The Central Topic

[Eugene I.]

You seem to think the fact that we are conscious and experience something is telling us something useful in an absolute sense,. It doesn't. The real hammer may be imagined too but it is at the same time clearly different from the one that is only imagined.

I think you misunderstood me. My point was exactly that our conscious experience does not tell us anything in the absolute sense. It only tells us that the phenomena of conscious experience are real and they exists, that's all. So, if we are to refrain from making any claims about any absolute existence, then we are only left with the facts of our experienced existence. What we experience (our thinking and conscious phenomena: perceptions, imaginations, thoughts, feelings) undeniably exist simply because we experience them right now.

But I think you are still confused about "The real hammer" - there is no such thing in your conscious experience as "The real hammer", there are only sense perceptions based on which you construct an idea of "a real hammer". You have no way to prove that any "The real hammer" actually exist in the "world out there" apart from your idea about it.

Imagine that you are having a dream in which you hit your dreamed finger with a dreamed hammer. You feel real pain as real as you would feel in your waking state. Yet, it's all in the dream, there is no "real hammer" existing anywhere beyond your dream. There is actually a technique in lucid dreaming practice to convert your dream in a super-realistic one so that you cannot distinguish it from waking reality anymore. Now, how do you know if you waking experience is in any way fundamentally different from your dream experience. How do you know if we live in the world of "real hammers" and not in a Matrix or virtual reality, or in a world imagined by some highly intelligent conscious being or beings and projected on us as some "virtual reality"? There is no way to know. Therefore, any assumption about the existence of a "real hammer" can only be a metaphysical assumption, because you have no way to distinguish a "real hammer" from a hammer projected on you in the Matrix/VR or a hammer in your super-realistic dream.

Philosophy for children, Ages: Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 7-11 (KS2)

[Soul_of_Shu]

Well, as I said early on in the discussion, I'm not sure this topic being placed in the topic-specific section is really any more helpful in coming to terms with it. But if Cleric himself is diverging into tangential references, and others respond to him directly regarding that reference, then it still seems relevant. However, when it then spins off into a side-topic discussion within the discussion between posters other than Cleric, beyond that direct response to Cleric's specific reference, which then might in turn spin off yet again into some even less related topic, then soon there's no difference between that and discussions going on in GD, so I have to make the call on where to draw the line, and in that regard sooner seems better than later. And now that there's a discussion within a discussion going on about a post Jim made in his blog, and it seems to be more about what others would prefer to be discussing, because the original topic no longer holds much interest, if it ever did, then maybe it should be a new topic. However, I'll see if Cleric takes part in the discussion about Jim's blog post, in which case I suppose he's finding it relevant enough.

[Cleric K]

I think it does make a practical difference in how we orient to our current situation. If we approach our spiritual growth as some path towards utopia or complete knowledge, then we will view this reality as somehow deficit, needing some distance eventual "fix" instead of seeing this limited and to some extent veiled reality as being necessary to instantiate profound meaning. A distant "optimized" state would seem to preclude what is offered here and now.

I tried to point out to Eugene how this whole 'veil' philosophy is abused. On one hand we postulate a veil which separates us from reality. But at the same time we develop a belief system about what this beyond reality is like and how based on this we can guide our life here on our side of the veil. Paradoxically, it's impossible to know if any of our beliefs about the beyond are correct because our own belief precludes any possibility for direct knowledge of the beyond.

Please note that this has been justified in the past when religious revelations were bestowed on humanity. But for the man of today, the above philosophy is self-defeating. It guarantees that we'll meet with the greatest suspicion any claim of knowledge attained from the deeper strata of reality - simply because in our philosophy this is not feasible. But at the same time we base our life on our beliefs about the beyond. Where do these beliefs come from? They are simply a patchwork of ideas that simply suit our preferences.

The last words are key. Because this is what we see everywhere. This veil philosophy basically gives everyone carte blanche to do anything they want. Here's an example. A serial murderer may say: "MAL/God wanted to experience how it feels like to take the lives of others by causing them excruciating pain in the process. But don't worry, this is all planned. There's no Karma. I won't be punished. All my victims have volunteered to have these painful experiences. It's all good." Now if we take this veil philosophy seriously we can't really say anything to that person. Even if our vision of the beyond is different, how can we make a point? We can't because it will be our word against his. We're both on our side of the impermeable veil and we argue whether the murderer is here to experience the pleasures of killing or he's here to overcome his infernal instincts.

