Essay: Man, Know Thyself

[Lou Gold]

Highest in the sense that within the sensory realm man is the only life form capable of reflecting self-consciousness within the physical form - that is, the spirit experiences itself as an ego within the living body.
etc
etc

I grok this as your preferred fairytale but you seem to be stating it as an objective fact. Is this your intention? Do you believe there is no whale spirit experiencing itself in a whale body?

[Cleric K]

I grok this as your preferred fairytale but you seem to be stating it as an objective fact. Is this your intention?

It's not my intention to present a fairytale as an objective fact. I'm only presenting descriptions of direct experiences from certain states of consciousness. This does not mean that they should be blindly believed. Everyone should exercise critical thinking. Just as a materialist can be critical about your descriptions of directly experienced entities. He would argue that it is simply a subconscious process of the brain, which the self-conscious part of the brain erroneously conceives as an objective entity independent of the brain.

Do you believe there is no whale spirit experiencing itself in a whale body?

At certain stage it is no longer a question whether there's a spirit within a body (be it a whale, plant, grain of salt) but what the spirit experiences within that restricted form.
The experience of the spirit within a whale is different from that of a frog or a worm. The spirit in the whale experiences instinctive nature - it feels compelled to search for food and to reproduce. It can experience also higher forms of feelings, as affection, attachment, etc. But the spirit within the whale body does not yet experience itself as something that can become aware of its spiritual nature and start reflecting on its place in the Universe. It does not make theories about the Cosmos. When it sees the spinning propeller of a ship it does not think of it as a mechanical device for displacing water and pushing the ship forwards. It experiences it as a blob of potential danger that should not be approached. The spirit is too enchanted with the life within the whale body, it is fully absorbed by it. So to speak, the spirit can't "raise its head" to look around and understand itself as a spiritual being that is wearing the whale body as a piece of clothing.

If we are to look for the spiritual perspective which does experience itself as a spiritual being, we won't find it inside the whale's physical body but in the astral world, as a being that envelops with its consciousness the individual whale forms. There we find a group-ego that is the same for the whole whale species. This group soul experiences the individual whales as a man experiences the fingers of his hand. Every finger has its own personality but if we restrict our consciousness only within a single finger we lose the wholistic experience. It is similar with the whale group soul. From the standpoint of the astral world it experiences the wholistic being of the whale species but if the group soul zooms into an individual whale, it loses the wholistic picture and becomes enchanted by the instinctive bodily life. The nervous system of the whale does not yet reflect the activity of the spirit sufficiently, such that the spirit can recognize itself within the thoughts reflected by the brain.

This should not in any way demean the value of an individual whale or any other being. Instead, if we know this, we can even experience connection that goes much deeper.
In the sensory world we can find another ego/I only when we look into the eyes of a person and experience how there's a thinking spirit in there, something that reflects about its existence and tries to find its place in the Universe. When we look in the eye of the whale we see spirit that is being restricted, enchanted within the bodily nature. We can't speak with this enchanted spirit about God and the Universe. But if we look even deeper into the whale's eye, such that we follow the rays coming from that eye, not to the individual nervous system but to the astral world, there we find the group ego of the whale. It is there where we can find the "I" of the whale species.

So we see, when things are understood in their depth, not only that they don't reduce and demean reality but put us in touch with even greater depths. There's something much more mysterious and deep within an animal, plant and mineral. As long as we stare at the physical bodies and expect to find some complete being enclosed in that form, we completely miss that depth. We are only observing the restricted form in which the spirit must find its expression. We should rise to a higher stage of consciousness to be able to perceive directly the spiritual locus of self-consciousness, that expresses itself only in a limited way within the individual forms.

Man is the being where this spiritual locus has gradually been able to refine the reflecting apparatus of the bodies to such an extent that the spirit can recognize its reflection in them and not simply be merged with with flow of instinctive life.

[David_Sundaram]

Man is the being where this spiritual locus has gradually been able to refine the reflecting apparatus of the bodies to such an extent that the spirit can recognize its reflection in them and not simply be merged with with flow of instinctive life.

I wish to challenge the 'antropocentrism' of this statement by way of sharing what's clearly (IMO) demonstrated in this video;.




