Originally posted in German on 10th July 2023
by Heinz Grill
Foto: Wikimeida Commons
The term initiation means the beginning of a development that strives for a specific aim. The various ancient mysteries sites and the spiritual schools of modern times led or want to lead their students to particular soul spiritual experiences and insights to knowledge. The methods of how initiations proceed, whether verbally or non-verbally, ritually or with particular technical consciousness content, are very different. The sacraments that the church bestows, such as baptism or even the celebration of the eucharist, in their classical sense, would be initiation rituals that are meant to connect the individual with the soul afterlife and the spiritual world. Today, however, the sacraments of the church merely offer an outer act of remembrance of a former deeper awareness and experience of a real existing spirit.
The baptism by John, which took place on the Jordan through the baptism, was previously a great and meaningful initiation. The prepared disciples were held under the water by John the Baptist until they lost consciousness and entered into an experience of the soul, body free perception. After a few minutes the aspirants were revived and realigned for the life to come. Through the near death experience and the separation that the soul experienced from the body for a short period of time, for most of those baptised opened a glimpse into the world after death and with this they were enriched with the experience, that the soul does not perish with the physical body but has a continuing sense of purpose. According to how high the aspirant’s aims for the baptism in Jordan were set and how well they had prepared themselves, they could then consciously interpret and work through some of the phases of life after death. Most of those baptised, however, did not yet know the laws as they really occur in the world after death, but they had experienced the soul’s continued life after death.
Today this deliberately induced experience of boundaries and passing through a death like state would not produce the right results and so this form of initiation is no longer practised. The aim of the present time is that initiation is carried from person to person by the authenticity of spirit. When a teacher can communicate spiritual laws, true spiritual thoughts and insights into the world after death out of perfect authentic experience, those listening feel the authenticity of the words and, moreover, notice a subtle invisible and yet perceptible spiritual sphere. Authenticity means that the spoken word, the action and the person are one with each other. The words together with the person reveal not only outer knowledge, learnt methodical rhetoric or beautifully swaying expectant feelings, they open to those listening, even if often still quite unconsciously, a subtle glimpse into the living sphere of becoming-oneself and the truth of a spiritual realisation.
Responsibility within spiritual initiation
Foto: T.L.Kelly, Ausschnitt, Lizenz: Wikimedia Commons
There is a totally justified criticism that is often raised against my person. It is, in the main, that the thoughts and content that are taught by me in courses are not appropriate for the public under any circumstances, because after a few days of practice they directly bring about a stark change in participants who, in the further course of their lives, can no longer deal with the emotions of existence in the usual way, as they had been used to until that point. They detach themselves from their past. According to the criticism, people lack the maturity to further shape their lives with the newly acquired spiritual content.
This criticism from a natural worldly point of view is definitely justified. Particularly, it is even logical if participants come to the seminars and events very unprepared and without being well attuned. Maybe others have persuaded them or even forced them to take part in a seminar in which I am teaching. The impression of the spirit leaves deep traces with everyone, regardless of whether they experience it more consciously or unconsciously and with this the initiation makes its first steps to being born. Individuals know that they have come face to face with a truth and this now stays in their souls, it waits for realisation, for an independent working out and expression, it is like a seed that wants to germinate and begin to grow. As a result of the fact that the conditions of life today are very anti-spirit, hostile to truth, and very reserved when it comes to change, many come into conflict with me personally and with the content taught. Instead of developing and working on new thoughts, considerations, and perspectives based on the spiritual content, projections, harmful discussions, blame and aggression are sparked. In the worst case, individuals begin to hate that which they have sought out in their development and defend everything that they have cultivated by way of illusion in their lives with attachments and patterns of dependency. The spirit is ultimately to blame and from the point of view of the purely material sedate existence, that makes use of all its illusionary attachments, this form of fault giving is actually correct. If there was no authentic spirit in the world, the harmful emotions with their binding, taking in character could grow like wildfire. The spirit is to blame for everything, says the human feeling of attachment. Therefore, in the sense of clarification for seminars and trainings, that carry the character of initiation, there should definitely be a factual and sufficiently technical description of spiritual development, as it takes place with its initiatory character, for all those who have acquired discerning knowledge about permanent and transient values. The times today should be sufficiently open minded that initiation work does not have to hide itself in a lonely ashram, monastery or even in the catacombs, but rather that it can become a part of world creation. Open conversations would be better for this, than thwarting and vain secrecy, which exists too commonly as a negative phenomenon especially in spiritual schools.
