The Alchemical Marriage of Thinking and Will

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

I’m glad you found the description useful, but I wonder why you would want to remind yourself of an entangled perspective that you have now been able to leave behind. Writing this, I thought it could be useful to those who are with me, still on the other side of the inversion horizon.

Federica,

We should remember that the newer evolutionary progression embeds all olders forms, modes, capacities, etc. within itself. It's not that we are reverting back to the old perspective, but we can more deeply understand the body-soul-spirit constellations from which the old perspectives arose. I think this is pretty evident in Cleric's posts here, for ex. - they are often tailored precisely to perspectives from which the questions/comments he is responding to arose. He can somewhat imaginatively inhabit those perspectives and then crystallize metaphors/illustrations which build a conceptual gradient between those perspectives and his own current one. Whereas personally I feel to be in more of a 'no man's land' in this regard, not quite able to deeply penetrate my old self with living understanding, although I think that understanding is also progressing, slowly but surely. Ultimately this must be the case if evolution will only proceed through the new becoming responsible for redeeming the old.

It looks like 'hybris' is basically the same as 'hubris'?

Yes, I didn't know of this alternative English spelling, but it looks like they both refer to the exact same feeling.

If so, it is interesting to consider how the intellect, in its longing for the primordial lower nature over the new impulses of individual evolution, inverts this relationship (as practically all others).

Right... It's so easy to think that being reverent to nature, letting our (entangled) nature be, abiding by it because it must know better than us, etc. is the way to avoid hybris. Another variation - not mine this one, but common: 'let's not fight our destiny'. It's difficult to draw the line between responsibility and hybris. Between daring to do our due part and relaxing in a 'Gods must know better' comfy repose. I am still not 100% clear on that. Or, I am clear, but it requires a conscious effort every time, to reset the thoughts, to dig a fresh track for them to flow in the correct direction. If I am not careful I will land in a default "nature is wonderful, nature knows better" type of excuse. It looks humble, in reality it's self-indulging. We like to believe that our daily struggles somehow entitle us to some relief from individual responsibility. We hear a lot: 'It's ok to fail', and it's true of course, that it's ok to fail, but only if failure comes from free action, rather than from 'reverent' avoidance. I see that true reverence and devotion spring out of acted responsibility, not out of fearful submission to inner and outer events, disguised as respectful awareness.
But it is difficult… I couldn't get the sense of your comment at first reading, for instance. I had to kind of push myself out of planar text analysis first… it's that bad

Trust me, these things require a conscious effort every time for me as well. The lower conditioning is very strong and we are simply fooling ourselves if we ever feel that we have escaped it, which is always a tempting feeling. Throughout life I have always had a certain problem with laying hold of my inner strength of will, and that is something I am really working on right now. Although it may not seem this way online, I am actually very agreeable, too agreeable, in person! Of course we need to also guard against inflating our ego too far in the other direction, to the point of an almost bubble solipsistic attitude, but this safeguard comes naturally through spiritual training of the sort expressed in HTKHW or TSH (Klocek).

One thing I like to remind myself is just how independent the rest of Culture, Nature and the Cosmos is on my current willpower (which is why I perceive them as 'external' to my own being). I could assert myself strenuously with inner spiritual activity for the rest of my life and still remain within the superficial layers of my own bodily organism and immediate environment, and that is likely the case. The Gods have nothing to fear from our strengthened will and everything to gain from what incremenetal improvements we can make with expanding our creative responsibility for the World. Ultimately the destiny of man is to become the Gods and it's easy to see just how far we have to go towards that goal in a culture where some have forgotten the Gods even exist and others treat them as floating abstractions, their activity forever removed from the sphere of our inner will-thinking. The more we pay active attention to the Gods within the collective subconscious, the more they pay attention to us.

"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline." -2 Timothy 1:7

[Federica]

In ordinary circumstances we become lucid only at the moment of death. Alas, if we haven't worked to bridge the two levels of self while still on Earth, they are quite orthogonal in their interests and goals. Especially for people who were otherwise seeking deeper understanding but never made the bridge, the moment of death comes as a mixture of surprise and frustration.
(...) without the deeper forces concealed within the intellect, which recognize themselves as descending from the spiritual world, our higher being is incomplete. It lacks the possibility to understand the higher worlds and passes its journey among the archetypal beings as if intuiting them through an obscure glass:

I only wanted to highlight this idea. I hope it can shake some awake. I am always surprised that so many people conduct life as if their physical body was meant to stay alive forever. They can't conceive that they will only have that many summers ahead to experience. People feel compelled to maintain the dream scene and its decor at all costs, as the most important life activity ever. They can't help behaving as if any recurrence would naturally project itself as is, in endless future repetitions. We tend to passively project the future as vague linear extension of the past, which literally means letting the past take us aback, hoping it will magically supplement our lack of creativity and freedom.

