A few definitions

[Cleric]

Here and in your writings you are using the term 'soul' as the ever evolving process of inner activity, thinking and feeling.
In the 'East' or 'Perennial Philosophy', the soul is named or referred to as the Separate Self.
The Separate Self or Soul is not an entity that has will, thinks and feels, the Soul IS the process, the thinking and feeling.
The content of the Soul is fleeting and temporary.
During pure consciousness (Samadhi etc.), when the mind is absorbed in unboundedness, the Soul or Separate Self ceases to be.
In the 'East' the goal is not to banish or eliminate the Separate Self or Soul, but to cease in identifying as Soul or Separate Self.
Identifying as Soul is the cause of suffering.

Lorenzo, when you say 'absorbed in unboundedness' what exactly do you mean?
Is it that the mind simply stops thinking about its existence while it still experiences a completely unique perspective within the World-All (and thus there's still individuality of that unbounded perspective)?
If that is not the case, then shouldn't it be expected that if all bounds are off, there should be an experience of all souls simultaneously?

[lorenzop]

Here and in your writings you are using the term 'soul' as the ever evolving process of inner activity, thinking and feeling.
In the 'East' or 'Perennial Philosophy', the soul is named or referred to as the Separate Self.
The Separate Self or Soul is not an entity that has will, thinks and feels, the Soul IS the process, the thinking and feeling.
The content of the Soul is fleeting and temporary.
During pure consciousness (Samadhi etc.), when the mind is absorbed in unboundedness, the Soul or Separate Self ceases to be.
In the 'East' the goal is not to banish or eliminate the Separate Self or Soul, but to cease in identifying as Soul or Separate Self.
Identifying as Soul is the cause of suffering.

Lorenzo, when you say 'absorbed in unboundedness' what exactly do you mean?
Is it that the mind simply stops thinking about its existence while it still experiences a completely unique perspective within the World-All (and thus there's still individuality of that unbounded perspective)?
If that is not the case, then shouldn't it be expected that if all bounds are off, there should be an experience of all souls simultaneously?

'absorbed in unboundedness' , Samadhi - the mind is still, no thoughts, no sensations, no emotions . . . and thus no perspectives All-World or otherwise.
There is no experience in Samadhi, nor is Samadhi an experience.
Re the Soul . . . since it is the innermost process of an individual inner activity, thinking, feeling, etc - it is a private experience. It is inner activity dependent upon and modulated by the environment and etc. Additionally, I can't imagine there'd be any interest or value in the experience of 'all Souls simultaneously'. Why would I (or anyone else) be interested sharing in the inner activity of one or more Joe Blow's?

[Federica]

Enough with this mood, Lorenzo. Cleric is dealing way too kindly with such mesmerized thoughts. You, and everyone else allowing these wracked thoughts into their souls, are putting your soul at risk of being torn apart. As a metaphor, think about the torture of being ripped apart by horses (and I suspect you are not the only one entertaining dismembering thoughts of this kind, among those who regularly read this forum, though you are the only one expressing them, which means there is still hope for you).

You cannot on the one hand request precise definitions - discriminating, categorizing, dismembering definitions, in the way of materialistic, commonly scientific thinking (you are the one ending up with a dismembered soul, if you insist) and, on the other hand, aspire to “Oneness”, but throwing thinking out of the window - thinking and individual agency - which are our only hope and salvation. Please stop. Ditch the narratives that want to rip your soul apart and start acknowledging your bare experience directly, in its reality. None should be enabled to talk you out of your experienced reality of soul. Please don’t allow for that.

[Cleric]

'absorbed in unboundedness' , Samadhi - the mind is still, no thoughts, no sensations, no emotions . . . and thus no perspectives All-World or otherwise.
There is no experience in Samadhi, nor is Samadhi an experience.
Re the Soul . . . since it is the innermost process of an individual inner activity, thinking, feeling, etc - it is a private experience. It is inner activity dependent upon and modulated by the environment and etc. Additionally, I can't imagine there'd be any interest or value in the experience of 'all Souls simultaneously'. Why would I (or anyone else) be interested sharing in the inner activity of one or more Joe Blow's?

We are going through the same old circle. I tried to illustrate that in the last post to you.

You keep insisting that the described samadhi state is the highest achievement an Earthly human can have. Not explicitly, but this is effectively the case since you call everything else falsity upon falsity and quests for the golden calf (thus unspokenly you declare the null-state to be the only worthy goal of 'spiritual development'). But time and time again, you and Eugene alike, fail to show why this state is so valued (I'm not asking about the value the ancients had but the value modern people place in it).

