The realm of the Demiurge

[AshvinP]

Steiner wrote:
For, paradoxical though it may sound, the following is a true statement — and you will find it clearly expressed in various lecture cycles: the dead, those living in spirit and the soul in the interval between death and a new birth, speak of the earth in the same way that men on earth speak of heaven. The earth is a shimmering vision that hovers in front of them in the way the vision of heaven hovers in the mind's eye of those on earth. Earth is the desired other world for which those living in heaven yearn. They speak of earth in the way we speak of heaven.

All right, you still avoided answering the question, but never mind, this Steiner's sentence is a good one which confirms for me what's going on in this realm.

We are trying to point you towards a living experience, Eugene, in which the flow of your own intuitive becoming is intimately bound up. You keep insisting to get answers from the perspective of dead thoughts, from the physical sensory perspective, where everything can be fixed in place and discursively analyzed. That is what you want to hear about 'lower cognition'. Then when we don't comply with this request, because it is nonsensical from the living and polarically unified spiritual perspective, you feel the questions are being avoided. Again, you want everything to fit into the slots of your current expectations. That lower expectant perspective is precisely what needs to be inwardly transformed through its sacrifice. Until then, only what confirms your own habitual expectations will 'make sense' to you, while everything else will be seen as either nonsense or confirmation for your beliefs.

Anyway, I have made the Anthroposophical perspective somewhat clear on the St. Paul verses, which is really the only thing I wanted to do. I hope you are able to address Cleric's questions on the other thread honestly and frankly. Because I see that you completely blew off his question about the 'I think the words' exercise and quoted something irrelevant. It was a very simple question which can be answered directly from your first-person experience of the exercise, without any abstract analysis of 'nondual cognition'.

[Stranger]

Because I see that you completely blew off his question about the 'I think the words' exercise and quoted something irrelevant. It was a very simple question which can be answered directly from your first-person experience of the exercise, without any abstract analysis of 'nondual cognition'.

The problem is, whatever way I try to describe the nondual state in human words, it will always be wrong (because the human language is inadequate for that) , and therefore easy to twist and misinterpret, and then criticize it. Or, it is also possible to sincerely try to understand the intended meanings. It's always the listener's choice.

Anyway, I get your/Anthroposophy's overall view, it is based on the faith in full redemption of all body-mind mechanisms of human nature by developing higher cognition and through it attaining to the living inner knowledge of the lawful processes of the Cosmic Thinking. And based on this belief you interpret the mission of Christ and biblical scriptures accordingly (which is fair since they can be interpreted in many different ways).

[AshvinP]

Because I see that you completely blew off his question about the 'I think the words' exercise and quoted something irrelevant. It was a very simple question which can be answered directly from your first-person experience of the exercise, without any abstract analysis of 'nondual cognition'.

The problem is, whatever way I try to describe the nondual state in human words, it will always be wrong (because the human language is inadequate for that) , and therefore easy to twist and misinterpret, and then criticize it. Or, it is also possible to sincerely try to understand the intended meanings. It's always the listener's choice.

Anyway, I get your/Anthroposophy's overall view, it is based on the faith in full redemption of all body-mind mechanisms of human nature by developing higher cognition and through it attaining to the living inner knowledge of the lawful processes of the Cosmic Thinking. And based on this belief you interpret the mission of Christ and biblical scriptures accordingly (which is fair since they can be interpreted in many different ways).

