Essay: Beyond the Flat M@L

[Eugene I]

This passage from Merrell-Wolff is what the phrase "core idea-beings" brings to my mind:

At the deepest level of discernible thought there is a thinking that flows of itself. In its purity it employs none of the concepts that could be captured in definable words. It is fluidic rather than granular. It never isolates a definitive divided part, but everlastingly interblends them all. Every thought includes the whole of Eternity, and yet there are distinguishable thoughts. The unbroken Eternal flows before the mind, yet is endlessly colored anew with unlimited possibility. There is no labor in this thought. It simply is. It is unrelated to all desiring, all images, and all symbols.

If this is the case then there couldn't be multiple cores (or if there are, one core could not be aware of other cores, making their existence moot). Of course, this is just one revelation, but I would think it follows from the principle of nondualism.

Yes. In the "multicore" scheme the multiple cores are the structures and sets of living ideas. But such "core" described above is not an "idea", it's an ever-unfolding creative potential or "the Will" in the Schopenhauer's terms, an aspect of reality akin to the Existence and Experiencing. Also, just like Existence and Experiencing, since it is flowing everywhere in Consciousness and seems to be omnipresent, I would rather describe it as omni-acting/omni-present rather than a "core". A "core" is something of which there is "more" closer to the "center" and "less" further from the "center". But these three aspects - Existence, Experiencing and Will-to-unfold - are omnipresent everywhere equally in the universe of Consciousness, never less and never more.

[ScottRoberts]

This passage from Merrell-Wolff is what the phrase "core idea-beings" brings to my mind:

At the deepest level of discernible thought there is a thinking that flows of itself. In its purity it employs none of the concepts that could be captured in definable words. It is fluidic rather than granular. It never isolates a definitive divided part, but everlastingly interblends them all. Every thought includes the whole of Eternity, and yet there are distinguishable thoughts. The unbroken Eternal flows before the mind, yet is endlessly colored anew with unlimited possibility. There is no labor in this thought. It simply is. It is unrelated to all desiring, all images, and all symbols.

If this is the case then there couldn't be multiple cores (or if there are, one core could not be aware of other cores, making their existence moot). Of course, this is just one revelation, but I would think it follows from the principle of nondualism.

Yes. In the "multicore" scheme the multiple cores are the structures and sets of living ideas. But such "core" described above is not an "idea", it's an ever-unfolding creative potential or "the Will" in the Schopenhauer's terms, an aspect of reality akin to the Existence and Experiencing. Also, just like Existence and Experiencing, since it is flowing everywhere in Consciousness and seems to be omnipresent, I would rather describe it as omni-acting/omni-present rather than a "core". A "core" is something of which there is "more" closer to the "center" and "less" further from the "center". But these three aspects - Existence, Experiencing and Will-to-unfold - are omnipresent everywhere equally in the universe of Consciousness, never less and never more.

He calls them "distinguishable thoughts". That would not be creative "potential" or "Will-to-unfold" but actual unfoldings. And since "Every [such] thought includes the whole of Eternity" I don't see room for more than one set of living ideas.

[Eugene I]

He calls them "distinguishable thoughts". That would not be creative "potential" or "Will-to-unfold" but actual unfoldings. And since "Every [such] thought includes the whole of Eternity" I don't see room for more than one set of living ideas.

" unlimited possibility" means that the flow of such ideas is unlimited. This is the same is to say that it is not limited to any particular (limited) set of living ideas, or that "thinking that flows of itself" encompasses an infinite set of all possible ideas, like "the set of all sets" in the set theory. If the thoughts in such flow are "distinguishable", that does not mean they are limited to only a specific set.

[AshvinP]

M@L can't find its Macrocosmic nature within the reflections because there it finds only local unities. It can't find it in free-floating ideas either, because thinking is assumed incapable of penetrating in them and thus the resolution is expected at a future point. It should be noted that these two tendencies are always intermingled together - when one grows it creates the other as a mirror image and vice versa. When we combine the fragmentary perceptions with abstract thinking and theories we arrive at the physical Maya (illusion). When we build spiritual ideas as expectation supported by belief we arrive at spiritual Maya. Both these aspects inflate a whole sphere of phantom ideas that we are currently entangled with and which shape our lives. It should be noted that the phantom ideas of Maya are not in themselves evil. Evil issues because the ideas are one-sided, and when they are insistently pursued, we're ignorant of their disbalancing repercussions.