We don't think enough at the moment of physical death in realistic terms, I believe, and so I hope this obscure glass prison we are condemning ourselves to is triggering some re-action. Thanks Cleric for illustrating this angle. We have to get a hold on ourselves now, but many don't see the reality of this urgency.... It's a weakness of mine to feel some frustration with regard to my inability to communicate this urgency to others. Although I know the best way to 'help others' is to work on myself...

This ability to see our thinking not like 'simply "I"' that thinks from the blind spot of existence but as an actual world process within which our spirit operates with higher forces of cognitive spiritual activity, is the beginning of this differentiation of the forces of thinking, feeling and willing.

That's very helpful: thinking streams as ongoing, holistic world processes, that we end up joining. We could see them coming, and we could see us meeting them, instead of being transparent and identifying with them the moment we find ourselves thinking the thoughts.

[Federica]

Federica,

We should remember that the newer evolutionary progression embeds all olders forms, modes, capacities, etc. within itself. It's not that we are reverting back to the old perspective, but we can more deeply understand the body-soul-spirit constellations from which the old perspectives arose. I think this is pretty evident in Cleric's posts here, for ex. - they are often tailored precisely to perspectives from which the questions/comments he is responding to arose. He can somewhat imaginatively inhabit those perspectives and then crystallize metaphors/illustrations which build a conceptual gradient between those perspectives and his own current one. Whereas personally I feel to be in more of a 'no man's land' in this regard, not quite able to deeply penetrate my old self with living understanding, although I think that understanding is also progressing, slowly but surely. Ultimately this must be the case if evolution will only proceed through the new becoming responsible for redeeming the old.

I've delayed this reply a little, to make sure I wasn't missing out on understanding too much. I understand the concentric character of our evolving cognition, but I can't figure out the no man's land you describe, not only because I haven't really 'moved lands', but also because from my viewpoint you are, like Cleric, able to bridge perspectives very effectively. If I am correct, I remember the meter of metaphors in particular is what makes you self-critical in this respect, and I certainly notice the incredible creativity and bridging power of Cleric's illustrations, for instance in the recent posts on Oneness and meditation. Nonetheless, I never found myself wishing for an extra metaphor in your posts or essays. Maybe that would have enhanced understanding for others, I don't know. Anyway, on the difficulty of penetrating our old self (and I wonder if 'old self' and 'lower self' are the best verbal anchors for such self, since we want to encompass it in the new expanded one, rather than leaving it behind?) there's one curious thing that comes to mind. It has happened a couple of times that I felt really bad about myself in connection with discussions on this forum. It was a remarkable experience, both very unusual and quite painful. Nontheless, if I had to remember now why and how exactly I was thinking and feeling that way, I wouldn't be able to. I do remember the related discussions (these were not the ones in which we were in disagreement, no correlation with that) but I cannot retrace any detailed inner experience from there. Maybe I should apply myself more and then I could, maybe, but it's not evident. Certainly not a good sign, but it's only to say that from this little sign I can try to imagine the difficulties ahead, and the no man's land in terms of self-understanding.

Trust me, these things require a conscious effort every time for me as well. The lower conditioning is very strong and we are simply fooling ourselves if we ever feel that we have escaped it, which is always a tempting feeling. Throughout life I have always had a certain problem with laying hold of my inner strength of will, and that is something I am really working on right now. Although it may not seem this way online, I am actually very agreeable, too agreeable, in person! Of course we need to also guard against inflating our ego too far in the other direction, to the point of an almost bubble solipsistic attitude, but this safeguard comes naturally through spiritual training of the sort expressed in HTKHW or TSH (Klocek).

One thing I like to remind myself is just how independent the rest of Culture, Nature and the Cosmos is on my current willpower (which is why I perceive them as 'external' to my own being). I could assert myself strenuously with inner spiritual activity for the rest of my life and still remain within the superficial layers of my own bodily organism and immediate environment, and that is likely the case. The Gods have nothing to fear from our strengthened will and everything to gain from what incremenetal improvements we can make with expanding our creative responsibility for the World. Ultimately the destiny of man is to become the Gods and it's easy to see just how far we have to go towards that goal in a culture where some have forgotten the Gods even exist and others treat them as floating abstractions, their activity forever removed from the sphere of our inner will-thinking. The more we pay active attention to the Gods within the collective subconscious, the more they pay attention to us.

