The Philosophy of Freedom, Summarized

[AshvinP]

Federica,

I certainly wouldn't characterize it as 'being them', to begin with. We should seek to understand a person's soul-tendencies, or the embodied soul of a cultural institution, with living intellectual and imaginative knowledge. At all times we are maintaining our distinction from their mode of being, and in fact learning from it so as to raise further and further above those same tendencies within ourselves, to the extent they are regressive and stuck in past modes of being. Not in any sense of moral superiority or escapism, but so that we may evolve towards our higher Self and contribute to future redemptive efforts. Ultimately, it is Love which allows us to maintain our firm ego-consciousness while also penetrating into the depths of another being, without simply dissolving into that being.

I only said ‘being them’ and ‘we are them’ as a direct reference to your warning about the infamous ‘we are not them’.

When you speak of ego-consciousness, is it the same thing referred to as spirit-self in Theosophy?

Right, I am just saying the knowledge of how 'we are not them' is an ideal to reach towards with spiritual scientific knowledge, not only in theoretical terms, but also in terms of concrete human relations of the future. These concrete divergences between human evolutionary streams and the souls belonging to them will only be reconciled by first differentiating the relations with living knowledge and understanding our own place in them. Of course this should never be carried out with pride or feelings of superiority, but with as much gratitude and love as we can muster. It is clear that there are many human universals in terms of our archetypal (spiritual) desires, feelings, thoughts, ideals, but these can only be embodied in our cultural and physical landscape at ever-higher stages through differentiated evolutionary streams of developing consciousness.

In this context, I meant by 'ego-consciousness' that which makes us a unique individuality with delineated ideal (not physical) boundaries from the 'outer' world. Many spiritual practices teach a 'dissolving' of this ego-consciousness to reach the higher worlds, but that's because they are not familiar with the loving Christ impulse which can maintain the ego-consciousness and expand its sphere of thought-full interest to encompass more and more Earthly and Cosmic relations.

I would say the reconciliation with increasing spiritual freedom is precisely in the re-cognizing of those forces within us, not in any vague 'psychological' way, but as living realities shaping our daily life. This is how we begin taking more active control in shaping the riverbed with our spiritual activity. The first step to freedom is in knowing that we are not yet free, yet there is a path to becoming free. Of course there is a gradient here, but for all practical purposes and intents, very little of what we will, feel, and think in normal waking consciousness is free in the deeper sense. It is only when make our thinking active and creative through imaginative meditation that we begin to engage in truly free acts, ones which are not highly conditioned by our own past activity.

Your comment sends me into this. Freedom is (provocatively stated) understanding that there's no freedom. It's the understanding that what is true and what is right is given. So in a sense it is a freedom to remove, not to add. It's about seeing beyond what obscures universal reality. In that only we are free. In fact, there is not much we can ‘create’. We can only create our understanding of what is. We can re-create it in our reality. This is another step. The notion of creation that comes most naturally (I imagine) is one that is connected to the world content. We create things, we create deeds, we make things happen… even, we create life. But there is actually a flavor of materialism behind this mindset… Our (or my) very idea of what creation is, what freedom is, has to be rewired too. If reality is understanding, the only thing we can create is understanding. The only freedom is freedom to understand. In other words, we cannot keep the idealist monistic conception confined to phenomenology, or to epistemology, be pleased with our subtle, mathematically smooth grasp of all reality, then go back to our life and imagine that we can create stuff, and be our original self through ‘free will’. Free will is only free to dissolve into sweet tears and permeate through the veils, as light September rain quietly sprinkles down and impregnates the landscape. It’s a new concept of freedom and creation for me. It does not happen by separating something out of us. It’s the opposite impulse, it’s about integrating something back in us, and integrating ourselves back into it, by impregnation.

Very well said. I would not downplay 'creation' so much, though, because the differentiating-integrating dynamic of Consciousness does truly bring novel ideal qualities into existence. In a certain sense, we can say what was, what is, what will be is already cast within eternal state of Be-ing. Yet at the same time there is a pole of temporal Be-coming which is just as real. These are some of the hardest concepts for the intellectual to get a firm handle on. If I were to use a really simple image for only this aspect, I would say to imagine the Whole as a ceaselessly pulsating sphere, contracting and expanding, which is constantly metamorphosing through varied vibratory tones and shades of colors which never repeat. These latter represent novel shades of meaning which develop through evolution within the Whole. There are probably better images for it, but that comes to the top of my mind. The general point is that given perspectives within the eternal, shared Whole are genuinely unique and will continue to be so as various waves of beings evolve through it.

I won't make this post about two things, so I won't elaborate here, but I have to say I disagree that it's easy to discern when we make expenses that are not 'necessary'. It is very difficult!

I meant that it becomes easier to discern as we evolve our cognition. One year ago, I don't think I would have so easily discerned many of the troublesome, unnecessary spending habits that I do now.

