Is it just me who is going through a lot of existential angst about idealism?

[Lou Gold]

PS: I know that there are some who don't hold such a strong view about the mystical state and don't claim that it reaches the Heart of the Cosmos, thus for them it's natural that no details about the world creation are perceived in the mystical state. But this only makes matters worse because it simply admits the dualism of non-dualism. Basically this position says "Yes, the Earthly state is indeed an octave within a higher world, but the folded intellect is the absolute maximum anyone can achieve within that octave. Samadhi is the absolute upper boundary of that octave. Anything more we can expect only after death. For this reason, anyone speaking about direct experience of the higher octaves, must be by definition confusing the dual world for higher consciousness."

And this is the dualism of non-dualism. Even though logically the world should be one, the boundary of death is taken to be some absolute threshold that splits the otherwise non-dual Cosmos in hardly divided Earthly and yonder realm.

The only reason for supporting this dualism is because the folded intellect doesn't want to encounter within this life, anything of higher nature, which is active behind it. It doesn't rule out the possibility for higher forces but they are conveniently placed on the other side and expected only after death.

I remind that the essential nature of every Initiation in the mystery schools through the ages has always been that the disciple goes through death but without the loss of the physical body. In this way he becomes citizen of both worlds so to speak.

In the course of evolution this event becomes less dramatic because the developing "I"-consciousness integrates the life between death and new birth with the life within a body. Today Initiation is no longer about going through a mystery ritual and lying for three days in pitch-black coffin. Even without knowing it, many people today live in both worlds but spiritual activity is glued to the sensory spectrum, so to speak. Initiation today is much more about the gradual development of our inner life, such that we become clearly conscious of the way the spirit works across the spectrum of worlds.

But the fact remains that contemporary materialistically thinking man (even if disguised as idealistically thinking) must solve the problem of death while still in the body. Not by having firm belief about some form of after life but by actually awakening to the forms of spiritual activity which are characteristic to the disembodied state. Without this bridge, non-dualism is bound to remain dual, since it simply folds the intellect and sleeps at the threshold of death.

I agree/disagree, if you know what I mean.

[mikekatz]

Hi Ashvin

No, there is duality. If there was no duality, you and I could not be having this conversation. It's true, from the "point of view" of One World, there is no duality. But then, from the "point of view" of One World, there is also no Ashvin and Mike either, or even space and time.

I also don't agree that you can "trace back" to One World. Once again, we live in duality. Duality means, at base level, consciousness and the world, awareness and perceptions, subject and object. One World is non-dual, it's a different order of existence, it's the vertical as opposed to the horizontal that you and Cleric speak about. No matter how much you do on the horizontal, you will never get to the vertical. You absolutely do teleport back to the Origin, it's the only way to get there! Except, there's nowhere to teleport to. You just stop being dual.

If I may say in a friendly manner, I think it may be you, and not me, who is subtly descending into dualism here. Tracing and retracing steps in a forest is precisely dualism. Who is doing the tracing? What is the forest that is being traced? How can any action in the dual realm get to One World?

Mike,

I am really confused at this point. You are explicitly stating there is duality and we live in duality, and then claiming you are still within monism and I am descending into dualism. I really don't know how to make it more explicit for you than you are making it in what you are writing. The fact that most people experience an "I"-World distinction does make duality (division) an absolute property of Reality or an absolute boundary to human knowledge. Maybe consider this excerpt posted on the latest Steiner thread. The same thing is happening here with your comments.

To recapitulate Steiner’s argument from above: in the standard theories of cognition of his day, the fact that perceptions are objects of experience is never accounted for unless it is by relegating everything to mere representations, at which point the term loses its basis both from lack of evidential and conceptual ground. Nothing in direct perception suggests that it is a representation and so it is hard to understand where evidence for this notion could hail from except for the foregone affirmation of the very conclusion that is in question. If it be nonetheless affirmed, in the spirit of Kant and Schopenhauer, that “the world is my representation,” the term loses its meaning because a representation implies something of which it is a representation. Just like a simulation cannot but be of something that is not a simulation, so if the reality that cause such representations is totally unknown, on what basis do we believe in the theory that says everything we do know is a representation? After all, it was ostensibly formed in response to the very evidence which it now calls into question. On the other hand, if reality is in fact known, then the world is not just my representation so the theory is also moot.

Hi Ashvin
To be honest, I think we're just going round in circles.