Since you ask about spirituality, I in my turn can ask about what makes samadhi (as it is valued today) 'spiritual'. What you describe as samadhi can be a fully valid experience even if physicalism is the truth. This samadhi could be nothing more than a brain that is edging on the collapse of consciousness (much like as an extreme example, some people exercise self-strangulation to bring themselves to the borderline of dying in order to experience altered states). And why all the modern talking about oneness, oneness, oneness? The oneness we can experience in the described samadhi has nothing to do with reality at large. Instead, it is simply a synonym for laminarity, diffuseness, inexplicability of our personal cone. IOW we're not one with the living Universe (since we find nothing of that Universe in the state of no-experience) but we are one with our local cone, to the extent that all the rest of the Cosmos falls outside consciousness, and thus it feels there are no more any boundaries.

So in short, why do you call your pursuit of the samadhi state 'spiritual', when it doesn't give you any understanding of the essence of reality? It in no way tells you whether reality is spiritual in nature. It could just as well be simply the musings of confused intellect that philosophizes about existence based on exotic states of (non)experience at the brink of brain-bound consciousness collapse.

So there are two basic questions that any modern mystic should honestly reflect on:
1. What makes your separate intellectual self believe that in the state at the edge of losing consciousness, there's something 'spiritual', rather than simply a glitching brain? What is your 'success story' that gives you the inner confidence that in this featureless state at the borderline of deep dreamless sleep, you're glimpsing at a deeper aspect of reality? In your own words - why would anyone be interested and value this peculiar state that might as well be a dying brain?
2. Why all the talk about oneness when in practice there's oneness only with our own spatially compartmentalized 'substance'? This is the exact same oneness that the physicalist experiences: "I'm one with the quantum fields that constitute my body and brain. I'm one with the Cosmos only as far as my substance is drawn from the one field but as far as my consciousness is concerned, there's nothing 'one' with the consciousness of other beings." (and yet modern mystics keep repeating 'it's all one consciousness').

[lorenzop]

I've never claimed that Samadhi is the highest state of consciousness, the Upanishads regard it as the 4th state of consciousness out of 6-8 human states of consciousness, depending on who's counting.
Samadhi is often regarded as the great 'purifier' - it's role and value is as purifier of mind, heart, senses, etc. It is not a livable\preferred perpetual state with the exception of perhaps a monk or recluse, someone who might live off one grain of rice per day.
Samadhi is not losing consciousness, it is Pure Consciousness . . . being aware but not aware of anything,
Samadhi may be explainable or compatible with Physicalism, that's OK, Physicalism is not evil . . . if someone can explain Samadhi to a Physicalist in their terms - all the better.

[lorenzop]

Enough with this mood, Lorenzo. Cleric is dealing way too kindly with such mesmerized thoughts. You, and everyone else allowing these wracked thoughts into their souls, are putting your soul at risk of being torn apart. As a metaphor, think about the torture of being ripped apart by horses (and I suspect you are not the only one entertaining dismembering thoughts of this kind, among those who regularly read this forum, though you are the only one expressing them, which means there is still hope for you).

You cannot on the one hand request precise definitions - discriminating, categorizing, dismembering definitions, in the way of materialistic, commonly scientific thinking (you are the one ending up with a dismembered soul, if you insist) and, on the other hand, aspire to “Oneness”, but throwing thinking out of the window - thinking and individual agency - which are our only hope and salvation. Please stop. Ditch the narratives that want to rip your soul apart and start acknowledging your bare experience directly, in its reality. None should be enabled to talk you out of your experienced reality of soul. Please don’t allow for that.

I appreciate your passion but I'm not voicing anything incompatible with all the traditional religions of the world - including Christianity. It's Steiner and Anthroposophy that's fallen off the rails.

[Federica]

Enough with this mood, Lorenzo. Cleric is dealing way too kindly with such mesmerized thoughts. You, and everyone else allowing these wracked thoughts into their souls, are putting your soul at risk of being torn apart. As a metaphor, think about the torture of being ripped apart by horses (and I suspect you are not the only one entertaining dismembering thoughts of this kind, among those who regularly read this forum, though you are the only one expressing them, which means there is still hope for you).

