Book is Born.




The Three Meetings


Book Description

‘How can our souls unite with the etheric Christ, experienced in the etheric world since the end of the last century? What steps should we take, in the second century of the age of Michael, to unite with Him?’ At the centre of humanity’s evolution stands the Mystery of Golgotha, through which the Christ impulse entered the earth. Anthroposophy, said Rudolf Steiner, was given at the beginning of the last century to prepare for the second major Christ event – the etheric Second Coming – beginning in 1933. This Event is the portal that leads to the mighty and transformative happenings taking place in the etheric world right now, enabling us to meet the etheric Christ, Michael and Anthroposophia. At the heart of this book is an existential question. Early in his anthroposophical work, Ben-Aharon came to realize that without the light of spiritual science, the meeting with the etheric Christ remained simply a personal experience. Likewise, without the new life forces streaming from the etheric Christ, anthroposophy was merely a body of knowledge, frozen in time. Both needed each other. But how was that mutually-enlivening bridge to be built? Speaking candidly of his personal spiritual path and inner struggles of consciousness, Ben-Aharon tackles this fundamental dilemma as a prelude to the forthcoming, second edition of his book The New Experience of the Supersensible. Contents include: The Ur-Phenomena of the Modern Christ Experience, Paul’s Christ Experience and the Birth of Christian Platonism; The Michaelic Yoga; The Platonic-Aristotelian Essence Exchange at the End of the Twentieth Century; The Meeting with the Etheric Christ; The Abyss and the Event of the Threshold; The Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming; The Meeting with Michael; The Meeting with Anthroposophia.




Jerusalem


Book Description

‘The better I understand the roots of the Hebrew people and its universal-human mission, the better I shall understand the nature of humanity and its mission; and the more human I become, in the most universal sense, anchored in a new spiritual knowledge and practice, the more fulfilled, active and creative I can be at the roots of my existence as a Jew and an Israeli.’ – Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon Based on a remarkable series of lectures delivered in his native Israel, Dr Ben-Aharon presents his illuminating research on the meaning of Judaism and the spiritual mission of the Jewish people in the past, present and future. The Hebrew people have been a central root in the development not only of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but of the universal human spirit itself. Thus, a new understanding of their development and contribution to the spiritual biography of humanity is essential to understanding ourselves as human beings. The Jews were chosen to reveal the deepest secret of ancient times: the existence of one God above all gods, being the Creator of all human beings – beyond race, nation and gender – in his divine image. The great historical and spiritual figures of the Hebrew people – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joseph, the Judges, Kings and Prophets – prepared humanity for individuation – the true ‘I AM’ – through devotion to the divine foundation of the world. ‘The Lord our God is one’, who is to be loved with all one’s heart, soul and being. Each person could now fulfill the Word, which could be actualized on earth – in the human being. In Jerusalem Dr Ben-Aharon describes the evolution of the Hebrew people and its role in the development of the human race. The journey continues to the present day, where the universal human Self has the potential to become a free participator in the ongoing creation of the universe.




The Time is at Hand!


Book Description

'The twenty-first century is the second, middle century of the three centuries of the present age of Michael, and it is the most decisive one. If humanity again misses Michael's goal, it will hardly be possible to recuperate from it, and human evolution will be derailed for a long time. The present age of Michael can therefore rightly be called 'the Apocalypse of the age of Michael'. – Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon In five lively, challenging lectures, Dr Ben-Aharon offers encouraging perspectives on the apocalyptic challenges facing humanity. The key Michaelic task for human beings today, he says, is to comprehend fully the new revelation of the etheric Christ. On the success of this depends humanity's resurrection from the abyss – from the grave of civilization. However, it can still be achieved, and the time is at hand! The author describes the global School of Spiritual Science's contemporary work to create a path to conscious recognition of the Christ and Michael impulses. Offering numerous fresh viewpoints into the trials of our time, The Time is at Hand! is an essential handbook for any serious student of anthroposophy. The talks (from 2017 and 2022) are titled: 'Ahrimanic Immortality, the Matrix and the Technological Singularity'; 'Michaelic Immortality'; 'The Two Apocalyptic Beasts and the Mystery of the Wound; 'Follow This Star'; and 'The Time is at Hand!'




The Event


Book Description

‘Could it not be that a tremendously important Event is taking place in the world, taking place right now, of which our own contemporaries have no presentiment? This is indeed so. A highly important Event is taking place that is perceptible, however, only to spiritual vision.’ – Rudolf Steiner, 25 January, 1910 What if matter is not solid, fixed and dead, but a living and creative Event? Could the concrete ‘stuff’ of our existence be in the process of development and becoming? Rudolf Steiner predicted that the new Christ Event would penetrate and transform all earthly and cosmic matter, life, consciousness and evolution. Through this Event, we have the opportunity to participate in the vortex of creative life. No longer detached, external spectators, we become co-creators in the drama of evolution and in the transformation of human consciousness. In this original and challenging work, Dr Ben-Aharon describes how this momentous Event is expressed in the fields of science, history, philosophy and art, and relates some of the fresh and creative concepts that have been discovered and applied in the disciplines of physics, biology, genetics and artificial intelligence. The Event, he concludes, leads us to face the central and world-historical question of our time: Are we as a human race going to use the new creative forces that are available to us positively, or will we allow this potential for good to change into its – destructive – opposite? The choice is ours.