You are explicitly stating there is duality and we live in duality...I really don't know how to make it more explicit for you than you are making it in what you are writing.

The fact that most people experience an "I"-World distinction does make duality (division) an absolute property of Reality or an absolute boundary to human knowledge

What are we saying that's different? We're trying to describe the indescribable, so everything is an approximation.

Perhaps it's this: From the quote about Steiner, are you saying that the world out there actually exists as we perceive it? Whereas I am saying that the world out there exists in mind?

[AshvinP]

Hi Ashvin

No, there is duality. If there was no duality, you and I could not be having this conversation. It's true, from the "point of view" of One World, there is no duality. But then, from the "point of view" of One World, there is also no Ashvin and Mike either, or even space and time.

I also don't agree that you can "trace back" to One World. Once again, we live in duality. Duality means, at base level, consciousness and the world, awareness and perceptions, subject and object. One World is non-dual, it's a different order of existence, it's the vertical as opposed to the horizontal that you and Cleric speak about. No matter how much you do on the horizontal, you will never get to the vertical. You absolutely do teleport back to the Origin, it's the only way to get there! Except, there's nowhere to teleport to. You just stop being dual.

If I may say in a friendly manner, I think it may be you, and not me, who is subtly descending into dualism here. Tracing and retracing steps in a forest is precisely dualism. Who is doing the tracing? What is the forest that is being traced? How can any action in the dual realm get to One World?

Mike,

I am really confused at this point. You are explicitly stating there is duality and we live in duality, and then claiming you are still within monism and I am descending into dualism. I really don't know how to make it more explicit for you than you are making it in what you are writing. The fact that most people experience an "I"-World distinction does make duality (division) an absolute property of Reality or an absolute boundary to human knowledge. Maybe consider this excerpt posted on the latest Steiner thread. The same thing is happening here with your comments.

To recapitulate Steiner’s argument from above: in the standard theories of cognition of his day, the fact that perceptions are objects of experience is never accounted for unless it is by relegating everything to mere representations, at which point the term loses its basis both from lack of evidential and conceptual ground. Nothing in direct perception suggests that it is a representation and so it is hard to understand where evidence for this notion could hail from except for the foregone affirmation of the very conclusion that is in question. If it be nonetheless affirmed, in the spirit of Kant and Schopenhauer, that “the world is my representation,” the term loses its meaning because a representation implies something of which it is a representation. Just like a simulation cannot but be of something that is not a simulation, so if the reality that cause such representations is totally unknown, on what basis do we believe in the theory that says everything we do know is a representation? After all, it was ostensibly formed in response to the very evidence which it now calls into question. On the other hand, if reality is in fact known, then the world is not just my representation so the theory is also moot.

Hi Ashvin
To be honest, I think we're just going round in circles.

You are explicitly stating there is duality and we live in duality...I really don't know how to make it more explicit for you than you are making it in what you are writing.

The fact that most people experience an "I"-World distinction does make duality (division) an absolute property of Reality or an absolute boundary to human knowledge

What are we saying that's different? We're trying to describe the indescribable, so everything is an approximation.

Perhaps it's this: From the quote about Steiner, are you saying that the world out there actually exists as we perceive it? Whereas I am saying that the world out there exists in mind?

Mike,

Cleric's post basically summed up all the issues with this form of "non-dualism" here, in contrast to spiritual evolutionay approach. So I invite you to consider it and respond. I don't think I can add anything that would bring more clarity right now.

[mikekatz]

Mike,

I am really confused at this point. You are explicitly stating there is duality and we live in duality, and then claiming you are still within monism and I am descending into dualism. I really don't know how to make it more explicit for you than you are making it in what you are writing. The fact that most people experience an "I"-World distinction does make duality (division) an absolute property of Reality or an absolute boundary to human knowledge. Maybe consider this excerpt posted on the latest Steiner thread. The same thing is happening here with your comments.

Ashvin,

I think I get what Mike is saying here, and it's a fair point. You said there's no "teleporting back" to the origin. And this indeed sounds like a concept where we are somehow "outside" something we have to find our way back to. While in fact every doctrine about liberation (Buddhist or Hindu) I have read so far points out that liberation does NOT involve any kind of "change". It's simply a realisation, where you lose the conceptual framework of "I / not I". Nothing changes other than how you perceive Being. And it IS a kind of "teleporting", since it's said to be completely instant.
Of course I'm using others' experiences, not mine.

