Cleric's Responses to Mystical Metaphysics (or How to Make a Logical Argument)

[AshvinP]

Below is a random sampling of responses of the sort referenced in the title with links and excerpts from the beginning, since posting the entire responses would make this post way too long. But even these segments contain enough to show the clear logical progression of Cleric's arguments in this regard. It's actually astounding that every single post from Cleric was of great length and many of them featured different logical approaches from different angles to reach the same conclusions. We are still waiting for one such argument from those who claim the ideal content of esoteric Western spiritual tradition (Anthroposophy) leads to similar results or worse results or any negative results in general. I cut off the sampling at five, but there are many more examples. And nearly all of them were in response to Eugene, with a couple to Adur and maybe one or two to others.

Note to Eugene: if you want to follow the links or do your own search to include more of your comments being responded to, feel free. You know my opinion - they are all basically variations of the same argument with very little if any logical progression from premises to conclusions. But people can decide for themselves.


viewtopic.php?p=10909#p10909

So I hope that we've cleared that Thinking path shouldn't be confused with intellectual-theoretical path. Instead, it is the direct facing with everything that chains the free spirit. It is Thinking path in the sense that we're not blindly following dogmatic rules and rituals but everything must pass through our clear cognition. Yet this is only the beginning. Everything passes through clear cognition but if it doesn't turn into Loving impulse in the Heart and devoted deeds of the Will, we are not yet human in the true sense of the word.

Here a question might be raised: "But Eastern practices lead to the pretty much the same results, even thought they don't focus on spiritual activity but on quiet contemplation and dissociation from the soul content. In this way I'm able to recognize these same deterring factors and become liberated from their influences. Now I can easily quiet the mind and desires, and spend long time in perfect stillness". Up to a point this is true. I myself have gone through yogic practices in the past - both physical and spiritual. (As a personal side note, I don't draw only on anthroposphy. Certainly spiritual science is my main path for the development of cognition but for the practical application of the Sun impulse in life, I have other sources too.) As far as it is all about mastering chaotic thoughts and desires, there are lots of different paths that can lead to that result. But it is precisely if we have attained this level of perfection that the mentioned 'postponing' already becomes an important issue.

Let me put this way. The principle that we must exercise our spiritual activity in order to become conscious of the spiritual environment holds true on all levels. I guess this is pretty understandable from the examples of smoking and concentration, even for people with no experience in spiritual practices. The interesting stuff happens once the quietness and serenity of soul is achieved. It is at this point where one becomes, for example, spiritual teacher like, say, Rupert Spira. One has attained to the grounds of Consciousness and he now can give Light to other souls, so that they can also achieve mastery and then peace and immensity.

At this stage it already makes real difference if one will continue to work with focused spiritual activity because in this case we are really on our way to the higher worlds.

It is not true that once we attain to peace, serenity, Love, joy, we have already done our job. Just as with smoking and concentration, if we continue with concentration of the spirit - the Universal Creative - we soon find out that even in these states of quiet and blissful contemplation, seemingly completely free of egoic elements, we're still flowing along certain, admittedly, higher order currents. But they are still currents. And as any other, we need to differentiate from them in order to become conscious of them. In the sea of serenity we no longer have any means to become conscious of these currents because we have cleared out all sources of noise and distractions. We're completely at one with the blissful flow of Consciousness. And this is precisely the issue. Unless we find a form of even higher order spiritual activity, we can never become conscious that this blissful flow is only one of the many more layers of the Worlds within which we are embedded.

