Franz Bardon's IIH

[AshvinP]

I believe we are saying similar things. In both cases it’s about lifting the nose from the grindstone, breaking free from the hamster wheel stimuli - the sense of rushedness - and take a broader viewpoint. I mean to let go of the transient states of sensations and thoughts too. It’s not any sort of carpe diem approach, but rather a striving to intuitively capture a larger span of existence - ideally the entire life cycle - so that things and time relations can be put in a more rightful, realistic perspective. So many are victims of the implicit impression that the habits they have, and the projects they envision, have infinite future time to unfold in this life. This unscrutinized attitude may take huge proportions. Hence I try to assess and ponder my life tasks from a place of realistic apprehension of the entire earthly life rhythm, so that I don’t overestimate what I may accomplish in some vague and static ‘future’. In this way, I hope that life beyond the threshold will not be more dimmed than karma requires. But I'm not able to project myself in my next incarnation in any gaugeable way, because it's so remote from the scales I can relate too, and also it will crucially depend on the progress made in this life and its continuation across the threshold...

That makes sense. It's also an interesting question what we mean by "progress". I suppose this is the element that has been shifting the most for me. Usually, we think of progress in terms of something like sports or video games, acquiring new skills, scoring points, overcoming obstacles, leveling up, etc. Those accomplishments are undoubtedly important (in an inward way) on the spiritual path as well - we do need to acquire new TFW skills, to overcome resistances of habits, desires, preferences, etc., to reach deeper scales of spiritual activity. Yet the spiritual path also affords us a unique kind of progress in terms of simply becoming more intuitively aware of the inner direction and axes along which those goals will eventually be reached, in this lifetime or the next. The cliche about 'it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game' becomes a concrete and practical ideal.

When it comes to spiritual 'leveling up', most souls would have no clue in which direction to look, how to think about its meaning, what kind of goals to set, what kind of experiences may be reached, what kind of results will manifest, and so on. I think this is one of the key factors that either increases or reduces the dimming of consciousness across the threshold. It's not necessarily what exactly we accomplish within our wavefunction of life potential, but how livingly conscious we become of what it means to reach such accomplishments. "Livingly" meaning, not that we simply hold mental puzzles about spiritual evolution and the higher worlds, but we spend time inhabiting those worlds in our imagination, imbued with active feeling and will.

For example, if we are struggling with a desire to drink a glass of wine with dinner and we can't seem to purify this desire completely, we can at least try to vividly experience what it will be like for our soul to be impelled by this desire, the feelings that are stirred up by its underlying movements, but to lack the physical instrument to satisfy it. We consciously embrace that our soul body will eventually go through such a stage and we even feel grateful that we will have that opportunity, even while we are too weak to purify the desire in the body. Of course, I am not saying it should be our goal to fall short of purifying soul factors during life and simply imagine doing it after death. No, we should make active resistance efforts to purify such desires. But when we feel that we are dealing with soul habits that have a lot of momentum on our current karmic track, we can remain patient and still find ways to orient toward what our future self will experience.

It is my sense that a soul who worked through all the essays on this forum with sufficient interest, perserverance, and concentration, for example, would still be able to orient quite well across the threshold, even if they fail to purify the soul and reach higher stages of cognitive experience (in their most lucid expressions). If we can add the lecture cycles as well, that's even better. Again, this doesn't mean we should simply do that and rest comfortably, neglecting other exercises, not at all. But we also needn't be too anxious that 'time is running out' and that our existence will be a cacophony of experiences across the threshold. We can try to live in those experiences as vividly as possible during life, with whatever faculties we currently have, and we can still feel our intuitive orientation across the nested rhythms to be expanding, to be more concretely oriented toward and even longing for the opportunities we will have across the threshold and in future incarnations.