The above reminds me of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost - a very seductive character who pits Himself against God to create a totalizing ideology. We could say he is a character who wants to escape his position in the hierarchical structure of MAL before God ordains because he assumes his experience-knowledge is absolute. I wonder if you have any comments on this character's role in the whole unfolding involution-evolution process you described?

[Eugene I]

Trying to subdue all living forms under a single center of a single limited set of ideas without leaving any alternative choice is the totalizing ideology. It's an attempt to constrain the unlimited freedom and potential of Consciousness to express in an infinite variety of forms and develop in an infinite variety of paths. On the other hand, there is nothing totalizing or wrong in developing and ascending within one of such hierarchies voluntary and freely. The structure becomes totalizing only when the participating souls are deprived of the freedom to choose their paths and are deluded into believing that there exists only one path leading to a single center.

Most of us live in the countries of our birth and we live usually happily there with no intention to change out citizenship. Yet if the country is not a totalitarian regime, it has no limitations to freedom of its citizens to travel or move to other countries. Ironically, few people actually use such freedom, exactly because the system is not totalitarian and respects the freedoms of its citizens. But a totalitarian country limits the freedom of its citizens to travel or move, and ironically, that is exactly why its citizens tend to try to leave and escape from such totalitarianism whenever they find a chance.

Merrell-Wolf is an NDE experiencer, but I already pointed before to this profound NDE experience of meeting the Source. And it turns out that the Source and the creator of our material universe is not the only Source in the endless Universe, but he is "one of the species", and he seems to know it and does not hide it from us, so he himself has no indention of subduing all sentient beings under his hierarchy. It's only us who could have such desire and idea to subdue and constrain our own freedom.
Creation

[AshvinP]

Trying to subdue all living forms under a single center of a single limited set of ideas without leaving any alternative choice is the totalizing ideology. It's an attempt to constrain the unlimited freedom and potential of Consciousness to express in an infinite variety of forms and develop in an infinite variety of paths. On the other hand, there is nothing totalizing or wrong in developing and ascending within one of such hierarchies voluntary and freely. The structure becomes totalizing only when the participating souls are deprived of the freedom to choose their paths and are deluded into believing that there exists only one path leading to a single center.

Most of us live in the countries of our birth and we live usually happily there with no intention to change out citizenship. Yet if the country is not a totalitarian regime, it has no limitations to freedom of its citizens to travel or move to other countries. Ironically, few people actually use such freedom, exactly because the system is not totalitarian and respects the freedoms of its citizens. But a totalitarian country limits the freedom of its citizens to travel or move, and ironically, that is exactly why its citizens tend to try to leave and escape from such totalitarianism whenever they find a chance.

Merrell-Wolf is an NDE experiencer, but I already pointed before to this profound NDE experience of meeting the Source. And it turns out that the Source and the creator of our material universe is not the only Source in the endless Universe, but he is "one of the species", and he seems to know it and does not hide it from us, so he himself has no indention of subduing all sentient beings under his hierarchy. It's only us who could have such desire and idea to subdue and constrain our own freedom.
Creation

Eugene,

I don't agree. You seem to treat being "egalitarian" in your spiritual journey as the end-in-itself. No ideas have any worth unless they further your egalitarian conclusions. I honestly believe your temperament is the driving factor here. Because you seem to reason through all the idealist perspectives and their implications and reach many of the same conclusions we do, but then you push back for no other reason than the foul taste "centers" and "hierarchies" and such leave in your mouth. Yet it seems to me that one of the main messages of Cleric's post was precisely to question whether we can simply rely on what we feel is "common sense" or "fair" or what have you when exploring these ideal relations.

Another way to think about it is this - you have had mystical experiences, Merrell-Wolf has had them, Cleric has had them, etc. The problem is that your mystical experiences cannot possibly encompass the phenomenal 'data points' they have reached through their experiences (and plenty of other spiritual mystics, visionaries and scientists - Steiner - throughout the last 1000 years or so). In contrast, their experiences can very easily encompass your data points. And the same really holds for the Eastern-Western spiritual traditions in general, at least as far as I can understand the Eastern traditions (which is admittedly not far because I am a Westerner).

If you want to make a case for the infinite centers and relationships and hierarchies, etc., you need to develop a post which is not simply a relation of your mystical experiences and/or an appeal to our egalitarian sensibilities. It doesn't need to be as long and detailed as Cleric's, but you need to provide some train of thought which makes sense of our every day experiences in the world and fits together as a satisfying map of the ideal territory. So far, Cleric has done that for his perspective but you have done that for yours. All I see is you saying you agree with everything Cleric details... except, you don't want there to be single centers or sets of ideal relations which may exclude the ones you prefer. But that's not up to you, or me, or him, or anyone else... whatever it is, it is.