viewtopic.php?p=6330#p6330

Ashvin's claim points to something else. It's not about putting anything under but discerning the proper relations of things. What you call the 'awareness-being that never changes' is actually something that we experience very vaguely. The thing is that we don't go anywhere if we simply recognize that 'awareness-being' exists. We only move forward if we metamorph in the direction where more and more of the creative activity of the beings that operate from the heights, becomes integrated into our perspectives. And this integration begins with thinking because in our ordinary state it contains in the purest form the unification of phenomena and noumena. It's from this point that we expand further. Otherwise it's not much different than saying "God's irreducible and can't be taken under thoughts". Fair enough, but it's also true that unless we investigate how God's activity is stepped down and reduced to intellectual activity, we'll also never be able to bridge the chasm (unless we believe that the chasm will be bridged for us after death). So Western esoterism has no problem with acknowledging that intellectual thinking is only a very crude form of spiritual activity. But it goes further and traces how this activity is stepped down from the Divine worlds. And this is not something that modern nondualism does. Mysticism says "combination of thoughts can never produce reality". Alright, Western esoterism says the same. But Mysticism freezes at that point because it throws away thinking as inessential (except for its practical Earthly aspects) and focuses on the general feeling of pure awareness. Western thought recognizes that thinking is the light-rope of our own Spirit that hangs from the Divine worlds into the sensory spectrum and it is by climbing that rope that we reach higher and higher forms of spiritual activity (of which the intellect and its rigid concepts are only limited manifestations). In this way we're not left only with a general and nebulous feeling for the unity of the world but we actually live within the creative activity of that world (every higher form of activity reveals the corresponding noumena - the beings that through their ideated activity support the matrix of our world). Where things become confused is when mysticism, which refuses that there's something of substance behind the Spiritual force concealed in thinking, thinks that reality can be found by focusing on the general feeling of being aware. From that point it is forced to see anything brought forwards by Western esoterism as intellectual speculations, as 'mere ideas', simply because it refuses to investigate for itself the deeper origins of cognitive spiritual activity, from which the concepts of spiritual science precipitate. Yes, what precipitates from spiritual science are intellectual concepts but they are projected from higher realms. They serve as medium of exchange, a translation between modes of cognition. It's a constant warning that things should never remain in the abstract when we begin to familiarize ourselves with the concepts of the higher worlds. They are only pointers to something of a different order.

viewtopic.php?p=5425#p5425

I think, Ashvin, you misinterpret such "higher cognition" as a kind of cognitive gnosis, but only of some kind of a higher order. But what all those mystics, Western and Eastern alike, were pointing to is a different kind of knowing - gnosis and agnosis at the same time, immediate, existential/experiential and prior to any cognition.

This is what is largely missing from the Eastern method - especially in its modern popular versions. What the above means is that we no longer think about external perceptions of the things but the inner nature of the things resounds within our transformed form of the universal essence. This is for example how Goethe groped towards the archetypal plant. With the senses we see the plant and can think about it in concepts. This is the first kind of cognition (in the context of the quote). In the second type of cognition we experience ourselves within the universal essence and there we experience the universal idea of the plant, which is the real architect and living force behind the actual plant. We experience that not as a concept (although we can project it into a concept so that the intellect can use it) but as living reality within the very essence of Consciousness. It's the creative work of the Spirit, full of meaning.

This is what is new. This is the gradient between our limited condition and the general truth. And we should be clear - the experience of the general truth that we can experience today in a mystical state, with emptied mind and open heart, is not how the general truth will be experienced at the end of evolution when this truth will have become full reality.

Think of an hourglass. The sand is slowly passing from one half into the other. This is a picture of evolution. Consciousness slowly flows through the pinhole of the "I" and in the process it experiences more and more of the full potential. Today the whole universe is 'external', through the gradual flow of evolution it will become 'internal'. To become 'internal' it means that we need to discover the utterances of the things, the inner nature of everything that we perceive with the senses.

The general truth of Eastern teachings is that consciousness is all there is and that's enough. The East doesn't focus on the flow of the sand - it practically doesn't exist for it. It's all about becoming aware of the general and timeless truth. The West recognizes that this is not enough. We'll never be able to solve the problems of humanity if we only focus on 'it's all consciousness' without investigating how to accommodate the flow through the pinhole. It would be like wanting to build a house while refusing to learn anything about construction and putting the effort into the realization.

viewtopic.php?p=5255#p5255

Liberation does not mean that we need to stop, deny, escape them or anything like that. It only means that any identification with them is dropped, but all these activities on all Spheres still perfectly continue along their developmental path. It's just that our path now becomes that of non-self-identification, because "behind the scene" of all these activities and forms there is a non-stopping and unconditioned presence of the Beingness and Awareness of Consciousness being continuously aware of itself and of all its forms that constantly unfold within it, but never self-identifies with them.

