Philosophical Speculations

JustinG wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 5:32 am Anyone one out there have any opinions on the work of Conner Habib (https://connerhabib.com/)?

He is an Anthroposophist (see, for example, here: https://connerhabib.com/2014/09/29/antr ... ing-about/ ) with very left-wing political views (see, for example, here: https://soundcloud.com/user-940109391/a ... -weeks-or ). He also used to be a gay pornstar.

I would be particularly interested to hear Cleric's opinion on Habib.

(BTW I am not trying to provoke anything here, just trying to understand whether Anthroposophy is compatible with both left and right wing political views. If this is the case then I have no antipathy towards Anthroposophy as such).

Cleric K wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 9:25 am
In the other thread Eugene dismissed Western thought because of the look in the persons' eyes. In this one simply overlooks that he is already seeking a specific look. Let's consider a child. What is it more likely? To like the look in the eyes of a parent that allows it to eat all the candy it wants, to spend all the hours it wants on TikTok on its phone? Or the look in the eyes of a parent that tells it to eat its breakfast, clean its room, do its homework and only then go out and play? Of course, the child is not in position to judge this properly. The first offers instant gratification but ruins its later life, while the latter seems harsh and demanding but has only the long term prosperity of the child in mind.

Such is the situation of humanity today. Spiritual science presents only facts. It traces the way soul and spirit forces develop when we watch TikTok all day or when we engage in constructive activities. It goes on to describe facts that far surpass the individual incarnation. Just as all facts of child development fit together harmoniously when we think them through without prejudice, so the facts of spiritual science can be assessed through sound thinking and see how they support each other, and reveal an all encompassing picture of reality, that puts into perspective all the humanity's dramas, their causes and eventual remedies.

From this point of view, everyone can choose for themselves what to do according to their own High Ideal. This is a matter of individual freedom and Anthroposophy doesn't dictate any of this. It only outlines the eventual outcomes of one path or another, completely impartially.

JustinG wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 5:32 am If this is the case then I have no antipathy towards Anthroposophy as such).

Papanca wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:11 am

Cleric K wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 9:25 am
In the other thread Eugene dismissed Western thought because of the look in the persons' eyes. In this one simply overlooks that he is already seeking a specific look. Let's consider a child. What is it more likely? To like the look in the eyes of a parent that allows it to eat all the candy it wants, to spend all the hours it wants on TikTok on its phone? Or the look in the eyes of a parent that tells it to eat its breakfast, clean its room, do its homework and only then go out and play? Of course, the child is not in position to judge this properly. The first offers instant gratification but ruins its later life, while the latter seems harsh and demanding but has only the long term prosperity of the child in mind.

Such is the situation of humanity today. Spiritual science presents only facts. It traces the way soul and spirit forces develop when we watch TikTok all day or when we engage in constructive activities. It goes on to describe facts that far surpass the individual incarnation. Just as all facts of child development fit together harmoniously when we think them through without prejudice, so the facts of spiritual science can be assessed through sound thinking and see how they support each other, and reveal an all encompassing picture of reality, that puts into perspective all the humanity's dramas, their causes and eventual remedies.

From this point of view, everyone can choose for themselves what to do according to their own High Ideal. This is a matter of individual freedom and Anthroposophy doesn't dictate any of this. It only outlines the eventual outcomes of one path or another, completely impartially.

I'm not convinced by this example, for multiple reasons, it posits a binary between hyper-laxism and being stern for the sake of being stern, both can be problematic. An alternative is for the parent - in plus of being stern about some specific aspects - to be an example worthy of emulation, offer an alternatives and induce in his children a desire to learn : For instance instead of just "Don't go on tiktok", if we try to induce in children a love for sport, healthy playfullness, they generally themselves tend to prefer those type of activities to mindless browsing, children who grew up in home with tinkerers or scientists tend to gravitate towards those themselves, if you just forbid and restrict, the child may exactly gravitate toward the forbidden once you are not there with him. I'm not convinced by this approach (nor am i convinced by the binary opposite approach of total laxism and divestment.

Also in the cases of Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi, they are way more complex than you give them credit for.

JustinG wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 5:32 am Anyone one out there have any opinions on the work of Conner Habib (https://connerhabib.com/)?

He is an Anthroposophist (see, for example, here: https://connerhabib.com/2014/09/29/antr ... ing-about/ ) with very left-wing political views (see, for example, here: https://soundcloud.com/user-940109391/a ... -weeks-or ). He also used to be a gay pornstar.

I would be particularly interested to hear Cleric's opinion on Habib.

(BTW I am not trying to provoke anything here, just trying to understand whether Anthroposophy is compatible with both left and right wing political views. If this is the case then I have no antipathy towards Anthroposophy as such).

Ashvin wrote:To help us with this transition from qualitative Space to Time, we will use a very simple imaginative exercise. We begin by looking at the image below and trying to sense the inner meaning conveyed by the phenomena of wind.

[image at link]

Currently we experience the wind as we also experience the abstract dimension of width. It is experienced as a purely mindless material process for our intellectual cognition, where fragmented air currents "originating" from 'over there' pass through our vicinity 'over here' and then leave us and move on to somewhere else. The fact that what I just wrote is hardly an explanation of the phenomena does not seem to concern the mere intellect. Instead of contemplating how the swift, cool breeze brings immense relief and comfort to our sweltering soul on a hot summer day, the mere intellect considers that relief as occurring only in our "personal" minds, completely separate from the phenomena itself. Every experience is broken up into tiny segments and appears to be excessively fleeting. Perhaps we feel as if we are always "fighting against the wind" when it blows through. We often remark that the wind "died" when we no longer feel the cool breeze, and this idiom is a reflection of how we actually perceive and conceive of the wind - it is as a phenomena which comes about every now and again, but keeps dying on us whenever we need it the most. The transfiguration of the width dimension is the recovery of those inner qualities of meaning which perpetually persist within our soul and keep the wind always at our backs. It then remains connected to every aspect of our surrounding environment - from the atmospheric conditions most relevant to our immediate circumstances, to the pollination of flowering plants necessary for our survival as a species, to the rhythmic airways of the entire Earth Soul. We can also then imagine how the wind interweaves and interpenetrates with our own breath, which, in turn, is the qualitative dimension of depth.

[image at link]

Try inhaling and exhaling in sync with the image above and sense the inner meaning which that process conveys. We sense the inner meaning of "integration" (inhaling) and "differentiation" (exhaling). When the Triune Divinity exhaled the breath of life into man, it was the Origin of our differentiated form within the Cosmos at large. With every single inbreath we take, we are remembering the Tri-Unity from which those forms were born. We are also remembering our interdependence on the world around us - the plants provide us oxygen to inhale, we transfigure the oxygen, and we exhale carbon dioxide back to the plants. That is one critical way in which the human soul participates in the qualitative breathing of the Earth Soul and how that Soul also participates in us. It is extremely important to take notice right now of what we are doing here with Reason and Imagination - we are Thinking. This process of Thinking is not other than the process of transfiguring the deadened abstract concepts which immerse the world of appearances. It is the process of resurrecting these appearances into the Kingdom of God and into eternal life. What we give back to the Earth Soul in our breath - as we also give to other souls in our speech which is formed from that breath - should be done so in full clarity of consciousness, as a voluntary sacrifice. As our thoughts lift the appearances of the world higher and higher into the rarefied airs of the atmosphere, we are transfiguring the abstract spatial dimension of height into its qualitative corollary. We can then adopt a 'bird's eye view' on the holistic relations of the planet that we were previously experiencing only as fish immersed in the water.