"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline." -2 Timothy 1:7

Good reminders that send me back to the recent reading of HTKHW, thanks!


PS. "Ultimately the destiny of man is to become the Gods". Speaking of improving understanding, this reminds me of how I was lacking context and not understanding a very similar statement you made a few months ago, which made me say it was outrageous, etc. etc.

[AshvinP]

Federica,

We should remember that the newer evolutionary progression embeds all olders forms, modes, capacities, etc. within itself. It's not that we are reverting back to the old perspective, but we can more deeply understand the body-soul-spirit constellations from which the old perspectives arose. I think this is pretty evident in Cleric's posts here, for ex. - they are often tailored precisely to perspectives from which the questions/comments he is responding to arose. He can somewhat imaginatively inhabit those perspectives and then crystallize metaphors/illustrations which build a conceptual gradient between those perspectives and his own current one. Whereas personally I feel to be in more of a 'no man's land' in this regard, not quite able to deeply penetrate my old self with living understanding, although I think that understanding is also progressing, slowly but surely. Ultimately this must be the case if evolution will only proceed through the new becoming responsible for redeeming the old.

I've delayed this reply a little, to make sure I wasn't missing out on understanding too much. I understand the concentric character of our evolving cognition, but I can't figure out the no man's land you describe, not only because I haven't really 'moved lands', but also because from my viewpoint you are, like Cleric, able to bridge perspectives very effectively. If I am correct, I remember the meter of metaphors in particular is what makes you self-critical in this respect, and I certainly notice the incredible creativity and bridging power of Cleric's illustrations, for instance in the recent posts on Oneness and meditation. Nonetheless, I never found myself wishing for an extra metaphor in your posts or essays. Maybe that would have enhanced understanding for others, I don't know. Anyway, on the difficulty of penetrating our old self (and I wonder if 'old self' and 'lower self' are the best verbal anchors for such self, since we want to encompass it in the new expanded one, rather than leaving it behind?) there's one curious thing that comes to mind. It has happened a couple of times that I felt really bad about myself in connection with discussions on this forum. It was a remarkable experience, both very unusual and quite painful. Nontheless, if I had to remember now why and how exactly I was thinking and feeling that way, I wouldn't be able to. I do remember the related discussions (these were not the ones in which we were in disagreement, no correlation with that) but I cannot retrace any detailed inner experience from there. Maybe I should apply myself more and then I could, maybe, but it's not evident. Certainly not a good sign, but it's only to say that from this little sign I can try to imagine the difficulties ahead, and the no man's land in terms of self-understanding.

Trust me, these things require a conscious effort every time for me as well. The lower conditioning is very strong and we are simply fooling ourselves if we ever feel that we have escaped it, which is always a tempting feeling. Throughout life I have always had a certain problem with laying hold of my inner strength of will, and that is something I am really working on right now. Although it may not seem this way online, I am actually very agreeable, too agreeable, in person! Of course we need to also guard against inflating our ego too far in the other direction, to the point of an almost bubble solipsistic attitude, but this safeguard comes naturally through spiritual training of the sort expressed in HTKHW or TSH (Klocek).

One thing I like to remind myself is just how independent the rest of Culture, Nature and the Cosmos is on my current willpower (which is why I perceive them as 'external' to my own being). I could assert myself strenuously with inner spiritual activity for the rest of my life and still remain within the superficial layers of my own bodily organism and immediate environment, and that is likely the case. The Gods have nothing to fear from our strengthened will and everything to gain from what incremenetal improvements we can make with expanding our creative responsibility for the World. Ultimately the destiny of man is to become the Gods and it's easy to see just how far we have to go towards that goal in a culture where some have forgotten the Gods even exist and others treat them as floating abstractions, their activity forever removed from the sphere of our inner will-thinking. The more we pay active attention to the Gods within the collective subconscious, the more they pay attention to us.

"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline." -2 Timothy 1:7

Good reminders that send me back to the recent reading of HTKHW, thanks!


PS. "Ultimately the destiny of man is to become the Gods". Speaking of improving understanding, this reminds me of how I was lacking context and not understanding a very similar statement you made a few months ago, which made me say it was outrageous, etc. etc.

Hey Federica,

I am perhaps commenting based on the past a bit, because I have noticed improvements for myself in this regard more lately. Actually around this time of year, when the Sun spirit descends to unite with the Earth spirit (the spirit of humanity as a Whole), and thereby fructify a strengthened Ego-consciousness, I notice it is a time of fruitful inner transformation and expanded understanding. At least for the last two years, which is a small sample size, but the transformations have been quite significant from my perspective. I think inner attunement to this rhythm is a good sign and I dare say you are as well, based on the penetrating nature of your recent posts here.