Right. That whole conception comes from treating the world we perceive as fundamentally divided from the world "as it is". It says there is a world of logical structure which unfolds according to 'laws' (physical), and then there is a world without any logical structure (spiritual). That is dualism. A complete discontinuity is inserted between the physical and spiritual. It is undeniable that our Willing-Feeling-Thinking activity is rhythmically structured and lawfully unfolding in our experience, right? So why are we inserting a complete discontinuity when we speak of the "spirtual" or "nondual" world? This is the dualism of nondualism that Cleric was speaking of in his post. There is one "dual world" and another "nondual world", i.e. dualism. It all comes from the modern mental habit of abstraction and idolizing of abstractions which practically takes place before we notice it.

As discussed in latest essay, dualism is a dividing of polar essence, i.e. taking what is fundamentally unified and tearing it asunder. The fact that most of us don't want to admit is that the intellect cannot understand polarity. Aristotelean logic cannot capture it. Abstraction is at the basis of all modern dualism, which shows up in materialism, explicit dualism (religious fundamentalism), and idealism. The outer labels don't really matter. People can find a way to fit their dualistic view into any label they want. Abstract concepts are infinite in number and so isolated from the broader meaningful context that they can be configured in any way we please to conform with the outer labels. It is in the very nature of intellect to artificially separate poles into dualities for more precise observation and analysis. Yet, polarity is the very structure of the Cosmic seed and radiates through all of its manifestations within the unified Spirit-Matter realm.

So when the fundamental Polarity of Thinking-Willing is divided by the intellect, this echoes through all other polar relations, including "I"-World, Subject-Object, Meaning-Perception, Ideal-Real, Mind-Matter, Consciousness-Unconsciousness, Future-Past, East-West, North-South, and practically any other similar relation we can think of. They are all fundamentally expressions of the same Primoridal Polarity. The intellect cannot understand this Polarity, but the reason it cannot be understood can be understood. One pole of the polarity, from any given limited perspective, is not an object. When we say we understand X, X must be an object. Hence we should not expect that the act of understanding, which is Thinking, can understand itself, much as "seeing" cannot see itself. But we can, so to speak, get used to polar relation by doing what we are doing now. Eventually, we can expand our sphere of perception-cognition so that what was previously considered non-objective can be made an object of perception. Then even higher layers of meaning become the formless non-objective activity in-forming our perceptions.

The solution to apparent dualities in our thinking-experience can only be further evolution of that experience. The person who mystically obscures the I-World distinction in the 'teleporting' state has not overcome dualistic thinking. That is evident in the fact that it reasserts itself whenever they come back and start thinking through their experience again. What we keep saying here is that we don't have to settle for that temporary mystical obscurity. There are tried and true methods of evolving cognition so that it no longer perceives-thinks the world dualistically.

There are tried and true methods of evolving cognition so that it no longer perceives-thinks the world dualistically.

So "cognition" evolves and then "perceives-thinks" "the world" non-dualistically. We have "cognition" "perceiving" "the world", a three-way activity / event that is somehow non-dual? Rolling all three into one somehow?

And in addition, we are overcoming the un-overcomeable, the Primordial Polarity?

Ashvin, I'm not trying to debunk how you see the world. I respect you deeply.

I'm just trying to point out the futility of trying to express in words what cannot be expressed, and then everyone getting frustrated that no-one seems to be listening.

Imagine this was a forum about colour, and the participants are all red-green colour blind. Can you ever get one of them to understand the difference between red and green?
Imagine this is a forum about bike riding. Can you teach anyone to ride a bike by words on this forum? Even when they read the words and then try themselves, it will be extremely difficult. Far better to have someone actually show them in person.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

I think I get what Mike is saying here, and it's a fair point. You said there's no "teleporting back" to the origin. And this indeed sounds like a concept where we are somehow "outside" something we have to find our way back to. While in fact every doctrine about liberation (Buddhist or Hindu) I have read so far points out that liberation does NOT involve any kind of "change". It's simply a realisation, where you lose the conceptual framework of "I / not I". Nothing changes other than how you perceive Being. And it IS a kind of "teleporting", since it's said to be completely instant.
Of course I'm using others' experiences, not mine.