Let's first settle down that Occidental esoterism doesn't have a problem with misidentification and ego-mania. The fact that there's One Consciousness is perfectly clear. In another thread we reached the conclusion that it's a linguistic difference. What I can easily call "I"-experience without any ill feelings, you prefer to call individual conscious space, in order to avoid language traps like "I" and "self". We also mentioned that the language is not the real source of the problem. Even if we force newspeak to the masses this won't at the least promote morality. Neither diminished sense of agency helps. As an example I said that some of the worst crimes happen in a state of consciousness where the perpetrator has absolutely no sense of agency. Such people report in retrospect that they were practically observing the unfoldment of the act. The lack of sense of agency is not something that should easily be equated with higher development. Actually there're more examples than not, where lack of agency only wrecks havoc because the person is simply a blind outlet for passions of unknown origins. Anyone who has attempted any kind of work on self-improvement knows that the first condition is constant vigilance. The simple fact is that moral action is only possible when one has explored the depths of their own being and they are conscious of the driving forces behind the outermost appearances. Popular Eastern practices today place overemphasis on this dropping of the identification - like this in itself solves the problems. We have agreed previously that the Buddhist becomes a moral person not because he has de-identified but because of the earnest and tireless work on self perfection, such as the prescribed in the eightfold path. All of this we have commented previously.

As said, modern Initiation does not at all misidentify with anything. It simply proceeds where the Eastern method leaves off. This is not a criticism - this is how evolution works - every new development steps on the achievements of the previous. So what the Great Buddha taught remains working in full force. Buddha gave the methods for self-perfection. This means to be able to differentiate between the lower and the higher nature in man and employ all conscious effort to make the higher master over the lower - that's the essence of the eightfold path. The emphasis on de-identification becomes so talked about only later (for reasons that can be commented another time). Western esoterism steps on the foundations of the East and the Middle-East. The One Consciousness is a fact. The work on self-perfection is at the heart of things. Yet mere de-identification doesn't really change anything. Even if we wholeheartedly embrace the living experience of the One Consciousness, this doesn't mean that we find the causes of phenomena within our perspective, let alone the ability to influence them. This is an elementary fact. This is where spiritual evolution focuses next.

viewtopic.php?p=5138#p5138

OK, we finally arrived at the most interesting and key topic: can we penetrate into reality any further beyond the ground-base "pixels" of the direct perceptional experience and beyond our rational and intuitive thinking and imaginations with which we always strive to extrapolate the reality beyond the pixels? I do not know any other ways to know other than the direct experience of phenomena and cognition (that includes rational and intuitive thinking and imaginations). I can't claim that this is all that can be available to conscious beings. You seem to claim that you possess some other mysterious experiential-cognitive faculties that allow you to acquire deeper knowledge of the world of ideas/causes behind the "screen" of perceptions, and I admit that I do not have such abilities. Since I have no confirmation of such faculties based on my own experience, I have no grounds to believe you, but on the other hand, have no grounds to prove you wrong either, so my only option is to remain agnostic and indecisive about it. But of course, being a long-time meditator, I always observe and try to get insight into the origins, root causes and interconnectedness of the thinking and perceptional phenomena of my direct experience, I always try to push the boundary and look behind the screen using my intuition. But being honest with myself, I never fully believe that my intuitions are fully true. I'm aware of the interconnectedness of all things in the universe, but honestly do not know and never claim to know how exactly this interconnectedness works "behind the screen" of thinking and perceptions. In Buddhism this is simply called "dependent co-arising of phenomena". We can always trace causal patterns in our stream of phenomena (using our intuition of scientific models), nevertheless I can not know for sure how exactly this patterns are produced - whether it's a result of a super-computer simulation, or some natural forces, or a process of ideations in the divine mind.