Things are very simple. The whole trouble, as Ashvin has pointed out many times, is that people don't follow their own ideas to their ultimate conclusions. If we take our veil philosophy to its ultimate conclusions we arrive at the above - everyone can do whatever they want because they can simply fantasize whatever mechanics they want behind the veil. And if we're true to our veil philosophy we shouldn't complain either when corrupt politicians destroy the lives of whole nations, when criminals rob us and kill our loved ones and so on. If we're consistent with our philosophy we have no right to complain - anyone can simply say "This is the beauty of life - we can experience all these things without any repercussions. It's all a game." This is the simple fact.

Then someone says "Look, people, this makes no sense. We need to investigate the depth of things and try to understand why people sin and take fully conscious control of our lives." To this we hear the response "Are you crazy? The veil is there for a reason. You want to ruin our fun? Are you going against the Will of God?"

If we look at things honestly we'll have to admit that this veil philosophy is there for one reason only - so that we can use it as a 'wildcard' such that we can fill the void of the beyond with whatever details our heart desires. Worried about Karma? No problem - we've got you covered. Here's a version of reality without Karma. Want to meet the Christ in Heaven? Sure - here, we have that too. Allergic to monotheism? Your arrival couldn't have been more timely - we have this brand new version of the Universe made of independent interest groups. So? What would it be?

Yes, we live in fascinating times. Our consumerist habits have gone so far that we now imagine we can simply go to the store and pick the version of reality that best fits our egoic taste.

The Central Topic doesn't talk about utopia, it's not about trespassing where we're not supposed to. It's about waking up to the illusions we voluntarily set up because we love their sweet taste. It's about becoming conscious of the forces within which our thinking, feeling and actions flow. Yes, this ruins some kinds of fun. Especially if our deeds are such that they should better remain in the dark. But when it's said "many of the things we so admire would not be possible without some level of veiling" what is it really that we so much admire? What is it that will be ruined if it is elucidated by the Light of Truth? It's true that if we admire boxing, then we may really be disappointed because this sport will likely lose its following once we begin to feel the pain and humiliation of the one that is being beaten up, as if it happens to ourselves. But this is why there's evolution. Every one of these phenomena takes shape in the specific evolutionary context. So what do we admire? Some barbarian show that feeds our primitive instincts? The same instincts that cause pain and suffering all over the world?

There's real lack of imagination here. What we experience today can't even be called life in the true sense of the word. It's a half-conscious struggle with unknown forces and little sparkles of pleasure here and there. And don't worry, trying to lift the veil won't teleport us into a utopian state. It's actually quite the opposite. It will present us with the full display of the tumorous body of humanity. If someone says that he doesn't want to pierce through the veil because he's afraid of what he'll see I would sympathize. Because the situation is not at all pretty. But to say that "there's nothing to be fixed, everything is perfect as it is, stop scaring people, let them enjoy their lives in whatever way they want" is simply a moral crime.

[Cleric K]

My point (made more explicitly in the blog version) is that I agree with Cleric about metaphysics. In an absolute way, we don't know what absolute reality is. We can't know. It probably doesn't even make sense to even try to know.

You seem to think the fact that we are conscious and experience something is telling us something useful in an absolute sense,. It doesn't. The real hammer may be imagined too but it is at the same time clearly different from the one that is only imagined.

We use "mind" and "matter" also in a relative sense. There may be pragmatic value in the concepts. The pragmatic value is that we don't deliberately hit our hands with a hammer or stand in front of an oncoming train.

The problem with idealism and materialism both is they take pragmatic, useful, and relative concepts and try to use them them in an absolute sense.

I was to go at length about the hammer example and the above but I see that Eugene has pretty much addressed it.

I'll only add that we can really take the above as the starting point. It's OK that we can't say what reality is 'in itself'. This looks as a loss only if we can't withhold our desire to have an opinion on the subject. Because this is really what it is: we simply state some opinion about something imagined, which can never be known from its side. All our truly useful knowledge is gathered through thinking about perceptions. We know the difference between real and imagined hammer because (in most cases) they can be distinguished. We must simple concede that we're dealing with different phenomena which for the time being we're not exactly sure how they are related. No one is forcing us to form a premature opinion, just so that we can sound knowledgeable.

Now the feeling that there's something 'out there' is natural. It's healthy that we feel that our conscious aperture presents us only with a very limited perspective of something potentially infinite. I say this in order not to make the mistake and believe that what we experience in the current moment is all there is. It's simply that we can say "I gain nothing by fantasizing this larger reality in a way which can never be known even in principle. Instead, I can simply go further and explore what the givens tell me".

