AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 1:48 ammikekatz wrote: ↑Thu Sep 15, 2022 6:04 pmWhat does "clearly, plainly and precisely" actually mean? It means that when I read or hear something, I can relate it to my worldview. It makes sense to me. There may be new knowledge in what I hear, and that new knowledge will clarify or refine my worldview, but it's still relative to how I see the world.AshvinP wrote:It sounds like Gurdjjeff was hanging onto some regressive occult practices. Certainly I think Ouspensky was correct to criticize the unnecessary crypticism. These higher realities should be communicated clearly, plainly, and precisely, amenable to our scientific cognition.
But that's NOT what Steiner or Gurdjieff et al. are after! They are looking to completely radicalise or break our current worldview. You can't move to the vertical by travelling along the horizontal. You can't even understand that there is a vertical by moving along the horizontal.
That's what parables are for, and Zen koans. They are precisely to bypass the intellect, the current worldview, and force the listener to re-evaluate and make sense of something OUTSIDE their normal worldview - to breakthrough into the vertical.
Mike,
I think here is a major difference between Steiner and many other esoteric thinkers, such as Gurdjieff. The former shows us how to move vertically through the unfamiliar and unsuspected in a highly disciplined and scientific way, without completely forsaking our sensory experience and conceptual thinking. It is really a tremendous thing he was able to do in his writings and lectures. As you say, most people will resort to parables, poems, metaphors, fantastical images, cryptic messages, etc. to 'bypass the intellect' (even though this is not actually done, but rather than intellect is obscured yet still interpreting all the spiritual knowledge consumed). Steiner revealed to humanity a different way through the intellect, through our scientific reasoning. And when one discovers the living reality of this way, it becomes very difficult to justify the old 'bypassing intellect' ways, which actually remain on the horizontal more than they care to admit. The horizontal is there for a reason - precisely to provide the spiritual tools needed for the vertical ascent - and if we bypass the horizontal, we are failing to take advantage of those tools. On the spiritual scientific path, we are discovering how all of modern science, in all its power and precision, can be expanded to encompass dynamics of soul and spirit, and thereby redeemed from the secular materialistic age. It can be and has been conveyed in a clear and precise manner, even if it's in terminology or style we are not familiar with at first.
Below is an elaboration on this topic. Although I started this thread to highlight how these spiritual ideas-realities are the common possession of humanity, we also need to confront the fact that not all paths to the higher worlds are created equal. This dualism of non-dualism, i.e. mysticism (including esotericism), which we have discussed with you before, is the quintessential example of that. There is a discontinuity introduced between thinking as we know it and knowledge of the higher worlds, i.e. between philosophy/science and spirituality. It's pretty easy for people here to spot when a discontinuity is introduced between matter and mind, but when this same duality manifests in the form of a discontinuity between science and spirituality, many people here have become practically blind to it.
It's quite possible, even likely, that World Karma provided for a spiritual thinker such as Gurdjieff to arise in Russia and express his ideas in the cryptic, tragi-comic, unscientific or semi-scientific way. And it's likewise possible that souls of that region could find great utility in such an approach, based on their evolutionary development. But we also need to confront the reality of our roots here on this forum. Most would have come here through interest in BK, i.e. Western European philosophical thought, and to some extent scientific thought as well. This culture has its own evolutionary history and its own paths which will prove most fruitful for spiritual growth. The fact is that we have our modern roots in rigorous, precise thinking. So then an inner contradiction arises between who we are - philosophical and scientific thinkers - and what we seek - knowledge of our soul and spirit.
This is the birth of modern dualism in the West, first as a living idea, which is then embedded into modern mysticism and metaphysical theories, including analytic idealism. Much of the modern mysticism came through personalities like Schopenhauer, who was a Western thinker imposing modern Western intellectual thought onto ancient Eastern philosophy and spirituality. So the intellect postulates a dualism of thinking experience for itself, then comes along and says, "my intellect is trapped in this dualistic experience, which must mean thinking as such is incapable of experiencing the Unity of higher worlds and the only other option is some form of ancient mysticism and also waiting for the sweet release of death". Of course, it is the intellect itself which has made these conclusions, but for some reason this conclusion can be trusted, while everything else the intellect investigates about spirituality is declared untrustworthy.
That's where Steiner and PoF come in. Why is it that no spiritual thinkers before or after him have tried their hand at writing something similar or even imitating what he wrote after the fact? The only reasonable conclusion is that these people couldn't grasp the core ideas and therefore felt they were unimportant, not 'revolutionary' enough. True, it doesn't throw a 'revolution' in our faces with cryptic parables and what not, but it revolutionizes the intellectual thinking experience itself, when understood properly. PoF gives us an interactive experience of our intellect lighting up, coming alive in the Spirit, as it begins to comprehend somewhat lofty and unfamiliar spiritual ideas. It lays waste to the limits to spiritual knowledge which the intellect has postulated for itself, because the intellect experiences itself transcending those so-called limits in real-time. At the esoteric level, this reflects the method of the Rosicrucian stream. The intellect will always have a difficult time suspecting this new, re-vivified life of its own thinking until it actually endeavors to experience it and trusts that it can be accomplished.
The Rosicrucian Order was started particularly for those whose high degree of intellectual development caused them to repudiate the heart. Intellect imperiously demands a logical explanation of everything--the world mystery, the questions of life and death. The reasons for and the modus operandi of existence were not explained by the priestly injunction "not to seek to know the mysteries of God."
To any man or woman who is blest, or otherwise, with such an inquiring mind it is of paramount importance that they shall receive all the information they crave, so that when the head is stilled, the heart may speak. Intellectual knowledge is but a means to an end, not the end itself. Therefore, the Rosicrucian purposes first of all to satisfy the aspirant for knowledge that everything in the universe is reasonable, thus winning over the rebellious intellect. When it has ceased to criticize and is ready to accept provisionally, as probably true, statements which cannot be immediately verified, then, and not until then, will esoteric training be effective in developing the higher faculties whereby man passes from faith to first-hand knowledge. Yet, even then it will be found that, as the pupil progresses in first-hand knowledge and becomes able to investigate for himself, there are always truths ahead of him that he knows to be truths, but which he is not yet advanced sufficiently to investigate.
The pupil will do well to remember that nothing that is not logical can exist in the universe and that logic is the surest guide in all the Worlds, but he must not forget that his faculties are limited and that more than his own powers of logical reasoning may be needed to solve a given problem, although it may, nevertheless, be susceptible of full explanation, but by lines of reasoning which are beyond the capacity of the pupil at that stage of his development.
Heindel , Max. The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception (Illustrated) (pp. 424-425). Kindle Edition.