[Federica]

That makes sense. It's also an interesting question what we mean by "progress". I suppose this is the element that has been shifting the most for me. Usually, we think of progress in terms of something like sports or video games, acquiring new skills, scoring points, overcoming obstacles, leveling up, etc. Those accomplishments are undoubtedly important (in an inward way) on the spiritual path as well - we do need to acquire new TFW skills, to overcome resistances of habits, desires, preferences, etc., to reach deeper scales of spiritual activity. Yet the spiritual path also affords us a unique kind of progress in terms of simply becoming more intuitively aware of the inner direction and axes along which those goals will eventually be reached, in this lifetime or the next. The cliche about 'it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game' becomes a concrete and practical ideal.

When it comes to spiritual 'leveling up', most souls would have no clue in which direction to look, how to think about its meaning, what kind of goals to set, what kind of experiences may be reached, what kind of results will manifest, and so on. I think this is one of the key factors that either increases or reduces the dimming of consciousness across the threshold. It's not necessarily what exactly we accomplish within our wavefunction of life potential, but how livingly conscious we become of what it means to reach such accomplishments. "Livingly" meaning, not that we simply hold mental puzzles about spiritual evolution and the higher worlds, but we spend time inhabiting those worlds in our imagination, imbued with active feeling and will.

For example, if we are struggling with a desire to drink a glass of wine with dinner and we can't seem to purify this desire completely, we can at least try to vividly experience what it will be like for our soul to be impelled by this desire, the feelings that are stirred up by its underlying movements, but to lack the physical instrument to satisfy it. We consciously embrace that our soul body will eventually go through such a stage and we even feel grateful that we will have that opportunity, even while we are too weak to purify the desire in the body. Of course, I am not saying it should be our goal to fall short of purifying soul factors during life and simply imagine doing it after death. No, we should make active resistance efforts to purify such desires. But when we feel that we are dealing with soul habits that have a lot of momentum on our current karmic track, we can remain patient and still find ways to orient toward what our future self will experience.

It is my sense that a soul who worked through all the essays on this forum with sufficient interest, perserverance, and concentration, for example, would still be able to orient quite well across the threshold, even if they fail to purify the soul and reach higher stages of cognitive experience (in their most lucid expressions). If we can add the lecture cycles as well, that's even better. Again, this doesn't mean we should simply do that and rest comfortably, neglecting other exercises, not at all. But we also needn't be too anxious that 'time is running out' and that our existence will be a cacophony of experiences across the threshold. We can try to live in those experiences as vividly as possible during life, with whatever faculties we currently have, and we can still feel our intuitive orientation across the nested rhythms to be expanding, to be more concretely oriented toward and even longing for the opportunities we will have across the threshold and in future incarnations.

Thank you, Ashvin. All these ideas are very valuable. I agree there's a value in what’s commonly summarized in the expression: "It's the journey, not the destination". Yes, progress is best experienced as continuous attunement, not as discontinuous series of milestones. A milestone separates and externalizes. It's the epitome of third-person. By contrast, a meaningful direction internalizes, since its marker is, and only can be, in our orientation (literal and figurative) and attitude, at any moment.

Then, when it comes to the practical everyday experience of that, things become more difficult to gauge. It all becomes a thick forest of thin lines. Yes, many people have no clue why and how to evolve spiritually. To have some clue may be, as you say, a key factor in providing guidance across the threshold, I hope you are right, but at the same time I think that the opportunity to get those cues is a gift that requires to be properly honored. And when you say: "It's not necessarily what exactly we accomplish within our wavefunction of life potential, but how livingly conscious we become of what it means to reach such accomplishments" I see them as ultimately the same thing. And so when I wish I will be able to use my earthly time appropriately, I think in terms of internalized progress, not in terms of "will I attain this or that level of consciousness before I die", or "will I be able to see this or that panorama by then".