[Eugene I]

I don't agree. You seem to treat being "egalitarian" in your spiritual journey as the end-in-itself. No ideas have any worth unless they further your egalitarian conclusions. I honestly believe your temperament is the driving factor here. Because you seem to reason through all the idealist perspectives and their implications and reach many of the same conclusions we do, but then you push back for no other reason than the foul taste "centers" and "hierarchies" and such leave in your mouth. Yet it seems to me that one of the main messages of Cleric's post was precisely to question whether we can simply rely on what we feel is "common sense" or "fair" or what have you when exploring these ideal relations.

That's right, and my message is similar in a sense: to question the traditional "common sense" mono-centric and mono-theistic paradigm. Note that I do not deny hierarchies and their values, I'm just questioning their absolutistic nature.

Another way to think about it is this - you have had mystical experiences, Merrell-Wolf has had them, Cleric has had them, etc. The problem is that your mystical experiences cannot possibly encompass the phenomenal 'data points' they have reached through their experiences (and plenty of other spiritual mystics, visionaries and scientists - Steiner - throughout the last 1000 years or so). In contrast, their experiences can very easily encompass your data points. And the same really holds for the Eastern-Western spiritual traditions in general, at least as far as I can understand the Eastern traditions (which is admittedly not far because I am a Westerner).

Same here, there is a vast amount of non-dual spiritual experiences and mystics in the non-dual and Eastern traditions, as well as a vast amount of NDE accounts, confirming the absence of any absolute center or deity in the universe of Consciousness (including the Nanci Danison's account that I gave a link above). Similarly, such non-dual mystical experiences can encompass the mono-centric experiences of the people you mentioned whose experiences can be viewed as of a limited perspective. Surely, if one has a mystical experience of a spiritual core, center or deity, and that experience is only limited to such center and does not open a knowledge or insight into the existence of other centers and into the the non-centric nature of the Universal Consciousness, such experiences will only confirm the mono-centric worldview.

On another note, Nanci's account reveals the actual Source's perspective (as a local creator-center deity) and motivation for the creation and for the splitting into alters. It turns out that his main motivation was creativity and curiosity. The Source with its powerful mind could imagine all kinds of experiences and perspectives, but he wanted to gain the variety of actual experiences from limited perspectives. There is nothing wrong with a subjective perspective to be limited, because it is exactly the limitation that gives it its uniqueness. We, from our limited perspectives, have a sense that we are lacking and inferior to more powerful spiritual beings because we are so limited in our abilities and perspectives. And because of such limitations and the sense of inferiority we feel that we have to subdue to the hierarchy of the more powerful and knowledgeable spiritual beings. But it actually is not the case. It is exactly our limited perspectives that the Source wanted to experience, and he never had any intention for us to subdue to his reign, hierarchy and power, although he seem not to mind when we do that, because the experience of such subduence is also part of his creation experiment.

Anyway, IMO there are two structural archetypes in the collective unconscious of the world of Consciousness: the archetype of the monarchical social structure and the one of the libertarian structure. We can see their manifestations in both socio-political human structures and in spiritual and religious ones. Surely it is very comforting to live under the reign of a good monarch, be it an earthly one or a spiritual divine one, no question about that. This is why this archetype is very stable and long-lasting, and don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it, except that it tends to become problematic when it takes totalitarian forms and attempts to limit the fundamental freedoms of choice and beliefs of its participants.

If you want to make a case for the infinite centers and relationships and hierarchies, etc., you need to develop a post which is not simply a relation of your mystical experiences and/or an appeal to our egalitarian sensibilities. It doesn't need to be as long and detailed as Cleric's, but you need to provide some train of thought which makes sense of our every day experiences in the world and fits together as a satisfying map of the ideal territory. So far, Cleric has done that for his perspective but you have done that for yours. All I see is you saying you agree with everything Cleric details... except, you don't want there to be single centers or sets of ideal relations which may exclude the ones you prefer. But that's not up to you, or me, or him, or anyone else... whatever it is, it is.

I'm too lazy to do such extensive writeups , but I hope my comments here will give enough perspective on the non-centric paradigm. And there is so much already written in the traditional non-dual texts and in the modern expositions of the non-dualism (such as Rupert Spira, Adyashanti, Miri Albahari and many others) that I don't think my writings would add much to it.

