Essay: Man, Know Thyself

[Cleric K]

I would say to a large extent it's (2) because that's the nature of the Cosmic rhythms we are riding onto. As with every rhythm, there are alternations of expansion, which correspond to the time periods where possibilities are explored, than there's contraction, which acts as a filter and only the most useful discoveries remain - those which will serve as the seeds for the next cycle of expansion. In Astrosophy it's known that one of these rhythms is connected with the Platonic year - the precession of the equinox. Each of the ~2000year 12 periods represents one such cycle.

Nevertheless, especially from our age on, (1) should also be considered in the following sense: For the longest time humanity has passed quite unconsciously through these cycles. If we expect that this will continue in the same manner we'll be in trouble. Think of an animal driven by instinct. Who teaches the animals to copulate? Yet contemporary man should learn this externally. Otherwise it might never occur to him what it's supposed to be done. We've become emancipated from instinctive life and we got this in exchange of lucid self-consciousness. Now we have to guide our development in full consciousness. If we expect that instinct will save us, we are leaving ourselves at the mercy of random chance. We need to implement our 'instincts' in full awareness, in freedom, by discovering the same Wise forces that implemented the instincts in Life around us and use the same Wisdom to shape our own. In this sense it'll be the responsibility of the individual "I"s explore the peculiarities of every cycle and conduct their life accordingly, and not expect that things will happen automatically.

[Eugene I]

I would also comment that I'm in agreement that we are participation in a "meta-flow" of the hierarchical or progressive evolutionary development of the global consciousness. Such flow involves experiencing and acquiring knowledge and qualities of a large, potentially infinite variety of forms and qualities, including the ones of "I/Self". However, I still don't subscribe to the description/reduction of such meta-flow as a whole to "connecting to the Source/I". As we discussed in the parallel thread, I argued that the "I/Self" belongs to the category of forms and is not by itself a fundamental. Therefore, it can only be a part of the developmental meta-flow (even though a crucially important part as we can argue) and can not encompass the totality of the consciousness experiences and of the developmental meta-flow.

[David_Sundaram]

David, pleeeeze! I am religious. I do not "pooh-pooh labeling them as 'religious'."

Oh! Then, so I may better grok where you are coming from and intend to go to, pleeeeze define what you mean by 'religious', smoke-and-mirrors-mystery wielding shaman.

The Me-to-We challenge we face is Unity in Diversity.

Let's say that the 'challenge' of 'solving' said puzzle-'problem' is communally 'solved' at some point, what then? IOW, just what do you think is the raison d'etre of 'the/our game' - beyond that of a 'cross-word puzzle', say?

The answer to your question is not a definition or concept but a direct experience available through deep ritual or introspection or grace. The indigenous saying is the intention is to talk with God and not about God and I respect and revere the deeply personal aspect of direct experience. May you have good conversations.

You say this about 'religion' here.

And you engaged with Cleric (and me) about 'religion' there:

BTW, David. I picked up heavily on the religious theme because Cleric, at the outset of this thread or in other threads, suggested that he was offering a storyline free of religion.

Well, many times I tried to explain what makes it different from religion but it seems you simply ignore that

I don't believe one can have a story that is not a religion

And this is also the cause that you ignore it. And also the reason you feel uneasy with the term 'higher' consciousness.

If you were open to that, you would be able to envision forms of beings way higher than us, for which our Cosmic environment is what our soul life is for us. ...

I hope that this juxtaposition of things you have said helps you to 'see' how my 'smoke and mirrors' comment applies to your 'way' of engaging, or rather your way of 'avoiding' (precluding?) mutually validating engagement, with the attitudes and positionalities expressed by others.

[David_Sundaram]

I agree with the notion of an advancing expanding enhancing human Spirit endlessly running new experiments to see what works or fits best and see a multitude of religious and non-religious paths unfolding and enfolding in an ongoing process without a singular gate.

P.S. Yah, there are a 'multitude' of 'em! But all 'roads' (i,e, 'directions' or 'gates') do not 'lead' to 'Rome'. Some (most?) are dead-ends, and some said 'ends' may be couch-potato-cushier than others, all-embracing candy-man.

Consider the implications of: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and [relatively] many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and [relatively] few there be that find it."

Consider the implications Sure and this simply means participate and your actions will reveal whether you are in error or in truth. If in error, don't dwell on it, make amends and don't do it again. It's a process. Sometimes difficult. Sometimes joyous. Play the hand you've dealt.

'Sure'? You 'miss' (meaning avoid engaging with the 'thrust' of) my point. What I meant/implied is not what you related to.

[Cleric K]

OK. I would assert that in our 'new' understanding of paths as tools that have uses and abuses, that we would understand our animal nature (sensory perception and reaction) as well as our so-called 'ego' as tools. Separate 'identities' may also be understand as tools. Do you agree?

Yes.
I spoke about this in the very beginning of our back-and-forth discussion. I said that every step 'higher' doesn't distance us from the world of perceptions but exactly the opposite - what we find higher immediately expands our consciousness in the opposite direction - we penetrate deeper into Nature. The most high, the Grand Cosmos and the lowest, the infinitesimal point-particle are the poles of the One. In our ordinary consciousness (even if in expanded awareness) we are always on the surface of reality. We see the forms, we know that they are the product of the Great Mysteriousness but we don't understand 'how' they come to be. As we penetrate the Spiritual World, we find exactly these creative beings who implement the forms, the instincts and life of the Natural world. This not only doesn't distance us from Nature but makes it possible to pierce into Her depths, which would otherwise forever remain occult from the standpoint of the intellectual self. To experience Nature in Her reality we must attain to the perspective of the Spirits which create Her forms, life and being. Only then we understand why She's the way She is.