Right. That whole conception comes from treating the world we perceive as fundamentally divided from the world "as it is". It says there is a world of logical structure which unfolds according to 'laws' (physical), and then there is a world without any logical structure (spiritual). That is dualism. A complete discontinuity is inserted between the physical and spiritual. It is undeniable that our Willing-Feeling-Thinking activity is rhythmically structured and lawfully unfolding in our experience, right? So why are we inserting a complete discontinuity when we speak of the "spirtual" or "nondual" world? This is the dualism of nondualism that Cleric was speaking of in his post. There is one "dual world" and another "nondual world", i.e. dualism. It all comes from the modern mental habit of abstraction and idolizing of abstractions which practically takes place before we notice it.

As discussed in latest essay, dualism is a dividing of polar essence, i.e. taking what is fundamentally unified and tearing it asunder. The fact that most of us don't want to admit is that the intellect cannot understand polarity. Aristotelean logic cannot capture it. Abstraction is at the basis of all modern dualism, which shows up in materialism, explicit dualism (religious fundamentalism), and idealism. The outer labels don't really matter. People can find a way to fit their dualistic view into any label they want. Abstract concepts are infinite in number and so isolated from the broader meaningful context that they can be configured in any way we please to conform with the outer labels. It is in the very nature of intellect to artificially separate poles into dualities for more precise observation and analysis. Yet, polarity is the very structure of the Cosmic seed and radiates through all of its manifestations within the unified Spirit-Matter realm.

So when the fundamental Polarity of Thinking-Willing is divided by the intellect, this echoes through all other polar relations, including "I"-World, Subject-Object, Meaning-Perception, Ideal-Real, Mind-Matter, Consciousness-Unconsciousness, Future-Past, East-West, North-South, and practically any other similar relation we can think of. They are all fundamentally expressions of the same Primoridal Polarity. The intellect cannot understand this Polarity, but the reason it cannot be understood can be understood. One pole of the polarity, from any given limited perspective, is not an object. When we say we understand X, X must be an object. Hence we should not expect that the act of understanding, which is Thinking, can understand itself, much as "seeing" cannot see itself. But we can, so to speak, get used to polar relation by doing what we are doing now. Eventually, we can expand our sphere of perception-cognition so that what was previously considered non-objective can be made an object of perception. Then even higher layers of meaning become the formless non-objective activity in-forming our perceptions.

The solution to apparent dualities in our thinking-experience can only be further evolution of that experience. The person who mystically obscures the I-World distinction in the 'teleporting' state has not overcome dualistic thinking. That is evident in the fact that it reasserts itself whenever they come back and start thinking through their experience again. What we keep saying here is that we don't have to settle for that temporary mystical obscurity. There are tried and true methods of evolving cognition so that it no longer perceives-thinks the world dualistically.

There are tried and true methods of evolving cognition so that it no longer perceives-thinks the world dualistically.

So "cognition" evolves and then "perceives-thinks" "the world" non-dualistically. We have "cognition" "perceiving" "the world", a three-way activity / event that is somehow non-dual? Rolling all three into one somehow?

And in addition, we are overcoming the un-overcomeable, the Primordial Polarity?

Ashvin, I'm not trying to debunk how you see the world. I respect you deeply.

I'm just trying to point out the futility of trying to express in words what cannot be expressed, and then everyone getting frustrated that no-one seems to be listening.

Imagine this was a forum about colour, and the participants are all red-green colour blind. Can you ever get one of them to understand the difference between red and green?
Imagine this is a forum about bike riding. Can you teach anyone to ride a bike by words on this forum? Even when they read the words and then try themselves, it will be extremely difficult. Far better to have someone actually show them in person.

Mike,

It's really simple.

As mentioned in that post, the intellect cannot understand polar relation. Here we are dealing with what Scott calls "tetralemmic polarity". It is triune activity of Willing-Feeling-Thinking. We all agree that our words here cannot explain the experience of higher levels of Unity within this Trinity of meaningful activity. But, as I also said in that post, we can understand why we can't explain it with words. We dont have to resign immediately, because the deeper why will point us in the right direction.

In short, it is because our mode of abstract representational cognition is not equipped to do so. So we are left with two options - 1) make an attempt to start riding the bicycle, i.e. set out on concrete path of evolving cognition, 2) declare #1 impossible and remain with the intellect, thiking dualistically and just be satisfied this is how it will always be until after death. If we reincarnate, presumably we will end up in the same situation again, with all the world problems born of dualism.