You are right, it's not up to us to choose which paradigm is true, the reality is not going to ask us which model we prefer and then comply to it. Yet, since we actually do not know at this point which model is true, IMO we should remain open to both until the moment comes when we finally know the answer (if ever...). And it is even possible that neither model is true and the nature of reality is beyond our current comprehension abilities, who knows.

[AshvinP]

I don't agree. You seem to treat being "egalitarian" in your spiritual journey as the end-in-itself. No ideas have any worth unless they further your egalitarian conclusions. I honestly believe your temperament is the driving factor here. Because you seem to reason through all the idealist perspectives and their implications and reach many of the same conclusions we do, but then you push back for no other reason than the foul taste "centers" and "hierarchies" and such leave in your mouth. Yet it seems to me that one of the main messages of Cleric's post was precisely to question whether we can simply rely on what we feel is "common sense" or "fair" or what have you when exploring these ideal relations.

That's right, and my message is similar in a sense: to question the traditional "common sense" mono-centric and mono-theistic paradigm. Note that I do not deny hierarchies and their values, I'm just questioning their absolutistic nature.

Another way to think about it is this - you have had mystical experiences, Merrell-Wolf has had them, Cleric has had them, etc. The problem is that your mystical experiences cannot possibly encompass the phenomenal 'data points' they have reached through their experiences (and plenty of other spiritual mystics, visionaries and scientists - Steiner - throughout the last 1000 years or so). In contrast, their experiences can very easily encompass your data points. And the same really holds for the Eastern-Western spiritual traditions in general, at least as far as I can understand the Eastern traditions (which is admittedly not far because I am a Westerner).

Same here, there is a vast amount of non-dual spiritual experiences and mystics in the non-dual and Eastern traditions, as well as a vast amount of NDE accounts, confirming the absence of any absolute center or deity in the universe of Consciousness (including the Nanci Danison's account that I gave a link above). Similarly, such non-dual mystical experiences can encompass the mono-centric experiences of the people you mentioned whose experiences can be viewed as of a limited perspective. Surely, if one has a mystical experience of a spiritual core, center or deity, and that experience is only limited to such center and does not open a knowledge or insight into the existence of other centers and into the the non-centric nature of the Universal Consciousness, such experiences will only confirm the mono-centric worldview.

How could the experience confirm the absence of something? That is another huge difference here - Cleric's experience is confirming the positive existence of relations from the relative perspectives of idea-beings, not making negative claims about the absence of an absolute perspective. That roughly corresponds to the via positiva and via negativa approaches of Western-Eastern traditions.

On another note, Nanci's account reveals the actual Source's perspective (as a local creator-center deity) and motivation for the creation and for the splitting into alters. It turns out that his main motivation was creativity and curiosity. The Source with its powerful mind could imagine all kinds of experiences and perspectives, but he wanted to gain the variety of actual experiences from limited perspectives. There is nothing wrong with a subjective perspective to be limited, because it is exactly the limitation that gives it its uniqueness. We, from our limited perspectives, have a sense that we are lacking and inferior to more powerful spiritual beings because we are so limited in our abilities and perspectives. And because of such limitations and the sense of inferiority we feel that we have to subdue to the hierarchy of the more powerful and knowledgeable spiritual beings. But it actually is not the case. It is exactly our limited perspectives that the Source wanted to experience, and he never had any intention for us to subdue to his reign, hierarchy and power, although he seem not to mind when we do that, because the experience of such subduence is also part of his creation experiment.

Anyway, IMO there are two structural archetypes in the collective unconscious of the world of Consciousness: the archetype of the monarchical social structure and the one of the libertarian structure. We can see their manifestations in both socio-political human structures and in spiritual and religious ones. Surely it is very comforting to live under the reign of a good monarch, be it an earthly one or a spiritual divine one, no question about that. This is why this archetype is very stable and long-lasting, and don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it, except that it tends to become problematic when it takes totalitarian forms and attempts to limit the fundamental freedoms of choice and beliefs of its participants.

If you want to make a case for the infinite centers and relationships and hierarchies, etc., you need to develop a post which is not simply a relation of your mystical experiences and/or an appeal to our egalitarian sensibilities. It doesn't need to be as long and detailed as Cleric's, but you need to provide some train of thought which makes sense of our every day experiences in the world and fits together as a satisfying map of the ideal territory. So far, Cleric has done that for his perspective but you have done that for yours. All I see is you saying you agree with everything Cleric details... except, you don't want there to be single centers or sets of ideal relations which may exclude the ones you prefer. But that's not up to you, or me, or him, or anyone else... whatever it is, it is.

