On the Given World-Picture (or 'sensuous manifold')

[findingblanks]

"Do you think it is possible to develop the same kinds of consciousness in which we live and perceive the spiritual environment after death, while we are still here on Earth?"

Yes, I think people are 'constructing' afterlife experiences (actually, I refer to it as 'the immediate afterlife') that will share more qualities than other communities and individuals. I don't think of this simplistically or that it at all guarantees people having the same objective experience. And, therefore, yes, I think because of this there will be traditions and practices that will then translate objective experiences of the post-death journey in ways that align with each other.

[findingblanks]

There are so many elements to each person's communication that are 'ignored'. I think there are reasons for this. I don't believe it ill will.

I'd like to know if anybody here can reliably see the etheric body of plant when observing a seed. I'd like to talk about that. I think it relates to clairvoyance, especially the first state necessary to eventually getting to a personal study of Old Sun.

[AshvinP]

There are so many elements to each person's communication that are 'ignored'. I think there are reasons for this. I don't believe it ill will.

I'd like to know if anybody here can reliably see the etheric body of plant when observing a seed. I'd like to talk about that. I think it relates to clairvoyance, especially the first state necessary to eventually getting to a personal study of Old Sun.

Implicit in your question is that we are already sufficiently oriented toward what it means to reliably see the physical body of the plant in the seed. This is something we normally take for granted, but do we really understand how we perceive physical objects? Cleric provided a foundation for this inner orientation in the previous post:

So what does the etheric mountain and valley (whose mineral standing wave we can touch and see with our likewise mineral organs) feel like to the Angel? Things are so deeply interrelated that we can approach the question from many angles. Let’s consider what these things feel to a human being. What happens when we climb up high in the mountains and look at the busy town down in the valley, how cars and trucks move like dots along the roads, how the chimneys of factories puff smoke? We may feel temporarily lifted above the routines of daily life, which can give us a more encompassing view on things.

We could also return to the basics of PoF in which many of these higher truths of etheric perception are embedded:

The reason why we generally overlook thinking in our consideration of things has already been given (see Chapter 3). It lies in the fact that our attention is concentrated only on the object we are thinking about, but not at the same time on the thinking itself. The naïve consciousness, therefore, treats thinking as something which has nothing to do with things, but stands altogether aloof from them and contemplates them. The picture which the thinker makes of the phenomena of the world is regarded not as something belonging to the things but as existing only in the human head. The world is complete in itself without this picture. It is finished and complete with all its substances and forces, and of this ready-made world man makes a picture. Whoever thinks thus need only be asked one question. What right have you to declare the world to be complete without thinking? Does not the world produce thinking in the heads of men with the same necessity as it produces the blossom on a plant? Plant a seed in the earth. It puts forth root and stem, it unfolds into leaves and blossoms. Set the plant before yourself. It connects itself, in your mind, with a definite concept. Why should this concept belong any less to the whole plant than leaf and blossom? You say the leaves and blossoms exist quite apart from a perceiving subject, but the concept appears only when a human being confronts the plant. Quite so. But leaves and blossoms also appear on the plant only if there is soil in which the seed can be planted, and light and air in which the leaves and blossoms can unfold. Just so the concept of a plant arises when a thinking consciousness approaches the plant.

It is quite arbitrary to regard the sum of what we experience of a thing through bare perception as a totality, as the whole thing, while that which reveals itself through thoughtful contemplation is regarded as a mere accretion which has nothing to do with the thing itself. If I am given a rosebud today, the picture that offers itself to my perception is complete only for the moment. If I put the bud into water, I shall tomorrow get a very different picture of my object. If I watch the rosebud without interruption, I shall see today's state change continuously into tomorrow's through an infinite number of intermediate stages. The picture which presents itself to me at any one moment is only a chance cross-section of an object which is in a continual process of development. If I do not put the bud into water, a whole series of states which lay as possibilities within the bud will not develop. Similarly I may be prevented tomorrow from observing the blossom further, and will thereby have an incomplete picture of it.

