Esoteric knowledge for skeptics

[Federica]

Alright, my second reading from the above-mentioned newsletter is also quite good!

Thanks for sharing, this article is also pretty good - https://open.substack.com/pub/bernharde ... id&r=rlafh

He discusses some functional aspects of the subconscious and superconscious, and the initial emergence of freedom from human thoughts that straddle both. The familiar fourfold distinction is mentioned in terms of perceptions, familiarities, thoughts, intuition. He also recognizes how the superconscious can only develop further if familiarities of the subconscious are renounced and new inisghts/capacities can flow in:

Nonetheless, the course of our lives is very much determined by intuition. Whether you leave your home 5 seconds earlier or later is not something you choose rationally, but intuitively. Whether you drive your car at 29 or 31 mph is not a rational choice, but an intuitive one. But every choice, no matter how small, influences whether you cross the intersection on green or whether it turns red right in front of you; it influences where you find a parking space; it influences whether you meet someone; it influences whether you get involved in an accident; and so on. Your current life situation results from the countless choices that you have made, consciously or unconsciously, over the course of your life. Intuition plays a central role in this.

Intuition also drives us humans to fulfill our purpose as part of the whole. Since your programs prevent you from doing this, intuition drives you to free yourself from them. Diseases, pain, and accidents are just as much a part of the cosmic language as any other life situation. The key is to learn to understand this language.

Hopefully he is receptive to PoF and sees how it is the naturual continuation of freeing ourselves from the programs, beginning with the ones that keep real-time intuitive activity in the blind spot.

Yes... but from this article it seems to me that the vantage point is solidly in place.
And there are those terrible words:

natural --- selection




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No, don't say it

[AshvinP]

Yes... but from this article it seems to me that the vantage point is solidly in place.
And there are those terrible words:

The vantage point is in place, for sure. It seems Bernhard has practically arriven at analytic idealism from a more phenomenological angle, or something like Advaita nondualism, Vedanta philosophy. I have been studying the latter from various Swamis over the weekend. Actually one lecture was quite phenomenological and arrived at the polarity between I and World, Atma and Anatma, or Intuition and Perception. I am hoping they give online access to the lecture so I can share it.

So in all of these various approaches, the concepts are all in place, reasoned out in an experiential and discplined manner. Some of them even arrive at ideas of esoteric significance, like the etheric body, the fourfold constitition, and so on. Vedanta also includes various ceremonial, yoga, and meditation practices for stengthening concentration and cultivating virtues and devotion, freeing the spirit from habitual programs, identifications with sensations, emotions, thoughts. I notice Bernhard has an article on some exercises as well.

The Swami gave a funny anecdote:

A man approaches him and says he has given up anger, he has not become angry for 4 months.

Swami: "I think you have not been provoked for a few months."
Man: "No Swami G, I have given up anger."
Swami: "I think you have not been provoked for a few months."
Man: "No Swami G, I have given up anger!"
Swami: "I think you have not been provoked for a few months.
Man: "No Swami G, I have given up anger!!! "

Often when we feel we have outgrown habitual identifications, emotional reactions, patterns of thinking, etc., its simply that they remain dormant as potential, waiting to be stimulated by external circumstances. Vedanta sees it as practically inevitable that this must remain the situation for most people during life and we can only be genuinely liberated after death.

Most of the insightful philosophies and spiritual approaches of our time are variations of this ancient Wisdom, which is certainly still relevant for our time. Yet they all miss the living and evolving Christ impulse through which this Wisdom across the threshold can be translated into the practical redemption and spiritualization of the Earth, beginning with our own firm corner of the Earth in thinking. This is the crucial link that always gets subtly avoided in one way or another.

For example, the Swami had discussed the subtle and causal bodies (corresponding to etheric-astral-ego) and how they depart the gross body at death before reincarnating. So I asked a question about whether we can say they also depart to some extent during sleep and if so whether we can awaken to those subtle experiences. As expected, he said no because the gross body would die during the night if that were the case. He said the dream world we experience is only our personal projection, not a revelation of any higher worlds (which is true for dreaming before we have developed living thinking).

What is always needed is the subtle shift/inversion of the perspective so all the spiritual concepts and emotions are placed within a living and intimate context of Divine intents, known from within. Then we focus less on the content of our systems and more on the inner movements that bring that content into existence, the future potential of Earthly existence toward which it is all pointing. We start to discover the inner reasons why all this content is precipitating into our thinking consciousness during this time. I discussed this briefly in the essays:

We already have some dim experiences with these inner gestures in daily life. For example, when we listen to a lecturer on some topic, our resonance with the ideas may be influenced more by the manner in which the lecture is given than the content. Likewise, we know that much of the deeper meaning in our interactions with other people takes place through subtle communicative gestures, facial expressions, postures, and so forth (which we have become much less sensitive to in the digital age). Young children are much more receptive to these gestures – they have little idea about the content of what their parents are communicating to each other, yet the manner in which that exchange happens, whether it is kind and respectful or harsh and antagonistic, will influence the child’s approach to life for many years to come. In that sense, through the spiritual retracing method, we see through the content of our conceptual life to the deeper gestures by which it is birthed into existence. It is no longer an instinctive resonance with the deeper gestures, as in childhood, but rather it is fully conscious.

This is how much of spiritual science for ex. can be alpproached after some time. We resonate more with the manner in which it is expressed, the deeper movements that went into rendering the expression, rather than the content as purely descriptive facts and information. Then all the sensory, emotional, and mental content is redeeemed from its normally externalized function. We no longer need to set up fixed rules for 'how physical reality or spiritual reality works' but can move our thinking through their ever-dynamic and evolving conditions.