I'm too lazy to do such extensive writeups , but I hope my comments here will give enough perspective on the non-centric paradigm. And there is so much already written in the traditional non-dual texts and in the modern expositions of the non-dualism (such as Rupert Spira, Adyashanti, Miri Albahari and many others) that I don't think my writings would add much to it.

You are right, it's not up to us to choose which paradigm is true, the reality is not going to ask us which model we prefer and then comply to it. Yet, since we actually do not know at this point which model is true, IMO we should remain open to both until the moment comes when we finally know the answer (if ever...). And it is even possible that neither model is true and the nature of reality is beyond our current comprehension abilities, who knows.

Fair enough. The problem is when you start making absolute claims like you did above - "confirming the absence of any absolute center or deity in the universe of Consciousness" - but pretend you are not making them - "we should remain open to both until the moment comes when we finally know the answer". As Cleric pointed out, you are here making the claim that we cannot possibly experience the actual relations during our corporeal existence so we must wait in expectation until death or some other future event (or just be satisfied that we may never know anything about anything). That is a very strong claim you are making and one that you should try to support if you want others to take it seriously.

[Eugene I]

How could the experience confirm the absence of something? That is another huge difference here - Cleric's experience is confirming the positive existence of relations from the relative perspectives of idea-beings, not making negative claims about the absence of an absolute perspective. That roughly corresponds to the via positiva and via negativa approaches of Western-Eastern traditions.

Exactly, and how the absolutistic and centric experiences can confirm the absence of arguably a more encompassing non-absolutistic and non-centric perspective? It is not possible to prove or non-deniably confirm an absence of anything, neither by reason nor by experience, be it absolute perspective, non-absolute perspective or a flying spaghetti monster. That is why these possibilities always remain inconclusive and open, and I do not know if it would ever be possible to arrive to an experience or knowledge that would definitely confirm or prove only one of these two alternatives and undeniably refute the other. Because whatever experience or knowledge we gain at any point of our path, it can always be argued that here is some other more encompassing perspective or experience that we haven yet arrived to confirming the opposite perspective.

Fair enough. The problem is when you start making absolute claims like you did above - "confirming the absence of any absolute center or deity in the universe of Consciousness" - but pretend you are not making them - "we should remain open to both until the moment comes when we finally know the answer". As Cleric pointed out, you are here making the claim that we cannot possibly experience the actual relations during our corporeal existence so we must wait in expectation until death or some other future event (or just be satisfied that we may never know anything about anything). That is a very strong claim you are making and one that you should try to support if you want others to take it seriously.

Sorry, I admit that the "confirming" was too strong of a claim. I never claim that I have a proof of the non-centric paradigm. It should rather be "being evidences of the absence of any absolute center or deity in the universe of Consciousness[/i]". All our experiences and reasonings here are only evidences and arguments, and so far none of them are "confirmations" or proofs. And most likely the less limited perspective that we will gain after death will open to us more encompassing experiences and perspectives, but I'm not convinced that they will be final confirmations either, for the reasons I gave in the above paragraph. And that is why I always take into consideration the accounts and experiences of mystics and NDErs, but because they so often contradict each other and still remain limited to certain extends, I tend not to take them as revelations of the absolute truth, but only as insights and evidences of some higher-level and/or more encompassing perspectives on reality. Similarly, I have my own spiritual experiences, and of course my personal perspective on the reality is strongly shaped by these experiences and insights, but I never take them as "confirmations" or proofs of anything, but only as evidences and insights that I gain through my limited perspective and along my personal developmental path. And I take other people's experiences and insights with the same grain of salt - always open to them as possibilities but tending not to take them as confirmations or proofs of anything.

[Cleric K]

One of the results of such liberation, paired with the view that there is a variety of paths, is that we gain the freedom to choose and change the paths, and the reason to change may not have anything to do with any antipathy to any paths, but simply because other paths may open to us more opportunities for further development of our consciousness.
...
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?

Trying to subdue all living forms under a single center of a single limited set of ideas without leaving any alternative choice is the totalizing ideology. It's an attempt to constrain the unlimited freedom and potential of Consciousness to express in an infinite variety of forms and develop in an infinite variety of paths.