When the above dawns on us in an intimate way, in connection with our real-time experience of observing a seed, using it as a symbolic anchor for our intuition of all the meaningful possibilities that could manifest given the proper conditions, and when we realize our thoughtful contemplation is constrained by the same objective inner reality it is reflecting upon, i.e. whatever gives form to the potentialities of the seed also gives form to our thoughts about those potentialities, then we are already at a preliminary supersensible perception of the etheric body of the seed/plant. Higher stages of imaginative perception are simply a refinement and purification of that first-person cognitive experience (which leads us into the contextual factors of our real-time soul life that are implicit in every perceptual experience). In other words, we don't find some spiritual reality on the 'other side' of the seed that comprises its 'etheric body', but only the first-person cognitive experience of participating with our thoughts in the same living process that brings forth the structured potentialities from the seed.

Just as we may or may not condense our first-person intuition of meaning into symbolic forms like hand gestures, verbal symbols, pictures, etc., we may or may not condense the first-person intuition of this etheric spectrum of our inner life into certain visual forms like what Steiner describes in KHW. It doesn't matter at all if we don't perceive such color forms, because seeing them would not in any way modify the inner certainty we have gained through the participatory cognitive experience. Once we experience the latter, whether this revolutionary intuition of what existence is and what role our most intimate thinking faculty plays in existence, is condensed into exoteric symbolic forms, hardly matters. We now know for certain that, through persistence in concentrating and purifying our cognitive activity, we will gradually attain the degrees of freedom to condense ever-expanding intuition into many imaginative symbolic forms, and we are happy to leave the timing to the wise intents guiding Earthly destinies.

[findingblanks]

Before we study the earliest evolution of The Cosmos, we develop the very first stage of exact clairvoyance. There can be some overlap in these developments, but until we develop a sturdy organ of perception that can reliably notice what is 'before it', we will focus on reading and working with representations that our teacher gives us. We will make images of what we will see in the future, erase them, and continue practicing.

In each tradition, the student ends up experiencing the spiritual world much like their teacher told them they would. Outsiders call it pure fantasy. Insiders know they are having objective experience.

[findingblanks]

yeah, the reason I don't believe there is actually an 'etheric mountain' is complex and partly based in my own experience and partly based in other understandings. It isn't a debate for me. If somebody has a post-death experience of The Buddha greeting them in English after death, I'm not going to debate it. Sure, if asked, I can honestly say I think it is unlikely that was "The Buddha" in the sense of the individuality Itself. However, there are all sorts of reasons that this experience took this form, one of which is possibly very close their literal interpretation.

I don't think there is a boundary between the mountain and the valley outside of our epistemic one. However, I think those representations are images of fluxuations in ONE experiencing that we can engounger and study. In that study, we might frame the encounter via our epistemic, deeply grooved curvatures, and then it willr eveal itsel fin those frames. That is why I KNOW that cleric isn't bullshitting. I know that he and many other people will experience spiritual reality in those kinds of shapes and will be gleaning very true aspects of reality. That's why I have no need to debate it. And that is why I can respect his experience. It is only if there is a dogmatic fixation on 'one way' that you get implicit little scuffles when people explore each other's methodologies and experiences.

It is not a bad thing that I have so much respect for Steiner and his work. It's also not a problem that I don't thin it is going to manifest in the way I used to, and in the way that most of my Anthroposophical friends still believe it will. Guess what? We get to watch and participate and see what happens. And, if we keep working via the heart, we will be helping those around us and counterbalancing the vitriol and false distinctions that are happily creating increasing divisions (based on certainties; nobody is confused about who's causing the problems).

I know that some people think there is nothing objective about Steiner's cosmology. Who cares? If you two are using your exact clairvoyance to research Old Sun and relate that to Waldorf education in ways that allow it to adapt more appropriately to our modern situations, great! If you two are disovering ways that future Jupiter is changing due to aspects of evolution that Steiner somewhat missed, and if these insights are allowing you to help with Threefolding movements, great!