[Federica]

Federica,

I certainly wouldn't characterize it as 'being them', to begin with. We should seek to understand a person's soul-tendencies, or the embodied soul of a cultural institution, with living intellectual and imaginative knowledge. At all times we are maintaining our distinction from their mode of being, and in fact learning from it so as to raise further and further above those same tendencies within ourselves, to the extent they are regressive and stuck in past modes of being. Not in any sense of moral superiority or escapism, but so that we may evolve towards our higher Self and contribute to future redemptive efforts. Ultimately, it is Love which allows us to maintain our firm ego-consciousness while also penetrating into the depths of another being, without simply dissolving into that being.

I only said ‘being them’ and ‘we are them’ as a direct reference to your warning about the infamous ‘we are not them’.

When you speak of ego-consciousness, is it the same thing referred to as spirit-self in Theosophy?

Right, I am just saying the knowledge of how 'we are not them' is an ideal to reach towards with spiritual scientific knowledge, not only in theoretical terms, but also in terms of concrete human relations of the future. These concrete divergences between human evolutionary streams and the souls belonging to them will only be reconciled by first differentiating the relations with living knowledge and understanding our own place in them. Of course this should never be carried out with pride or feelings of superiority, but with as much gratitude and love as we can muster. It is clear that there are many human universals in terms of our archetypal (spiritual) desires, feelings, thoughts, ideals, but these can only be embodied in our cultural and physical landscape at ever-higher stages through differentiated evolutionary streams of developing consciousness.

In this context, I meant by 'ego-consciousness' that which makes us a unique individuality with delineated ideal (not physical) boundaries from the 'outer' world. Many spiritual practices teach a 'dissolving' of this ego-consciousness to reach the higher worlds, but that's because they are not familiar with the loving Christ impulse which can maintain the ego-consciousness and expand its sphere of thought-full interest to encompass more and more Earthly and Cosmic relations.

I would say the reconciliation with increasing spiritual freedom is precisely in the re-cognizing of those forces within us, not in any vague 'psychological' way, but as living realities shaping our daily life. This is how we begin taking more active control in shaping the riverbed with our spiritual activity. The first step to freedom is in knowing that we are not yet free, yet there is a path to becoming free. Of course there is a gradient here, but for all practical purposes and intents, very little of what we will, feel, and think in normal waking consciousness is free in the deeper sense. It is only when make our thinking active and creative through imaginative meditation that we begin to engage in truly free acts, ones which are not highly conditioned by our own past activity.

Your comment sends me into this. Freedom is (provocatively stated) understanding that there's no freedom. It's the understanding that what is true and what is right is given. So in a sense it is a freedom to remove, not to add. It's about seeing beyond what obscures universal reality. In that only we are free. In fact, there is not much we can ‘create’. We can only create our understanding of what is. We can re-create it in our reality. This is another step. The notion of creation that comes most naturally (I imagine) is one that is connected to the world content. We create things, we create deeds, we make things happen… even, we create life. But there is actually a flavor of materialism behind this mindset… Our (or my) very idea of what creation is, what freedom is, has to be rewired too. If reality is understanding, the only thing we can create is understanding. The only freedom is freedom to understand. In other words, we cannot keep the idealist monistic conception confined to phenomenology, or to epistemology, be pleased with our subtle, mathematically smooth grasp of all reality, then go back to our life and imagine that we can create stuff, and be our original self through ‘free will’. Free will is only free to dissolve into sweet tears and permeate through the veils, as light September rain quietly sprinkles down and impregnates the landscape. It’s a new concept of freedom and creation for me. It does not happen by separating something out of us. It’s the opposite impulse, it’s about integrating something back in us, and integrating ourselves back into it, by impregnation.

Very well said. I would not downplay 'creation' so much, though, because the differentiating-integrating dynamic of Consciousness does truly bring novel ideal qualities into existence. In a certain sense, we can say what was, what is, what will be is already cast within eternal state of Be-ing. Yet at the same time there is a pole of temporal Be-coming which is just as real. These are some of the hardest concepts for the intellectual to get a firm handle on. If I were to use a really simple image for only this aspect, I would say to imagine the Whole as a ceaselessly pulsating sphere, contracting and expanding, which is constantly metamorphosing through varied vibratory tones and shades of colors which never repeat. These latter represent novel shades of meaning which develop through evolution within the Whole. There are probably better images for it, but that comes to the top of my mind. The general point is that given perspectives within the eternal, shared Whole are genuinely unique and will continue to be so as various waves of beings evolve through it.

I understand, at least to a degree that is sufficient to proceed. Regarding downplaying creation - I hesitated to complete the thought with a finishing sentence about transformation, then I didn't, but I understand that a non-linear time-insight allows to encompass within the Whole eternity of being and increment of becoming. The arch of becoming is motioned through the multiplicity of ego-perspectives. Your metaphor is good because it sets up a non-linear, self-encompassing environment, and it provides both the time insight of becoming - unrepeated flashes of nuances - and its space insight - the multiplicity and contiguity of color nuances.