Intuitive Idealism vs. Analytic Idealism (Part II): An alternative formulation of idealism

[AshvinP]

But I am an idealist, where conscious activity is fundamental and does not stop when I die, so I must conclude there is an eternal changeless aspect.

There is definitely changeless aspects of consciousness, I've been telling it to you all the time, and you can actually directly experience them. But "changeless" is not the same as "Eternal" (unless we are again confused about terminology). Keep in mind that "time" itself is an abstraction, and "Eternity" is usually understood as "encompassing the infinity of time", and in such case that is an abstraction as well. What we experience directly is changing and unchanging aspects of the thinking activity, that's all. I don't see them as "polarities" but just as they simply are in the direct experience: as simultaneously existing changeless and changing aspects of consciousness (experiencing-thinking-feeling-willing activity).

Call them whatever you want - "changeless", "timeless", "eternal", it doesn't really matter. It is precisely the intellect lost in abstractions which obsesses over the labels rather than the experiences they are pointing to. So what exactly (please be specific) is your objection to Cleric's "Alpha-Omega" polarity in his comment to you?

FYI - the polarities of experience feature pretty heavily in new essay part I am about to post tonight or tomorrow, so I have been thinking about them a lot lately. We should understand they are all manifestations of a single Polar relation, perhaps best described as the Unifying-diversifying. Or the Integrating-fragmenting. So we can abandon Eternal-temporal altogether if you find it confusing, it doesn't really matter. In that sense, the totality of all polarities of experience is itself an expression of the single Polarity: One-Many.

Also I just realized you might have been saying the words we are using to describe the polarities are "abstractions" and not the polarities themselves... which is obviously true and should go without saying. Everything we write here is an abstraction in that sense.

[Steve Petermann]

Exactly, Conscious-Being-Itself is the fact of our every-moment direct conscious experience (but only if we pay attention to it) and, based on such experience, it is undeniable reality. But we also find that this beingness is also actively experiencing, perceiving, cognizing, willing and creating forms/meanings/ideal that are never found separate from it (unless we abstractly imagine them to be separate).

I agree. Well said.

[ScottRoberts]

There is definitely changeless aspects of consciousness, I've been telling it to you all the time, and you can actually directly experience them. But "changeless" is not the same as "Eternal" (unless we are again confused about terminology).

I think there is confusion. The technical meaning of 'eternity' (that is, as it is used by theologians) is 'timeless' of 'unchanging'. For 'time everlasting', the technical term is 'sempiternity'.

Keep in mind that "time" itself is an abstraction, and "Eternity" is usually understood as "encompassing the infinity of time", and in such case that is an abstraction as well.

If one defines 'time' as 'awareness of change', then it is not abstract (we experience it). Sempiternity is an abstraction, but eternity is not, since without a stance outside of time, one could not be aware of time (awareness of change).

What we experience directly is changing and unchanging aspects of the thinking activity, that's all. I don't see them as "polarities" but just as they simply are in the direct experience: as simultaneously existing changeless and changing aspects of consciousness (experiencing-thinking-feeling-willing activity).

They are polarities because they contradict one another, yet are real and inseparable.

[AshvinP]

Exactly, Conscious-Being-Itself is the fact of our every-moment direct conscious experience (but only if we pay attention to it) and, based on such experience, it is undeniable reality. But we also find that this beingness is also actively experiencing, perceiving, cognizing, willing and creating forms/meanings/ideal that are never found separate from it (unless we abstractly imagine them to be separate).

I am just going to make one last comment and stop. I have a feeling I will never hear back from you on my last question about Cleric's Alpha-Omega polarity (even though you were the one who first responded and challenged it), just like I never heard about Cleric's imaginative exercise to you 5 months ago, and you will likely also avoid Scott's last comment to you. You are adding "experiencing" or "conscious-being-itself" for the sole reason of avoiding the need to look at your own Thinking (there is nothing more abstractly meaningless than "conscious-being-itself"). You feel it gets around all of esoteric Western Spirit-uality (Spirit=Thinking), and it sort of does - if you don't admit Thinking is the only means by which we come to know any of those other activities, you can justify avoiding any concrete inquiry into it. You can say, "they are all equal and it's good to stay fragmented, so who cares about Thinking?" That is why people will also try to throw Imagination or Intuition out of "Thinking", even though it makes no sense to put them under any other activity we engage in. I hope my essay at least show to some others why you are completely wrong, and why Unifying/Integrating is the Master while diversifying/fragmenting is the emissary (even though that's practically common sense as well).