Or maybe both of you are finding that your exact clairvoyance is best at helping others become exact clairvoyants. That's wonderful! This means that we might start seeing the blossoming of the kinds of spiritual researchers that Steiner was talking about.

In the meantime, other people will be studying moss and fungus and their own ways into the spiritual worlds. My hunch is that you will continue to deeply respect all of those people, even the ones you don't quite get. And, many of them, will respect you, even if they don't quite understand your ways.

If lingering odd tensions flow beneath the surface, that's another story. A worthy one. But also it doesn't take away anything from the clairvoyant research both of you are doing for the Cosmos. I have no doubt that you both can point to various specific ways your research is benefiting the world.

[AshvinP]

That's why I have no need to debate it. And that is why I can respect his experience. It is only if there is a dogmatic fixation on 'one way' that you get implicit little scuffles when people explore each other's methodologies and experiences.

You have 'no need' to "debate" it because you feel like you already understand everything anyone else could possibly know about the higher worlds, including what may happen after death, but they are just speaking of what you already know in other terms, with other lenses, with other expectations, etc. Not only do you feel to already know it, you feel like it was learned decades ago and then you transcended it for a more pure, self-aware knowledge of the One experiencing that isn't beholden to any particular lens (thus your own lens has been pushed into the blind spot).

As someone who practices in the domain of the pscyhe, I would expect a little more recognition that what you express is not "respect" for Steiner, Cleric, Anthroposophists, etc. but something more akin to pity - a pity for all those souls who are still stuck in their conditioned lenses and thus speaking of 'spiritual beings', 'hierarchies', 'subtle bodies', etc. You look down upon all such people and their supposed 'higher knowledge'. That has become very evident from how you summarily dismiss the insights of Cleric's posts, for example, even though we all know they present phenomenological knowledge you have never encountered before. You immediately assume it must be another version of what was already learned and memorized through your various study groups.

This is a well-worn curvature of modern mystical thinking. We have had other posters who could not help but adapt spiritual scientific revelations to what they already knew because the possibility of encountering something they didn't already know was felt to be too remote. What are the chances that these other online personalities would be pointing to something genuinely new within the inner contextual landscape? That is an unconscionable possibility from your current perspective at the apex of the mind container. We have symbolized this before with the Toruk Makto fallacy:





Toruk is a top predator. He has no natural enemies so he never looks up. That's exploited by Jake to jump on his back and make the Tsaheylu bond. We act like TM every time we imagine the best and most precise knowledge of the spiritual realities experienced after death is already possessed by us, at least in its general outlines, and anything above that will only be elaborated in the future. Thus we can't imagine that others currently have knowledge, and are pointing to ways that we can reach this same knowledge, which would throw the whole course of our lives into a higher light. We ask, 'What happened to all the clairvoyants Steiner predicted?', as if our encounters with 'clairvoyance' must represent the sum total of what's out there subtly working within the World curvatures. Again, the TM fallacy.

Of course, I don't expect you to react well to this post, but I'm simply summarizing the facts as they have revealed themselves through your posts on this thread. That elucidates why you have become numb to the phenomenological exercises and why you wouldn't even interact with the quotes from Cleric that I shared. The excuses you gave are quite transparent in light of these recent posts.

And I know you can easily turn this around and say we are prideful for trying to teach you all these things even though you have been exploring these inner domains for many decades. You could say that we are the ones ignoring your posts and only interested in promulgating our 'right' lenses. But that's self-evidently not true - the only reason we have advanced the discussion to where it is, is because we have paid very close attention to what you were conveying. And if you offered something more than, "The more I allow myself to go off the still active dogmatic structures within my implicit experiencing, the more I am able to notice that my participation with this phenomena is generating a 'space' in which it appears to me as ...", we would be trying to learn from your higher experiences as well. It would be great to hear some more concrete insights into the first-person perspective of departed souls and their inner phenomenological states! But that is not what you have offered.

