How Many 'Alters' Per 'Organism'?

[Cleric K]

BK's point and what everyone here expressed, is confirmed in higher stages of cognition. I'll just restate here the same using the language of the metaphor. We can approach these things only by looking them from many different angles and not just one. This is part of the process of training the intellect to live comfortably with the fact that there could be many different maps of the same territory (topographic, political, geological, etc.) When we can switch easily between different maps we also develop the intuition of what these maps are of.

Every state of being that we experience can be thought of as the interference, the impingement of all other states of being. In our ordinary state we have consciousness only of our state and to certain extent we can recognize how other human beings impinge and shape ours (and of course we, theirs). At this point, the idea that our state is the 'negative' picture of the 'sum total' of all other states, is just an intellectual conjecture, which in fact can never (and shouldn't!) be experienced as satisfactory in isolation. This view moves one step closer to reality when we shift our state of consciousness through concentration of our spiritual activity (as described in the essay). Through this we differentiate our activity (which is our only true possession) from the metamorphoses of the contents of consciousness (world content). Now our spiritual activity becomes something akin to a sense organ. We experience how the will of all other states of being imprints into and restricts our activity (i.e. the palette of states which can be experienced as our 'next'). In the ordinary state of consciousness we identify with the total contents of consciousness and say 'all mine'. Through concentration of activity we can distinguish what comes from us and what from other beings that imprint their will into our state.

In esoteric science this first stage of higher cognition is called Imaginative consciousness. At this stage it can be said that we experience only the 'physiognomy', the 'gestures' of the beings. That's why it's called Imaginative - not because we fantasize things but because we are still experiencing the contents of consciousness as a vast panorama within something that is made of the 'substance' of imagination. The difference is that, as we have differentiated from the contents of this panorama, we experience the willing impulses coming from different 'directions' which shape the environment of our inner states. The key in Imaginative consciousness is to never forget that in certain sense we are still dealing with Maya. In the ordinary state the contents of the senses are Maya because we can only speculate intellectually about the true causes behind them. In Imaginative consciousness the substance of imagination is still Maya but now it has been brought one step closer to the true causes because now we perceive the willing activity of beings which is reflected in living pictures within the imaginative 'substance'. This is the key - the pictures are not yet the reality of the beings - they are only 'external' reflection of their activity within imaginative substance or allegorically speaking - as the waves are the reflection of the wind's activity. If we are to know anything more about the inner experiences of the beings themselves, and not only of how their activity imprints in our soul substance, we also need the higher stages - Inspirative and Intuitive consciousness.

The states of being that project into and shape our own, are not only of human-like character. Actually only the states of our peer incarnated human beings are of such character. Everything else correspond to beings from the full spectrum of integration of consciousness - from deep sleep (unconsciousness) to Cosmic-scale integration of states. Portion of these beings are called elemental beings, whose experiences are instinctive without clear self awareness (these are BK's "somewhat" conscious agencies). Such beings constitute for example our biological life.

As we can see, in this metaphor the recombination problem that Eugene mentions also doesn't exist. We always experience a particular state of being. We never experience the different states as some 'things' spread out in front of us, although it is extremely tempting for the intellect to imagine these states as points in phase space for example. We should put a lot of effort to unlearn this habit. The word 'state' should always bring the picture of first-person spiritual experience with unique world content. There's no 'outer' view of such a state. Such an 'outer' view is just a particular abstract idea experienced within a real state of being. When we experience the imprint of beings in Imaginative consciousness we are not perceiving the 'outer' form of their states but their willed effects in our. The higher stages of consciousness don't bring 'outer' view of the beings either but simply allow us to experience more and more their inner perspectives within ours, as if by attunement through resonance.

[Lou Gold]

BK's point and what everyone here expressed, is confirmed in higher stages of cognition. I'll just restate here the same using the language of the metaphor. We can approach these things only by looking them from many different angles and not just one. This is part of the process of training the intellect to live comfortably with the fact that there could be many different maps of the same territory (topographic, political, geological, etc.) When we can switch easily between different maps we also develop the intuition of what these maps are of.