All of your arguments to us can be traced back to that one semi-conscious antipathy you have for Thinking. And I suspect the sole you reason you responded to Cleric here was to try and distract away from our discussion with Adur, which in the last few days has already been more productive than commenting with you in the last 6+ months, and I took the bait. Maybe we can start a whole new thread with Adur. In the meantime, I am going to try hard to avoid these distractions going forward, but it's tough when you are actively jumping in threads just to throw out nonsensical arguments and derail the discussion. I really hope you can do the mature thing and stick to what you know, or actually make some effort to understand our argument and present a coherent logical counter-argument, before you continue commenting on philosophy of Thinking or spiritual science. We have tried to point you in the right direction to get a proper understanding, but you refuse, by your own admission, to even read PoF, about 200-page book available for free online, or apparently anything else we write, as you are constantly misrepresenting our position and rehashing arguments we addressed dozens of times already.

[Cleric K]

I was responding to Cleric's post but it disappeared for some reason, but I'll post my response anyway:

OMG, mea culpa, speaking of being confused, I was responding to Cleric's post, and then seeing I had duplicated my response, and in the process of deleting it, I deleted Cleric's post ... Most sincere alpologies to Cleric and others ... time for a break from this and a walk in the forest.

The post was resurrected from RAM dump of the browser's process where the http post request was still dangling.

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So, from the first-person direct experience we know that there is a universal creative process, and yet at the same time there is a multiplicity of personal subjective perspectives each performing its own local creative process (even though it is interconnected with other processes within the global and collective activity). No questions about that. But then you suggest that all these processes are heading to converge into a single synchronous spiritual activity process all going in the same direction with no creative diversity, and perhaps all personalized subjective perspectives melting into the single global one. For one, this is an abstract assumption. Even if we do see such globalization tendency, it does not mean that it is necessarily the ultimate global telos, it might be just a temporary byproduct of some higher meta-telos. Another thing: what was the point for the Universal Creative to split into the multiplicity of subjective perspectives only to eventually unite back into one global perspective, if such one/single global perspective was already there in the first place?

I already addressed this with the fishes metaphor. Unless one is open to question the rigidity of the individual space (strict identification with one fish) and the nature of time (infinite linear arrow) I don't think I can add anything else.

Another thing: what was the point for the Universal Creative to split into the multiplicity of subjective perspectives only to eventually unite back into one global perspective, if such one/single global perspective was already there in the first place?

The Alpha and the Omega can only be understood as poles between which all the infinite potential unfolds. The Alpha and Omega exist simultaneously. Time is Divine 'technique' that allows infinite possible paths between the poles to be experienced as gradual integration of Memory. This is the only reason we can speak of Time. The Alpha and the Omega are like an hourglass where sand (conscious states of being) pass through and integrate. Currently we call this integration of Memory because it seems like it's just a kind of record for past events but in reality it's the gradual process of encompassing the Alpha and Omega as One. This is the technique the Divine uses to explore the infinite Candy Shop. There are infinite ways the potential between the Alpha and the Omega can be structured and traversed through Time.

Now I repeat what I said in the beginning:
1/ If the above sounds restrictive because you want to keep exploring forever in Time, between A and O, this simply means that the simultaneous nature of A and O isn't grasped. And this is not a critique. This is a difficult topic. It is also impossible topic unless one can break away from the linearity of the sequential intellect. If you can't imagine otherwise but like if the meeting of A and O happens in some particular point of Time and then they begin to separate again, then the idea is not grasped. One can't break away from viewing existence as lying on an infinite arrow of time.
2/ If the problem with the one and the many is disturbing it's because one rigidly identifies with a fish. It's not a two level system - atomic egos (individual conscious spaces) on one side and the completely unified One consciousness on the other. There's only One "I". If we are worried about losing our subjective perspective in a merger event, this only shows that we don't understand ourselves as "I" but as something that identifies with specific patterns within the World Content. The Integration process is not merging of "I"s in which we lose our "I"dentity. The only thing that we lose - or not lose but transform - are the parts of the World Content within which the "I" mirrors itself. "... because I lay down my life, that I might take it again."

