Meditation exercise on "separate me"

[AshvinP]

They only remain speculations when we are on the outside looking in. You have acknowledged that remains the case with nondual realization, despite being a necessary first step. It is no longer the case with higher cognition, once the glove has been turned inside out. Then the spiritual worlds inflow our human life, as we are made more conscious of how they have always been present, structuring our experience, making sense of our stream of becoming. The beings across the threshold are with us now, lawfully structuring the Earthly environment through us.

Training for higher cognition is very much furthered by diligently seeking answers to questions such as, 'why do we want spiritual truths across the threshold to remain speculations?' Speculations don't carry the motivating force of reasoned convictions. They don't stand before us as living Ideals which judge our current state of being and give us concrete revelations of how we are falling short, as well as feedback for what needs to be done to transform ourselves and attune to the Cosmic Will. These things, speculations can't do. So is it any wonder we want them to remain speculations? They may be speculations for us, but we want them to be speculations for everyone else too, now and forever. Higher cognition demands we ask and answer such questions for ourselves, from within ourselves, which is a big reason why the path to it is so strenuously avoided.

The reason I said that they are speculations is because, on the forum discussions, they will remain speculations due to differences in people's opinions. For me, based on my first-person spiritual experience and the knowledge I got from it, they are not speculations, but the spiritual intuitions and meanings I experientially know, including those regarding reincarnations. But even if we get some degree of knowledge of the higher meanings, they are inevitably limited and incomplete in our human form, so there will always be some degree of speculation and uncertainty.

They will always be limited and incomplete in our non-human, non-corporeal form as well, until we are perfectly united with the Godhead and responsible for all of creation. Should that stop us from striving towards the most complete image possible which can inform our Earthly decisions? Again, we aren't talking about theoretical accumulation of facts here. It is simply impossible for the intellect to clearly imagine the sort of knowledge attained through higher cognition. It is not only vague intuitions and meanings of the archetypal realms. The best we can do is approach humbly through analogies of the sort Cleric continually provides here.

Through higher cognition, we can discern precisely the planetary spheres and non-corporeal beings we journey through across the threshold, both on ascent and descent. We can discern the qualities and capacities they resonate with so that our continuity of consciousness can be prolonged, and we can remain in a wakeful state as we plan our next incarnation, seeding its curvatures of potential. As mentioned many times before, this work of developing those capacities which are as treasured gold across the threshold can only be done on Earth. If we expect that it can be procrastinated until death, then we will be sorely disappointed. Our wiser, higher Self already knows that is the case, which is why we are given continuous prompts in the form of inner contradictions and moral conscience. All of this is known and can be known by each individual who is so willing. But the path to this knowledge always travels through the ego and the soul-life, in which many shadowy habits and tendencies and passions lurk.

[Stranger]

But the path to this knowledge always travels through the ego and the soul-life, in which many shadowy habits and tendencies and passions lurk.

Of course it travels through the ego, we are right now in the ego, so it is already given. The question is - what is the direction of the path, where does the curvature leads us to? The answer was given clearly by Christ: it leads to Oneness by transcending the ego. The ego was supposed to be only a temporary and transitional evolutionary phase, and since the incarnation of Christ it became a de-evolutionary force. The more we procrastinate it by remaining to exist in the ego mode, the more we impede our own spiritual evolution.

[AshvinP]

But the path to this knowledge always travels through the ego and the soul-life, in which many shadowy habits and tendencies and passions lurk.

Of course it travels through the ego, we are right now in the ego, so it is already given. The question is - what is the direction of the path, where does the curvature leads us to? The answer was given clearly by Christ: it leads to Oneness by transcending the ego. The ego was supposed to be only a temporary and transitional evolutionary phase, and since the incarnation of Christ it became a de-evolutionary force. The more we procrastinate it by remaining to exist in the ego mode, the more we impede our own spiritual evolution.

That is not the question being discussed on this forum lately. That question has been asked and answered for many thousands of years. Where does our journey lead? To Oneness. To God in Heaven. To Theosis. To the Cosmic Will. Etc. No one has ever disputed Oneness, non-duality, or anything similar. As Bergson said, the immediate search for the eternal is not the path of intuitive thinking. No being makes evolutionary progress by starting from the end goal, or what it feels to be the end goal in its current egoic state, in abstract thought or mystical experience.