Cleric's post then goes further to explain why many "non-dualist" traditions go with #2. It is all in the post he wrote and that I linked in my last comment.

[mikekatz]

PS: I know that there are some who don't hold such a strong view about the mystical state and don't claim that it reaches the Heart of the Cosmos, thus for them it's natural that no details about the world creation are perceived in the mystical state. But this only makes matters worse because it simply admits the dualism of non-dualism. Basically this position says "Yes, the Earthly state is indeed an octave within a higher world, but the folded intellect is the absolute maximum anyone can achieve within that octave. Samadhi is the absolute upper boundary of that octave. Anything more we can expect only after death. For this reason, anyone speaking about direct experience of the higher octaves, must be by definition confusing the dual world for higher consciousness."

And this is the dualism of non-dualism. Even though logically the world should be one, the boundary of death is taken to be some absolute threshold that splits the otherwise non-dual Cosmos in hardly divided Earthly and yonder realm.

The only reason for supporting this dualism is because the folded intellect doesn't want to encounter within this life, anything of higher nature, which is active behind it. It doesn't rule out the possibility for higher forces but they are conveniently placed on the other side and expected only after death.

I remind that the essential nature of every Initiation in the mystery schools through the ages has always been that the disciple goes through death but without the loss of the physical body. In this way he becomes citizen of both worlds so to speak.

In the course of evolution this event becomes less dramatic because the developing "I"-consciousness integrates the life between death and new birth with the life within a body. Today Initiation is no longer about going through a mystery ritual and lying for three days in pitch-black coffin. Even without knowing it, many people today live in both worlds but spiritual activity is glued to the sensory spectrum, so to speak. Initiation today is much more about the gradual development of our inner life, such that we become clearly conscious of the way the spirit works across the spectrum of worlds.

But the fact remains that contemporary materialistically thinking man (even if disguised as idealistically thinking) must solve the problem of death while still in the body. Not by having firm belief about some form of after life but by actually awakening to the forms of spiritual activity which are characteristic to the disembodied state. Without this bridge, non-dualism is bound to remain dual, since it simply folds the intellect and sleeps at the threshold of death.

Hi Cleric
If "...the Earthly state is indeed an octave within a higher world...", then there are multiple states and multiple worlds. And a separate experiencer of these. If you wish to call the whole shebang One World, that's okay by me, but once again it's dualism.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that if you have non-dual experiences you are referring to above, that this is the end of the road as far as development is concerned. It may be, it may not be. But first, you have to actually get there, and have the experiences, and then see what else, if anything, happens. Furthermore, such experiences always bring positive changes when you are back in dualism. Your whole attitude to life, love, suffering, and others, changes. You see more, because you become more. And if this is what you and Ashvin are referring to in terms of coming to more understanding in our lives, then once again we are talking about the same thing in different language.

I also get what you say, by the way, about octaves within higher worlds. If you read "In Search of the Miraculous" by P.D. Ouspensky, he describes in immense detail what Gurdjieff conveyed about the structure of One World, using octaves and other tools. But once again, Gurdjieff was insistent that such matters were for those who first mastered themselves internally. That process begins with self-remembering, being aware of being aware. Only then can the teachings of higher worlds be useful, because they can be consciously absorbed into one's being and one's actions. As pure intellectual ideas, they are just distractions of the mind.

[Lou Gold]

Putting it simply, we reincarnate who we adore and not who we idolize.

[Cleric K]

Actually Cleric this explanation got me. So far I - and forgive me but I must say - wasn't entirely sure that you really did understand what non-dual peak experiences mean. This is a clear-cut and logical explanation, and it's one that I myself thought about, albeit without the empirical basis to support it. My whole anxiety regarding non-dual teachings is that they claim to get back to the foundation of reality, yet they are UNABLE TO EXPLAIN IT. And as I said in the OP, most of my anxiety stems from the seeming impossibility to find a comprehensible basis based on which you can interpret reality.

Hedge, you can actually consider yourself blessed for the kind of anxiety you experience. As strange as it may sound, it is thousand times better that you have it, rather than being completely satisfied with some general principle of non-dual consciousness. There's simply something deep in you which knows that there's more to the whole story and it tries to keep you awake.

These things can be very well understood as long as one considers seriously that humanity goes through evolutionary process. If we're attentive we'll easily feel that religious life for our ancestors has been something quite different from what it is for contemporary man. The religious life gave the spiritual flesh and blood of human beings. This is difficult for modern man to imagine, but religious life gave men a feeling of what they are.