For example, I need to realize why certain sacrifices and efforts turn out to be surprisingly easy to stick to, and other ones surprisingly difficult. I do have patience with the surprisingly difficult ones, but I also know it's a super thin line. For me, progress here would be to better sense the shape of the soul configuration from the experience of these more or less resisting bits, so as to gain more control to reform the curvature of desire and intention, with equal consideration of action and non action. In all this, I am still inclined to maintain focus on this present life, rather than to long for death to intervene and set things straight, enacting the necessary rectifications. I guess there may be risks in embracing that longing feeling too much or too early, depending on the life phase maybe. I would perhaps distinguish the expansion of dying before dying from the expansion of longing to be dead. The former is to enact individual and collective evolution, by enabling a transfer of consciousness from the spiritual world to the material, so that the material is understood, and its opportunity is timely worked out. I see the latter more like a sort of reverse longing, possibly with some extension to the very last life moments. That is, once passed to the other side, the realization should emerge of coming closer to home, and that one has always been longing for that more connected part of the journey. But I doubt that a deep feeling of longing for the threshold is good to summon during earthly life, because it could induce a polar feeling of deep maya in this life, and I believe this is not the most desirable.

[AshvinP]

Thank you, Ashvin. All these ideas are very valuable. I agree there's a value in what’s commonly summarized in the expression: "It's the journey, not the destination". Yes, progress is best experienced as continuous attunement, not as discontinuous series of milestones. A milestone separates and externalizes. It's the epitome of third-person. By contrast, a meaningful direction internalizes, since its marker is, and only can be, in our orientation (literal and figurative) and attitude, at any moment.

Then, when it comes to the practical everyday experience of that, things become more difficult to gauge. It all becomes a thick forest of thin lines. Yes, many people have no clue why and how to evolve spiritually. To have some clue may be, as you say, a key factor in providing guidance across the threshold, I hope you are right, but at the same time I think that the opportunity to get those cues is a gift that requires to be properly honored. And when you say: "It's not necessarily what exactly we accomplish within our wavefunction of life potential, but how livingly conscious we become of what it means to reach such accomplishments" I see them as ultimately the same thing. And so when I wish I will be able to use my earthly time appropriately, I think in terms of internalized progress, not in terms of "will I attain this or that level of consciousness before I die", or "will I be able to see this or that panorama by then".

For example, I need to realize why certain sacrifices and efforts turn out to be surprisingly easy to stick to, and other ones surprisingly difficult. I do have patience with the surprisingly difficult ones, but I also know it's a super thin line. For me, progress here would be to better sense the shape of the soul configuration from the experience of these more or less resisting bits, so as to gain more control to reform the curvature of desire and intention, with equal consideration of action and non action. In all this, I am still inclined to maintain focus on this present life, rather than to long for death to intervene and set things straight, enacting the necessary rectifications. I guess there may be risks in embracing that longing feeling too much or too early, depending on the life phase maybe. I would perhaps distinguish the expansion of dying before dying from the expansion of longing to be dead. The former is to enact individual and collective evolution, by enabling a transfer of consciousness from the spiritual world to the material, so that the material is understood, and its opportunity is timely worked out. I see the latter more like a sort of reverse longing, possibly with some extension to the very last life moments. That is, once passed to the other side, the realization should emerge of coming closer to home, and that one has always been longing for that more connected part of the journey. But I doubt that a deep feeling of longing for the threshold is good to summon during earthly life, because it could induce a polar feeling of deep maya in this life, and I believe this is not the most desirable.

Thanks for these additional thoughts, Federica. Right, we seem to be speaking of progress in the same way. The distinction between longing for death-before-dying and longing for death can be spiraled together, as we begin to discern them as a unified spectrum. What we long for is the inner insight and opportunity that is normally experienced after uncoiling the physical-etheric sheaths, but can also be attained while the spirit is still localized within the sheaths. When exactly that will come is not necessarily up to us, but it is within our control to prepare the soil by exploring and living into the supersensible experiences as much as possible.

As usual, the preparation seems to be about striking the proper balance between polar soul qualities and stances. It's interesting how the focal point of concentration serves as a pure symbol for the whole drama of our spiritual evolution, all the various strategies we may employ to further it. And this seems to remain the case throughout that evolution, only experienced at more expansive scales of becoming. As we know, we need a delicate balance of activity and receptivity at this focal point of evolution. We need to be actively involved with our imaginative gestures, with real inner struggle, but not to the point of tensing up our body. We should honor the gift of concentrative capacity by taking responsibility for our focal sphere, but also by trusting many peripheral sensations and feelings beyond our control to the higher worlds. We should be prayerfully seeking higher knowledge of existence, but also seeking to know how much we don't know. And so on.

