Page 2 of 4

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:46 pm
by AshvinP
AshvinP wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:15 pm
Eugene I wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:03 pm Ashvin, I find the Western approach rooted in Christianity is somewhat unbalanced and too "needy" almost to the point of neurosis. On the other hand, neoadvaita is an opposite extreme that can be problematic and nihilistic. Christine presented a balanced approach, which is also shared by many other more mature nonduality teachers nowadays (Spira, Adyashanti and so on).
“Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency” — Aristotle

Who is Christine? Anna lost me in the first 15 seconds... "for no reason at all". It's amazing to me people can go around the world, looking at the ever-evolving, intricately delicate phenomenon which confronts them, and completely shut down their curiosity. There is no "balance" in such an approach, it is pure thoughtlessness disguised as "spiritual wisdom".

I just watched some more to 1:17... she seems tweaked out on something. Regardless, "I don't even want to say Oneness, because that makes it seem like there can be another... ZERO is more accurate, because there is nothing here". It's like her subconscious is speaking through her ego to warn us not to listen to her ego, by making her words so obviously nihilistic and devoid of meaning, but I guess some people still convince themselves it is meaningful and worth listening to.

I'm still in the habit of saying "it's amazing to me that people can...", but really it is not. That is what Cleric and myself keep posting about as it continually manifests in every sphere of life, including metaphysical idealist forums. I posted this on another thread:

To begin with, the attention of the soul is directed to certain events in the world that surrounds us. Such events are, on the one hand, life that is budding, growing, and flourishing, and on the other hand, all phenomena connected with fading, decaying, and withering.
...
Yet it must not be thought that much progress can be made if the senses are blunted to the world. First look at the things as keenly and as intently as you possibly can...
...
If the attention be frequently fixed on the phenomena of growing, blooming and flourishing, a feeling remotely allied to the sensation of a sunrise will ensue, while the phenomena of fading and decaying will produce an experience comparable, in the same way, to the slow rising of the moon on the horizon

When that was written 100+ years ago, it probably was not too difficult for someone to leave their home and walk to a place where this exercise could be done with relative tranquility. Now it is damn near impossible unless you are way out in the middle of nowhere. Is that because (a) there are no longer perceptible things which are growing and flourishing near things which are decaying and withering, or is it because (b) we have a hard time perceiving anything that is growing and flourishing even when it is there to be perceived, or is there actually not very much difference between A and B, due to the inseperable relationship between perception and cognition? We say it is the latter and it should be major cause for concern. People who shut down curiosity and thought about the detailed processes of Nature are not just making "personal" decisions, they are contributing to an accelerating trend of deadened thought and perception in the world, especially if they try to convince others to do the same and that doing so is actually beneficial in some way. These are trends we can easily verify for ourselves, if not from general knowledge of recent history, certainly from attentive thought to what is happening in our immediate vicinity. Then we might sense the urgency which people were writing with decades and centuries ago, so that we may still yet "save [some of] the appearances".

Barfield circa 1950 wrote:Imagination is not, as some poets have thought, simply synonymous with good. It may be either good or evil. As long as art remained primarily mimetic, the evil which imagination could do was limited by nature. Again, as long as it was treated as an amusement, the evil which it could do was limited in scope. But in an age when the connection between imagination and figuration is beginning to be dimly realized, when the fact of the directionally creator relation is beginning to break through into consciousness, both the good and the evil latent in the working of imagination begin to appear unlimited.
...
It may be objected that this is a very small matter, and that it will be a long time before the imagination of man substantially alters those appearances of nature with which his figuration supplies him. But then I am taking the long view. Even so, we need not be too confident. Even if the pace of change remained the same, one who is really sensitive to (for example) the difference between the medieval collective representations and our own will be aware that, without traveling any greater distance than we have come since the fourteenth century, we could very well move forward into a chaotically empty or fantastically hideous world. But the pace of change has not remained the same. It has accelerated and is accelerating.

And before it is mentioned, let me make clear I am not proposing anyone should be forced to stop believing or saying whatever they want. If one follows the logic of what I have written, that "solution" would make no sense or difference, since it is precisely our inner desire, feeling, and thought which needs to change. Such things will never change as a result of coercion, and in fact such coercion will likely reinforce the thought patterns one is trying to force out. It only occurs by way of voluntary desire and thought on the part of each individual.

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:19 pm
by Eugene I
That's all right, Ashvin, but here is another perspective: the sense of the "drama of the world", the neediness and urgency so deeply rooted in the Western spirituality (from the traditional Christianity to the most modern Barfield/Steiner/Peterson versions of it). This neediness is a sign of still unhealed and unrecognized neurosis of the ego trying to escape from its own prison and its own suffering. The neurosis itself also needs to be addressed and healed, and the nondual approach offers a good way to deal with it, to examine it for what it is and to let it go. In our human life we often see that neurotic people may have very good intentions, but they still tend to mess up things a lot. Neurosis is still an unhealthy state of the psyche and it is typically unproductive and problematic in many practical ways.

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:50 pm
by AshvinP
Eugene I wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:19 pm That's all right, Ashvin, but here is another perspective: the sense of the "drama of the world", the neediness and urgency so deeply rooted in the Western spirituality (from the traditional Christianity to the most modern Barfield/Steiner/Peterson versions of it). This neediness is a sign of still unhealed and unrecognized neurosis of the ego trying to escape from its own prison and its own suffering. The neurosis itself also needs to be addressed and healed, and the nondual approach offers a good way to deal with it, to examine it for what it is and to let it go. In our human life we often see that neurotic people may have very good intentions, but they still tend to mess up things a lot. Neurosis is still an unhealthy state of the psyche and it is typically unproductive and problematic in many practical ways.