There's nothing mysterious (in the sense of inexplicable) in the higher cognition. In fact, it's the most logical, consistent and satisfying process of development one can go through. Mathematics look mysterious to someone who has no experience in it and it'll forever remain mysterious unless they try to form at least a general idea.

The thing is that higher order perceptions emerge not when we penetrate behind the screen of phenomena 'in front' of us but 'behind our face' (in the sense of the Deep M@L picture). No matter how hard we stare at the screen of consciousness, all we ever discover there will be the "dependent co-arising of phenomena." We can only observe and think about the phenomena. Higher cognition is found not by staring at the screen and expecting some exotic and never seen before patterns, but by, so to speak, following the direction from which our "I" speaks forth the thoughts. It's the opposite direction of the screen. It would be very misleading if we imagine that we'll find the explanation of our consciousness by perceiving some processes on the screen of consciousness, in the way the neuroscientists wants to see them in front of him, in the interaction of neurons.

I won't repeat here what I've said in my other essay. This process is very gradual and leads first and foremost to self-knowledge. Only gradually within the depth of M@L we find the Cosmos. The first thing we see is the workings of our own psyche. When we think normally, most of the time we're not aware why we think the things we think and why we think them in the way we do. We live with the perceptions of our thoughts. When we step 'backwards' through the proper meditative methods we begin to sense more and more of the shaping factors of our cognition. Initially these are quite trivial - simple habits of thought, sympathies and antipathies and so on.

This already shows why such kind of self-development is not very popular. It's simply that people don't want to gain real knowledge of their being in such an intimate way. They would much rather imagine some fancy energies, dimensions, etc. and assume these are somehow responsible for their inner experience. And the Eastern methods of meditation (especially in the way they are imported and adapted in the West) don't do much to help the process. In fact, after a practitioner has spent years to de-identify with anything coming out of the ego, the last thing they would like to consider is that it is precisely the processes behind the face of the ego that must be investigated and which lead to the depths of M@L. The overemphasis on the mystical state simply puts the ego temporarily to sleep.

[lorenzop]

I don't detect any logical progression of thought in these fragments - I see ambiguous flowery language generated in nearly random order. Word Salad trick -> occaisionally a word is capitalized impying the word has some special meaning other than what a normal person might think..

[Cleric K]

It's interesting to observe a widespread dual standard of thinking in our age.

When we open a textbook on physics or on any other subject we're not familiar with, or simply a book in unknown language, most certainly we confront pretty much incoherent words and symbols. Yet common sense tells us that it is only because we need to do some work ourselves in order to approach the meaning contained in these books. When we come to spiritual matters things become strangely inverted - when we confront something that we don't immediately grasp, we simply declare it to be a nonsensical mess.

I'm not saying this because above we have quotes from my posts. I don't take any pride in anything I've written here. Neither I assume it lives up to some high writing style and eloquence. But all these things are so basic, that if it wasn't for the abnormality of the times we live in, it would be seen as quite embarrassing that such things even need to be explained - they would be considered simple and obvious facts of unprejudiced observation.

Yet, in our abnormal times we have no choice but try and explain these things. As I wrote here and here we need to at least try and grasp the general perspective from which these 'random thoughts' proceed. And this is possible. One doesn't need to change their way of life or even agree with them but they can be understood. Others have already testified about this:

Cleric,

It seems like a door has opened in my mind and I can now understand very clearly everything you are saying.

Cleric,

I think I'm coming to better understand what you are saying. Clearly, much of it seems foreign to me because I haven't been emersed in "spiritual science". ...

Clearly, neither Adur nor Steve are going to change their chosen paths (and no one is asking them to) but they were at least open enough to stir their inner being and look for the perspective from which things begin to fit in place.

