Stranger wrote: ↑Sun Nov 06, 2022 5:24 pm
Federica wrote: ↑Fri Nov 04, 2022 9:57 pm
It would be interesting, Eugene, to hear something about your take or approach to Steiner's path that you said have started exploring? From which side have you approached it?
I'm reading Steiner's "The Stages of Higher Knowledge" and here is one observation. The thesis that Steiner's paradigm contradicts with the nondual one is a gross misunderstanding. What Steiner describes in the quote below is pointing exactly to the experiential nondual state of consciousness, which Rupert Spira concisely put as "In ignorance, I am something; in love, I am everything." Granted, there are plenty of distorted versions of nondual teachings flourishing in the modern times, which Cleric rightly criticized, but identifying the authentic nonduality with all these distortions in order to criticize it is beating a strawman. There are many seemingly different paths and practices leading to such nondual realization. For example, Sufism, Buddhism and Advaita may seem to be very different in methods and teachings for an outsider, but essentially lead to the same destination of nondual realization if practiced correctly. And, as it turns out, Steiner's path leads to the same destination, even though its practical methods and philosophical approach may differ in particularities from the other paths. Once this understood, of course we can argue which paths are more efficient and more direct from practical perspective. But a practical person should approach it from a different perspective, and instead of adhering to one path to criticize the others, should rather consider which practical elements of each path can be adopted to make one's own spiritual practice more efficient and integrative/encompassing.
“Lastly, at the fourth stage of knowledge Inspiration also ceases. Of the elements customarily observed in everyday knowledge, the ego alone remains to be considered. The attainment of this stage by the occult student is marked by a definite inner experience. This experience manifests itself in the feeling that he no longer stands outside the things and occurrences that he recognizes, but is himself within them. Images are not the object, but merely its imprint. Also, inspiration does not yield up the object itself, but only tells about it. But what now lives in the soul is in reality the object itself. The ego has streamed forth over all beings; it has merged with them. The actual living of things within the soul is Intuition. When it is said of Intuition that “through it man creeps into all things,” this is literally true. — In ordinary life man has only one “intuition” — namely, of the ego itself, for the ego can in no way be perceived from without; it can only be experienced in the inner life. A simple consideration will make this fact clear. It is a consideration that has not been applied by psychologists with sufficient exactitude. Unimpressive as it may appear to one with full understanding, it is of the most far-reaching significance. It is as follows. A thing in the outer world can be called by all men by the self-same name. A table can be spoken of by all as a “table”; a tulip by all as a “tulip.” Mr. Miller can be addressed by all as “Mr. Miller.” But there is one word that each can apply only to himself. This is the word “I.” No other person can call me “I.” To anyone else I am a “you.” In the same way everyone else is a “you” to me. Only I can say “I” to myself. This is because each man lives, not outside, but within the “I.” In the same way, in intuitive cognition, one lives in all things. The perception of the ego is the prototype of all intuitive cognition. Thus to enter into all things, one must first step outside oneself. One must become “selfless” in order to become blended with the “self,” the “ego” of another being.”
Rudolph Steiner. The Stages of Higher Knowledge
Eugene,
Since you are reading Klocek's book, and I hope you continue regardless of what discussion takes place here, I will quote from the intro:
Klocek wrote:The meditative practice of awakening within the dream allows the soul to become a conscious yet humble citizen of the cosmos. In this unique state the seedlike forces of life liberated at the change of teeth can be directly experienced as analogs or signposts giving reliable directions for the journey of the human soul through the various stages of life. Through the waking dream, the researcher begins to see the forces in nature not as dead abstractions, but as morphologically creative beings. They become capable of sustaining an ongoing dialogue with these beings, which live on the other side of the threshold between this world and the next. Awakening in the dream is another way of describing the onset of imaginative cognition.
In imaginative cognition, the conflict between mystical abstractionism and analytical reductionism can be resolved. Entering into the life forces consciously reveals a world of numinous and cosmic beings intent on interacting with other conscious beings. This intent to interact is at the very heart of the mystical yearning in modern physics. The step that needs to be taken is to transform an abstract universal void filled with impersonal forces by entering the beingness of beings exponentially mightier in degree in their world-creative Imaginations than the human being. The humility that this transformation can engender in the soul can bestow great powers of spiritual perception upon the seedlike life forces that presently animate the sense organs of human beings in all stages of development. Creative beings would then once again flow into our eyes through the inpouring sunlight, just as they did when our souls were engulfed in the world of fantasy before the change of teeth. The difference would be that then, when the life forces have been consciously purified in the waking dream practice, our seeing would be as exact as when an analytical reductionist describes a chemistry experiment or a theoretical physicist documents a particle track in a cloud chamber.
Now the questions here are, do Spira or similar teachers also reach the stage of seeing exactly within the spirit worlds like the physicist documents a particle track in a cloud chamber? If not, why not? And if not, isn't there an immense value in this path of 'seeing', in terms of building up a science of the soul and the spirit which can be the
communal possession of all human beings on Earth striving to reunite their souls with the Cosmic organism, bringing 'secular' and 'spiritual' life into greater and greater harmony? Otherwise, the pursuit of art, science, and overall culture, as we know it today, must remain hopelessly discontinuous with the pursuit of inner development and higher knowledge. The latter must remain an exlcusively personal or small group affair. This is one of the major reasons it is said that the Western initiatic path
begins at the 'destination' of traditional non-dual paths (and we all agree they don't contradict, only the former is a metamorphic advance of the latter).
An interesting symbol here is that of the Transfiguration. In esoteric tradition, the Buddha also reached the supremely lofty metamorphic stage of the Transfiguration, and that's when his mission ended. Yet the mission of Christ Jesus contined on past that stage, after reaching it on the mountain, to that of the death, resurrection, ascension. These are images of stages which humanity
as a whole can reach in times to come. No human being on Earth has reached this 'destination' yet, in its full sense, and it cannot be reached in that sense by any individuals apart from the Earth organism as a whole, i.e until there is a 'new Heaven and new Earth'. Even if one remains skeptical of these teachings, which is no doubt a healthy attitude when also accompanied by humility, wonder, and openness, it is simply erroneous to say they are equivalent to what we find offered by non-dual teachers thousands of years ago or those today. Are you willing to be open to the possibility that Steiner is
not talking about the same thing as Spira in his whole body of work, of which the passage you quoted is just a tiny part, even if you disagree with the conclusions reached by spiritual science?
Also, we should be clear there is no 'destination' as such in the Western initiatic path. Even the new Heaven and new Earth is simply another metamorphic stage in a ceaseless spiriitual evolution.
Klocek wrote:The alchemists sought to reveal the mystery, while modern science seeks to solve the mystery. Thinking you have solved the mystery can easily become a dangerous Faustian conceit.
How can we judge whether "Steiner's path leads to the same destination" if Steiner himself knew of no such destination to begin with? Science of the spirit does not reach destinations, "theories of everything", but simply unveils with precision more and more of the intuitive landscape by growing into the inner perspectives of the archetypal Be-ings who think the manifest world, including the very dimensions of space and time, into existence. There are no final states to reach, certainly none that we can imagine.
In that sense, Anthroposophy is simply a tool on the ongoing spiritual evolutionary path and will be outmoded within a few hundred years, as Steiner makes clear. It will stand in relation to later tools as the ancient spriitual tools stand in relation to it now. The same holds for intuitive cognition - it isn't a final destination but a tool for spritual research and development. Granted its a very lofty tool and one that will take modt of us many lifetimes to make conscious and perfect, but a tool nonetheless.