Seems like this is to say that we are never apart from the Creative Divine doing what the Divine imperatively does in Thinking up all this idea construction, including the curious confused idea that we are somehow other that That, and must figure out how to do what we're already doing ...

The bolded part is a source of trouble. The only thing that we truly are at any given moment is the 'tip' of our thoughtful becoming. This is the only thing that truly belongs to us and where we can in full objectivity say "I am". I'm One with That as far as I have a point of overlap with the Creative Becoming at the tip of my Thinking. Only at that point we are truly One. For the remaining part of the World Content I have no right to say "I'm doing it". This would be a lie. The pathological solipsism. I am not my body, I am not my subconsciousness. I have the right to say that I am these things only when I experience their reality proceeding directly from my spiritual activity in the way at the moment I do only for my thinking. To move in that direction I have to find my proper relations to That which is outside the point of overlap - my body, my feelings, my opinions and the World as a whole.

[Adur Alkain]

Here is an example that may be useful: when I read Cleric's posts, I usually don't understand intellectually most of what he says. My logical reasoning mind would instantly dismiss his words as gibberish. But my heart tells me that there is something deeply truthful and authentic in Cleric's words. That makes me want to read him more carefully and try to understand.

I don't think that is what is happening. This is my reasoned conclusion and not simply something I am repeating from Steiner or Cleric, although their Thinking also pointed me in the right direction. The problem is that we don't sense our true Thinking anymore, it just happens in the background without us being aware. It is like our breathing but even harder for modern intellect to bring into full conscious awareness. You are never simply "feeling" Cleric's words without Thinking - if we really reflect on it (and this is where PoF is invaluable), that makes very little sense. Words are products of Thinking and Thinking is essentially shared activity. There are not multiple realms of isolated thoughts for each individual "alter". So you are subconsciously intuiting the deep truth and authenticity of Cleric's words, and since it is subconscious Thinking, you incorrectly attribute it all to your feeling "heart".

Ashvin,

This kind of response makes any dialogue impossible. If you deny or re-interpret my experience, simply because it is different to your own experience, or (even worse) because it doesn't fit into your idea of reality, then there is nothing you can gain from this conversation. We may as well stop here.

Please don't take this as a personal criticism. Most people engaged in a spiritual path are not open to alternative views. This is understandable. When you discover some deep spiritual truth, it is difficult to accept that there may be other people discovering a "different" truth that seems incompatible with yours. In the end, the apparent incompatibility is just a matter of our limited perspectives. But then again, it's not easy to realize or accept that our perspective may be limited.

I'm not trying to convince you (or anybody else) of anything. What I enjoy about these conversations is that it's possible to "compare notes" and see where our experiences and our views differ, and where they resonate. From sharing these "notes" I learn a lot: I open my mind to other possibilites, other spiritual paths that are as truthful as my own, and I also gain a more clear understanding of the unique orientation of my own path.

Also, from the point of view of the Heart, all these conceptual differences are unimportant. My heart simply enjoys the recognition of the authentic human spirit in the other, the one spiritual nature that we all share.

Anyway. I will continue reading your posts and learning from you. And I will continue listening with my heart!

[Cleric K]

There are only two options here:
- You can actually yourself directly experience the state of Alpha and Omega right now as encompassing the full infinity. Can you confirm that that the actual infinity and the Alpha-Omega states are in your direct experience? Can you experience not just an idea of infinity (everyone can do this), but the actual infinity of moments in time, or points on a line?
- If you can not, then these Alpha-Omega are simply your abstract concepts that you chose to believe in. (Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with having beliefs, as long as one honestly admits that those are his personal beliefs and does not present them as universal truths or direct experiences).

I can see you had a party here in the last 12 hours

Following the discussion, I doubt that anything I say will make any difference but I'll nevertheless write few things.

First, if someone told me that we could stand at a point outside A and O and encompass it's totality, I'll be raising eyebrow just as you. Such a claim has the same fallacy as the conception that we arrive at the final state of existence, as a train that arrives at the last station, where though, consciousness continues to tick along in frozen boredom.

Saying the above you'll immediately say "then it's all an abstraction!". Not quite. We should really investigate the way our intellect formulates its questions and what kind of answers it expects. As even secular wisdom finds, most of the time we can't answer because we're asking the wrong (that is, inherently impossible) questions.