If one doesn't admit for the possibility that just as the intellect gives a higher perspective for the spirit in comparison to animalistic instinctive life, so a higher form of human consciousness can be attained which puts the whole Earthly state in new light of above-personal cognition, then it would be more appropriate to explain the reasons for this non-admittance. Instead of simply declaring things to be a bunch of incoherent ramblings, it would be better to present some argumented thinking about why one considers that the personal intellect is the final and ultimate form of knowing (including knowing that suggests we must simply let go of all conscious contents and remain in general awareness of existence).

[AshvinP]

While we pretend to wait for Lorenzo's argumented thinking in support of his assertions above, I will let others know why they were motivated by pure prejudice and therefore no such argument or thinking is forthcoming.

 In my humble opinion the best and simplist approach is to be opposed to any possibility of life after death...

[Steve Petermann]

When we open a textbook on physics or on any other subject we're not familiar with, or simply a book in unknown language, most certainly we confront pretty much incoherent words and symbols. Yet common sense tells us that it is only because we need to do some work ourselves in order to approach the meaning contained in these books.

This admonition to "do some work" cuts both ways. Understanding a metaphysical system does require putting in considerable work. However, for those offering a metaphysical vision such that others can understand it, it behooves the author to "do some work" as well. A forum like this doesn't lend itself to expounding on a metaphysical system of thought. They are complex. While certain posts may address certain issues, they proceed into the past. So, when there are other posts based on those past expositions, they don't make sense to the new observer. Referring back to the prior posts doesn't help matters much because often those posts are also interconnected with many others as well. Systems are complex. It's a big ask for someone to navigate that maze. Offering a metaphysical line of thinking is difficult because foundations need to be established and built upon in some coherent fashion.

One of the things one has to admire about Bernardo is that he put in an incredible amount of work to explain his thinking with many books and articles. While I don't agree with his characterization of M@L, I still admire him for his efforts. For a spiritual seeker, it is helpful if there is a progression that starts with their concerns and then addresses those concerns in such a way they can understand. No easy task for metaphysical thinking but necessary if the message is to get across to a broad audience. After all, metaphysics is essentially a question/answer enterprise. So, for those offering a metaphysical vision, they also need to 'put in the work' to make it accessible in a coherent way.

Others have already testified about this:

Cleric,

It seems like a door has opened in my mind and I can now understand very clearly everything you are saying.

Cleric,

I think I'm coming to better understand what you are saying. Clearly, much of it seems foreign to me because I haven't been emersed in "spiritual science". ...

Clearly, neither Adur nor Steve are going to change their chosen paths (and no one is asking them to) but they were at least open enough to stir their inner being and look for the perspective from which things begin to fit in place.

You are right that I had an open mind in regard to what you were offering. It was new to me and my thought was there might be something useful. Evaluating a metaphysical explication is a process. Initially, certain thoughts and concepts may be foreign and require further investigation. The idea is that there may be some compelling truth to be had so further investigation is appropriate. When I became religiously unaffiliated many years ago, I went through the process of evaluating various other metaphysical systems to see if something seemed compelling to me. I had certain criteria that I felt needed to be met. At certain points in evaluating a system, there might be a no-go. This requires some judgment because a no-go might be 'fixable' with some minor modifications. However, if the no-go is based on fundamental principles, that is not fixable and a deal-breaker. Since metaphysics is speculative, this no-go might also raise its head when speculations become extravagant and also seem fanciful.

I do believe that almost any metaphysical thinking can have elements of truth. Now for me, personally, I get off the bus when, from my perspective, 'things go off the rails'. For instance, from my recent foray into Steiner's thought, I did feel things went off the rails quickly. Way too much speculation that seemed fanciful. Here's a couple of images that, in my opinion, reflect that:

For those who have evaluated metaphysical systems, there can be a sense of 'where things are going'. This 'where things are going" can be based on fundamental principles that are posited or the style of thought that is apparent. Whether or not this style-of-thought is appealing depends greatly on personality types. There is a full gamut of this. Some people like New Age approaches and others something more logically and empirically structured. I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all. If the primary motivation for a metaphysical system is the promotion of the good and beautiful, then it would be counterproductive to not recognize this and insists on one metaphysical approach. Blaming, in some way, those who don't agree isn't helpful. Every person is unique with their own existential path they are presented with.