I would be far more aligned with what you say if you used the term "higher-lower stages of cognition" and thus avoided the high horse of hierarchy. When Jesus says "whatever you do to the lowest among you, you do to me", "lowest" includes the shitty awful stuff and is why Jesus forgives all from the Cross in order to fully open the Heart of Compassion into the world. Thich Nhat Hanh says much the same in his great poem. Yes! This involves a movement of awareness from periphery to center but not, to my mind, as an ascent to a lofty peak. Indeed, it is the turning away from the inner awfulness that generates the collective karma making it so fearful to face. I'm reminded of Wade Davis asking the Vodun priest, who was his informant about making zombies in Haiti, if black magic exists? The priest responded, "It exists but the difference between your people and mine is that we know the difference." Bottom line is that not knowing the difference is what allows so much horrific stuff to be done in the name of doing good.

[SanteriSatama]

I would be far more aligned with what you say if you used the term "higher-lower stages of cognition" and thus avoided the high horse of hierarchy. When Jesus says "whatever you do to the lowest among you, you do to me", "lowest" includes the shitty awful stuff and is why Jesus forgives all from the Cross in order to fully open the Heart of Compassion into the world. Thich Nhat Hanh says much the same in his great poem. Yes! This involves a movement of awareness from periphery to center but not, to my mind, as an ascent to a lofty peak. Indeed, it is the turning away from the inner awfulness that generates the collective karma making it so fearful to face. I'm reminded of Wade Davis asking the Vodun priest, who was his informant about making zombies in Haiti, if black magic exists? The priest responded, "It exists but the difference between your people and mine is that we know the difference." Bottom line is that not knowing the difference is what allows so much horrific stuff to be done in the name of doing good.

Buckminster Fuller, who strives to be exact in his terminology, uses 'inwards' and 'outwards' instead of 'down' and 'up', consistently with gravity.

We can learn to recognize genuine intention to hurt by letting it hurt, instead of hurting ourselves by our superficial projections like political correctness etc. And it becomes also obvious that intention to hurt generally comes from a hurt, the mechanism of passing a hurt.

Most simple and basic protection against intention to hurt is reflecting it back to the origin. Knights in shining armor of white magic, as color white is pure reflection, are violence of automated revenge mechanism. Dropping your shields and armor and letting it all in is 'black' as you stop reflecting and projecting. In practice that requires the transformative power that comes from good working relation with the Source, the center. Heart can do the transformation of hurtful energies and intentions highly automated, without requiring much attention from the mental and linguistic faculties. Of course this is a very simplified picture, with kisses and huggses to you too, Loo-Lou. <3

[Cleric K]

I would be far more aligned with what you say if you used the term "higher-lower stages of cognition" and thus avoided the high horse of hierarchy.

Well Sometimes things must be differentiated. It's like saying "I feel more aligned to call red and blue simply 'color'". That's OK, 'color' is more general concept. But we must be aware that there's something within red and blue which justifies the different concepts/words. If we want to be universal only on grounds of language, by using always the most general terms, we're simply smearing out distinguishable properties, which might be key for resolving various enigmas of life. The realizations like in this poem, are important milestone but they don't yet reveal the hidden forces that cause the differences on the surface. Seeing God in everything is a necessary and important step but it's only the beginning.