For example, as I can see it has been commented, the only truly certain thing in reality is the conscious becoming at the tip of our thought process. As we have spoken many times, this kind of certainty doesn't result from logical conclusions but from immediate Intuition. As a matter of fact we can never find this kind of certainty in any form of arrangement of thoughts. The arrangement itself is certain experience, irrelevant of what the contents are but the truthiness of the arrangement we can only measure through its resonant relations to the fact of experience. This is an inherent characteristic of intellectual thinking that closes itself into formal system (or simply language). No arrangement of words is the 'truth'. It only can lead us to truth if it can help us expand the becoming tip of Intuition, where we find self-evident reality.

Take a look back just a minute ago when you started reading this post. Are you really, really, really sure that this moment actually happened? What if some God arranged the Universe from scratch, arranged fake history and pressed the 'play' button in right this instant and actually you have never experienced for yourself the beginning of the reading of the post but are simply believing an implanted fake memory? There's no way we (the intellect) can be certain. The fact that it sounds highly implausible doesn't mean that it's in principle impossible (again speaking purely from the abstract intellect perspective).

Now these are the kinds of traps that the intellect sets for itself and falls in them. I thought we have settled this once and for all when we discussed Platonism. It's completely irrelevant whether the intellect speculates if the moment we remember from a minute ago was really experienced of is just an implanted fake memory that never happened. As long as we're able to build a coherent picture that has the practical consequences of allowing our Intuitive core to grow, it doesn't really matter what the intellect speculates about what 'the real stuff' is. The intellect can never anyway transition by means of chains of words/math symbols, from the words themselves into the 'real stuff'. Similarly we can never add apples and hope to get pears as a result.

This is critical. We need to understand that the intellect is not bad - we simply need to understand its place. We can only look at it as a kind of assessment of the harmony of the facts. If this assessment is correct, it is proved in real life through the way the unfoldment of our spiritual activity is modified. This doesn't mean that we have to assume the Kantian mood that 'we can never know'. No, we can know with certainty but only in the way of our expanding Intuition at our core. I remind - Intuition is not the vague feeling that something might be right, even if we don't know how and why (my heart tells me ... ). Intuition in its true essence is that part of the conscious experience which is at the same time direct knowledge. For man of our age the only place we can find a spark of this Intuition is at the fact that livingly experienced thinking exists.

This spark can be fanned into a flame. It's an expanding horizon of direct knowing where we experience the World Content from the creative perspectives of beings. From these perspectives the Cosmos is experienced in the way we experience our thoughts - as reflection of our spiritual ideal (meaningful) intents. This is the highest form of cognition. The secrets of existence are revealed only gradually. We first pass through Imagination, then Inspiration. When I say that 'we first pass ...' this is only partly true. As said, at any moment of existence we have something of all forms of cognition. To repeat the example, we already experience something of Cosmic Intuition within the spark of our own thinking. So it is not like these are disconnected stages where we must first master completely Imagination so then we step into Inspiration. No, they are overlaid. Yet we are asleep for each of them in different degrees and the awakening happens gradually, much more easily for Imagination, less so for the higher forms, yet they exist simultaneously.

So I hope that we have cleared to a certain extent the place of the intellect in the picture. The question now is how can I be certain about the A and O? The answer is that the intellect cannot be absolutely certain just as it can never be certain a moment few minutes ago really happened. Yet as we rise to higher Intuition we know directly something of immediate existence which allow us understand the big picture.

When we experience our thinking activity in deep meditation it really becomes something quite different. I remind that it is not about thinking about thinking with more and more words. Thinking must be concentrated into a single thought-image. Then we patiently and humbly wait, just as we wait for a planted seed that we actively nurture, to grow. Gradually our efforts are rewarded. We begin to experience concealed behind the thought-image our actual spiritual activity that has so far been unknown to us. We begin to feel ourselves as something more that running chain of thoughts. We understand through Intuition how we energize and support the thought-image.

In this state we can already experience the polar nature of Time-Consciousness quite clearly. The center of our spiritual activity is like the standing wave pattern formed by two waves travelling against each other. These are two Time streams. When we experience this flow with our 'back' towards the future and our 'face' towards the past, we experience the pole of Thinking. We experience directly how our spiritual activity continually sheds like a snake skin and becomes imprinted in the World Content which is not only the current state but also its accumulated depth that we call Memory. If we turn with our back towards the past and face towards the future we experience active becoming - the pole of Will. As usual there's always an interplay of these two poles.