That being 'said', I acknowledge there's something made especially possible by way of the degree of our (human) capacity for brain function - from my treatise:

"To the degree that, as a result of continuing to mentally and emotionally process our personal experiences, we become aware of ( i.e. consciously ‘awaken’ to) the fact that all our lives are (in other words, all Life is) basically coextant, the ‘sense’ we have of our own ‘i’dentity expands to become other-inclusive. And, as we then realize that just focusing on things by and for the benefit of our ‘own’ selves simply results in our (delusionally!) living in personally ‘i’solating thought-and-feeling ‘bubbles’, we may (logically then) choose to transcend (i.e., rise ‘above’ and evolve ‘beyond’) the limitations of whatever selfish perceptions and tendencies at  that point, as a result of past personal and social conditioning, continue to ‘govern’ and (so, in effect) ‘imprison’ us, and then more and more ‘freely’ grow to become more and more loving and enjoying of our ‘neighbors’ as  our ‘selves’ (as advocated in Mark 12:31) in ever-widening, more and more Life‑embracing circles, and therefore and thereby (in due course) fully  execute our innate Source-code ‘program’ to maximally experience and express Love and Joy in relationship to and with others. This, instead of just  partially doing so by way of continuing to operate as the same ‘old’ ego‑‘i’dentity configurations focused on reaping and dispensing whatever Love and Joy ‘perks’ we (as a result of prior personal conditioning) happen to at any given point especially value in relation to particular others, for however long we may continue to live (as such☺ that is!).

Not that the kind of growth and development I speak of is just possible (and  so only evident) in humankind, mind you! Do a search for ‘animal friendships’ or ‘interspecies friendships’ or similar phrases on the internet, or  just type these phrases or the like into YouTube’s search box and sample the video links that then come up, if you wish to educate yourself in this regard. Though, because of the huge variety and range of possible kinds of ‘relational’ experiences and the immense amount mental and emotional data‑processing power necessary to collate (i.e. co-relate) them all, the above-referenced process of ‘i’dentity expansion in pursuit of ‘greater’ experience and expression of Love and Joy may only reach its culmination in human body‑contexts (on Earth☺that is), its operationality is abundantly evident in the behaviors of members of species with the requisite degree of data‑processing capacity (hence social intelligence) which act in a loving way, not just in relation to and with immediate personal family members but  also in relation to and with members of other families in their social groups and, beyond that even (in cases of species with the highest degrees of  social intelligence), in relation to members of other species as well. The  latter phenomenon, of course, being most evident in cases where the psychospiritual learning and development of creatures has been accelerated by their having come into contact and consciously shared Love and Joy with more expansively loving being-doings, as some of us are. (I say some because many human souls clearly aren’t functioning at a very ‘friendly’ level of development presently, albeit you already know this to be the ‘sad’ truth or you wouldn’t even begin to be interested in and receptive of the kind of information shared in a communication such as this.)"

[Lou Gold]

"If we are to look for the spiritual perspective which does experience itself as a spiritual being, we won't find it inside the whale's physical body but in the astral world, as a being that envelops with its consciousness the individual whale forms. There we find a group-ego that is the same for the whole whale species. This group soul experiences the individual whales as a man experiences the fingers of his hand. Every finger has its own personality but if we restrict our consciousness only within a single finger we lose the wholistic experience. It is similar with the whale group soul. From the standpoint of the astral world it experiences the wholistic being of the whale species but if the group soul zooms into an individual whale, it loses the wholistic picture and becomes enchanted by the instinctive bodily life. The nervous system of the whale does not yet reflect the activity of the spirit sufficiently, such that the spirit can recognize itself within the thoughts reflected by the brain."

OK, I see I need to refine my question: "How do you know that a whale is not more aware of both its individual and collective status? How do you know, in your preferred language, that whale consciousness is not 'higher' than human consciousness?" I do not know the answer. I just know two interesting facts: the whale brain is larger and the human is the top predator. Is it possible that your notion of evolved hierarchy is biased toward the more primitive level of predation?

[Lou Gold]

Man is the being where this spiritual locus has gradually been able to refine the reflecting apparatus of the bodies to such an extent that the spirit can recognize its reflection in them and not simply be merged with with flow of instinctive life.

I wish to challenge the 'antropocentrism' of this statement by way of sharing what's clearly (IMO) demonstrated in this video;.

David, do you realize that your video presents a very romanticized 'Bambi-like' cutesy anthropocentric view of domesticated animal life? There's an Eskimo wisdom statement that I like a lot: "Gifts turn wolves into dogs."

[Cleric K]

OK, I see I need to refine my question: "How do you know that a whale is not more aware of both its individual and collective status? How do you know, in your preferred language, that whale consciousness is not 'higher' than human consciousness?" I do not know the answer. I just know two interesting facts: the whale brain is larger and the human is the top predator. Is it possible that your notion of evolved hierarchy is biased toward the more primitive level of predation?

This becomes known through higher (not expanded) cognition. And before knowing about the actual animals in the physical world one must first discover the animal, plant and mineral kingdom within himself. And this is not just an allegory but actual perception.
With the mineral kingdom we share the physical body. Minerals have only physical form.
With the plant kingdom we share the physical and etheric/life bodies. Plants have physical body and life body but don't have inner consciousness, desires, pain, pleasure. When we say that plants don't have inner consciousness, it's meant that there's no inner consciousness inside the individual physical plant form. Otherwise, there is consciousness but it 'hovers' 'outside' the plant forms. The same logic applies below for the animals.
With the animal kingdom we share the physical, etheric and soul/astral bodies. Animals have physical, life body and in addition to that the body of desires, pain, pleasure and inner imagery.
Man has everything that the animal has but his spirit can also become emancipated from the life of pure instinct and can rise higher through thinking - man becomes self-reflective spiritual being. He has the potential to become aware that he's a Spirit experiencing reality through the prism of the three lower bodies.