The Central Topic is about loosening the prejudice that what we experience currently is the final and ultimate way of knowing reality. Yes, in the normal circumstances of modern life we know only the spectrum of perceptions and our thoughts about them. But the goal of TCT is to show the direction where we can attain to new kinds of phenomena which are again on 'our side' of reality. We attain to that when we begin to explore the ways our thinking is formed. So far we've been preoccupied with thoughts about perceptions, now we can also include the thoughts themselves to the landscape of scientific inquiry, even though we need to develop new cognitive modes for this. In this way thinking becomes a real world process that can be investigated as fully legitimate element of reality. I won't repeat it here, it's in the beginning of this thread.

[Eugene I.]

The last words are key. Because this is what we see everywhere. This veil philosophy basically gives everyone carte blanche to do anything they want. Here's an example. A serial murderer may say: "MAL/God wanted to experience how it feels like to take the lives of others by causing them excruciating pain in the process. But don't worry, this is all planned. There's no Karma. I won't be punished. All my victims have volunteered to have these painful experiences. It's all good." Now if we take this veil philosophy seriously we can't really say anything to that person.

Cleric, almost any philosophy, religion, spiritual practice or worldview can be abused by applying a twisted logic to it to justify egoic actions. Even PoF can be, as we saw in another thread in the example of Steiner's racist claims that were almost undistinguishable from Nazi's racial philosophy, so your arguments can be equally applied to the SS.

We actually can say a lot to this person from the standpoint of the "veil philosophy", because the "veil philosophy" does not deny the Divine dimension with its moral, agapic and esthetic values. The connection with the Divine dimension and its values and meanings are still accessible to us through our spiritual intuition, they are not completely veiled, but they are not imposed on us deterministically so that we can exercise our freedom of choice in our actions. But yes, freedom comes with a price that it can be abused and wrong choices can be made, and it is understandable that many people feel uncomfortable with that.

If we remove all the veils and converge to the Ideal Perfection and Unity, this will be the end of freedom, life and development, it's a stagnation point. If we reject and neglect the Ideal and the Divine and choose to only exist within our veils, it's a path do division, isolation and degradation. It is only when Ideal and veiled coexist in a good balance, integrated and diversified at the same time, where Life can flourish and Divine can actualize itself through live experiences. As Lou said: "Divine Integrated Diversity".

[Steve Petermann]

Cleric,
For my response, I couldn't improve on what Eugene said so well.

The last words are key. Because this is what we see everywhere. This veil philosophy basically gives everyone carte blanche to do anything they want. Here's an example. A serial murderer may say: "MAL/God wanted to experience how it feels like to take the lives of others by causing them excruciating pain in the process. But don't worry, this is all planned. There's no Karma. I won't be punished. All my victims have volunteered to have these painful experiences. It's all good." Now if we take this veil philosophy seriously we can't really say anything to that person.

Cleric, almost any philosophy, religion, spiritual practice or worldview can be abused by applying a twisted logic to it to justify egoic actions. Even PoF can be, as we saw in another thread in the example of Steiner's racist claims that were almost undistinguishable from Nazi's racial philosophy, so your arguments can be equally applied to the SS.

We actually can say a lot to this person from the standpoint of the "veil philosophy", because the "veil philosophy" does not deny the Divine dimension with its moral, agapic and esthetic values. The connection with the Divine dimension and its values and meanings are still accessible to us through our spiritual intuition, they are not completely veiled, but they are not imposed on us deterministically so that we can exercise our freedom of choice in our actions. But yes, freedom comes with a price that it can be abused and wrong choices can be made, and it is understandable that many people feel uncomfortable with that.

If we remove all the veils and converge to the Ideal Perfection and Unity, this will be the end of freedom, life and development, it's a stagnation point. If we reject and neglect the Ideal and the Divine and choose to only exist within our veils, it's a path do division, isolation and degradation. It is only when Ideal and veiled coexist in a good balance, integrated and diversified at the same time, where Life can flourish and Divine can actualize itself through live experiences. As Lou said: "Divine Integrated Diversity".

[Cleric K]

If we remove all the veils and converge to the Ideal Perfection and Unity, this will be the end of freedom, life and development, it's a stagnation point. If we reject and neglect the Ideal and the Divine and choose to only exist within our veils, it's a path do division, isolation and degradation. It is only when Ideal and veiled coexist in a good balance, integrated and diversified at the same time, where Life can flourish and Divine can actualize itself through live experiences. As Lou said: "Divine Integrated Diversity".