We are not basing anything we write on your past or recent descriptions of the 'nondual state', but on the past 2-3 years of extensive interaction with you on these issues, which have revealed a very consistent pattern of thinking. The issue has been one and the same thing throughout that entire 2-3 years, only manifesting in slightly different outer forms. As Cleric said on the other thread, it is a glaringly simple one. You refuse to take the inward experiential approach seriously enough. You refuse to consider that all you feel to be "me", including the "me" who experiences the 'nondual state', is still within the lawful context of the Earthly convolutions. It is only this refusal which leads to the lower/higher split and the resulting templated beliefs/expectations about how 'higher cognition' should "fully" reconcile the two. It got the point where you literally changed the meditative exercises so you can continue to move in the opposite direction from where they are intended to point. As long as you refuse to seriously consider the possibility that you haven't already inwardly sacrificed all there needs to be sacrificed, and that you haven't already "been there, done that" with respect to higher cognition, you will remain unsatisfied with what we are writing and pointing towards. Then you will wonder why your efforts are in vain and why the split maintains, eventually finding satisfaction in the adoption of various convenient new-age conspiracy theories imposed on ancient spiritual traditions, which externalize the blame and allow you to wash your hands of the whole affair.

[Stranger]

We are not basing anything we write on your past or recent descriptions of the 'nondual state', but on the past 2-3 years of extensive interaction with you on these issues, which have revealed a very consistent pattern of thinking. The issue has been one and the same thing throughout that entire 2-3 years, only manifesting in slightly different outer forms. As Cleric said on the other thread, it is a glaringly simple one. You refuse to take the inward experiential approach seriously enough. You refuse to consider that all you feel to be "me", including the "me" who experiences the 'nondual state', is still within the lawful context of the Earthly convolutions. It is only this refusal which leads to the lower/higher split and the resulting templated beliefs/expectations about how 'higher cognition' should "fully" reconcile the two. It got the point where you literally changed the meditative exercises so you can continue to move in the opposite direction from where they are intended to point. As long as you refuse to seriously consider the possibility that you haven't already inwardly sacrificed all there needs to be sacrificed, and that you haven't already "been there, done that" with respect to higher cognition, you will remain unsatisfied with what we are writing and pointing towards. Then you will wonder why your efforts are in vain and why the split maintains, eventually finding satisfaction in the adoption of various convenient new-age conspiracy theories imposed on ancient spiritual traditions, which externalize the blame and allow you to wash your hands of the whole affair.

Same answer here as I answered Cleric in another thread:

In simple words what you are saying means "you are always doing it wrong, you will never get it right unless you give up your stupid nondual practice, fully subscribe to the Anthroposophy, believe in all its premises and follow all its recipes and exercises exactly". Sounds like a philosophy of freedom

[AshvinP]

We are not basing anything we write on your past or recent descriptions of the 'nondual state', but on the past 2-3 years of extensive interaction with you on these issues, which have revealed a very consistent pattern of thinking. The issue has been one and the same thing throughout that entire 2-3 years, only manifesting in slightly different outer forms. As Cleric said on the other thread, it is a glaringly simple one. You refuse to take the inward experiential approach seriously enough. You refuse to consider that all you feel to be "me", including the "me" who experiences the 'nondual state', is still within the lawful context of the Earthly convolutions. It is only this refusal which leads to the lower/higher split and the resulting templated beliefs/expectations about how 'higher cognition' should "fully" reconcile the two. It got the point where you literally changed the meditative exercises so you can continue to move in the opposite direction from where they are intended to point. As long as you refuse to seriously consider the possibility that you haven't already inwardly sacrificed all there needs to be sacrificed, and that you haven't already "been there, done that" with respect to higher cognition, you will remain unsatisfied with what we are writing and pointing towards. Then you will wonder why your efforts are in vain and why the split maintains, eventually finding satisfaction in the adoption of various convenient new-age conspiracy theories imposed on ancient spiritual traditions, which externalize the blame and allow you to wash your hands of the whole affair.

Same answer here as I answered Cleric in another thread:

In simple words what you are saying means "you are always doing it wrong, you will never get it right unless you give up your stupid nondual practice, fully subscribe to the Anthroposophy, believe in all its premises and follow all its recipes and exercises exactly". Sounds like a philosophy of freedom

No, it's more like, "how do you expect to learn the structured meaning of the Book if you keep closing it after basking in the blissful glow of its Oneness?"