We have already established this, Eugene. Every time we make this argument you respond, 'yes, this nondual realization is only the beginning step and there is much more work to be done, over many more lifetimes (on Earth or elsewhere), and higher cognition is completely necessary to follow the curvatures to the end goal of the Christ ideal, etc.' So then we start exploring what all of that means, not in broad and vague abstractions, but in concrete and living details, so that practical orientation can be established, and you suddenly lose interest. You then start referring to the 'separate me' and the vague Oneness again, or alternatively to infinite paths across the threshold which accommodate every possible desire for continued evolution.

What is within this perspective which keeps losing interest at the threshold of the inner workings of its intimate spiritual activity? That is how we begin to approach higher cognition and spiritual worlds proper. There is no chance if we want to 'play nice', placating and pacifying, and making everyone feel good about their current state of being and their choice of path, wishfully hoping they all merge together after death. This is clearly not the way of Christ. That way requires real, concrete, actionable inner sacrifices in pursuit of the Kingdom, and it's not a matter of indifference what sort of sacrifices are made. There are many substances and practices which can dissociate us from the ego and bring immediate relief from the 'separate me' struggles of existence, but those are not genuine sacrifices worthy of the Kingdom.

Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.

[Stranger]

What is within this perspective which keeps losing interest at the threshold of the inner workings of its intimate spiritual activity? That is how we begin to approach higher cognition and spiritual worlds proper. There is no chance if we want to 'play nice', placating and pacifying, and making everyone feel good about their current state of being and their choice of path, wishfully hoping they all merge together after death. This is clearly not the way of Christ. That way requires real, concrete, actionable inner sacrifices in pursuit of the Kingdom, and it's not a matter of indifference what sort of sacrifices are made. There are many substances and practices which can dissociate us from the ego and bring immediate relief from the 'separate me' struggles of existence, but those are not genuine sacrifices worthy of the Kingdom.

Absolutely right, it requires consistent everyday practice, including meditation, prayer, higher cognition development, and applying the results in everyday life. The ego complex, remaining in subconscious and propelled by its karmic thinking patterns, constantly produces desires, thoughts, and drags us into daydreaming mindless mode where we lose awareness of our Self. Our work consists in developing higher spiritual cognition, training to remain in awareness/mindfulness and connection to the higher realms and the Self, and continuously remaining in such awareness during daily activities, it includes deciphering the phenomena produced by the ego and continuously sacrificing them without identifying with them. But to do that efficiently, we need to inquire deeply into the mechanics of how the ego complex functions, and this meditation on "separate me" in this topic is to do exactly that.

If you ask me, all of this is the main focus of my life. As I said, I meditate 1-2 hours a day and then attempt to remain in that state achieved in meditation during the rest of the day. I play music and draw on weekends to relax and develop my aesthetic layers of cognition, but that is not my main focus. I will not be discussing personal spiritual experiences on public forums, and this is my right to do that, but I'm interested in discussing the methods of spiritual practice. And by the way, this thread was supposed to be a discussion on one of the meditation methods for spiritual practice.

Your position so far was: if I do the spiritual practice not exactly word-by-word how it was described by Steiner, or do any practices that were not described by Steiner, then I do it all wrong. I do not agree with that, this is a very sectarian approach. I do include Steiner's methods and exercises offered by Cleric in my practice, but I will not be discussing the results on the forum and reporting them to you because you are not my spiritual teacher. In the authentic spiritual traditions the spiritual experiences of students can only be discussed in private with the teachers, and I am adhering to this practice. But let's put it to rest: the fact that I'm refusing to discuss the results and experiences of spiritual practices does not mean I am not interested or not doing the practices. I am actually interested and I am doing them all the time.

[lorenzop]

That is not the question being discussed on this forum lately. That question has been asked and answered for many thousands of years. Where does our journey lead? To Oneness. To God in Heaven. To Theosis. To the Cosmic Will. Etc. No one has ever disputed Oneness, non-duality, or anything similar. As Bergson said, the immediate search for the eternal is not the path of intuitive thinking. No being makes evolutionary progress by starting from the end goal, or what it feels to be the end goal in its current egoic state, in abstract thought or mystical experience.

It's not practical, and likely impossible, to set as a goal something one does not understand, especially if it's merely a set of flowery words. All we can do is select something high and noble - and go for that.
However, this is a spiritual\metaphysical forum - we can set our goal to be enlightenment, Oneness, The Kingdom, Non Duality, etc. - we are blessed to even consider these as our highest and most noble goal - even if we don't entirely understand them.
If one is walking through a forest and on occaision sees a glimpse of a glistening castle, it's enough to set our goal to approach and enter that castle - we don't have to concern ourselves with what we may find within it's wall, or beyond.
It's a blessing to have these discussions, and it's a blessing to find humor in differences in folk's speculations re what lies around the next corner.
Hey - we are a hoot.

