Philosophical Speculations

Stranger wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:10 am

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:08 am Thank you. That is a less than stellar phrasing of what higher cognition actually entails, but at least we're clear there is a fundamental disagreement in the approaches. Now we should make this a post it note on the forum so it isn't forgotten

That's fine, but note that this is not what Christ taught, and so I would suggest that you do not refer to Christ and his mission in your teachings because that is a gross misrepresentation of the genuine Christ teachings. And therefore, I don't have anything to do with that and there is no point for me to remain on the forum.

Right, well I realize that sometime between the earlier days of this forum (2021), when saying things like,

Attaining the highest harmony may be the telos of this particular spiritual path of humanity defined by Christ, but that's not the only possible telos in the infinite universe of paths. Other paths may be shaped with very different kinds of telos. I would think that the state of the complete ultimate harmony is pretty boring , but if this is something one wants to attain, then sure, why not?

and just recently, you became a die-hard Christian and everything must now be measured against your interpretation of scripture. Conveniently, that interpretation just happens to perfectly align with you already believed in your pre-Christocentric views. I could imagine a modern fundamentalist saying the exact same thing - 'your phenomenology doesn't match with my religious orthodoxy, which says I get to be with the Father in Heaven right after I die, so I want nothing to do with it'.

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:22 am Eugene, I find your accusations unfair. Ashvin doesn’t write “sectarian” arguments, and I wonder where those “discussions on someone else’s life” can be found. Sectarian means manipulative, or grossly partisan. There’s nothing of that kind in Ashvin's posts. Not even if someone believed that Steiner founded a political party or a cult. And when soul life is mentioned, it is certainly not in a strange or curious way, as your expression seems to suggest.

That's not what 'sectarian' means . . . sectarian (definition copied from ChatGPT) refers to a group or individual that is characterized by rigid adherence to a particular religious, political, or ideological doctrine or belief system. A sectarian person or group tends to be exclusive and intolerant towards those who do not share their beliefs, often resulting in conflict with other groups or individuals. The term can be used to describe individuals, organizations, or even entire communities that are deeply divided along ideological lines and may hold extremist views. In general, sectarianism is associated with a narrow-minded and intolerant worldview that can be divisive and damaging to social harmony.

In a few moments I found this from Ashwin a few pages above as an example of of what I regard as sectarian ----- "I just want to be clear for others - there is no developing higher cognition which also doesn't lead to the Truth of a hierarchical gradient of objective spiritual structure - spiritual beings - which we consciously pass through beyond the threshold of death, and which we call the "subconscious" (or supra-conscious) of incarnate existence. "

This is Ashwin's style, and for me, is a bit pushy and abrasive - - I can't even get to the point of wondering if or to what extent these claims are true.

lorenzop wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:40 am This is Ashwin's style, and for me, is a bit pushy and abrasive - - I can't even get to the point of wondering if or to what extent these claims are true.

And what does that say about you, Lorenzo? Does it bother you at all, that someone's 'pushy and abrasive' style on an internet forum could wound your ego so much, that you decide to completely avoid investigating the truth of your existential reality in the Cosmos? Because, trust us, my pushy and abrasive style is the very least of the obstacles you will face on the inner thinking path.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:37 am Right, well I realize that sometime between the earlier days of this forum (2021), when saying things like,
Attaining the highest harmony may be the telos of this particular spiritual path of humanity defined by Christ, but that's not the only possible telos in the infinite universe of paths. Other paths may be shaped with very different kinds of telos. I would think that the state of the complete ultimate harmony is pretty boring , but if this is something one wants to attain, then sure, why not?

Yes, I did change my views and that's a sign that I'm moving along and not stagnating, even though I still believe that there is a variety of evolutionary paths even after the nondual realization (In my Father's house are many mansions (John.14)). And sure, we disagree and adhere to different views and paths, which is not surprising at all considering how many philosophies, religions, spiritual practices and their different interpretations exist on the planet. Anyway, we drew the line and summarized our disagreements, so thanks for the discussion and bye to all (oh, how many times I said that already?... ).

