Adur Alkain wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:28 am
Cleric,
I took the time to read this long post, since you said it has direct relevance to my work.
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Hi Adur,
thank you for taking the time to read.
I won't go through your remarks individually because as a whole they stem from a common source. We need to clarify
the place of Thinking in our scientific-philosophical-artistic-spiritual endeavor.
I'll just address the complexity issue first. We've been through that recently with Eugene. I don't like complexity. Then how do I explain that my posts seem complex? First let's distinguish between
two types of complexity.
1. The first is complexity which issues from the large quantity of processes that can hardly be encompassed in some kind of unity. Turbulence is a good example. So I take it that my explanations seem in others' eyes like a very complicated philosophical system, similar to turbulent flow, which needs endless rules and sub-rules, types of entities, etc., in order to be grasped.
2. The second kind of complexity is again real complexity but with inner unity. Just look around your room. Imagine that you have to explain to someone over the phone every little detail, every piece of furniture, every object, every fluff of dust. The other person after a while will be like "wow, dude, slow down". Why does this happen? Because one received pieces of disconnected information. It would be like being told a sequence of 10 000 random numbers. Since there's no logic in the sequence we have to explicitly memorize every number individually and this is overwhelming. This is how we feel with any kind of novel knowledge that we still can't grasp as a whole and only see disconnected thoughts. Imagine that instead of describing your room, you describe some of the chapters in mathematics. The person will initially see disconnected math terms but at some point he'll say "wait a second, I'm getting it" and he'll even be able to find math relations on his own - we're now probing together the same mathematical ideal landscape.
I maintain that the complexity experienced regarding Spiritual Science is of the second type, except that it is not about getting the hang of an abstract (closed formal or discursive, as you call it) system of thought. It's about gradually metamorphing our
inner perspective. This really takes hard work, since there're so much things to be undone, which we've inherited unconsciously from our materialistic culture, and even more, completely new, that we have yet to develop, but once we begin to assume our upright spiritual stance within, speaking the facts of the inner and higher realities is as describing one's room contents. Except that this room is the living Being of the Cosmos and everyone can attain to the proper perspective of it, just like everyone can probe the same mathematical truths.
We all know that Ptolemy's system of the Solar System was complicated. He had to account for all the strange behaviors of the planets, their retrograde motion, etc. which introduced many constructs such as deferents and epicycles.
Yet things become much more simpler when we switch to the Heliocentric model. This is only a geometric analogy but it's a great metaphor for our spiritual life. Things become comprehensible when we find the right perspective.
This is understood fairly well in popular spiritual teachings. One of the problems of modern man is that his own point of view is not stable, he always moves on the trains of his thoughts, feelings, memories, desires, etc. How can we expect to have a faithful picture of the World Content when our anchor point itself is constantly oscillating? Is there any surprise that we can't make any sense of the world? Everything looks much more complicated than the Geocentric model above - we try to grasp one thing but we lose track of everything else.
That's why Enlightenment teachings put emphasis on the Here and Now, detaching from all contents of consciousness so that we can see clearly. You already mentioned this:
Adur Alkain wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:28 am
The abstract thinking that most humans find themselves trapped in is in my view the result of automatic information processing happening in the brain. The way to liberate the soul from this automatic thinking is not to focus on those automatic thoughts to try to find out how that information processing works,
but to disidentify from those automatic thoughts and realize that our true identity lies in the underlying consciousness. This consciousness is where the real knowing, basic or direct knowing resides. Discursive knowing is ony a distorted reflection of that basic knowing. (All this is my personal understanding of Almaas's view on knowledge.)
Yet this is only part of the work. You also mention:
Adur Alkain wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:28 am
I think this "higher order" responsible for the harmony and orderliness of reality (not just physical reality) is what Almaas calls the logos or Creative Dynamism, one of the boundless dimensions of true nature. It is infinitely creative and dynamic, and it can't be captured by discursive thought.
But what does this 'infinitely creative and dynamic' really mean? Since you embrace the Universal Consciousness, I take it that this Creative Dynamism exists within us. While I agree that this Dynamism can't be
captured (in the sense of
completely contained) by discursive thought, the opposite is most certainly the case - the Dynamism is what
creates the discursive thought. Now I'm not sure if you'll agree with this since you say
"... ordinary or discursive knowing (which is what I would call thinking, and I believe is the result of brain activity)". I agree that we succumb all the time through the day in trains of automatic thoughts but what about when we fully consciously think? When we engage all our Creative Dynamism within ourselves and experience how we produce thoughts?
I'm not sure what your answer will be but most mystically inclined non-dualists quickly become quite dual at this point. They may speak of Creative Dynamism or the likes but when we reach thoughts they say "these just pop in and out of existence, we need to deidentify with them". But if we deidentify with them then who's responsible for then? "The Creative Dynamism, of course!" OK, but now we have placed this Creative Dynamism
outside of ourselves and if we really were
one with the Creative Dynamism (non-dual) it's only natural that we should experience the creative responsibility for the thoughts. The state of mystical union doesn't help either. No mystic says that "yes, in the beginning we deidentify with the thoughts but then, in the mystical union we once again feel creatively responsible for them".
This is a recurring theme on this forum, yet such that one stares right into its face and still can't awaken to its Divinely simple Truth.
So we should really find the place of Thinking within the World Process. As long as see discursive thinking as proceeding from the brain and true reality (the perspective of the Universal Consciousness) as completely opaque to it, we're creating for ourselves two irreconcilable worlds. We're condemning Universal Consciousness (which we assume is our true nature) to have part of itself forever unknowable - in this case, the brain (or whatever) activity which thinks discursive thoughts on behalf of the Universal Consciousness. I hope the fundamental and irreconcilable dualism is plainly visible here. The only way this dualism can be overcome is if Universal Consciousness (we) take creative responsibility for thinking. Then thoughts are no longer foreign elements that pop in and out of existence but the immediate expression of our Creative Dynamism.
The reason why people versed in Enlightenment teachings can't awaken to this simple fact is because they see thoughts only in their inert nature which can't capture the essence of reality. They don't like to approach them because that would be the opposite of what their ideal is - to deidentify with thoughts. But what we said above doesn't suggest that one has to
identify with thoughts. One must simply find within himself the Creative Dynamism
that brings the thoughts into existence. The difference is huge.
Next I would like to address the 'higher order' because this is another stumbling stone here, but I'll do it probably tomorrow.