Don't worry. You can't remove all the veils even if you want to. The veil is the evolutionary horizon of time/consciousness. Just as little a child can 'break the veil' and suddenly become an old man, so we need not worry that we'll somehow accidentally find ourselves prematurely at the end of evolution and 'miss all the fun'.

But anyway. If one can look at the world today and with clear conscience say "There's nothing to be fixed, everything is perfect as it is", then so be it. I must only repeat that such a view serves nothing else but the ego, which because of its own comfort is willing to fantasize that everything is such by design and there's no need to understand anything about the world and our eventual role in it. This is contradicted even by the most elementary common sense, let alone by deeper cognition. On Earth one wouldn't allow his house to fall apart because he very well knows that if he doesn't do something today, tomorrow it will collapse and he'll be out in the cold. Strangely enough, through the veil philosophy we do exactly that. We imagine that the apparent falling apart of humanity is all by design and there's nothing to be fixed. We don't stop for a second to connect the dots and realize that what today is falling apart will be the collapsed body of humanity in which we'll incarnate tomorrow. I repeat - both elementary common sense and even the most preliminary spiritual intuition tell us that this is how things stand. It is only the ego which is willing to close its eyes for this and play "all in" by placing all bets against all odds, backed up by nothing but blind belief, with the hope that once the threshold of death is crossed the whole Earth together with humanity will be left behind as a bad dream.

Practically every Earthly experience speaks against this. What do we do when someone tells us "Give me $1000 and in five days I'll give you back $100 000"? Quite unlikely, isn't it? Yet there are people who fall for it. They could have easily avoided this if they have tried to learn at least a little about that person. But they don't because they're afraid that lifting the veil may ruin their dream of quick fortune. They say "Get outta here, don't ruin my dream by telling me the truth. I'm all in." I can go on and on with examples like this. It is only our spiritual naivety that what is valid on Earth has no relation to reality as a whole. And why don't we want to verify these things for ourselves? Because of the inept excuse that God has created us ignorant for a reason and we're trespassing His Law if we dare to grow in wisdom and virtue.

Anyone is free to place their bets anyway they like - its their chips. Unfortunately they are not the only ones who'll suffer if the bet turns out to be losing. Through our ignorance and blind belief in things that are clearly tailored to fit our personal desires and nothing else, we're hurting not only our individual development but also that of the whole Cosmic organism.

I'll leave with one thought. If we weren't talking about spiritual things but instead, say, I want to have a palace that I can live freely in, which one would you find more probable:
1/ I focus on my desire and firmly believe that it will somehow happen by itself at some future point. There are some who tell me that it's not gonna work like that but I don't want to hear. They are deluded because there's no real way we can know if it is or isn't possible. Yet I choose to believe it is possible and I sit and wait.
2/ I begin studying, I learn science, architecture, make plans, gather resources, start building until my goal is complete

People may protest as much as they want but this is the spiritual naivety in which modern man finds himself. He wants the palace, he wants the $100 000 yet firmly believes that nothing of the lessons he has learnt on Earth has any significance whatsoever for reality at large. He imagines his own laws in the fairy world where he expects against all odds that after death he'll be welcomed to his palace with branches of palm trees.

And finally, in order to connect this with the Central Topic, let's just say once again that 1/ can never be anything more than blind belief. As a matter of fact all knowledge is avoided because even the most elementary facts undermine our naive belief. 2/ can be verified with every tiny step we make. The first step is to examine the desires that act as the wave function within which our thoughts and actions decohrere, and which make us dream of 1/

[Eugene I.]

On Earth one wouldn't allow his house to fall apart because he very well knows that if he doesn't do something today, tomorrow it will collapse and he'll be out in the cold. Strangely enough, through the veil philosophy we do exactly that.

Cleric, I just can't see how you arrived to such twisted interpretation of the "veil philosophy". Steve said exactly the opposite, and I was saying essentially the same thing:

Instead, I think the incorporation of divine transcendence represents an evolution of the divine to life to greater heights. This is not some end game to be had but rather a continuous movement where divine goals are challenged in different ways that can be more fruitful and profound. If the divine goals are to promote what we (and God) admire, could there really be a final end in stasis with no need for virtues? I think not.