Eugene,

If you want to make a logical connection between anything I wrote and what you are calling "neediness", beyond simply invoking "Western spirituality" and connecting the two, I will consider it. As it stands, I don't even know what you mean by the word. Let it be clear I am not suggesting the answer is to speed up mechanical 2-dimensional thinking in some manic and reckless way, but actually to slow down, start contemplating one's own thinking activity and related desires and feelings, and thereby add 3-dimensional depth to it, and eventually 4-dimensional holistic Time experience. But one must start somewhere and it will never get off the ground without deep curiosity about world phenomena, down to even the most seemingly insignificant things (because those may be the ones which are most deadened by mechanical thought), and of course deep curiosity about oneself.

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 11:35 pm
by Eugene I
See, in spite of all the holistic 4-dimensional and higher cognition experiences you are talking about you still do not see the connection. The neurosis goes unnoticed and the "wholistic experience of higher cognition" simply misses it. Anthroposophy offers a method to transcend the ego and heal from its deficiencies, but it is addresses it in a shallow way and misses important aspects of the ego-complex, so they remain unhealed. And it is well known to psychologists that a neurosis is the hardest thing to recognize for a person who has it.

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:04 am
by AshvinP
Eugene I wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 11:35 pm See, in spite of all the holistic 4-dimensional and higher cognition experiences you are talking about you still do not see the connection. The neurosis goes unnoticed and the "wholistic experience of higher cognition" simply misses it. Anthroposophy offers a method to transcend the ego and heal from its deficiencies, but it is addresses it in a shallow way and misses important aspects of the ego-complex, so they remain unhealed. And it is well known to psychologists that a neurosis is the hardest thing to recognize for a person who has it.
We are "missing" it because you make no logical connections or arguments for it. Cleric details exactly how the Eastern mystical view can lead to unexamined egoistic and materialistic tendencies if not incorporated into broader spiritual evolutionary understanding (or I should say it completely fails to lift us out of our default egoistic and materialistic tendencies in the modern age, only further entrenches us within them). I can search for those terms right now with "Cleric K" and come up with at least 5-10 clear examples, and in fact I may do that just to reinforce the point. I can search for "Western spiritual" and "Eugene I" and come up with a bunch of posts which completely fail to draw any logical connection between that and "neediness", "neurosis", "power heirarchy", "controlling", or whatever other terms you attached there in the past, and zero examples of one that fleshes the connection out. So either you are totally incompetent at making logical arguments, which is unlikely given all of your other posts on this forum, or you are reaching to make a connection which simply does not exist. People can decide for themselves which one.

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:35 am
by Eugene I
AshvinP wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:04 am People can decide for themselves which one.
Exactly, let people decide :)

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:39 am
by AshvinP
Eugene I wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:35 am
AshvinP wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:04 am People can decide for themselves which one.
Exactly, let people decide :)

They can start the process of deciding here if they choose - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=564 ;)

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:20 am
by Eugene I
Well, you and Cleric have been preaching Anthroposophy here for half a year writing volumes and volumes. Were you able to convince anybody? I haven't noticed any. Looks like people here already decided for themselves and most people seem to be just annoyed by your incessant preaching (oh, sure, because we are all egos here manipulated by demonic forces :twisted: ). I think you are just wasting your time here, would probably be better to start your own platform instead of hijacking this forum, or to join one of the existing Anthroposophy sites where you might contribute and communicate more productively with likeminded people. Don't follow Jehovah Witnesses tactics, it's not a good way :D

PS: I noticed two features common for most sects: shallowness of their teaching and annoyingness of their preaching.

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:06 am
by AshvinP
Eugene I wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:20 am Well, you and Cleric have been preaching Anthroposophy here for half a year writing volumes and volumes. Were you able to convince anybody? I haven't noticed any. Looks like people here already decided for themselves and most people seem to be just annoyed by your incessant preaching (oh, sure, because we are all egos here manipulated by demonic forces :twisted: ). I think you are just wasting your time here, would probably be better to start your own platform instead of hijacking this forum, or to join one of the existing Anthroposophy sites where you might contribute and communicate more productively with likeminded people. Don't follow Jehovah Witnesses tactics, it's not a good way :D

Sounds like I hit a sore spot...

You have been waging a non-stop war with the structure of Reality for more than half a year... what did you expect to happen? I could have posted that thread many dozens of times before. It took your incessant obfuscations and character assassinations for 6+ months before I finally did. We don't claim to know anything other than by grace of the Spirit, and there are many who know much more than we do. We don't write anything for money, status, or fame and we have no intentions to. We don't write to have our thoughts echoed back at us for validation. We couldn't care less if zero or a hundred people claim to be "Anthroposophists" due to our writing - there is simply an obligation to communicate things once certain spiritual knowledge is reached and if one has an ability to communicate. It is admittedly a Self-centered pursuit: we are interested in our own spiritual growth and Karma. We don't ask anyone to believe anything on faith or make any promises of an "easy life" for anyone who starts on a path to higher cognition - actually it is the exact opposite. So your "demonic cult" dog still doesn't hunt. And you are the one who always mentions Steiner, Anthroposophy, esoteric Western spirituality, and other such things first in these "debates" with us, as we simply try to make logical arguments from the givens of experience and sometimes the foundation of metaphysical idealism which this forum is centered around. So maybe you can stop rolling your eyes and creating the problems you like to blame on us, and start getting down to the business of engaging in meaningful and productive dialogue like a few others here have shown is entirely possible.

Re: Anna Brown

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:09 am
by Eugene I
AshvinP wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:06 am as we simply try to make logical arguments from the givens of experience and sometimes the foundation of metaphysical idealism which this forum is centered around.
Have you ever tried locally arguing with Jehovah Witnesses? That's the most useless waste of time :D