[AshvinP]

That is not the question being discussed on this forum lately. That question has been asked and answered for many thousands of years. Where does our journey lead? To Oneness. To God in Heaven. To Theosis. To the Cosmic Will. Etc. No one has ever disputed Oneness, non-duality, or anything similar. As Bergson said, the immediate search for the eternal is not the path of intuitive thinking. No being makes evolutionary progress by starting from the end goal, or what it feels to be the end goal in its current egoic state, in abstract thought or mystical experience.

It's not practical, and likely impossible, to set as a goal something one does not understand, especially if it's merely a set of flowery words. All we can do is select something high and noble - and go for that.
However, this is a spiritual\metaphysical forum - we can set our goal to be enlightenment, Oneness, The Kingdom, Non Duality, etc. - we are blessed to even consider these as our highest and most noble goal - even if we don't entirely understand them.
If one is walking through a forest and on occaision sees a glimpse of a glistening castle, it's enough to set our goal to approach and enter that castle - we don't have to concern ourselves with what we may find within it's wall, or beyond.
It's a blessing to have these discussions, and it's a blessing to find humor in differences in folk's speculations re what lies around the next corner.
Hey - we are a hoot.

It's not merely a set of flowery words. It is literally pages and pages of illustrations, analogies, metaphors, conceptual descriptions, references to key texts like PoF, helpful summaries and explanations of those key texts, etc. All of it is at our fingertips, easily accessible and surveyable whenever we have internet access. There is no restriction on how many times we can read the pages. Now if we approach all of that like, 'I couldn't really get it the first few times, so it must be impossible for me to understand', then obviously everything will remain flowery words, for us. For others, like Federica and myself, who were just as unfamiliar with PoF and SS as everyone else here, but decided to accept the gracious offers of others to help orient us, and are making the inner effort to orient ourselves, things are much different.

It's obvious that merely setting a goal doesn't help us attain it. I can set a goal to be an expert musician and composer and conduct a symphony, but the mere setting of the goal doesn't give me any practical orientation on how to go about attaining its fruits. It isn't a straight line from the forest we are entangled in with our ordinary cognition-perception to the castle of Oneness . Neither does it help us if we see a mirage of a castle in the desert of our modern intellectual cognition, and make a bee-line for that, never getting closer but hoping we will magically be teleported to it after death. It most certainly doesn't help to treat these discussions as episodes of Friends where we sit around in a coffee shop gossiping and offering speculative opinions on existential reality. If that's our interest in being here, then we shouldn't be surprised when we never enter the castle but end up wandering in circles around the forest.

[Federica]

It's not practical, and likely impossible, to set as a goal something one does not understand, especially if it's merely a set of flowery words. All we can do is select something high and noble - and go for that.
However, this is a spiritual\metaphysical forum - we can set our goal to be enlightenment, Oneness, The Kingdom, Non Duality, etc. - we are blessed to even consider these as our highest and most noble goal - even if we don't entirely understand them.
If one is walking through a forest and on occaision sees a glimpse of a glistening castle, it's enough to set our goal to approach and enter that castle - we don't have to concern ourselves with what we may find within it's wall, or beyond.
It's a blessing to have these discussions, and it's a blessing to find humor in differences in folk's speculations re what lies around the next corner.
Hey - we are a hoot.

Lorenzo,
I agree with Ashvin, but I'm still posting a comment just to say that it's nice to see you using a metaphor!!
But other than that, your description of the forest and the castle would work if we were kids, and reality was an amusement park. But soon enough the park will close its doors, and one is left dealing with, well... reality. And reality requires that we do our best work, and some more, to get it right and to be worthy of what we were gifted with. Or better: not to become the thieves of what we were entrusted with.

[lorenzop]

It's not merely a set of flowery words. It is literally pages and pages of illustrations, analogies, metaphors, conceptual descriptions, references to key texts like PoF, helpful summaries and explanations of those key texts, etc. All of it is at our fingertips, easily accessible and surveyable whenever we have internet access. There is no restriction on how many times we can read the pages. Now if we approach all of that like, 'I couldn't really get it the first few times, so it must be impossible for me to understand', then obviously everything will remain flowery words, for us. For others, like Federica and myself, who were just as unfamiliar with PoF and SS as everyone else here, but decided to accept the gracious offers of others to help orient us, and are making the inner effort to orient ourselves, things are much different.