The gradual step by step approach to spirituality and initiation
Different developmental steps can be described in four stages:
1. A first and very uncomplicated way is open to everyone who is interested and involved, those connected with yoga teachers and cultural visitors. The buildings with their architecture can, for example, be visited and an uncomplicated experiencing of Naone, the people and even the cultural way of living. A content-related engagement that has deep reaching effects does not yet take place. The visitors get to know the forms of expression of the spirit but they still remain distant from the content of study and deeper mysteries. In the outermost peripheral way, they can form mental pictures about the spiritual, creative potential that has brought the various manifestations to light.
2. With growing interest those interested can study a book and then participate in one or a few teaching sessions. They consciously hold themselves back and with this the questions of responsibility towards a spiritual development are quite non-committal. Quietly, however, they sense that they must nevertheless slowly shape their lives more profoundly and consciously.
3. A third stage begins with enrolment in a spiritual study course. From this moment on, those practising want to take on a greater responsibility and they no longer want to merely look from outside at the mysteries of existence, but to ground themselves in them to an increasing degree. Now their objective is to sufficiently experience higher insights to knowledge and to implement these in societal life masterfully with greater radiance and natural empathy. They do not only want to get to know initiation, to receive it but in a real way manifest spiritual content into life.
4. A fourth level can be a step up from to the third. It applies to all those who have received extensive training in the content of yoga and have chosen a completely new beginning for their existence. Those who have studied the spiritual content with me in the school for some years, for example, must undergo my criticism, because they must not make any major mistakes on the path of training, like, for example, false interpretation of spiritual content or bad life habits. If someone who has taken the spiritual training up to this level, were to switch to the political scene and there engage in partisan persuasion with a superficial desire for making the world a better place, they would not do justice to the spiritual laws and even preach the opposite of love, wisdom, beauty and true spiritual connectedness. In order not to manifest any great errors with serious and wide-reaching effects on the path of realisation to the higher self, students must commit themselves to accepting criticism, and take what the teacher says seriously. As a result of the fact that many students relativise or even totally deny a teacher’s words at the critical moment, they misuse the spiritual training and manifest the antithesis with destructive, powerful effects. The individual must commit in all seriousness at this stage to a true self with clear capabilities, universal love, non-violence and wisdom.
Die Menschheit steht an einer Schwelle und braucht Initiation
A pictorial description of this ancient pre-Christian initiation, in which the adept was shifted into a death like state for a certain time, is the story of Jonah out of the Old Testament. Jonah was thrown into the sea and swallowed by a whale, he spent three days and nights in its stomach until he was spat out again.1) Rudolf Steiner speaks about this in a lecture in Basel in 1909: “The old way of attaining Initiation was this: first the soul was brought to maturity and every necessary preparation made; then a condition lasting for three-and-a-half days was induced in the candidate, a condition in which he was completely withdrawn from the outer world and from the organs through which that world is perceived. Those who were to be led into the spiritual world were carefully prepared and their souls trained in knowledge of the spiritual life; then they were withdrawn from the world for three-and-a-half days, being taken to a place where they could perceive nothing through their external senses and where their bodies lay in a deathlike condition; after three-and-a-half days their souls were summoned back again into the body and they were awakened. Such men were then able to remember their vision of the spiritual worlds and to testify of those worlds. The great secret of Initiation was that the soul, prepared by long training, was led out of the body for three-and-a-half days into an entirely different world, was shut off from the environment and penetrated into the spiritual world. Men who could bear witness to the realities of the spiritual world were always to be found among the peoples; they were men who had undergone the experience referred to in the Bible in the story of Jonah’s sojourn in the whale.” (Jonah 2, 1)
A new kind of post-Christian initiation, in which the adept is no longer placed in a death-like state, but is attuned to the experience of a higher reality through the living word, is indicated in the Gospel of St Luke with the words: “But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:27)
Picture: Russion icone
For example, anyone who comes to study with me repeatedly, inevitably notices how some attachments to life become empty and illusions that they had made up about self-realisation fade away. How many people today are chasing after a yoga realisation that does not exist or an enlightenment that harbours no contentful, true substance of being? There is always a new beginning that is connected with initiation. This develops on the one hand in the encounter with my person and on the other hand through the study of spiritual content, that should be brought into life in a viable way with wisdom. How can someone let go of an old previous behaviour of attachment, if they do not establish their soul life on solid and stable ground, through additional and truly learnt spiritual content? The fact that very many people cannot overcome the many illnesses and sufferings, conflicts and adversities, is due to the fact that in their spiritual and soul life and even on an earthly basis they have not created a rationally developed content for a new horizon. It is as if someone were to aspire to go to a foreign country and yet neglect to learn the language that is spoken there.