So at this point the two poles are no longer just an abstraction in the intellect but actual dimensions of experience. Just like up and down is a real dimension along which our spiritual activity can move. Please note - I'm not asserting any claims about the reality of some external 'real' spatial world. I'm only presenting the immediate facts of spiritual experience. It's an immediate fact that our thinking can move along a spiritual axis that we can call up/down. Whether we fantasize that this axis is a 'real' dimension of the 'real' physical world somewhere 'out there' is completely different matter and quite irrelevant to our discussion. In a similar way, when we delve into these meditative states where thinking becomes fully concentrated, we can experience how our state of being unfolds as if in the interference between two polar streams. This is absolutely immediate experience of Intuition. When I use words like streams, poles, etc. I already use Imagination in order to cast the Intuition into images, but the Intuition is immediate reality waved of direct meaning.

I've showed this before:



This is an image I drew some 16 years ago. If I'm to draw it now I would change few things but the essential idea is still the same. For example, the circles would have to be double, rotating in opposite directions, symbolizing the two polar flows. The other thing is that all these circles are actually concentric, they share a common center. In this sense, we humans, are not dots at the outer periphery, far away from the core but at any point of time we belong to the whole structure. It's only that our sensory thoughts belong to the periphery. As soon as we can turn our attention to our spiritual activity we already can grasp the archetypal nature of the circles and even conceive how at any point we have something that is self-similar to the grand circle. This gives a whole new reading of the Elohim saying "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness". It's not about physical likeness. It's the self-similar unfoldment of spiritual activity, which is fractally embedded into the higher order circles. Each circle is a simultaneous idea (these things I've wrote about from another angle in the Time-Consciousness essay). The idea creates out of itself the Time for its experience in bits of integration. Ideas don't need time themselves but time is created by experiencing how ideas can be cohered out of decohered subharmonics.

So thanks to this self-similarity of the fundamental becoming on different levels, we can actually have a pretty good idea about the A and O. The more we penetrate into the non-linear structure of reality, which is not something mechanical but living ideating activity of hierarchy of beings, the more we realize that Time us curved. It seems as infinite arrow only when we extrapolate our intellectual hopping from thought to thought into infinity in both directions. The same fallacy as the flat Earthers imagining than only because the landscape looks flat in the vicinity they can extrapolate that far beyond the horizon. As we probe from more and more directions the deep non-linear structure of Time-Consciousness, the more the A and O poles become fleshed out. As said, we can already feel their reality even in properly experienced thinking, even though initially the two polar streams may still be experienced as endless linear streams that move against each other. We discover their curvature only gradually as we accumulate more and more experiences within the depths.

Here your objection can be "But this is only approaching some limit that we can never experience. We don't know if beyond certain point things are not altogether different." To this it can be replied in the same spirit as in any scientific endeavor. We're after the harmony of the facts. Intellectual conjectures about things beyond the horizon of the immediately experienceable, simply don't serve any purpose. Things are clear. The more we deepen our experiential knowledge into the non-linear spectrum of reality, the more everything fits together. The harmony of the facts is reinforced with each additional step.

Ashvin can probably give good examples from his practice of people who begin with a lie and then as the true facts constrict them more and more, they are forced to fabricate increasingly absurd explanations, with the sole purpose to support the initial lie. This is the general situation of humanity today. We should realize that our desire for the free-electron paradigm is fueled entirely by the desire for independence and having-nothing-to-do with the general course of evolution of humanity.