Stranger wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:10 am

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:08 am Thank you. That is a less than stellar phrasing of what higher cognition actually entails, but at least we're clear there is a fundamental disagreement in the approaches. Now we should make this a post it note on the forum so it isn't forgotten

That's fine, but note that this is not what Christ taught, and so I would suggest that you do not refer to Christ and his mission in your teachings because that is a gross misrepresentation of the genuine Christ teachings. And therefore, I don't have anything to do with that and there is no point for me to remain on the forum.

But for me (and hopefully for some other guests of the forum) this discussion was very useful. Because you don't even want to consider the Eastern nondual spiritual traditions but still claim that you adhere to the mission of Christ, I had to refer to the Gospels to support my view and it helped me to realize how profound was the Christ's mission and his teaching in a sense of the nondual path to realizing the Oneness with the Father. I finally fully connected the dots between my years of practicing Christianity and years of Eastern nondual practices and realized that both are teaching the same path and pointing to the same nondual Reality.

For anyone interested, we reached the point where it was admitted most of the resistance to phenomenology of spiritual activity comes from a feeling and conception that it is a long, slow, boring grind, denying us the possibility of immediate communion with the Divine Oneness. It is the same feeling people get when we speak of nested perspectives gradually integrating towards the Divine Potential. As Cleric has pointed out before, it is imagined that on this journey we remain as we are now, with our atomized being and time ticking along according to our Newtonian clock perspective, and then eventually reach our final destination on the train ride, after which all creative exploration of the Cosmos stops. Add to that, the whole process is imagined to be like wading through a boggy marsh, slowly picking up spiritual insights here and there, repeating the same experiences over and over again in every incarnation without memories of the previous ones.

What do all these imaginings have in common? They represent the limits of the modern intellect. This is how the intellect experiences its own process of intuitive becoming in the world, and it projects that experience indefinitely towards the past and future of Earthly evolution. Any possible path of gradual Earhtly redemption is compared to only that which the intellect is already familiar with in its current experience. All intuitive meaning of expanding cognition along the gradient of Earth to Cosmos is formatted into pre-existing conceptual slots. Only the most coarse, dried up particles of meaning make it through the conceptual filter.

It is precisely the higher cognitive path which investigates the lawful structures of our intuitive becoming, in living color and detail, which brings the Earthly evolution to life for us and through us. It begins to revitalize everything we think, feel, perceive and do, as individuals and collectives, as personalities in a single incarnation and individuaties who clothe themselves in many incarnations. The aperture of our consciousness begins to grow and encompass the extra-terrestrial, extra-incarnational forces which always make holistic sense of our present moment. Then every moment begins to be experienced in terms of its contribution to the most noble and eternal aims, and we would cherish the opportunity to prolong those moments and add many more to them if we could. We no longer stare at the clock, counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds until we can return to Oneness.

It is well understood that these things will sound like flowery words and meaningless abstractions until we grow our living thinking. That is the catch 22 - without a certain sacrificial and courageous disposition to venture into unfamiliar inner territory, we remain evaluating everything we come across only in terms of our own abstractions, and then we never find the motivation to take the first step. Why bother, if we already know it's leading to some really boring task of collecting dust mites of spriitual knowledge for who knows how long and who knows what end? There is no way out of this trap but humility, openness, and a reverential interest in the phenomena of form, life and consciousness. Only when we show loving attention, with inner effort, to the higher worlds, do they open and illuminate their secrets within us.

PS:
Jesus did not say
"The nested hierarchies of higher-order beings are the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by evolving through the nested hierarchies of higher-order beings."
but he said
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)

Stranger wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:10 am
But for me (and hopefully for some other guests of the forum) this discussion was very useful. Because you don't even want to consider the Eastern nondual spiritual traditions but still claim that you adhere to the mission of Christ, I had to refer to the Gospels to support my view and it helped me to realize how profound was the Christ's mission and his teaching in a sense of the nondual path to realizing the Oneness with the Father. I finally fully connected the dots between my years of practicing Christianity and years of Eastern nondual practices and realized that both are teaching the same path and pointing to the same nondual Reality.