[Cleric]

"Do you think it is possible to develop the same kinds of consciousness in which we live and perceive the spiritual environment after death, while we are still here on Earth?"

Yes, I think people are 'constructing' afterlife experiences (actually, I refer to it as 'the immediate afterlife') that will share more qualities than other communities and individuals. I don't think of this simplistically or that it at all guarantees people having the same objective experience. And, therefore, yes, I think because of this there will be traditions and practices that will then translate objective experiences of the post-death journey in ways that align with each other.

Alright, so in summary (of your latest posts), you are open to all possible scenarios but presently you are concerned that different schools can only grasp the spiritual world in their own particular palettes. If we make an analogy with art, we can say that there are many schools teaching different forms of art. Some do sculpting, others painting, etc. All of them try to express their aesthetic intuition into form, and thus they explore (probe as it were) the intuitive potential of their still unrevealed higher artistic self (which in its totality is what we call ‘spiritual world’). The concern is now that those who are indoctrinated in sculpting will only grasp the spiritual world (thus their own true being) in Imaginations that look like sculptures. Others will grasp Imaginations that look like paintings, music, dancing, and so on.

Now we come to the natural conclusion: “These are all one-sided approaches. We’ll only move forward if we find more perfect means to cognize and express the intuitive potential of the spiritual world.” This is certainly a completely logical conclusion. The question is how do we go about it?

At this step, we can recognize one of the most prevalent problems of our age in which the intellect has indeed spread its intuitive feelers in all directions. We may call it false universalism. Just because we can grasp in concepts the various opposites, it doesn’t mean that in our Earthly psycho-somatic state we have transcended them. The situation is a little bit like:



So one may think “Maybe I can overcome this one-sidedness if I try to devise a new form of art that combines everything. I’ll mix clay, metal, paints, charcoal, shredded musical instruments, and so on, in one big bowl and I’ll try to express my intuitions of the true spiritual world in this way. I’ll surely avoid the one-sidedness. I’ve included everything, how could this be one-sided?” Yet, those around contemplate the murky forms that we create and in their eyes it seems like just another grotesque form of modern art has come to the scene.

Those who have at least some aesthetic sense would rather say “At this time I can’t conceive of any way of giving form to the spiritual world that wouldn’t appear one-sided. Maybe I’m just not smart enough to invent that kind of universal art. So I’ll wait. I trust that the brighter future generations will somehow solve this problem.”

I hope it is clear how all this translates to full reality. Our whole inner flow (which is a perspective of the total World flow) is the living art form that we continually bring into manifestation. Not only the contents of the senses but also our real-time thinking and imaginative contents that are secretly steered by soul curvatures as we strive to express our intuitive intents.

There’s also another very popular position. It is that the spiritual is pure formless potential and we only draw upon it to shape our formed Earthly realm. In other words, there’s no need to even try seeking consciousness of the depth of the spiritual world because this presupposes that there’s some order there, probably beings. In a spiritual world consisting of pure formless potential we can focus entirely on our own horizon of form-condensation. Any group can extract whatever they can. There’s no need to seek any intersection between the potential that they manifest because there isn’t any. From what you have shared recently I believe this is not your position. You have expressed that you are open that there could be lawful order to the potential from which we condense our artistic flow, yet you feel that at present, any attempt to consciously awaken with our higher spiritual being into these regions results only in very one-sided forms and thus we should stay ambivalent and wait for something to happen that will allow us to cognize the higher regions much more perfectly.

I’ll stop here. Please, don’t take this as something that is directed to you personally but let’s rather try together to see things at their archetypal scale. All of these things are grooves through which all souls move.