Humanity today needs a totally new beginning and this can only find real expression in the broadest sense with spiritual and valid truths coming into manifestation. A good and solid basis for meditation would be indicated for the whole of humanity today. When a patient goes to the doctor, the doctor asks what is lacking for the patient and the patient, contrary to this concept, says: “I have musculoskeletal complaints.” Artificial intelligence, one-sided materialisation, the many fearmongering messages and the completely disintegrated sphere of a real capacity for judgement, all trace back to a deficit in the life of the soul and spirit. Individuals have and must have a problem with our times and the conditions of our times and they must inevitably feel like ill citizens. People today desperately need spiritual content that will bring them to maturity and ultimately develop them further into a radiating field of influence in their surroundings.
The initiation to a higher self, shows itself, for example, in the ability of the individual to fully master a truth through their consciousness and to be able to communicate this. Furthermore, strength of the self is expressed in the fact that this self does not divide people, but can connect many with each other and softens polarities. When teachers deeply master their area of expertise and at the same time have developed the pedagogical dexterity to meet the students in an ordered manner and with a form of clear convincing teaching, they lay a treasure in the student’s hearts. They initiate through their wisdom and their pedagogical clarity. Justness and awareness arise in the individual student through this kind of initiation.
The future urgently needs those people that can summon up the courage to continue to study wisdoms of the higher worlds until they can communicate them socially and flexibly to the outer world or at least to radiate them outwards in the stillness of their souls. Dogmatism, missionising overzealousness and emotionally effusive propaganda are contrary to any initiation training and only show that the most important content has been neither worked on nor really seriously tested in dialogue.
Anmerkungen
| ⇑1 | Rudolf Steiner speaks about this in a lecture in Basel in 1909: “The old way of attaining Initiation was this: first the soul was brought to maturity and every necessary preparation made; then a condition lasting for three-and-a-half days was induced in the candidate, a condition in which he was completely withdrawn from the outer world and from the organs through which that world is perceived. Those who were to be led into the spiritual world were carefully prepared and their souls trained in knowledge of the spiritual life; then they were withdrawn from the world for three-and-a-half days, being taken to a place where they could perceive nothing through their external senses and where their bodies lay in a deathlike condition; after three-and-a-half days their souls were summoned back again into the body and they were awakened. Such men were then able to remember their vision of the spiritual worlds and to testify of those worlds. The great secret of Initiation was that the soul, prepared by long training, was led out of the body for three-and-a-half days into an entirely different world, was shut off from the environment and penetrated into the spiritual world. Men who could bear witness to the realities of the spiritual world were always to be found among the peoples; they were men who had undergone the experience referred to in the Bible in the story of Jonah’s sojourn in the whale.” (Jonah 2, 1) A new kind of post-Christian initiation, in which the adept is no longer placed in a death-like state, but is attuned to the experience of a higher reality through the living word, is indicated in the Gospel of St Luke with the words: “But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:27) |
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