I don't know how you arrived at the bold text The One Idea that I speak about captures precisely the underlined text. Probably you still conceive 'idea' in the purely intellectual sense, as a concept within the local mind. By 'One Idea' I don't imply a cherry-picked idea from infinitely many but the one that encompasses the infinity of ideas as a wholeness. That's the harmony of ideas. In your language this is the One Consciousness within which any conceivable experience can exist. The reason I use the word 'idea' is to emphasize that this Consciousness experiences meaning. Every state of the Macrocosmic Consciousness is an experience of a Cosmic-scale Idea - this is what gives the cognitive essence of the state. The fact that this Consciousness can be conscious of the different paths of experience, in itself shows that it cognizes a higher-order idea which encompasses the paths in a whole. Without this higher-order idea it would be impossible for the Consciousness to know that the different idea-paths in fact exist within One Consciousness (Scott's remark) - as soon as the Consciousness experiences one of the paths it would be completely impossible to know that alternatives exist. Since the Consciousness understands that the idea-path it experiences is only one of infinitely many, this already shows that this one infinity is being cognized at least asymptotically.

I hope that we've cleared that out. The One Idea at the Center of Deep M@L is not a single limited set of ideas but the the total infinity of ideas (corresponding to your underlined text). Here we simply hit upon the limitations of any geometrical representation. Just because the Center is presented as a point on the illustration, this doesn't mean that it is only one of infinitely many points. In reality this 'center' should be thought to permeate everything. Everything is a differentiated potential of this One infinity, which is everywhere at once.

I suppose that we agree on this one. The Center of Deep M@L points to the same potential that you refer to in the underlined text. Now where our views deviate is on the actual details of this differentiation and integration of potential.

In your view the threshold of death marks the demarcation between the free potential and the manifest incarnate existence. What I say is that there's a whole gradient of forms of consciousness/existence - from the most free at the Center to the most rigidly manifested at the periphery. Death is only a change of consciousness but we are still within the spiritual context of the planetary Spheres. In other words, this spiritual path that we are treading will take much much longer until it reaches the state of the free potential.

I'm repeating myself. It's undeniable that while incarnated we are within the telos of the body, humanity, Earth, Solar system. The conjecture that after death (again, assuming we've resolved our sensory attachments) we are free to switch paths (that is, we're free from the happenings within humanity and the Cosmic surroundings) rests entirely upon an assumption which by its very character can only be verified after death. This produces the dichotomy that I've spoken about and which Ashvin noted. Because of our impatience for spiritual freedom we are forced to reject any possibility of reaching truths through development of cognition, and instead we have no choice but to invent completely different rules of existence beyond the threshold of death. Yet we can only do this through the phantom ideas that we support by belief.

The following is probably insultingly simple analogy but it is nevertheless confirmed as very precise from the standpoint of higher cognition. To imagine that we are freed from all entanglements with the evolution of humanity and the Spheres after death, is like imagining that once we fall asleep at night we'll be able to choose in any way we want, where to wake up, in what body, in what conditions, etc. The waking/sleeping rhythm is only a sub-rhythm of the incarnational, which itself is only a sub-rhythm of the higher-order Cosmic rhythms. The spirals within spirals folding of DNA comes to mind:

Our incarnations are not simply shifts between the world of forms and free potential but are more like rhythmic oscillations along the higher order spirals of evolution of consciousness.

We should try and grasp the seriousness of the situation. It's pretty clear that while incarnated we have to live through every single moment of our development from child till old age. Even if we think in purely abstract way it is only logical that our perspective will develop through multiple such nested rhythms on its way towards the integration of the Cosmic potential. This is confirmed by higher cognition. There's a great difference between attaching and subduing to a deity and understanding the reality of the situation. There's difference between worshipping winter and having clear understanding that we should prepare wood and warm clothes for it. Not only that we hold on to fantastic ideas when we imagine that we'll be freed from the spirals of evolution after death, but this has harmful and paralyzing effect for development. Every thing has its appropriate time. If a child doesn't learn to speak at the right time it only becomes more and more difficult afterwards. It's similar with evolution in general. Now it is up to us to investigate what's needed for our proper development. Some children prepare their homework for the next day. Other children imagine that there's no need to do so because when they fall to sleep they'll be teleported in other worlds where there's no more homeworks. As trivial as it sounds, this is the state of affairs for modern humanity. Today we not only don't yet tackle the interesting and creative question of how to do our homework but we are arguing if this homework is at all needed or is just an act of submissive worship to some deity. It's time to reckon that in our age it's no longer a matter of spare time philosophizing, while the 'real' life happens out there. Our collective future depends in the most real sense on our proper understanding of the human being and its deep structure. And within Deep M@L this structure is only at a 'one thought distance'. There are no obstacles for the exploration of this structure except ourselves.