This is questioned even by the most elementary observations. Even our physical life is structured in rhythms within rhythms. The alternation of sleeping and waking is especially significant one. When we move to spiritual matters we can acknowledge the incarnational rhythm. It's only logical that the latter is embedded into even higher order rhythms, by the principle of parsimony, if you will. We know that rhythms within rhythms exist from direct experience, yet we place the conjecture supported only by belief that at certain point this no longer holds true and ego-atoms are free to explore the candy shop in any way they want. Luckily we're not left only to speculation. We can really investigate the depths and there we find exactly that which is completely logical even on the surface. There really are even higher orders of living idea-rhythms, which span the Time for the lower order experiences. These findings gradually add up into a magnificent panorama where we behold the harmony of the facts and light is thrown on every aspect of human life. At this point if we want to support the free electron paradigm we must come up with increasingly absurd explanations just in order to cling to that initial belief of ours. The typical approach is to simply push the limits further and further and say "Well, maybe A and O really seem to curve and come closer and closer to each other with every next step but this doesn't mean that at some even further point there won't be a threshold and the truth turns out to be completely different." Well, OK. Even if we hypothetically assume that this is the case, we're still left with our pressing local and global problems which are completely solvable through the harmony of facts that we discover up to that hypothetical threshold. So the argument sums up to something like "Even though in the deeper non-linear spectrum we see all the causes of pain, disease, lies and so on, and even though we see there also the solutions to all these problems, we still don't know if beyond some other hypothetical threshold these things won't be seen just like a random dream. So all our efforts would have been in vain!" Well... I don't have much to comment to something like this. Maybe just a comic strip:

[Adur Alkain]

Adur,
I'm really glad you tried the exercise and could find something new in it.

Now I won't try to dissuade you about your chosen path. These things are very sensitive and are usually related with things we bring from past lives. I would like to only leave you with a thought.

The goal of the exercise is to help us discover that the Universal Creative process is living in us, to realize that the One Consciousness has a 'first-person' creative perspective and we can become 'concentric' to it, when we experience our thinking as a fully conscious creative process - in that instance we are the One Consciousness experiencing the creation of thoughts.

There isn't really any other conscious phenomena known to us that can give us direct experience of the creative perspective of the One Consciousness. You say "But the end result is that you can actually gain access to the Universal Creative process that gave rise to those egoic structures." That sounds great. But do we really realize what exactly we imply with the words 'gain access'? As I think you agree, the Universal Creative makes real sense only from its first-person perspective. Otherwise it acts on us as external Nature/God. If we expect that the 'end result' is that we experience some Cosmic processes that create the egoic structure in the way we experience how Sunlight warms a bowl of water, then we do attain to some kind of knowledge about this process but what about the actual first-person perspective of the Universal Creative? At what point our 'hands off' contemplating experience transforms into the Universal Creative? Because let's be clear - to understand in the true sense how the Universal Creative gives rise to anything it means that you have to experience from the first-person perspective this process. It would be as if you give rise to the phenomena.

So basically we already have access right here and right now to the Universal Creative. We have point of contact with it every time we are fully consciously involved in thinking. If we say "OK. I understand but this is only one of the possible paths. I don't feel inclined just yet to find my unity with the Universal Creative. I'll put aside my creative spiritual activity in which I am the Universal Creative and focus on clearing the ground and encompassing the totality of consciousness. Then at some future point I'll find again this "I am" although at this point I'm not sure what form that might take."

So this is the thought. Are we ignoring the only certain and directly experienceable place where we are one and the same with the Universal Creative, in order to postpone that unity towards some indeterminate future moment where we hope it will come to us from another direction, even if we can't even imagine what that could be?

I'm not asking for an answer. This question is something for you alone. A splinter in the mind that constantly reminds about itself.

And Thank you again for your thoughtful and considerate participation in these discussions. It's such a joy to communicate with people who actually read and comprehend even when it feels foreign to their chosen path!

(I'll address your question about spiritual realizations separately)

Cleric,

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

You are absolutely right. The path I'm following involves a sort of "postponing" of that realization of our fundamental unity with the Universal Creative. There are (at least) two ways to understand this: one is that this may be a path "for lazy people", a path that takes longer but is more easy to follow (than yours), because it requires less effort. The other way of looking at this "postponing" is that we need to first deal with our egoic structures and conditioning, before we venture into the spiritual realm.

I may be worrying about money, say, or obsessing about sex or food. If I understand correctly, the "Thinking path" would involve taking responsibility for those obsessive thoughts and actively work to steer them in a new direction, away from those superficial, "illusory" drives and towards deep spiritual truths. (Please let me know if I'm wrong about this.) The problem with this approach is that it doesn't really address the unconscious egoic structures. I may have total control over my conscious Thinking, but those unconscious structures will still be there. (Again, please tell me if I'm wrong on this!) This is sometimes called "spiritual bypass", and it has become a well-known problem with many spiritual teachers, especially from the East. You may reach a state of enlightenement, and still have unconscious egoic drives (the typical story of the guru having dysfunctional sex with his female students, etc.).