[Eugene I]

We don't know the ultimate truth but we have a multitude of paradigms and hypothetical views on the reality in a multitude of philosophies, spiritual traditions and scientific theories, and many of them do have insights into various facets of the truth. Steiner's philosophy indeed has many of those insights and there is definitely a value in them, as well as it has its own inaccuracies and limitations. One of the features of a healthy spiritual and philosophical approach is openness, ability to admit its limitations, not pretending to know the ultimate truth and not considering itself the most superior paradigm among all others. However, it so happens that often such paradigms get transformed into sectarian forms by people who subscribe to them. The most common features of the sectarianism is closeness and rigidity - the belief that it knows the ultimate truth, and as a result of it, the sense of superiority - the belief that all other paradigms are inferior to it. Also, as the result of these two, we often see persistent preaching and propaganda by their members who feel compelled to preach their version of truth of their belief system to others.

So, we could benefit from critical analysis of Steiner's philosophy and deciphering its useful insights from its limitations and inaccuracies. But instead we are offered here a sectarian version of it closed to any critical approach. I do not think Steiner himself would appreciate and support that, he would probably be disappointed to see his philosophy turned into a sectarian belief system.

[AshvinP]

To all who have been commenting for more than 1-3 months:

We are still waiting for one such argument from those who claim the ideal content of esoteric Western spiritual tradition (Anthroposophy) leads to similar results or worse results or any negative results in general.

Steve:

Here is some "work done" by the author of this "metaphysical system" to get you started. I am sure we will be getting quotations, comments, and questions for clarification from you soon, like Anthony on the other thread, and we look forward to it! Maybe then some of the "no-go" (see unexamined prejudice) will be resolved, or at least you will have a reasonable basis for holding to such prejudices so they are no longer prejudices.


Essay: Beyond the Flat M@L - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=279

Essay: Man, Know Thyself - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=119

The Time-Consciousness Spectrum - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=509


And here are some of my own basic ones on the metamorphoses of the Spirit (evolution of consciousness), which is also critical and simple conceptual framework to understand:

Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Breaking Bad Habits - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=312

Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Incarnating the Christ - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=314

Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Transfiguring our Thinking (Part I) - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=325

Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Transfiguring our Thinking (Part II) - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=332

[Cleric K]

So, we could benefit from critical analysis of Steiner's philosophy and deciphering its useful insights from its limitations and inaccuracies. But instead we are offered here a sectarian version of it closed to any critical approach. I do not think Steiner himself would appreciate and support that, he would probably be disappointed to see his philosophy turned into a sectarian belief system.

Closed to critical approach? It's actually the standpoint that most gladly accepts critical approach. Simply because one doesn't need to arm himself with dogma and pre-fabricated answers to FAQs, but instead simply read out the World Content. It's like describing our room over the phone, while the other party tries to 'trap us' into some inconsistency. As long as we simply describe faithfully the contents of perceptions we need no effort to artificially synchronize facts such that they match our 'alibi'. As long as we are interested in Truth, we can be completely confident that careful investigation of the harmony of the facts expresses that truth. We don't need to defend it by manipulating the evidence, such that they fit our agenda. Our agenda is to unceasingly reveal the facts. This happens when we follow the World process in thinking. We touch the World content with our thinking feelers and cognitively follow its dynamics and rhythms. In simple words this means that we must follow things to their ultimate conclusions. The World process is not only the contents of the senses but also the life of feeling and the thinking process itself. When in addition to the sensory phenomena, we also follow the harmony of the facts into the soul and spirit domain - which in the ordinary sense means to simply investigate how thinking and actions are shaped by our perceptions, motives, sympathies, antipathies, opinions, prejudices - this World process becomes ever more comprehensive. Our own life of soul and spirit is integral part of that World process. We're not simply an ego existing outside of the World process, that has an opinion on what the world is and how it operates. Instead we'll be better off to see ourselves as continual emergence of the spirit from its cocoons - this is the World process itself.

