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

[Soul_of_Shu]

Well, I am pretty sure that I am the only person who has attempted on this thread to draw attention to my own egoic flaws ...

Good thing too, otherwise who would've noticed any?!

[AshvinP]

Well, I am pretty sure that I am the only person who has attempted on this thread to draw attention to my own egoic flaws ...

Good thing too, otherwise who would've noticed any?!

Nice one.

But you are noticing all the wrong flaws, my friend, because you are imagining every person as a thought-world unto himself. That is what we keep trying to point out here. Of what interest for productive discussion is my "cross ex lawyerly" approach when we can explore the very core of prejudice against spiritual Thinking activity in the modern age which is the root of all particular manifestations of egoic personality feuds, including every single one featured on this and other similar threads (mine included)? The reason I keep responding to your comments of this sort is because I can sense you still don't really perceive the connection between that "philosophical" prejudice against Thinking and our immanent experiences-behaviors in life, including on this forum. Your constantly expressed frustration with the "tit-for-tat" between myself and others is evidence that the connection has not yet sunk in. Don't take this the wrong way... I don't know how many more ways I can make clear my own ego is not immune to the modern prejudice and that I often only overcome it after much thoughtful Self-reflection, which is by no means natural to me just yet.

What is natural for us is to see effect Y somewhat close in spatiotemporal 'proximity' to "cause" X, and then we just leave it there! There is actually a legal element which must be proved in civil and criminal actions - "proximate cause". It is understood that there can be infinite actual causes for any given injurious result, so the plaintiff/prosecutor must prove that the defendant's actions were the proximate cause of the injury, which generally means the injury was a forseeable consequence of the action. In metaphysics, we cannot rely on such convenient fictons if we are serious about investigating the essence of Reality. We can't leave it at the most obviously proximate reason why Eugene and myself keep going back and forth, which is basically the fact that I completely disagree with his arguments and his approach and don't want his comments to mislead others about what we are writing, and I have a very hard time letting what I perceive as misrepresentations stand unaddressed. If we want to look for the transpersonal, universal, holistic principles which make sense of these phenomena, then we can't stop there.

Like I keep saying, if we habitually stop there, then we might want to reflect on what it is we actually "want" to look for. You may see all of what is written above as yet another attempt to simply deflect blame from myself, and to "overthink" a really simple cause-and-effect relation occurring here, in which case I can only sigh and say I tried...

[ScottRoberts]

The fact is, Eugene's right. You are a preacher - in this day and age, you could hardly be more preachy.

What, in particular, do you consider "preachy" in how Cleric or Ashvin have presented and argued for their views, as distinct from the way BK, say, presents and argues for his?

[Eugene I]

What, in particular, do you consider "preachy" in how Cleric or Ashvin have presented and argued for their views, as distinct from the way BK, say, presents and argues for his?

The distinction is fuzzy but there is a difference. BK created his own platform and keeps all his content there. You and Steve did it too. If you post on forums, you just paste links to your blog, but do not dump volumes of your writings there every other day. If someone disagrees with you, you give arguments but do not accuse anyone of being egoic for disagreeing. Same applies to BK and Steve. Good quality philosophies and spiritual teachings do need some amount of publicity to reach to their potential auditory and do need discussions to present their strong points, but do not need persistent preaching, invasive tactics and aggressive defense. The truth speaks for itself once it reaches its auditory, it does not need to be enforced.

[AshvinP]

What, in particular, do you consider "preachy" in how Cleric or Ashvin have presented and argued for their views, as distinct from the way BK, say, presents and argues for his?

The distinction is fuzzy but there is a difference. BK created his own platform and keeps all his content there. You and Steve did it too. If you post on forums, you just paste links to your blog, but do not dump volumes of your writings there every other day. If someone disagrees with you, you give arguments but do not accuse anyone of being egoic for disagreeing. Same applies to BK and Steve. Good quality philosophies and spiritual teachings do need some amount of publicity to reach to their potential auditory and do need discussions to present their strong points, but do not need persistent preaching, invasive tactics and aggressive defense. The truth speaks for itself once it reaches its auditory, it does not need to be enforced.