The 'no man's land' has never been a cause for much concern, but on the contrary, a great sign for me that I am treading the path and treading it relatively well. One example of this is when our short term intellectual memory begins to dim and we may become very forgetful about things we used to remember pretty easily. Part of the underlying dynamic, from what I understand, is that we are redirecting more vital energy to the higher etheric organism at the expense of the lower, which associates more with physical-intellectual memory. Steiner discusses this metamorphic stage in a few places. I find it immensely reassuring and motivating when something we experience intimately through our inner efforts is also confirmed by esoteric scientific literature.

In a certain respect everything connected with evolution has its reverse side, and this applies also to the development of the faculty of soul just referred to — the faculty of memory. The goal before anyone who receives instruction with a view to developing consciousness of the higher worlds is to attain this new, spiritual ‘Space-memory’ that is possessed by the spiritual investigator. In the course of such development it may happen that you hear people who do not understand what is happening, complaining: ‘I used to have an excellent memory, but now it has deteriorated.’ Those who really understand will not complain but will realise that this is quite natural. It is an actual experience, for it is a fact that during the process of spiritual development the ordinary memory is, at first, impaired. Anyone who knows this will not let it trouble him; for he knows too that he receives full compensation for the loss when he is close to the point where it might become dangerous. He will have great difficulty if he has to recollect something he experienced yesterday; but he will notice that pictures come before his soul in which experiences of the past are revealed, and this is naturally a much more faithful memory than is otherwise possessed in life. Therefore we may hear such people speak of having suffered a kind of obscuration of the memory and having then acquired a new kind of memory, superior to the ordinary one, for that has one great flaw: it reveals things in a shadowy way and details are lost. But in the memory which presents pictures in space the details appear again. Faithfulness and exactitude of memory increase enormously.

[coexistence]

Hello all,
Understanding the evolution theory is possible by looking at the EMergence theory.
When the elements in existence exhibit behaviour that is more than the sum of it s parts.
Nothing that ever was emerged and nothing that ever is will be removed.
This as an Axiom explains the always existing formless morphogenic field of information and energy.
In this field coexists infinite kinds of matter that changes and transforms.
The Physical matter changes by replacement of electrons from the outer orbit.
The Aphysical life atom/soul transforms by knowledge and insight from the information ,metanoia.

All the words in all languages put together will fall short of the insight that every single lifeatom/soul can have.

I have studied and can explain every single question that humanity has thought of so far.
And this gives me immense humility and confidence in the human race or homo sapiens of correcting course and saving this planet instead of destroying it.
Would love to get on a zoom call with anyone interested in unraveling the mystery of existence and wanting to be resolved.

Best regards,
Anand Damani.

[Federica]

Hey Federica,

I am perhaps commenting based on the past a bit, because I have noticed improvements for myself in this regard more lately. Actually around this time of year, when the Sun spirit descends to unite with the Earth spirit (the spirit of humanity as a Whole), and thereby fructify a strengthened Ego-consciousness, I notice it is a time of fruitful inner transformation and expanded understanding. At least for the last two years, which is a small sample size, but the transformations have been quite significant from my perspective. I think inner attunement to this rhythm is a good sign and I dare say you are as well, based on the penetrating nature of your recent posts here.

The 'no man's land' has never been a cause for much concern, but on the contrary, a great sign for me that I am treading the path and treading it relatively well. One example of this is when our short term intellectual memory begins to dim and we may become very forgetful about things we used to remember pretty easily. Part of the underlying dynamic, from what I understand, is that we are redirecting more vital energy to the higher etheric organism at the expense of the lower, which associates more with physical-intellectual memory. Steiner discusses this metamorphic stage in a few places. I find it immensely reassuring and motivating when something we experience intimately through our inner efforts is also confirmed by esoteric scientific literature.

In a certain respect everything connected with evolution has its reverse side, and this applies also to the development of the faculty of soul just referred to — the faculty of memory. The goal before anyone who receives instruction with a view to developing consciousness of the higher worlds is to attain this new, spiritual ‘Space-memory’ that is possessed by the spiritual investigator. In the course of such development it may happen that you hear people who do not understand what is happening, complaining: ‘I used to have an excellent memory, but now it has deteriorated.’ Those who really understand will not complain but will realise that this is quite natural. It is an actual experience, for it is a fact that during the process of spiritual development the ordinary memory is, at first, impaired. Anyone who knows this will not let it trouble him; for he knows too that he receives full compensation for the loss when he is close to the point where it might become dangerous. He will have great difficulty if he has to recollect something he experienced yesterday; but he will notice that pictures come before his soul in which experiences of the past are revealed, and this is naturally a much more faithful memory than is otherwise possessed in life. Therefore we may hear such people speak of having suffered a kind of obscuration of the memory and having then acquired a new kind of memory, superior to the ordinary one, for that has one great flaw: it reveals things in a shadowy way and details are lost. But in the memory which presents pictures in space the details appear again. Faithfulness and exactitude of memory increase enormously.