The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity


Book Description

This unique work – the fruit of many decades’ research and experience – throws new light on the supersensible history and karma of the Michaelic movement since Rudolf Steiner’s death. It describes that movement’s evolution and transformation in the etheric world during the twentieth century, from the world-changing apocalypse of the 1930s and 40s through to the beginning of its incarnation on Earth at the end of last century. The book also focuses on developments in the practical and social work of building the community of the School of Spiritual Science, which embodies the new Michaelic movement in our time. As Ben-Aharon indicates, the Michaelic movement is searching for creative, courageous and enthusiastic souls to foster a strong community that develops – from one decade to the next – as a living organism. Based on the continuous resurrection of anthroposophy, this community strives to create a fully conscious meeting and communication with the school of Michael and Christ in the etheric world, in a form that is appropriate and demanded by the times. The transcripts of these lectures bring together the author’s experiences with anthroposophy over the last 42 years in the light of present communications from the spiritual world. It is based on contemporary spiritual investigation and individual, lived experience. From the Contents: ‘The Amfortas-Parsifal Duality of Modern Humanity’; ‘The Twilight of Humanity and its Resurrection’; ‘The Universal Language of Michael and the Being of Rudolf Steiner’; ‘The Anthroposophical Movement in the Present’; ‘The Etheric Form is Alive’; ‘The Resurrection of the Etheric Christ in the 21st Century’.




Cognitive Yoga


Book Description

Are you ready to begin the process of making yourself a new etheric body and individuality? In the last century, Rudolf Steiner issued a challenge for practitioners of western spiritual science. Would it be possible to develop a new form of cognitive, or Michaelic, yoga? In contrast to the eastern yogis of old – who practiced the spiritualization of inhalation and exhalation – such contemporary yogic practice would involve a spiritualization of thinking as well as a transformation of perceptions and sensations. In Cognitive Yoga, Dr Ben-Aharon responds to that call, developing the entire modern yogic process and describing it in remarkable detail. Through the methods presented, committed practitioners of anthroposophy can create a living framework for spiritual research through a fully spiritualized thinking accompanied by a complete renewal of the experiences of perception and sensation as well as of the human body itself. Included in the contents of this extraordinary book is a comprehensive guide to the spiritualization of the senses and how this leads to a transmutation of the deepest and most unconscious bodily processes and functions. Cognitive Yoga culminates in a pioneering description of a completely individualized meeting with the etheric Christ in the etheric world – the most important spiritual and human experience that people can have in our time and over the millennia to come. This seminal work, built on decades of first-hand research, provides tangible evidence that western spiritual schooling is not only alive and well, but also full of potential for future development. Ben-Aharon offers a fully formulated and practical guide to a knowledge of the present revelations of the spiritual world.




The Birth of Indology as an Islamic Science


Book Description

In The Birth of Indology as an Islamic Science Mario Kozah closely examines the pioneering contribution by Bīrūnī (d. ca. 1048) to the study of comparative religion in his major work on India. Kozah concludes that a process of Islamisation is employed through a meticulous systematization of Hindu beliefs into one “Indian religion”, preceding by almost a millennium the earliest definitions of Hinduism by nineteenth-century European Orientalists. This formulation of Hinduism draws on Bīrūnī’s interpretation of Yoga psychology articulated in the Kitāb Bātanjal, his Arabic translation of the Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali. Bīrūnī’s Islamic reading of Hinduism relies on certain common denominators that he identifies as being of fundamental importance. In the case of Hinduism he identifies metempsychosis as its unifying banner.




Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 4


Book Description

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Book 4 In the final book of the Yoga Sūtras called Kaivalya Pāda, Patañjali reveals the nature and implications of liberation (kaivalya). Kaivalya means complete isolation: the isolation of puruṣa or higher consciousness from prakṛti or nature or matter. This is the isolation of the Self in itself, free from ignorance and dualistic notions. The book is published as an e-Book using the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST).




Foundations of Yoga Psychology


Book Description

This book discusses the profound philosophy and practical psychology behind yoga, beyond its popular body-culture aspect. It pays particular attention to the psychological principles involved and their implications for the consummate understanding of human nature. It explores the psychological aspects of yoga theory and practice and discusses the aphorisms in Patanjali’s treatise on Yoga with necessary commentary in current psychological terminology to make them intelligible to students of psychology and other interested readers. Importantly, the author draws out the implications of these aphorisms for future psychological study and research. The book discusses the author’s concept of yoga of nonviolence which brings in Gandhian ideas into the framework of yoga. The author’s own vast experience in creating interfaces of yoga research with practice also informs the discussions in this book. This authoritative and topical book by an eminent academic like Professor Ramakrishna Rao is of interest to scholars and students of diverse disciplines, including but not limited to psychology, philosophy and wellbeing research.