By the way, this is a great thing. Integrating what previously seemed to us as quite exclusively opposed perspectives is always a positive. But the trap always comes when we feel like, in our current state, there is no further integrative work to be done. Right now this manifests to you as the opposition between the 'dualistic hierarchical path to Oneness' and the 'true nondual path', whereas previously it manifested to you as 'Christ-centered monopolizing path' and the 'Eastern diversity path'. Now the higher living perspective which has the degrees of freedom to integrate the former apparent opposition can be sought as well. This can't be done in any sort of theoretical and merely conceptual way, forced together by outer expressions. We can only begin to inwardly experience the hierarchical gradient of our lives rhythmically alternating between the Earth and the Cosmos as the Divine Oneness expressing its reality through our ceaseless intuitive becoming.

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:28 pm I would suggest to label it as "spiritual structuralism" rather than "spiritual materialism". We know for a fact that there are structures in the world that we are experiencing. So, either way, materialism or idealism, both must necessarily take into consideration the structures, so they both must be "structural". In materialistic paradigm the structures are explained to be the outcome of the laws according to which the matter behaves. But in idealism, where would those structures come from? We know that they do not come from our own conscious activity, I do not remember creating the sun and the moon, so, who made them? Since in idealism the universe is only Consciousness acting through a variety of its individuated conscious activities, then there must be some other conscious activities that created the structures that we experience. Then the practical question is: can and should we enquire into these structure-creating conscious activities and into the structures that they create and the laws according to which the structures are created, and is it even possible? But I agree, there are two caveats that come with that approach:
- There is always a risk of confusing the results of your own conscious activity with the real phenomena of a larger-scale conscious activity.
- "High Priests" catch is also real and it is what indeed happened with all kinds of esoteric sects. If you noticed, it is exactly the issue I was addressing in my last few posts here. Fortunately, there is a way to avoid it and approach the spiritual reality in a healthy way without the mediation of High Priests.

But I hope you know the catch in materialism that BK explained quite well. From our direct first-person experience everything we ever know is only conscious experiences and nothing beyond this. In idealism we do not make any assumptions that anything exists that is by nature different from and beyond these conscious experiences. In materialism we introduce a completely abstract, experimentally ungrounded and in principle unverifiable idea that there is some kind of a "substance" of a nature completely experientially unknown to us, which we call "matter" and which we can never experience directly as it is by itself еркщгпр our first-person conscious experience. And, once you make that assumption of introducing the "matter" into the cognitive model of reality, you immediately face the "hard problem of consciousness". So, "the reality that is quite simple" is rather idealism as compared to materialism (since idealism does not carry that heavy baggage of ungrounded assumption of the existence of a "substance" of a nature different from our consciousness, plus the "hard problem"), so, this is why BK callы idealism the most "parsimonious" philosophy.

Another approach is structurally-agnostic idealism where, within the general idealistic paradigm, we acknowledge the existence of structures within the context of subjective experiences, but remain agnostic to their origin. I guess, anyone can take this position, but why not at least try to find out more about these structures and their origins if possible?

I do not disagree with what you write above

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 4:43 am But the trap always comes when we feel like, in our current state, there is no further integrative work to be done. Right now this manifests to you as the opposition between the 'dualistic hierarchical path to Oneness' and the 'true nondual path', whereas previously it manifested to you as 'Christ-centered monopolizing path' and the 'Eastern diversity path'. Now the higher living perspective which has the degrees of freedom to integrate the former apparent opposition can be sought as well. This can't be done in any sort of theoretical and merely conceptual way, forced together by outer expressions. We can only begin to inwardly experience the hierarchical gradient of our lives rhythmically alternating between the Earth and the Cosmos as the Divine Oneness expressing its reality through our ceaseless intuitive becoming.