The DA path of inquiry, on the contrary, involves starting from wherever we are. If I'm thinking about money, or sex, I don't try to change those thoughts: I only try to understand what is going on, what those thoughts actually mean. If I do that, the veils of egoic structures will open up one by one. With enough practice, those structures will eventually dissolve. Only then will my individual soul be ready to really embody the unity with the spiritual ground of Universal Consciousness.

Like you say, only the first-person perspective is real. This is actually the DA perspective. Everything in the practice of inquiry is experienced from the first-person perspective. At first, the first-person perspective is (or rather, seems to be) that of the ego. But through the process of inquiry, the ego identity dissolves and eventually the first-person perspective becomes the perspective of the One Consciousness. When that happens, you realize that your first-person perspective was the Universal Creative all along. The egoic identity was only a mental structure limiting and obscuring that perspective.

In my experience, the insights coming from inquiry are never like looking at sunlight warming a bowl of water. In inquiry, you are the bowl of water. And then you realize you are also the Sun that warms it. Everything is experienced directly, in first person. The "I am" is always there.

This kind of inquiry is not merely intellectual: it also involves the heart and the body. It involves the whole soul. Every new insight is experienced as a total transformation of the soul. This involves a transformation of reality itself.

From this perspective, we always are one with the Universal Creative, whether we know it or not. So, from this perspective all paths are fundamentally equivalent. If you take control of your Thinking, it's the Universal Creative doing it. If you inquire into your current experience, whatever it is (obsession with money, say), it's the Universal Creative doing it too.

In the DA, the idea is that if you are worrying about money or sex or whatever right now, there is a fundamental underlying intelligence behind that worry: the intelligence of the One Consciousness, the Universal Creative. No matter what the entry point is (but it has to be your real experience in the present moment), you will ultimately discover the One Consciousness behind it.

I fear all this may sound confusing. The problem is that, like I said, I'm only a student and my understanding of the DA practice of inquiry is limited. So my attempts at describing it may seem (and perhaps are) contradictory.

Anyway. My question is, is there a risk of "spiritual bypass" in the "Thinking path" you practice? How do you deal with the unsconscious conditioning, the egoic structures? I'm genuinely interested in that.

[Soul_of_Shu]

The post was resurrected from RAM dump of the browser's process where the http post request was still dangling.

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A demonstration of transfigured Thinking at work! Thanks for hanging in here, and not leaving and slamming the door shut.

[AshvinP]

Here is an example that may be useful: when I read Cleric's posts, I usually don't understand intellectually most of what he says. My logical reasoning mind would instantly dismiss his words as gibberish. But my heart tells me that there is something deeply truthful and authentic in Cleric's words. That makes me want to read him more carefully and try to understand.

I don't think that is what is happening. This is my reasoned conclusion and not simply something I am repeating from Steiner or Cleric, although their Thinking also pointed me in the right direction. The problem is that we don't sense our true Thinking anymore, it just happens in the background without us being aware. It is like our breathing but even harder for modern intellect to bring into full conscious awareness. You are never simply "feeling" Cleric's words without Thinking - if we really reflect on it (and this is where PoF is invaluable), that makes very little sense. Words are products of Thinking and Thinking is essentially shared activity. There are not multiple realms of isolated thoughts for each individual "alter". So you are subconsciously intuiting the deep truth and authenticity of Cleric's words, and since it is subconscious Thinking, you incorrectly attribute it all to your feeling "heart".

Ashvin,

This kind of response makes any dialogue impossible. If you deny or re-interpret my experience, simply because it is different to your own experience, or (even worse) because it doesn't fit into your idea of reality, then there is nothing you can gain from this conversation. We may as well stop here.

Please don't take this as a personal criticism. Most people engaged in a spiritual path are not open to alternative views. This is understandable. When you discover some deep spiritual truth, it is difficult to accept that there may be other people discovering a "different" truth that seems incompatible with yours. In the end, the apparent incompatibility is just a matter of our limited perspectives. But then again, it's not easy to realize or accept that our perspective may be limited.