As an aside, at this point I am trying to learn not to put many expectations on results. All we can do is put our best effort into presenting the metaphorical ideas and illustrations in practical and creative ways, and pray the Spirit will take care of the rest in the wisest way possible. I try not to attach myself to the results to either take credit for positive results or blame for negative results, although always remaining conscious and receptive to critical feedback.

[Federica]

Yes... but from this article it seems to me that the vantage point is solidly in place.
And there are those terrible words:

The vantage point is in place, for sure. It seems Bernhard has practically arriven at analytic idealism from a more phenomenological angle, or something like Advaita nondualism, Vedanta philosophy. I have been studying the latter from various Swamis over the weekend. Actually one lecture was quite phenomenological and arrived at the polarity between I and World, Atma and Anatma, or Intuition and Perception. I am hoping they give online access to the lecture so I can share it.

So in all of these various approaches, the concepts are all in place, reasoned out in an experiential and discplined manner. Some of them even arrive at ideas of esoteric significance, like the etheric body, the fourfold constitition, and so on. Vedanta also includes various ceremonial, yoga, and meditation practices for stengthening concentration and cultivating virtues and devotion, freeing the spirit from habitual programs, identifications with sensations, emotions, thoughts. I notice Bernhard has an article on some exercises as well.

The Swami gave a funny anecdote:

A man approaches him and says he has given up anger, he has not become angry for 4 months.

Swami: "I think you have not been provoked for a few months."
Man: "No Swami G, I have given up anger."
Swami: "I think you have not been provoked for a few months."
Man: "No Swami G, I have given up anger!"
Swami: "I think you have not been provoked for a few months.
Man: "No Swami G, I have given up anger!!! "

Often when we feel we have outgrown habitual identifications, emotional reactions, patterns of thinking, etc., its simply that they remain dormant as potential, waiting to be stimulated by external circumstances. Vedanta sees it as practically inevitable that this must remain the situation for most people during life and we can only be genuinely liberated after death.

Most of the insightful philosophies and spiritual approaches of our time are variations of this ancient Wisdom, which is certainly still relevant for our time. Yet they all miss the living and evolving Christ impulse through which this Wisdom across the threshold can be translated into the practical redemption and spiritualization of the Earth, beginning with our own firm corner of the Earth in thinking. This is the crucial link that always gets subtly avoided in one way or another.

For example, the Swami had discussed the subtle and causal bodies (corresponding to etheric-astral-ego) and how they depart the gross body at death before reincarnating. So I asked a question about whether we can say they also depart to some extent during sleep and if so whether we can awaken to those subtle experiences. As expected, he said no because the gross body would die during the night if that were the case. He said the dream world we experience is only our personal projection, not a revelation of any higher worlds (which is true for dreaming before we have developed living thinking).

What is always needed is the subtle shift/inversion of the perspective so all the spiritual concepts and emotions are placed within a living and intimate context of Divine intents, known from within. Then we focus less on the content of our systems and more on the inner movements that bring that content into existence, the future potential of Earthly existence toward which it is all pointing. We start to discover the inner reasons why all this content is precipitating into our thinking consciousness during this time. I discussed this briefly in the essays:

We already have some dim experiences with these inner gestures in daily life. For example, when we listen to a lecturer on some topic, our resonance with the ideas may be influenced more by the manner in which the lecture is given than the content. Likewise, we know that much of the deeper meaning in our interactions with other people takes place through subtle communicative gestures, facial expressions, postures, and so forth (which we have become much less sensitive to in the digital age). Young children are much more receptive to these gestures – they have little idea about the content of what their parents are communicating to each other, yet the manner in which that exchange happens, whether it is kind and respectful or harsh and antagonistic, will influence the child’s approach to life for many years to come. In that sense, through the spiritual retracing method, we see through the content of our conceptual life to the deeper gestures by which it is birthed into existence. It is no longer an instinctive resonance with the deeper gestures, as in childhood, but rather it is fully conscious.

This is how much of spiritual science for ex. can be alpproached after some time. We resonate more with the manner in which it is expressed, the deeper movements that went into rendering the expression, rather than the content as purely descriptive facts and information. Then all the sensory, emotional, and mental content is redeeemed from its normally externalized function. We no longer need to set up fixed rules for 'how physical reality or spiritual reality works' but can move our thinking through their ever-dynamic and evolving conditions.

As an aside, at this point I am trying to learn not to put many expectations on results. All we can do is put our best effort into presenting the metaphorical ideas and illustrations in practical and creative ways, and pray the Spirit will take care of the rest in the wisest way possible. I try not to attach myself to the results to either take credit for positive results or blame for negative results, although always remaining conscious and receptive to critical feedback.

Yes, I am somewhat familiar with the phenomenological approach in Vedanta - I used to follow the very good presentations at the Vedanta Society of NY - Swami Sarvapriyananda. As he used to say, the philosophical approach, the so-called Path of Knowledge, brings you a long way, and up to a point when finally a jump has to be made. And it can only be done with faith. BKU is focused on only using logic and observation, hoping to bridge that need for a faithful jump.

Ultimately, the "crucial link" is so difficult to transmit to others because it transcends cognition, it's an impulse, an understanding through being, and that's disconcerting. A kingdom of non separateness, in BKU’s words, but one that needs to be treaded and is only known in proportion to one's progression on that soil. Thanks for bringing some of the anecdotes.

Regarding expectations, I think some level of expectation is necessary. That's will. The part to control is their possible emotional reverberations, so that equanimity is maintained. Good reminder.