So it is "preaching" to post one's philosophical and spiritual views on a metaphysical forum (not even the Essentia website, but the forum created specifically by BK for readers to post about relevant issues) without linking to another blog? Anyone can go to the first page of this thread and see how many times Cleric used "Christ", "Christianity", "Steiner", or "Anthroposophy" in the 5 lengthy comments I posted. A grand total of once, and this was the context it was used in - "(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.)" If one wants to follow the links I provided or search for his comments, they will find those things are only brought up when someone else (usually you, Eugene) first mentions them and/or asks about them.

Let's say we were both to start a blog, post essays there, and only post links back to it here on the forum. What are we allowed to include along with the links, comrade? One sentence, two sentences, one paragraph...? How often are we allowed to post links to essays with our allotted portion of paragraphs? How often can we comment on someone else's topic when what we want to write is directly relevant to it, and how many words can those posts be? Even though it's very unlikely, I hope you reflect just a little bit on what you are proposing and try to think through the consequences, especially if your proposal does not only apply to the topics you dislike, but the logically-argued posts of anyone already on this forum, or who may potentially join to comment on this forum, who doesn't have their own blog to link to yet. This failure to think logical consequences through is not only incidentally related to your habit of keeping Thinking forever in the blind spot.

[ScottRoberts]

What, in particular, do you consider "preachy" in how Cleric or Ashvin have presented and argued for their views, as distinct from the way BK, say, presents and argues for his?

The distinction is fuzzy but there is a difference. BK created his own platform and keeps all his content there. You and Steve did it too. If you post on forums, you just paste links to your blog, but do not dump volumes of your writings there every other day.

Anthroposophists don't need to set up a platform, as there already is one: rsarchive.org. There being so much on it, it is quite difficult to find just what is relevant to a current discussion, so Ashvin and Cleric are providing a service to state in their own words what is there.

If someone disagrees with you, you give arguments but do not accuse anyone of being egoic for disagreeing.

We are all "egoic". The question is, is one's particular ego getting in the way of the truth? First, one needs to understand what Steiner means by 'ego'. (Note: "the ego" is how English translators have translated Steiner's "das 'Ich'", or "the 'I'". So when I way we are all egoic, it just means we can meaningfully use the word 'I'.) Steiner defines the 'I' as being the fourth principle of the human constitution, the other three being the physical body, the etheric, or "life force" body -- it's what you feel when a limb "goes to sleep", and in general keeps the life processes going -- you're dead when it leaves the physical body), and the astral, or sentient, body -- what feels pleasure and pain. Steiner then defines the ego:

Were the astral body left to its own resources, feelings of pleasure and pain, and sensations of hunger and thirst, would take place within it, but there would be lacking the consciousness of something lasting in all these feelings. It is not the permanent as such, which is here designated the "ego", but rather that which experiences this permanent element. In this domain, conceptions must be very exactly expressed if misunderstandings are not to arise. With the becoming aware of something permanent, lasting, within the changing inner experience, begins the dawn of "ego consciousness".

Now, in addition to three bodies, Steiner also distinguishes three souls: the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the consciousness (or spirit) soul. Human consciousness evolution within recorded history can be described as the ego moving from the sentient soul (as it was in pre-Axial age time) into the intellectual soul where, for you, me, and Ashvin, it currently resides. Anthroposophy's goal is to move the ego (remember: the 'I') into the consciousness soul (it appears that Cleric's has done so, or is in the process of doing so). Just as the sentient-soul-bound ego is not aware of the intellectual soul, so our intellectual-soul-bound egos are not aware of the consciousness soul -- to us it appears as nothingness -- see Cleric's recent post with his 'aliasing' analogy for more on this.