Of course this kind of investigation demands a shift of perspective. We must not let our biography express its accumulated opinions but we must become investigator of this accumulation. This in itself means that we must become a different being, one that no longer sees in bodily life simply the means for satisfaction of desires (even if they are desires for aesthetic exploration) but one which aims to find the place of everything in the Cosmic spiritual organism. Not in order to satisfy some vain curiosity, to have a shiny model of the Universe but in order that we can guide the bodily, soul and spiritual processes in our metamorphic field, toward an ever expanding horizon. What is thus encompassed doesn't become smeared out uniformity but becomes the higher consciousness of the underlying unity of the diversity. This whole process is entirely creative and guided by the highest aesthetic feelings, so we're in no way deprived. In fact, once we taste the nature of this process we see that we are deprived precisely when we seek personal experiences in time, which never find their relation with the Cosmic context within which they occur. I've always imagined that it is precisely people with engineering/scientific background that should be most enthusiastic for the prospect that we can penetrate into the inner workings of reality.

It's no real criticism to say 'The things you speak of conflict my views and make me feel uncomfortable. You should respect everyone's right for free spirituality and not claim any superiority'. But we should not mix competition of equally abstract beliefs with investigation of the facts. I guess none of us here has seen their heart with their own eyes. Yet we know it's there. There are multitude of other readily experienceable facts that simply wouldn't make sense if the heart was not there. Then it's not a real criticism if someone says "I haven't seen my heart so it's my personal belief that it doesn't exist. You have your own belief that it exists but it is totalitarian to claim that you possess some kind of truth."

Real criticism should not be based on feeling uncomfortable by being challenged but on delving into the harmony of the facts. In this sense, I would most gladly address criticism which, for example, (in the context of the analogies in the other thread) places argumentation why the intellect should be the final and ultimate form of cognition. But it's simply not serious to say "I hold that there is no such thing as higher cognition because I dislike the implications of where this would lead. For this reason I'll declare any such claims to be sectarian, narrow, one-dimensional, etc."

[Steve Petermann]

Here is some "work done" by the author of this "metaphysical system" to get you started.

That's not the kind of work I was talking about. You list a bunch of posts from the past to address various topics. Are there some foundational integrating principles? This is why I suggested the need for something less fragmented and integrated somewhere as Bernardo did. Is there a website or book that does this?

So what is the seeker to make of those posts? Is there a coherent system as their basis? If not, this may appeal to New Agers who aren't that interested in systematic formulations. But for those who do seek something reasonable and systematic, how would they evaluate the various thoughts? Typically systematic metaphysical formulations address their rationale, revelatory resources, and methodology. This is important in the evaluative process. The great systematic theologian, Paul Tillich went to great lengths in his first of three volumes of "Systematic Theology" to explain his rationale and methodology. With that explicitly stated, people could decide whether or not to do the hard work to extend their attention.

[Soul_of_Shu]

That's not the kind of work I was talking about. You list a bunch of posts from the past to address various topics. Are there some foundational integrating principles? This is why I suggested the need for something less fragmented and integrated somewhere as Bernardo did. Is there a website or book that does this?

So what is the seeker to make of those posts? Is there a coherent system as their basis? If not, this may appeal to New Agers who aren't that interested in systematic formulations. But for those who do seek something reasonable and systematic, how would they evaluate the various thoughts? Typically systematic metaphysical formulations address their rationale, revelatory resources, and methodology. This is important in the evaluative process. The great systematic theologian, Paul Tillich went to great lengths in his first of three volumes of "Systematic Theology" to explain his rationale and methodology. With that explicitly stated, people could decide whether or not to do the hard work to extend their attention.

Yeah, while I can appreciate the essays offered here—essay writing not being my forte, though I can offer poetry galore—consolidating it into a book or two would be welcome. Given how many words Cleric has relayed onto the electron screen of this forum, a book might have been no more time consuming. Of course, publishing and promoting it are another challenge altogether.