Does any of the above make sense to you? Do you feel that the spiritual world exists, that our true being is one with that world, and it is in principle knowable just like we know our head's interior, but at our present age any artistic forms (our spiritual-scientific thought forms are such art forms modulated over the greater flow) that reflect the intuitive activity of our higher self, are too cumbersome and one-sided, and thus they can only lead to illusionary or at best very limited understanding?

[findingblanks]

"That elucidates why you have become numb to the phenomenological exercises and why you wouldn't even interact with the quotes from Cleric that I shared."

Yes, we feel numb to each other in this specific context. I agree. We might not agree exactly on why people don't always 'interact with quotes' of the other, but I do agree that there is a mutual numbness. I know that I can find it in myself. I'm not sure it goes both ways. My hunch is that you don't feel any with you and Cleric in himself. So, it makes perfect says -and matches the pattern overall - that you would not focus on that but would focus on hoping to help me via your insights which are the result of not being numbed to any of this. This is how it always appears to me in this loop.

And, your exact clairvoyance must be reaching into practical applications all over the world. I can't say that my greatest and most objective insights are transforming the world in that way. However, small steps are also important.

[findingblanks]

"Do you feel that the spiritual world exists, that our true being is one with that world, and it is in principle knowable just like we know our head's interior, but at our present age any artistic forms (our spiritual-scientific thought forms are such art forms modulated over the greater flow) that reflect the intuitive activity of our higher self, are too cumbersome and one-sided, and thus they can only lead to illusionary or at best very limited understanding?"

I will say, and this is when I will TRY to mirror you way of communicating: the fact that you asked this question does indicate a deep blockage (numb?) in you and I wonder if and when you will awaken to this and see what caused you to ask with those presuppositions and inner curvatures.

Ick. I don't like inhabiting that modality. But I also know that there is value in trying other dance moves. Anyway, more in my style: I'm shocked you just asked me that! I've explictly addressed exactly that. No, I'm not shocked. I've seen this pattern; but, I do always trick myself when you say certain things that you really will remember you've said them. But the loop has a value that I think is more important that the content of these Teachings.

In response: nope. Like I've said, I see great value because it isn't 'very limited.' It's okay if we have a few hundred years of limited versions and attemps of Anthroposohia to find firm purchase. That's actually quite beautiful in my opinion and experience. An analogy is watching the Christian churches attempt to 'make space' for their Host. Some SUCKED even though they were trying. Other's distorted in some ways but really carried forward for a time. And the complex interweaving is what we'd expect.

[AshvinP]

And, your exact clairvoyance must be reaching into practical applications all over the world. I can't say that my greatest and most objective insights are transforming the world in that way. However, small steps are also important.

It's not that my exact clairvoyance is or isn't reaching into such practical applications, but I am gradually cultivating the humility to know what I don't know yet. Certainly, as I have persisted with inner phenomenological development along the vertical axis, however minimally I may be inching upward, I have recognized more and more of the higher Wisdom in many different individualities who cognize the after-death phenomenal states in various ways (the main distinction with Steiner is that the latter's exploration makes sense of the former's and makes those other explorations more transparent and intuitively accessible). At the same time, I have realized that I have no idea what sort of Masters are working 'behind the scenes' of our dreamy 'waking' experience. Most of what we think we know about "what's happening in the World" is based on third-hand reports from prejudicial news sources and, on top of that, our temporal horizon is usually very myopic, limited to a single lifetime. Everything that we experience around us today was seeded by Initiates many centuries ago.

The main point being, if we use our own myopic cognitive horizon at any given time as a measure of Steiner, Anthroposophy, the spiritual scientific claims and their underlying Truth (and what is True will always have the greatest impact on the World flow, whether people are aware of it or not), then we haven't intimately explored the proximate soul curvatures enough to cultivate the humility to grow our Spirit further into the higher worlds. False universalism is not the humility we are speaking of. Rather it is the humility that concretely feels that its real-time thoughts and feelings are modulated on the waves of much greater and wiser intuitive activity and which seeks to actively harmonize its inner life, through higher insights, with that archetypal activity.