Anyway, when Ashvin accuses your ego of getting in the way, he is merely referring to a problem we all have with our intellectual-soul-bound egos, that of attachment to intellectual abstractions. He is pointing out cases where your particular attachments hide a latent dualism, for example.

Same applies to BK and Steve. Good quality philosophies and spiritual teachings do need some amount of publicity to reach to their potential auditory and do need discussions to present their strong points, but do not need persistent preaching, invasive tactics and aggressive defense.

Persistent, yes, but invasive tactics? aggressive defense? Methinks you are just not liking the volume and thoroughness of Ashvin's and Cleric's posts. I fail to see why it should be called 'preaching'.

The truth speaks for itself once it reaches its auditory, it does not need to be enforced.

When BK's idealism is misconstrued as solipsism or New Age quackery, does this not need rebutting? Ashvin and Cleric (and I) see you as misconstruing Anthroposophy, so rebuttals are in order. In other words, as we see it, Anthroposophy has not yet reached your auditory.

[AshvinP]

What, in particular, do you consider "preachy" in how Cleric or Ashvin have presented and argued for their views, as distinct from the way BK, say, presents and argues for his?

The distinction is fuzzy but there is a difference. BK created his own platform and keeps all his content there. You and Steve did it too. If you post on forums, you just paste links to your blog, but do not dump volumes of your writings there every other day.

Anthroposophists don't need to set up a platform, as there already is one: rsarchive.org. There being so much on it, it is quite difficult to find just what is relevant to a current discussion, so Ashvin and Cleric are providing a service to state in their own words what is there.

If someone disagrees with you, you give arguments but do not accuse anyone of being egoic for disagreeing.

We are all "egoic". The question is, is one's particular ego getting in the way of the truth? First, one needs to understand what Steiner means by 'ego'. (Note: "the ego" is how English translators have translated Steiner's "das 'Ich'", or "the 'I'". So when I way we are all egoic, it just means we can meaningfully use the word 'I'.) Steiner defines the 'I' as being the fourth principle of the human constitution, the other three being the physical body, the etheric, or "life force" body -- it's what you feel when a limb "goes to sleep", and in general keeps the life processes going -- you're dead when it leaves the physical body), and the astral, or sentient, body -- what feels pleasure and pain. Steiner then defines the ego:

Were the astral body left to its own resources, feelings of pleasure and pain, and sensations of hunger and thirst, would take place within it, but there would be lacking the consciousness of something lasting in all these feelings. It is not the permanent as such, which is here designated the "ego", but rather that which experiences this permanent element. In this domain, conceptions must be very exactly expressed if misunderstandings are not to arise. With the becoming aware of something permanent, lasting, within the changing inner experience, begins the dawn of "ego consciousness".

Now, in addition to three bodies, Steiner also distinguishes three souls: the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the consciousness (or spirit) soul. Human consciousness evolution within recorded history can be described as the ego moving from the sentient soul (as it was in pre-Axial age time) into the intellectual soul where, for you, me, and Ashvin, it currently resides. Anthroposophy's goal is to move the ego (remember: the 'I') into the consciousness soul (it appears that Cleric's has done so, or is in the process of doing so). Just as the sentient-soul-bound ego is not aware of the intellectual soul, so our intellectual-soul-bound egos are not aware of the consciousness soul -- to us it appears as nothingness -- see Cleric's recent post with his 'aliasing' analogy for more on this.

Anyway, when Ashvin accuses your ego of getting in the way, he is merely referring to a problem we all have with our intellectual-soul-bound egos, that of attachment to intellectual abstractions. He is pointing out cases where your particular attachments hide a latent dualism, for example.

Same applies to BK and Steve. Good quality philosophies and spiritual teachings do need some amount of publicity to reach to their potential auditory and do need discussions to present their strong points, but do not need persistent preaching, invasive tactics and aggressive defense.