But I understand your position very well, I've been through that myself. It is a denialist and escapist attitude towards life, which is just as you said: " What we experience today can't even be called life in the true sense of the word. It's a half-conscious struggle with unknown forces and little sparkles of pleasure here and there. " And that is indeed how life, devoid of meaning, is experienced by huge number of people today as well as in the past. And a very understandable and easy movement away from such miserable life is escapism and denialism - turn your back to such "life that can't even be called life" and escape to an Utopia, to a "Pure Ideal" beyond the veils and limits of the human existence. In almost every religion and spiritual tradition of the past there have been people doing exactly that - running away from life into monasteries, caves and deserts, into cloistered occult practices, rejecting everything that does not perfectly align with the Ideal, praying God in mystical union or meditating to achieve Nirvana or Samadhi, and only waiting to leave the human body and human life behind to achieve the goal of the existence in Perfection and Union. The Steiner's SS is essentially the same escapism wrapped in a different philosophical and occultic formulation.

But as we said, these are not the only two alternatives, there is a third one, the "middle way": integrate and incorporate the Divine transcendent dimension in the veiled immanent existence to develop and transform it "to life to greater heights". As the Christians say, it is "the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth". But that is a huge challenge, it requires courage, patience, hard work, acceptance of human suffering. It is indeed not easy, and it is understandable that many do not want such challenge, so it is not to blame anyone who chooses to escape. So, I'm not saying that escapism is wrong. I'm just saying that there is still another alternative available, it's not easy, it's challenging, but it is rewarding in a deep way and it is available for anyone who is up to the challenge.

[Cleric K]

On Earth one wouldn't allow his house to fall apart because he very well knows that if he doesn't do something today, tomorrow it will collapse and he'll be out in the cold. Strangely enough, through the veil philosophy we do exactly that.

Cleric, I just can't see how you arrived to such twisted interpretation of the "veil philosophy". Steve said exactly the opposite, and I was saying essentially the same thing:

Instead, I think the incorporation of divine transcendence represents an evolution of the divine to life to greater heights. This is not some end game to be had but rather a continuous movement where divine goals are challenged in different ways that can be more fruitful and profound. If the divine goals are to promote what we (and God) admire, could there really be a final end in stasis with no need for virtues? I think not.

But I understand your position very well, I've been through that myself. It is a denialist and escapist attitude towards life, which is just as you said: " What we experience today can't even be called life in the true sense of the word. It's a half-conscious struggle with unknown forces and little sparkles of pleasure here and there. " And that is indeed how life, devoid of meaning, is experienced by huge number of people today as well as in the past. And a very understandable movement away from such miserable life is escapism and denialism - turn your back to such "life" and escape to an Utopia, to a "Pure Ideal" beyond the veils and limits of the human existence. In almost every religion and spiritual tradition of the past there have been people doing exactly that - running away from life into caves and deserts, rejecting everything that does not perfectly align with the Ideal and praying God in mystical union or meditating to achieve Nirvana or Samadhi. The Steiner's SS is essentially the same escapism wrapped in a different philosophical and occultic formulation.

I came to these twisted interpretations directly from what was written. All this talk about 'evolution of the divine to life to greater heights' simply makes no sense when at the same time it is said that nothing needs to be fixed. You say that we set the divine goals for what we (and God) admire. What we admire? Love, Wisdom, Truth, Righteousness, Freedom. Do we see that in the world today? No? Then we still maintain that there's nothing to be fixed? Seriously, where's the logic in all this? If we set out to understand ourselves and investigate the depths of our impure desires which stand on the way of these virtues, and then we begin to transform ourselves in that direction, we turn out to be escapists? Please, make up your mind. Are evolving or not? Are we pursuing the divine goals that we admire or not?

[Eugene I.]

All this talk about 'evolution of the divine to life to greater heights' simply makes no sense when at the same time it is said that nothing needs to be fixed. You say that we set the divine goals for what we (and God) admire. What we admire? Love, Wisdom, Truth, Righteousness, Freedom. Do we see that in the world today? No? Then we still maintain that there's nothing to be fixed? Seriously, where's the logic in all this? If we set out to understand ourselves and investigate the depths of our impure desires which stand on the way of these virtues, and then we begin to transform ourselves in that direction, we turn out to be escapists? Please, make up your mind. Are evolving or not? Are we pursuing the divine goals that we admire or not?

Where did we say exactly that "nothing needs to be fixed"? Steve was saying that the human existence with its limitations is not a mistake or a consequence of blind natural forces, it was an intentional creation by Divine. I was saying essentially the same when saying that the "veil" is not a mistake, it is here for a reason. But that does not mean that nothing needs to be fixed, this is a conclusion that you somehow drew yourself, we never said that. Instead, we said that, within the limits of the non-prefect and veiled existence, there is a lot, in fact unlimited ways, in which it can be "fixed", improved and developed "to life to greater heights" by incorporating and integrating the Divine values into our veiled and limited human existence.