It's obvious that merely setting a goal doesn't help us attain it. I can set a goal to be an expert musician and composer and conduct a symphony, but the mere setting of the goal doesn't give me any practical orientation on how to go about attaining its fruits. It isn't a straight line from the forest we are entangled in with our ordinary cognition-perception to the castle of Oneness . Neither does it help us if we see a mirage of a castle in the desert of our modern intellectual cognition, and make a bee-line for that, never getting closer but hoping we will magically be teleported to it after death. It most certainly doesn't help to treat these discussions as episodes of Friends where we sit around in a coffee shop gossiping and offering speculative opinions on existential reality. If that's our interest in being here, then we shouldn't be surprised when we never enter the castle but end up wandering in circles around the forest.

For me and except perhaps a few dozen people on the planet, most of the phrases here appear as random combinations of 'flowery' words.

[lorenzop]

It's not practical, and likely impossible, to set as a goal something one does not understand, especially if it's merely a set of flowery words. All we can do is select something high and noble - and go for that.
However, this is a spiritual\metaphysical forum - we can set our goal to be enlightenment, Oneness, The Kingdom, Non Duality, etc. - we are blessed to even consider these as our highest and most noble goal - even if we don't entirely understand them.
If one is walking through a forest and on occaision sees a glimpse of a glistening castle, it's enough to set our goal to approach and enter that castle - we don't have to concern ourselves with what we may find within it's wall, or beyond.
It's a blessing to have these discussions, and it's a blessing to find humor in differences in folk's speculations re what lies around the next corner.
Hey - we are a hoot.

Lorenzo,
I agree with Ashvin, but I'm still posting a comment just to say that it's nice to see you using a metaphor!!
But other than that, your description of the forest and the castle would work if we were kids, and reality was an amusement park. But soon enough the park will close its doors, and one is left dealing with, well... reality. And reality requires that we do our best work, and some more, to get it right and to be worthy of what we were gifted with. Or better: not to become the thieves of what we were entrusted with.

What's a meta for (ha ha)?
re this amusement park, I don't think it's shutting down anytime soon.
and I guess I'm more of a practical fella' - I attend to what is close at hand and don't pursue what might or could be.
But to get to the heart of the matter, I don't believe there is a spiritual layer\wrapper of immortal ideas or hierarchy of beings. This may be what distinguishes me from Ashwin and Cleric.

[AshvinP]

It's not merely a set of flowery words. It is literally pages and pages of illustrations, analogies, metaphors, conceptual descriptions, references to key texts like PoF, helpful summaries and explanations of those key texts, etc. All of it is at our fingertips, easily accessible and surveyable whenever we have internet access. There is no restriction on how many times we can read the pages. Now if we approach all of that like, 'I couldn't really get it the first few times, so it must be impossible for me to understand', then obviously everything will remain flowery words, for us. For others, like Federica and myself, who were just as unfamiliar with PoF and SS as everyone else here, but decided to accept the gracious offers of others to help orient us, and are making the inner effort to orient ourselves, things are much different.

It's obvious that merely setting a goal doesn't help us attain it. I can set a goal to be an expert musician and composer and conduct a symphony, but the mere setting of the goal doesn't give me any practical orientation on how to go about attaining its fruits. It isn't a straight line from the forest we are entangled in with our ordinary cognition-perception to the castle of Oneness . Neither does it help us if we see a mirage of a castle in the desert of our modern intellectual cognition, and make a bee-line for that, never getting closer but hoping we will magically be teleported to it after death. It most certainly doesn't help to treat these discussions as episodes of Friends where we sit around in a coffee shop gossiping and offering speculative opinions on existential reality. If that's our interest in being here, then we shouldn't be surprised when we never enter the castle but end up wandering in circles around the forest.

For me and except perhaps a few dozen people on the planet, most of the phrases here appear as random combinations of 'flowery' words.

We have no doubt that they do appear that way to you, and we have even explained to you why they appear that way to you, multiple times. It's the same reason genetic mutations appear to the secular scientist as 'random', or most life events for the average Westerner appear as 'random', etc. The prideful perspective which wants to project its own cognitive-perceptual limitations onto everyone on the planet, now and forever (except perhaps a few dozen people), is what needs to be sacrificed if there is to be any chance of understanding deeper levels of our spiritual activity, which gradually unveils the non-random intentions within the World Appearances. Resonating with these intentions which structure the outer forms are what allow us to grasp everything from the Cosmic evolution to the words written on a forum by another living soul. If we only want to 'eat, drink, and be merry', and have no intention of expanding our interests to resonate with Cosmic Intents, then everything of spiritual importance, i.e. most of life itself, will remain as 'random words' to us.