Persistent, yes, but invasive tactics? aggressive defense? Methinks you are just not liking the volume and thoroughness of Ashvin's and Cleric's posts. I fail to see why it should be called 'preaching'.

The truth speaks for itself once it reaches its auditory, it does not need to be enforced.

When BK's idealism is misconstrued as solipsism or New Age quackery, does this not need rebutting? Ashvin and Cleric (and I) see you as misconstruing Anthroposophy, so rebuttals are in order. In other words, as we see it, Anthroposophy has not yet reached your auditory.

What he said

[Eugene I]

When BK's idealism is misconstrued as solipsism or New Age quackery, does this not need rebutting? Ashvin and Cleric (and I) see you as misconstruing Anthroposophy, so rebuttals are in order. In other words, as we see it, Anthroposophy has not yet reached your auditory.

I don't see BK's idealism as solipsism or New age, I see it as a legitimate perspective on Reality having many valid points but also limited and missing in many ways. My view on Anthroposophy is similar. The question is how much a particular philosophy is open to admitting its limitations and missing aspects, to criticism and to flexibility to adjust its own views.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Don't take this the wrong way...

No worries with that. Call me a shiftless waste of space for all I care. Your analysis above is helpful, as well as Scott's, so thanks both for that. All I can offer as a gesture of gratitude, and a plea for patience with this mod's own foibles, is this deep gassho to Nature on this glorious autumnal morn ...

Often I have stood enamored by the light
of autumn's theater, its leafscape, its vast
mosaic of mysteries and parquetries of past,
all shimmering with such ardent colour
that if I were to live until the final hour
of time, and never again see crimson
or gold, I would not lose their winsome
memory. And I have paused to ponder
frostwork on a fated flower, and wonder
what ironic god could have begot
such poignant beauty from out of rot.
Yet no tears of regret are heaven-sent,
the high woodwinds do not lament
the leaves, loosed by the ruffled applause
of birds, now dancing through sunlit flaws,
as if they hear some seraphic symphony,
some music of spheres denied to me.
And now I know that this is the way
we long for, to abandon bleak dismay,
and live not in yesterday, or tomorrow,
but to go with the wind here and now,
to surrender to life's ephemeral flash,
and fall as willing as we fought in flesh.
Yes, this is what we seek so desperately,
to take that single step into eternity.
What holds us back, what fear of fears,
causes us to count the dwindling years,
and grasp, possessively, onto the circles
of our lives? For if not for miracles
of patient seed and candescent fire,
latent in seasons of dream and desire,
in what wasted world would we belong,
where silent would fall the wind-sent song,
and leaves forever fade from sight.

[Eugene I]

Anyway, when Ashvin accuses your ego of getting in the way, he is merely referring to a problem we all have with our intellectual-soul-bound egos, that of attachment to intellectual abstractions. He is pointing out cases where your particular attachments hide a latent dualism, for example.

Most spiritual traditions and teachings hold similar position and there is definitely truth in it. Yet, there is a flaw in the argument of "you disagree with such and such because your ego is getting in the way" - this argument cannot be legitimately used in philosophical discussions. Suppose I propose a teaching that has some particular misconception of flaw, but I also claim that my view can only be understood from the beyond-egoic perspective and one needs to transcend its own ego and intellectual level of understanding to be able to comprehend it. Now, if anyone disagrees with my flawed view, I would point to them that it's their egoic and intellectual perspective that gets into the way and does not allow them to see the truth. But my opponent may have a different view on the subject, while holding the same position on the limitation of the egoic intellect, so they with use the same argument against me, and the discussion quickly comes to the dead end - we both accuse each other of viewing the opponents position from the ego-mind perspective. Such argument is most often used by sectarians and all kinds of self-proclaimed gurus. This is why good quality teachings and teachers usually do not use this argument in disputes; they may point to the fact that the egoic intellect needs to be transcended to fully comprehend their teachings, but do not use this as an argument in disputes.