Or as Cleric expressed it:

For such reasons, our meditation should lead to a delicate balance between activity and receptivity. The focus of our thinking needle is both the ‘writing’ and ‘reading’ organ of our intuitive life. We actively keep our focus steady but at the same time perceive how the groove agitates it.

The above may seem like a contradiction – how can we keep our focus steady and at the same time allow it to be agitated? A rough analogy can be drawn from the sense of touch. For example, if we are blindfolded and we try to examine the shape of an object, we need to be active with our will to move our fingers, but at the same time, we are interested in the tactile sensations through which we gain intuition of the form. In other words, we don’t want to override the form of the object through our will (such as may be the case if we’re working with plasticine) but we will our movements only as far as we can feel the resistance and constraints conveyed to us through the sense of touch.

I think this delicate balance we seek through meditation can also become a guiding star for our spiritual pursuits in general, in terms of how much we long for the opportunities 'beyond' and how much we long to honor them now. Of course, how exactly to strike the balance will be an ongoing individual question based on how we intuit the shape of our current soul configuration, as you say, and what underlying curvatures seem to be within reach to refashion to some extent.

[AshvinP]

Step I:
Magical Schooling of the Soul
Introspection (Self-Cognizance)

In our abode, which is our body and soul, we must find our way about at all times. That is why the first task is to know oneself. This condition is required by all systems of initiation, regardless of what kind. There will be no true ascent without self-cognizance.

During the first days of soul-schooling we will occupy ourselves with the practice of introspection, the examination or observation of our own characteristics. Record all the negative characteristics of your soul in a magical diary. This diary is strictly for your own use and under no circumstances should it be shown to anyone else. It is a so-called “control book.” When practicing self-control, you have to be pitiless and strict with yourself when it comes to your shortcomings, failings, habits, passions, urges and any other negative character traits. Be unrelenting towards yourself and do not glorify any of your failings and shortcomings. Meditate and contemplate about yourself; place yourself in different situations of your past and consider how you behaved, taking note of the various failings and shortcomings which arose while you were in this situation. Record all weaknesses in their finest nuances and variations. The more you discover, the better. Nothing should remain hidden; everything should be unveiled, whether the failings and weaknesses be significant or insignificant. Students that are especially gifted have discovered hundreds of failings in the finest nuances. These students had the ability of meditating properly and penetrating profoundly into their own souls. Wash your soul completely clean and sweep out all the filth.

This self-analysis is one of the most important parts of magical preparatory work. Many occult systems neglect these important requirements; that is why they have only limited success. This psychic or astral preparatory work is the most important component in achieving magical equilibrium; without it, a consistent ascent in your development is not possible. Devote a few minutes to self-criticism every morning and every evening. Should you have a few free moments during the day, make use of them; contemplate intensively as to whether some failings still lurk in hiding somewhere. Should you discover some, record them immediately so they do not fall into oblivion. Whenever you discover a shortcoming, do not hesitate, but record it immediately.

Should you not be successful in discovering all your shortcomings or failings within one week, then devote another week to your research until your registry of sins is complete. Should you be able to complete it in one or two weeks, then move on to the next exercise. Through deep and intensive contemplation, try to assign each of your negative characteristics to one of the four elements. In your magical diary, allow a column or a page for each of the four elements, under which you record your shortcomings. Should you not be certain which element a characteristic should be assigned to, add another category with the heading “Indifferent.” Eventually, as you advance in your development you will be able to determine to which element a characteristic belongs.

For example, the following are negative characteristics:

Fire element: quick temper, jealousy, hate, vengefulness, anger.

Air element: thoughtlessness, boastfulness, self-conceit, gossip, wastefulness.

Water element: indifference, apathy, cold-heartedness, acquiescence, carelessness, shyness, defiance, inconsistency.

Earth element: being easily offended, laziness, irresponsibility, ponderousness, melancholy, inconsistency.

In the following week meditate on each characteristic in the above-mentioned categories and divide them again into three groups and record them in your magical diary:

Group 1: Those negative characteristics that influence you the most and create the greatest problems, even under the most trivial circumstances.