This was gradually changing in the course of development. It becomes quite obvious towards the end of the Middle Ages and onwards, especially after the scientific revolution sparked by Newton. Gradually the intellectual ego has been growing more and more emancipated from its environment. The age of materialism would have never been possible if the intellectual self had not achieved relative independence from its environment.

What exactly this independence consists of? Once again - modern man needs certain effort to grasp these things because a lot is taken for granted and we imagine that humans have always felt their inner being in the way we do today. The more man learned to live in thoughts, the more this thinking framework was giving independent support for the "I".

In former times man felt supported by the gods, he felt flowing in them. Modern man feels he's supported by the physical world (the body in particular). For man of the past, the gods where everywhere behind world phenomena. Today we imagine it like if ancient man said "I see world of matter around me but I'll explain it by imagining some supernatural beings behind the appearances". This only shows how biased we are today. The ancients didn't see 'matter', just as we don't see 'matter'. We see colors - we're seeing spiritual phenomena. The experience of color is spiritual phenomenon. It's just that we managed to convince ourselves that behind the spiritual phenomena there's lifeless world of particles and forces. The ancients didn't suffer from such prejudices. They were much more objective by recognizing that they are spiritual beings and that other beings work within the sensory appearances.

For this reason, religion for the ancients was something which gave them their humanness. It was not a set of dogmas that they patched over their materialistic consciousness. It was the very structure of their consciousness. To make a comparison, to take away the religious life of the ancients, would be like taking away the feeling for physical world for modern man - one would remain as if in vacuum, so to speak. Without religion, ancient man would immediately sink into animalism. His consciousness would degenerate into dim instinctive life of feeding and reproducing. There would be no trace of consciousness about the fact that man is having life in enigmatic Cosmos.

Yet things were gradually changing and the thinking ego was becoming more and more self-supporting. From that standpoint we begin to feel as independent thinking self and the religions of old feel only like different clothes we put. In a way, our thinking core is above the religious dogma. The beliefs and rituals are only adornments that we attach to our thinking self.

This should be readily felt by anyone in our current age. Most people today have sufficiently developed thinking egos that even if they feel attached to some religion, they still feel that it is simply their choice, it's the religious garments they have chosen to clothe their ego in. In other words, with some effort (even if it feels deeply unsympathetic) one can imagine being clothed in another religion and there would still be a small spark of the thinking self which would remain the same. The "I" could say "Even though I switch religions, my essential being is still the same. I'm still the same "I"."

This in itself raises many questions - if religious truths are only clothes that we can easily exchange, then how can we ever know which or if any one is true?

The nondual teachings have found interesting solution to the problem. To a large extent it is progressive solution because it really pinpoints a valid point of attack. The logic is that maybe the truth is not in any one religious clothing which embellish the thinking self, but that the thinking self itself must be transcended. And in certain respect this is a very good approach because it recognizes a direction which the religions of old didn't yet have to consider. The nondual teachings say "It's not about which religious garment is the right one. It's about recognizing the thinking self which erroneously seeks the truth in the outer shells. Only if we step back from this desire to identify truth with some particular form, we'll find the peaceful expansion of the spotless mind."

This is good indeed. It really goes 'meta' about the old instinctive religious life. But today we need to go even more 'meta' about it. The solution of the nondual teachings is to put away the thinking self, because with its constant questioning it causes only trouble. But in this way a kind of upper boundary of the Earthly human state was formed. The folding of the intellect indeed gives us the feeling of being above any concrete form. That's why these experiences are so powerful. We really cast off various shells of rigid intellectual and feeling forms. We feel free. Yet by preoccupying with casting off any hint of spiritual activity, the practitioner also precludes any possibility to experience higher forms of spiritual activity. Not simply purer awareness and 'experiencing' but actual first-person activity.

This is the critical point today, as I wrote in the post to Mike above. As long as the nondualist considers any form of spiritual activity which seems to emanate from a subjective center, as belonging to the world of duality, he precludes any possibility for first-person creative consciousness above the boundary of the folded intellect.

It is a very good sign that people feel anxiety at the prospect that individual spiritual activity ceases together with the folding of the intellect. This protects the soul from falling asleep at the threshold of death and believing that whatever happens can be experienced only after the loss of the physical body.