In this sense, I can say that the higher stages of cognition throw light on the lower stages - the lower are fully comprehended from the higher standpoint. There's clear distinction. It's not simply about appreciation of the interconnectedness of life. There are multitude of invisible beings that are the causes of the different cultures, characters, temperaments and so on. For example, the Christian Archangels, also known as Folk Spirits, are beings that inspire the different soul qualities of the various peoples. The Jews have an archangels, the Slavs, the Germanic people and so on. The consciousness of the individuals within these nations is an overlay of the Folk spirit and multitude other Spirits. As long as man doesn't know himself as a spiritual being, as an independent "I", he is unconsciously expressing the spiritual characteristics of the archangel. And most of the wars between nations first began with processes between the archangels in the spiritual world. That's why it's justified to speak of higher cognition. It's not enough to smear out the differences on the surface. This is simply ignoring the deeper realities and makes man much more ignorant and as a result much more unconscious of the impulses that drive his behavior. It's man's duty to learn about the deeper strata of his being. Otherwise, even with best of efforts to force ourselves that "it's all one", nationalistic feelings will make their way and we'll be crushed by their force.

Once we return from these out-of-body states, where for example we can observe the deeds of the archangelic beings, we can say that we live in the higher-lower stage. We live in the ordinary stage again - we have perceptions and thoughts but now we also have our understanding for the higher order of things, how things unfold in time. Now we need effort and faith in what we are doing. No matter how sublime our Cosmic realizations might have been, in our ordinary state we always come to moments where we find ourselves only with our ego, thoughts and ordinary sense perceptions and we are in position to experience doubt. That's why we need faith - not as blind belief but as moral strength, as the understanding that even that at the moment we don't have the Cosmic vista at hand, it's just a short night period and daylight is coming.

[SanteriSatama]

The word 'state' should always bring the picture of first-person spiritual experience with unique world content. There's no 'outer' view of such a state. Such an 'outer' view is just a particular abstract idea experienced within a real state of being.

You're on to something. Obviously, 'state' is a noun and an object of thought, so when an object arises, so does also subject and the whole subject-object dualism. Also question "how many" requires thinking number-objects, quantification is firmly inside the frame of subject-object metaphysics.

Of course we can think and experience and even talk also without the subject-object division. Thinking and experiencing are verbs, processes. The biggest problem of Western thought is that it considers nouns and states more fundamental than verbs and processes. And that goes back to Plato's biggest mistake in his otherwise brilliant discussion in Sophist.

[SanteriSatama]

The realizations like in this poem...

can say that the higher stages of cognition throw light on the lower stages - the lower are fully comprehended from the higher standpoint.

ROADRUNNER BLUES

Gods on feet and pants on head.
speeding towards the past ahead,
leaving future behind the back.

Oh, how the winds blow now!

The poem acts in the Wild Fox Koan. Not denying cause and effect, just embracing the glorious 500 lives as a fox and Wiley E. Coyote.

[Lou Gold]

I would be far more aligned with what you say if you used the term "higher-lower stages of cognition" and thus avoided the high horse of hierarchy. When Jesus says "whatever you do to the lowest among you, you do to me", "lowest" includes the shitty awful stuff and is why Jesus forgives all from the Cross in order to fully open the Heart of Compassion into the world. Thich Nhat Hanh says much the same in his great poem. Yes! This involves a movement of awareness from periphery to center but not, to my mind, as an ascent to a lofty peak. Indeed, it is the turning away from the inner awfulness that generates the collective karma making it so fearful to face. I'm reminded of Wade Davis asking the Vodun priest, who was his informant about making zombies in Haiti, if black magic exists? The priest responded, "It exists but the difference between your people and mine is that we know the difference." Bottom line is that not knowing the difference is what allows so much horrific stuff to be done in the name of doing good.

Buckminster Fuller, who strives to be exact in his terminology, uses 'inwards' and 'outwards' instead of 'down' and 'up', consistently with gravity.

We can learn to recognize genuine intention to hurt by letting it hurt, instead of hurting ourselves by our superficial projections like political correctness etc. And it becomes also obvious that intention to hurt generally comes from a hurt, the mechanism of passing a hurt.