Group 2: Negative characteristics that occur less frequently and have less of an influence.

Group 3: Negative characteristics that occur infrequently and have little influence on you.

This also applies to the category of “Indifferent.” Be conscientious when recording them, as it is definitely worthwhile.

Everything has to be done in the same form and manner when it comes to positive psychic characteristics. They have to be divided in accordance with the elements, the category with the heading “Indifferent” and the three groups. Here are some examples of positive characteristics:

Fire element: activity, enthusiasm, determination, daring, courage.

Air element: diligence, joy, proficiency, kindheartedness, propensity to work, optimism.

Water element: humbleness, modesty, abstinence, ardency, compassion, tranquility, peace (contentment), forgiveness, tenderness.

Earth element: respect, perseverance, conscientiousness, thoroughness, circumspection, soberness, prudence, punctuality, sense of responsibility.

Through these exercises you will attain two astral soul-mirrors, one black, which represents all your negative astral characteristics, and one white, with your good and noble character traits. These two magic mirrors are considered to be actual occult mirrors and no one but the proprietor has the right to view himself in these mirrors. I should mention again that it is important that the proprietor of these mirrors must work conscientiously and precisely on them so that the final result is a true magic mirror. Should you, in the course of your development, encounter any more good or bad, positive or negative characteristics, add them to your existing records. These two magic mirrors give the magician the ability to accurately determine which element in the black or white mirror is predominant. This knowledge is absolutely necessary in order to reach your magical equilibrium. All your future development depends upon it.

[Federica]

Thanks for this new chapter, Ashvin. What do you think about these exercises?
I have never compiled lists of weaknesses and strengths in this way, so I can't tell from experience.
I think this exercise would be helpful in the beginning, to bring the soul configuration into clearer consciousness, but perhaps the schematic organization, by categories and degrees, could also backfire. The risk would be present of creating a narrative, with its tables and measures, I would imagine. What about writing a simple list, for reflection, delete it the next day, or week, only to rewrite it again periodically including any new appreciations?
I guess there might be precise esoteric reasons I don't understand to build a construction of this type, though.

[AshvinP]

Thanks for this new chapter, Ashvin. What do you think about these exercises?
I have never compiled lists of weaknesses and strengths in this way, so I can't tell from experience.
I think this exercise would be helpful in the beginning, to bring the soul configuration into clearer consciousness, but perhaps the schematic organization, by categories and degrees, could also backfire. The risk would be present of creating a narrative, with its tables and measures, I would imagine. What about writing a simple list, for reflection, delete it the next day, or week, only to rewrite it again periodically including any new appreciations?
I guess there might be precise esoteric reasons I don't understand to build a construction of this type, though.

I have never tried it in this way either, Federica. I have noticed that the whole idea of compiling lists of experiences, of keeping diaries, has always been off-putting for me. I think this relates to a certain laziness, perhaps a predominance of the Earth element in my soul constitution. The idea of structuring such exercises over definite periods of time is also a source of unease for me. In any case, at this time, I am taking the indications given in these exercises as loose anchors for my independent intuitive process of becoming more and more sensitive to the various elemental soul configurations that structure my experiential states, which is indeed a critical (perhaps the critical) stage of higher development in our time. I generally plan on doing a loose survey of all the exercises in this way and then perhaps returning to a few, which I feel would be helpful to practice more deeply and methodically.

Yeah, all such things can become too schematized and mechanical if we are not vigilant. I think that is also the case with many Anthroposophical exercises. It's up to us to approach them in a more organic way, using the various elemental differentiations as symbolic anchors for the complex, nonlinear soul currents that we experience. What you mentioned about writing and deleting sounds like a decent strategy for keeping things less rigid. In that case, perhaps the writing process would serve mostly as a means of deepening our experience of the soul observations in the moment, by tying the ghostly mental pictures to concrete physical action. I think that is probably a key element for constructing the exercises in this way, not simply to memorize the lists we create, but to 'densify' our intuitive thinking process within the soul domain and also refine its movements with archetypal differentiations.