Today the questioning of the thinking self should resume, although not in the old way. The intellect should ask "What is it that works in me, in my depths, of which my intellectual thoughts are only the surface precipitation?" It's quite obvious that the answer to this question shouldn't not be sought in the abstract way today's science and philosophy do. Whatever answer we receive in this old way, would be just a handful of words, which will continue to float on the surface. We need answers which are at the same time practical methods for inner transformation. The answer should come not as dry intellectual scheme, but as phenomenological description of the actual way our spiritual experience changes, as we seek to awaken to the deeper layers of being.

I'll later try to write something more about this in response to Anthony.

[Cleric K]

Hi Cleric
If "...the Earthly state is indeed an octave within a higher world...", then there are multiple states and multiple worlds. And a separate experiencer of these. If you wish to call the whole shebang One World, that's okay by me, but once again it's dualism.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that if you have non-dual experiences you are referring to above, that this is the end of the road as far as development is concerned. It may be, it may not be. But first, you have to actually get there, and have the experiences, and then see what else, if anything, happens. Furthermore, such experiences always bring positive changes when you are back in dualism. Your whole attitude to life, love, suffering, and others, changes. You see more, because you become more. And if this is what you and Ashvin are referring to in terms of coming to more understanding in our lives, then once again we are talking about the same thing in different language.

Mike, maybe it will help if you explain what exactly non-dual implies for you. In the way you use it, I get the feeling that it is really only a label for experiences which in previous discussions we called 'stepping out of the movie' (when we commented Gurdjieff's self-remembrance). This should be cleared out because for many people the non dual state represents a state where there's no longer distinction between self and world. But the question that I ask every time (and never really get adequate answer) is, if there's really no longer distinction between self and world, why do we still experience the world from a very specific perspective? For example, if I step out of the movie and call that being one with the world, how do I explain the fact that I still see the movie from the eyes of my Earthly human body? Why not see the movie from the eyes for all beings simultaneously? If I'm still seeing the world from particular set of eyes, then what is my relation to all other eyes?

These are random question, I'm not asking to answer them all. I just wanted to show that there's much ambiguity in the usage of non-dual in our age. For many, simply feeling blissful and carefree is equivalent to non-dual. So it would be useful to tell what exactly non-dual means to you.

[Hedge90]

Hi Cleric
If "...the Earthly state is indeed an octave within a higher world...", then there are multiple states and multiple worlds. And a separate experiencer of these. If you wish to call the whole shebang One World, that's okay by me, but once again it's dualism.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that if you have non-dual experiences you are referring to above, that this is the end of the road as far as development is concerned. It may be, it may not be. But first, you have to actually get there, and have the experiences, and then see what else, if anything, happens. Furthermore, such experiences always bring positive changes when you are back in dualism. Your whole attitude to life, love, suffering, and others, changes. You see more, because you become more. And if this is what you and Ashvin are referring to in terms of coming to more understanding in our lives, then once again we are talking about the same thing in different language.

Mike, maybe it will help if you explain what exactly non-dual implies for you. In the way you use it, I get the feeling that it is really only a label for experiences which in previous discussions we called 'stepping out of the movie' (when we commented Gurdjieff's self-remembrance). This should be cleared out because for many people the non dual state represents a state where there's no longer distinction between self and world. But the question that I ask every time (and never really get adequate answer) is, if there's really no longer distinction between self and world, why do we still experience the world from a very specific perspective? For example, if I step out of the movie and call that being one with the world, how do I explain the fact that I still see the movie from the eyes of my Earthly human body? Why not see the movie from the eyes for all beings simultaneously? If I'm still seeing the world from particular set of eyes, then what is my relation to all other eyes?

These are random question, I'm not asking to answer them all. I just wanted to show that there's much ambiguity in the usage of non-dual in our age. For many, simply feeling blissful and carefree is equivalent to non-dual. So it would be useful to tell what exactly non-dual means to you.

Cleric,

do you exclude the possibility though that some people in those earlier times got to those higher states that are "above" the folding of the mind? The various initiations and mysteries that got lost to us seem quite like that. Not to mention the Buddha's words about that he will not teach what he knows other than what is useful for liberation. Most people interpret this as "everything is vain except the strife for liberation", but it could (and I think it's reasonable to assume) also mean "there's a lot of stuff you can't access yet, but it's not for you" (at that particular point in time).