Most simple and basic protection against intention to hurt is reflecting it back to the origin. Knights in shining armor of white magic, as color white is pure reflection, are violence of automated revenge mechanism. Dropping your shields and armor and letting it all in is 'black' as you stop reflecting and projecting. In practice that requires the transformative power that comes from good working relation with the Source, the center. Heart can do the transformation of hurtful energies and intentions highly automated, without requiring much attention from the mental and linguistic faculties. Of course this is a very simplified picture, with kisses and huggses to you too, Loo-Lou. <3

Yup! Clearly, one can be blinded by the light as easily as lost in the dark. The challenge is always, balance or right amount. Bucky's lingo was surely more better. Even in Judeo-Christian hierarchical archetypology, the Archangel holds the 'dark one' at right distance, in balance without slaying him. It is the conquesting, colonizing, superior thinking ones who believe they can defeat/deny the dreaded who make things worse than they need to be. Good working relationship with the Source involves appreciating (seeing full value) in all that flows from It. "There's a season for all under heaven." Conqueror beware.

[Lou Gold]

The implications of this view are profound. Jung is basically arguing that, in addition to non re-represented, autonomous and cognitive isolated phenomenality, the unconscious may also comprise a veritable population of somewhat conscious agencies distinct from the ego, each with its own experiential contents. And since unconscious activity can impinge on ego-consciousness, these agencies can presumably communicate with the ego, as it were, through e.g. dreams and visions. Indeed, in Jung's view the psyche may be an ecosystem of communicating conscious agencies, in which ego-consciousness is merely one of the participants.

Here BK seems to pose that the "somewhat" conscious agencies residing in the unconscious can communicate and interact with our ego-consciousness, but are not subsumed by it, meaning that their subjective perspective and experiences are not included into our subjective perspective and experience. In this way the subject combination problem is avoided.

I can accept that formulation, but the perspectives and experiences are within the 'boundaries' of a single 'organism'. The organism cannot be reduced only to its ego-consciousness.

And the earth organism called 'Gaia' cannot be reduced to its mentalizing individuals.

[AshvinP]

Here BK seems to pose that the "somewhat" conscious agencies residing in the unconscious can communicate and interact with our ego-consciousness, but are not subsumed by it, meaning that their subjective perspective and experiences are not included into our subjective perspective and experience. In this way the subject combination problem is avoided.

I can accept that formulation, but the perspectives and experiences are within the 'boundaries' of a single 'organism'. The organism cannot be reduced only to its ego-consciousness.

And the earth organism called 'Gaia' cannot be reduced to its mentalizing individuals.

There is an implicit assumption that you bring to bear on a lot of posts, which is that hierarchies are exclusively about power over others. All hierarchies can be contaminated by corruption/power, and often they are, but in essence they are about distinctions of value. They are not simply one thing, and if we mistake a cognitive placeholder for that which place its holding, we are engaged in idolatry/ideology. That is why Cleric must write about "higher" cognition, as he explained well. It's also why I can write about the individual organism as distinct from the Earth organism. I'm sure that sounds pretty plain and obvious, but "the obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to anyone who has genuinely lost sight of it." (Barfield)

[Lou Gold]

There is an implicit assumption that you bring to bear on a lot of posts, which is that hierarchies are exclusively about power over others. All hierarchies can be contaminated by corruption/power, and often they are, but in essence they are about distinctions of value. They are not simply one thing, and if we mistake a cognitive placeholder for that which place its holding, we are engaged in idolatry/ideology. That is why Cleric must write about "higher" cognition, as he explained well. It's also why I can write about the individual organism as distinct from the Earth organism. I'm sure that sounds pretty plain and obvious, but "the obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to anyone who has genuinely lost sight of it." (Barfield)

Nope! I fully accept the notion of multiple hierarchies functioning in a systemic process of checks-and-balances. OTOH, I resist the notion of a single overarching hierarchy as more accurate than a vast multidirectional and multifaceted network of interbeing. A merkaba is for me a better symbol than a pyramid and much less open to the abuses of power.

BTW, this is also true: “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something powerful that wants our love.”