[Lou Gold]

As we penetrate the Spiritual World, we find exactly these creative beings who implement the forms, the instincts and life of the Natural world. This not only doesn't distance us from Nature but makes it possible to pierce into Her depths, which would otherwise forever remain occult from the standpoint of the intellectual self. To experience Nature in Her reality we must attain to the perspective of the Spirits which create Her forms, life and being. Only then we understand why She's the way She is.

Perhaps it would be useful to define who the "we" are? For example, when Gabor Maté takes a group of Western medical professionals to work therapeutically with modern Peruvian shamans and they see in Maté spirits he was unaware of, who has the 'expanded consciousness'?

[Lou Gold]

Lou asked: Do you envision (1) an endless one-by-one "I" adaptive incremental transformation or (2) a punctuated equilibrium (extinction event) resulting in the emergence of a new species?

I would say to a large extent it's (2) because that's the nature of the Cosmic rhythms we are riding onto. As with every rhythm, there are alternations of expansion, which correspond to the time periods where possibilities are explored, than there's contraction, which acts as a filter and only the most useful discoveries remain - those which will serve as the seeds for the next cycle of expansion. In Astrosophy it's known that one of these rhythms is connected with the Platonic year - the precession of the equinox. Each of the ~2000year 12 periods represents one such cycle.

Nevertheless, especially from our age on, (1) should also be considered in the following sense: For the longest time humanity has passed quite unconsciously through these cycles. If we expect that this will continue in the same manner we'll be in trouble. Think of an animal driven by instinct. Who teaches the animals to copulate? Yet contemporary man should learn this externally. Otherwise it might never occur to him what it's supposed to be done. We've become emancipated from instinctive life and we got this in exchange of lucid self-consciousness. Now we have to guide our development in full consciousness. If we expect that instinct will save us, we are leaving ourselves at the mercy of random chance. We need to implement our 'instincts' in full awareness, in freedom, by discovering the same Wise forces that implemented the instincts in Life around us and use the same Wisdom to shape our own. In this sense it'll be the responsibility of the individual "I"s explore the peculiarities of every cycle and conduct their life accordingly, and not expect that things will happen automatically.

I agree with your sense of the role of (2). My way of expressing it is to say we as a species are entering an initiation to something novel. However, I'm not stuck on using this particular phraseology. What I see is that Apocalypse and Revelation are connected and acknowledge that this both inner and outer, esoteric and exoteric. I also see an important role of (1) in that, as various crises escalate, there will be a call for more and more compassionate individuals who can "hold balance in troubled conditions" as well as a call for more creativity (not just reruns of old habits). I'm not surprised that the Dalai Lama now says, "My religion is kindness." In no sense do I expect raw instinct to save us. I do understand becoming better connected with "gut feelings" or "sensory nature" as an essential part of expanded awareness, not the whole story but something that cannot be bypassed.

[Lou Gold]

Cleric and Eugene,

Since you've been discussing music, I think I can offer a better example of what I mean in saying that expanded consciousness includes a deeper connection with the animal sensory as well as with the intellect. Watch (below) the extraordinary mix of body, mind and tech going on at 7 minutes into this master class by the extraordinary young musical genius Jacob Collier. I think this offers an example of what I mean in saying "expanded consciousness is multidirectional."

[Cleric K]

Perhaps it would be useful to define who the "we" are? For example, when Gabor Maté takes a group of Western medical professionals to work therapeutically with modern Peruvian shamans and they see in Maté spirits he was unaware of, who has the 'expanded consciousness'?

The above is a perfect example of what's described in the essay here. One can't recognize the spirits hidden in the spiritual structure as long as consciousness is experienced only at the surface, where thinking, perception and imagination are experienced. Beneath this surface there's a world of living spirits. Shamanic medicine does not guarantee that one will recognize the spirits that constitute his own being. Smearing out of the "I" does not do that either - we eradicate the "I" but we are still on the surface. This is a question of preparation and initiation. Maté did't see them because they lie at the blind spot of consciousness. The "I" feels itself as the authority without realizing that it is being supported on a whole ecosystem of living beings. It takes humility and courage to confront one's reality. The "I" must become smaller and smaller - it should de-identify from the colony of spirits that it sits on top of and calls 'me'. When we de-identify (and we do that by concentrating on the one thing that is truly ours) we become aware of the spirits. Otherwise we are merged with them and when we say 'me' we are unknowingly referring to this totality of beings.

In Initiatic science the de-identification from the elemental beings and their consequent perception is called 'the meeting with the Guardian on the Threshold.' It's a Guardian not because it arbitrarily denies us access to the perception of our true being but because we ourselves unconsciously don't want to confront it. The basic emotion is fear. In general we have quite idealized conception about ourselves. The further our notion about ourselves is from reality, the more traumatic eventual accidental glimpse into our true nature would be. Even if we don't have this experience while alive, we'll have it at the gate of death.

[Lou Gold]

OK, I have no challenge to what are saying about Maté.

Now, please tell us what you have to say about the Peruvian shamans who quickly saw the presence of the spirits and knew how to facilitate Maté's healing?