Again - this is not some homo sapiens supremacist agenda. It's not about depriving somebody from something but about objectively assessing the structure of the kingdoms.

Minerals	Plants	Animals	Man
I	I	I	---
Consciousness	Consciousness	---	I
Life	---	Consciousness	Consciousness
---	Life	Life	Life
Physical	Physical	Physical	Physical

Here it is in table form. The dashed line represents the boundary of the physical being. As it can be seen, all kingdoms have their physical form, life form, consciousness form and self-consciousness - "I". The difference lies in where we find these four members. In man all four are within the physical form. In animals - all are in the physical except the "I" - the "I" is outside the physical form and envelops, 'hovers' over the individual animals. In plants only life is within the physical form - everything else is outside. In minerals only the physical form is present, everything else is outside, spread out in the spiritual world.

To know what an animal is, one has to find the perception of the astral body within himself. Not as an abstract concept but as a real experience. The essay in this thread aims to show the direction that one takes in order to attain to such real experience of the astral body - when we differentiate our spiritual activity from the elemental beings that constitute our own opinions, prejudices, beliefs, ideas, desires, etc., we behold these beings as a totality called 'astral body'. When this is mastered, one can also perceive spiritual processes of the same kind in the environment. There are no 'hard' boundaries between the beings.

This state of consciousness can be called 'higher' because we experience our own ordinary self from 'above' so to speak, we undress it and behold it. This is different in consciousness expansion, where we still experience from the same center but the horizon of our awareness expands. Even if it expands all the way, to encompass the whole Universe, we would still not know what we are. We would have spread our love for the whole Cosmos and merged indistinguishably with it but our own "I" remains as mysterious as ever.

Higher consciousness undresses the lower consciousness and experiences reality from a vantage point where we can see how our ordinary ego consciousness is being formed. We can perceive the processes with which we identify in the ordinary state.

[Eugene I]

Here is a good TED Talks presentation on dolphins vs. humans, it's in Russian but you can turn on English subtitles

[Cleric K]

I wish to challenge the 'antropocentrism' of this statement by way of sharing what's clearly (IMO) demonstrated in this video;.

Very heart-warming video, thanks
But it does not contradict at all what I've said. Affection, caring, play, joy, sorrow, pain, pleasure - all these are experiences within the astral body that can be experienced by the spirit even if it can't say "I" to itself. They are simply experienced in dreamy consciousness, flowing together with the above mentioned soul experiences. Put in other words, we can say that animals are ensouled but the spirit is not yet awakened to full self-consciousness within them.

This does not mean that there's hard boundary between animals and humans. Animals will awaken to the spirit in the future evolution. It is actually very interesting to watch something like Koko, the gorilla. There we can already see that in special circumstances the spirit is able to express itself, even if the biological machinery doesn't allow it to go beyond the level of development of two or three year old child.

This is actually a useful analogy: think of the Spirit as a virtuoso pianist. Different physical forms are pianos at different stage of attunements. We would agree that even the greatest virtuoso can't do anything with a piano out of tune. It is similar in evolution. We have spread before us different evolutionary forms of the spirit, that can reflect its consciousness in different degree.

If man feels superior because of this, it only shows that he doesn't understand anything about reality. All these forms had to stay behind, in certain sense the beings accepted to make a sacrifice and support physical forms that are not the perfect reflecting apparatuses for self-consciousness but on the other hand man would not be able to exist if these kingdoms didn't stay behind so that man can step on their shoulders.

As we evolve we'll have the task to assist these kingdoms in attaining their perfection, just as Angelic beings assist humans. We are indebted to the kingdoms and that's how we'll return their favor.

[Lou Gold]

As we evolve we'll have the task to assist these kingdoms in attaining their perfection, just as Angelic beings assist humans. We are indebted to the kingdoms and that's how we'll return their favor.

The problem is that Homo sapiens have not performed this sacred purpose. The message of that failure is now arriving to us from the Elder Brothers to Science Journalism. If you are arguing that we need a new way of being human (a hybrid or even a replacement), then I agree, but if you are placing humanity as presently known at the pinnacle of embodied possibility, I surely disagree.

[AshvinP]

Again - this is not some homo sapiens supremacist agenda.

In some manner that is beyond me, your posts keep getting better and more insightful, Cleric. And now you have tables too! Thank you and keep up the great work.