Thanks for the encouraging words, Ashvin, and very glad that you are having such a clear perception of progression.

***

Now taking the liberty to not repress my present light mood, could you mention a typical thing you can become forgetful of?

“he receives full compensation for the loss when he is close to the point where it might become dangerous.”
What is it that can become dangerous here, memory loss itself?

Not that it’s imminent preoccupation in my case, but if I try to picture probable consequences of this "impairment", “obscuration", and “great difficulty to recollect something experienced yesterday” on my typical working day, where I coach or train the most diverse people to diverse outcomes, I easily see tragi-comic situations happening on daily basis, no matter how much note-taking

[AshvinP]

Hey Federica,

I am perhaps commenting based on the past a bit, because I have noticed improvements for myself in this regard more lately. Actually around this time of year, when the Sun spirit descends to unite with the Earth spirit (the spirit of humanity as a Whole), and thereby fructify a strengthened Ego-consciousness, I notice it is a time of fruitful inner transformation and expanded understanding. At least for the last two years, which is a small sample size, but the transformations have been quite significant from my perspective. I think inner attunement to this rhythm is a good sign and I dare say you are as well, based on the penetrating nature of your recent posts here.

The 'no man's land' has never been a cause for much concern, but on the contrary, a great sign for me that I am treading the path and treading it relatively well. One example of this is when our short term intellectual memory begins to dim and we may become very forgetful about things we used to remember pretty easily. Part of the underlying dynamic, from what I understand, is that we are redirecting more vital energy to the higher etheric organism at the expense of the lower, which associates more with physical-intellectual memory. Steiner discusses this metamorphic stage in a few places. I find it immensely reassuring and motivating when something we experience intimately through our inner efforts is also confirmed by esoteric scientific literature.

In a certain respect everything connected with evolution has its reverse side, and this applies also to the development of the faculty of soul just referred to — the faculty of memory. The goal before anyone who receives instruction with a view to developing consciousness of the higher worlds is to attain this new, spiritual ‘Space-memory’ that is possessed by the spiritual investigator. In the course of such development it may happen that you hear people who do not understand what is happening, complaining: ‘I used to have an excellent memory, but now it has deteriorated.’ Those who really understand will not complain but will realise that this is quite natural. It is an actual experience, for it is a fact that during the process of spiritual development the ordinary memory is, at first, impaired. Anyone who knows this will not let it trouble him; for he knows too that he receives full compensation for the loss when he is close to the point where it might become dangerous. He will have great difficulty if he has to recollect something he experienced yesterday; but he will notice that pictures come before his soul in which experiences of the past are revealed, and this is naturally a much more faithful memory than is otherwise possessed in life. Therefore we may hear such people speak of having suffered a kind of obscuration of the memory and having then acquired a new kind of memory, superior to the ordinary one, for that has one great flaw: it reveals things in a shadowy way and details are lost. But in the memory which presents pictures in space the details appear again. Faithfulness and exactitude of memory increase enormously.

Thanks for the encouraging words, Ashvin, and very glad that you are having such a clear perception of progression.

***

Now taking the liberty to not repress my present light mood, could you mention a typical thing you can become forgetful of?

“he receives full compensation for the loss when he is close to the point where it might become dangerous.”
What is it that can become dangerous here, memory loss itself?

Not that it’s imminent preoccupation in my case, but if I try to picture probable consequences of this "impairment", “obscuration", and “great difficulty to recollect something experienced yesterday” on my typical working day, where I coach or train the most diverse people to diverse outcomes, I easily see tragi-comic situations happening on daily basis, no matter how much note-taking

It was exactly as you say for me. It got to the point where I was missing court hearings and filing deadlines, even though I had them calendared, because I was also forgetting to check my calendar

This is another example of how we need to differentiate ourselves from the normal, routine flow of activity before we can understand that flow at a deeper level, by taking creative responsibility for it. These developments strongly prompt us to confront ignored deficiencies, unexamined tendencies, etc. and bring them more within the sphere of our conscious willpower and creative thinking.