I'm not trying to convince you (or anybody else) of anything. What I enjoy about these conversations is that it's possible to "compare notes" and see where our experiences and our views differ, and where they resonate. From sharing these "notes" I learn a lot: I open my mind to other possibilites, other spiritual paths that are as truthful as my own, and I also gain a more clear understanding of the unique orientation of my own path.

Also, from the point of view of the Heart, all these conceptual differences are unimportant. My heart simply enjoys the recognition of the authentic human spirit in the other, the one spiritual nature that we all share.

Anyway. I will continue reading your posts and learning from you. And I will continue listening with my heart!

Adur,

There must be some confusion here and I should have been more clear in my response. I am not denying anything you experienced or that you experienced it in the way you described. I am questioning the interpretation of that experience. We actually do this all of the time when we are debating things. Your "intuitive idealism" approach is questioning the interpretation of BK's experiences with psychedelics and/or mystical states as well, from what I understand. Suffice to say, my point in the above comment is actually one of the core points emphasized by Steiner in PoF. We are never observing our current 'layer' of Thinking activity (at least not until there is intuitive Thinking within first-person perspective of those beings which give rise to our current thoughts). Here is a quote from PoF which should clarify. It is the very nature of Thinking activity which conceals its current 'layer' from observation. Yet if we are not aware of that nature and this resulting consequence, we will assume it simply was non-existent when we reach profound knowledge by way of the feeling heart. This sort of disagreement cannot be the result of simply "my spiritual perspective" vs. "your spiritual perspective" viewing the same truth from different angles, as it is foundational to the entire Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (another title for PoF).

But as object of observation, thinking differs essentially from all other things. The observation of a table or of a tree occurs for me as soon as these objects arise on the horizon of my experiences. My thinking about these objects, however, I do not observe at the same time. I observe the table, I carry out my thinking about the table, but I do not observe my thinking at the same moment. I must first transfer myself to a standpoint outside of my own activity, if I want, besides the table, to observe also my thinking about the table. Whereas the observing of objects and occurrences, and the thinking about them, are the entirely commonplace state of affairs with which my going life is filled, the observation of thinking is a kind of exceptional state. This fact must be properly considered when it is a matter of determining the relationship of thinking to all other contents of observation. One must be clear about the fact that in the observation of thinking one is applying to it a way of doing things which constitutes the normal condition for the consideration of all other world content, but which, in the course of this normal state of affairs, does not take place with respect to thinking itself.
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The reason why we do not observe thinking in our everyday spiritual life is none other than that it depends upon our own activity. What I do not myself bring forth comes as something objective into my field of observation. I see myself before it as before something that has occurred without me; it comes to me; I have to receive it as the prerequisite for my thinking process. While I am reflecting on the object, I am occupied with it; my gaze is turned to it. This occupation is in fact thinking contemplation. My attention is directed now upon my activity, but rather upon the object of this activity. In other words: while I am thinking, I do not look at my thinking, which I myself bring forth, but rather at the object of my thinking, which I do not bring forth.

I am, as a matter of fact, in the same position when I let the exceptional state arise and reflect on my thinking itself. I can never observe my present thinking; but rather I can only afterward make the experiences, which I have had about my thinking process, into the object of thinking. I would have to split myself into two personalities, into one who thinks, and into the other one who looks on during this thinking itself, if I wanted to observe my present thinking. This I cannot do. I can only carry this out in two separate acts. The thinking that is to be observed is never the one active at the moment, but rather another one. Whether for this purpose I make my observations in connection with my own earlier thinking, or whether I follow the thought process of another person, or finally whether, as in the above case of the motion of billiard balls, I set up an imaginary thought process, does not matter.

Two things are incompatible with each other: active bringing forth and contemplative standing apart. This is recognized already in the first book of Moses. In the first six-world days God lets the world come forth, and only when it is there is the possibility present of looking upon it. “And God saw everything that He had made and behold, it was very good.” So it is also with our thinking. It must first be there if we want to observe it.
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For everyone, however, who has the ability to observe thinking — and with good will every normally developed human being has it — this observation is the most important one he can possibly make. For he observes something that he himself brings forth; he does not see himself confronting an object at first foreign to him, but rather sees himself confronting his own activity. He knows how what he is observing comes about. He sees into its relationship and interconnections. A firm point has been won from which one can seek, with well-founded hope, the explanation of the rest of world phenomena.