You cannot on the one hand request precise definitions - discriminating, categorizing, dismembering definitions, in the way of materialistic, commonly scientific thinking (you are the one ending up with a dismembered soul, if you insist) and, on the other hand, aspire to “Oneness”, but throwing thinking out of the window - thinking and individual agency - which are our only hope and salvation. Please stop. Ditch the narratives that want to rip your soul apart and start acknowledging your bare experience directly, in its reality. None should be enabled to talk you out of your experienced reality of soul. Please don’t allow for that.

I appreciate your passion but I'm not voicing anything incompatible with all the traditional religions of the world - including Christianity. It's Steiner and Anthroposophy that's fallen off the rails.

It humans were wagons, you would have a point, Lorenzo.

[AshvinP]

Samadhi may be explainable or compatible with Physicalism, that's OK, Physicalism is not evil . . . if someone can explain Samadhi to a Physicalist in their terms - all the better.

This explains a lot. You say we are redefining 'spiritual', that it can't be understood what is meant by 'spiritual', and so forth, and all the while your conception of 'spirituality' is explainable by physicalism! Do you see the projection here?

And does it not bother you that every Eastern spiritual guru worth his salt would be aghast at this statement, seeing it as the antithesis of their life's work? I'm sure Eugene would be. Although, perhaps you are just being more transparent than the rest of them without necessarily realizing it

[lorenzop]

Samadhi may be explainable or compatible with Physicalism, that's OK, Physicalism is not evil . . . if someone can explain Samadhi to a Physicalist in their terms - all the better.

This explains a lot. You say we are redefining 'spiritual', that it can't be understood what is meant by 'spiritual', and so forth, and all the while your conception of 'spirituality' is explainable by physicalism! Do you see the projection here?

And does it not bother you that every Eastern spiritual guru worth his salt would be aghast at this statement, seeing it as the antithesis of their life's work? I'm sure Eugene would be. Although, perhaps you are just being more transparent than the rest of them without necessarily realizing it

An individual can have all sorts of preferred philosophies and preferred methods of explanation - he\she could be a devout physicalist - these are not a metric for whether an individual happens to be spiritual, or more or less spiritual.
We can not judge\evaluate a person's spirituality by their most liked\disliked 'ism'. Being a physicalist is not a barrier to spiritual growth.
A Great Teacher (like Jesus) is not going to ask all physicalists to please exit the room - great teachers speak to the needs of the audience.
Likewise a person could spend a lifetime fine-tuning that perfect metaphysics, all the right words in all the right order - - - and it won't mean a thing.

[AshvinP]

Samadhi may be explainable or compatible with Physicalism, that's OK, Physicalism is not evil . . . if someone can explain Samadhi to a Physicalist in their terms - all the better.

This explains a lot. You say we are redefining 'spiritual', that it can't be understood what is meant by 'spiritual', and so forth, and all the while your conception of 'spirituality' is explainable by physicalism! Do you see the projection here?

And does it not bother you that every Eastern spiritual guru worth his salt would be aghast at this statement, seeing it as the antithesis of their life's work? I'm sure Eugene would be. Although, perhaps you are just being more transparent than the rest of them without necessarily realizing it

An individual can have all sorts of preferred philosophies and preferred methods of explanation - he\she could be a devout physicalist - these are not a metric for whether an individual happens to be spiritual, or more or less spiritual.
We can not judge\evaluate a person's spirituality by their most liked\disliked 'ism'. Being a physicalist is not a barrier to spiritual growth.
A Great Teacher (like Jesus) is not going to ask all physicalists to please exit the room - great teachers speak to the needs of the audience.
Likewise a person could spend a lifetime fine-tuning that perfect metaphysics, all the right words in all the right order - - - and it won't mean a thing.

You are dodging the issue - it has nothing to do with whether believers in an 'ism' can nevertheless pursue the spiritual. According to spiritual science, everyone is pursuing the objective spiritual reality whenever they think about reality even if most are unaware of that fact so far.

But you said it was explainable or compatible with Physicalism. That means the state of Samadhi could be nothing more than a dying brain losing coherence, as Cleric said. This speaks to the very nature of the reality we live in. It means all the spiritual pursuits over millennia could be nothing more than ways to find some peace and happiness in life before consciousness evaporates upon death. There is no afterlife, no karma, no objective moral values, no nothing that has been upheld as 'spirituality' from time immemorial. You know what we are saying here, so please address the point squarely.