How many hundred times I need to repeat that there is ALWAYS further integrative work to be done even after nondual realization. The integrative work never ends in the realm of time, while it is already complete in timelessness. Cleric described it well in his model of "vertical" integration into the Oneness with the Divine essence, and "horizontal" integration with the ever-developing structures of intuitive becoming in the world of hierarchical forms. The key is: the intuitive becoming is incoherent with the Divine essence until the nondual Divine essence is realized in each individual soul. It is only when the "vertical" nondual realization of the essence is integrated with the intuitive becoming on the "horizontal" level when the coherent and constructive phase of the evolution starts. Christ and Buddha and all other Divine messengers taught us that the "vertical" integration with the Divine essence is possible and necessary to start now in this current human life and there is no reason to postpone it to some distant future. And by the way, the "horizontal" integration is always a wide diversity of paths because there is a great diversity of horizontal structures in the diverse Universe of One Consciousness.

So, there is a "vertical" timeless Unity of the Divine Essence coexisting with the "horizontal" temporal diversity of structures and forms. Notwithstanding the great diversity of horizontal structures and states of consciousness, there is a certain distinction between them: some of them are dualistic, de-evolutionary and incoherent with the Divine Essence, and others are nondual, evolutionary and coherent with the Essense, each of them have their own developmental curvatures and realm of meanings and structures. The beings traverse this horizontal plane in their soul journey pulled by these curvatures, but the choice which curvatures to follow is always available to make for their Free Will.

lorenzop wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:40 am

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:22 am Eugene, I find your accusations unfair. Ashvin doesn’t write “sectarian” arguments, and I wonder where those “discussions on someone else’s life” can be found. Sectarian means manipulative, or grossly partisan. There’s nothing of that kind in Ashvin's posts. Not even if someone believed that Steiner founded a political party or a cult. And when soul life is mentioned, it is certainly not in a strange or curious way, as your expression seems to suggest.

That's not what 'sectarian' means . . . sectarian (definition copied from ChatGPT) refers to a group or individual that is characterized by rigid adherence to a particular religious, political, or ideological doctrine or belief system. A sectarian person or group tends to be exclusive and intolerant towards those who do not share their beliefs, often resulting in conflict with other groups or individuals. The term can be used to describe individuals, organizations, or even entire communities that are deeply divided along ideological lines and may hold extremist views. In general, sectarianism is associated with a narrow-minded and intolerant worldview that can be divisive and damaging to social harmony.

In a few moments I found this from Ashwin a few pages above as an example of of what I regard as sectarian ----- "I just want to be clear for others - there is no developing higher cognition which also doesn't lead to the Truth of a hierarchical gradient of objective spiritual structure - spiritual beings - which we consciously pass through beyond the threshold of death, and which we call the "subconscious" (or supra-conscious) of incarnate existence. "

This is Ashwin's style, and for me, is a bit pushy and abrasive - - I can't even get to the point of wondering if or to what extent these claims are true.

Lorenzo,

My English will never be perfect, but even if we take the GPT definition, i really don't find any intersection with, for example, the quote you report about the hierarchies.

If you remember the example of the stools I gave you earlier, when you and me read that sentence, we are the ones responsible for making the meaning happen in us. The words alone cannot deliver anything to us, unless we make an inner gesture. Now, I understand your inner gesture makes you feel bad about that sentence, but please consider that the same sentence can be experienced n many other ways, different from yours. For me, for instance, it sounds like a useful reminder, given with the intention that we save ourselves illusions and mistakes on the path. Can you see that the sentence can also be read so?

I hear that you have a high sensitivity to words, which makes it difficult for you to go beyond the unpleasant impression you feel and really focus on what the sentence points to. This can depend on many factors, past experiences, particular feelings etc. I would say that it's a good thing that you noticed that, it's the first step to see that much of the unpleasant feeling you experience is mixed up with your personal history, rather than with supposedly objective meanings present in the words themselves. Can you see that the words by themselves are more neutral than it looked at first reading?