It would be one thing if you were saying, 'I don't care about the structured meaning... all of that is unnecessary detour, because my blissful flow approach will reveal the meaning to me.' But you are here telling us that you keep bumping into walls with your approach, and can't even conceive of how such meaning would ever be revealed from within your approach, and then asking how it is any different with spiritual training for higher cognition. So we give you the answers in detail, but because they don't fit with your expectations of how spiritual evolution should work (without much inner sacrifice or effort), and your favored Demiurgic theory which says all such things are impossible on Earth, you turn around and say our carefully offered advice is the equivalent of telling you to give up your freedom. Again, what is happening here is super transparent, but as Barfield wrote, "the obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to anyone who has genuinely lost sight of it."

[Stranger]

No, it's more like, "how do you expect to learn the structured meaning of the Book if you keep closing it after basking in the blissful glow of its Oneness?"

As I said before: "I have no interest in the "hows" of the dualistic state of being. But I am interested in the "hows" of the nondual state and have indeed been experientially studying exactly that." The dualistic pages of the Book are irrelevant for me, just like the complex and fascinating structures of LSD hallucinations because they are a product of intoxication of the mind and its delusion (and the realm of duality is an intoxicated hallucination). But the nondual ones are very relevant and I never close the Book to keep studying them, because they are the product of healthy and sane state of consciousness.

It would be one thing if you were saying, 'I don't care about the structured meaning... all of that is unnecessary detour, because my blissful flow approach will reveal the meaning to me.' But you are here telling us that you keep bumping into walls with your approach, and can't even conceive of how such meaning would ever be revealed from within your approach, and then asking how it is any different with spiritual training for higher cognition. So we give you the answers in detail, but because they don't fit with your expectations of how spiritual evolution should work, and your favored Demiurgic theory which says all such things are impossible on Earth, you turn around and say our carefully offered advice is the equivalent of telling you to give up your freedom. Again, what is happening here is super transparent, but as Barfield wrote, "the obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to anyone who has genuinely lost sight of it."

Nope, it's the other way around: you choose to be blind to the obvious truth of nonduality, remain stuck in the dualistic structures of the Book (and they are so sophisticated that you can spend eternity studying them), and ignore many evidences that the "Demiurge theory" may actually turn out to be true.

We are getting dragged into the same debate again, but It's now closed on my side, nothing more remains to be said.

[Lou Gold]

No, it's more like, "how do you expect to learn the structured meaning of the Book if you keep closing it after basking in the blissful glow of its Oneness?"

As I said before: "I have no interest in the "hows" of the dualistic state of being. But I am interested in the "hows" of the nondual state and have indeed been experientially studying exactly that." The dualistic pages of the Book are irrelevant for me, just like the complex and fascinating structures of LSD hallucinations because they are a product of intoxication of the mind and its delusion (and the realm of duality is an intoxicated hallucination). But the nondual ones are very relevant and I never close the Book to keep studying them, because they are the product of healthy and sane state of consciousness.

It would be one thing if you were saying, 'I don't care about the structured meaning... all of that is unnecessary detour, because my blissful flow approach will reveal the meaning to me.' But you are here telling us that you keep bumping into walls with your approach, and can't even conceive of how such meaning would ever be revealed from within your approach, and then asking how it is any different with spiritual training for higher cognition. So we give you the answers in detail, but because they don't fit with your expectations of how spiritual evolution should work, and your favored Demiurgic theory which says all such things are impossible on Earth, you turn around and say our carefully offered advice is the equivalent of telling you to give up your freedom. Again, what is happening here is super transparent, but as Barfield wrote, "the obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to anyone who has genuinely lost sight of it."

Nope, it's the other way around: you choose to be blind to the obvious truth of nonduality, remain stuck in the dualistic structures of the Book (and they are so sophisticated that you can spend eternity studying them), and ignore many evidences that the "Demiurge theory" may actually turn out to be true.

We are getting dragged into the same debate again, but It's now closed on my side, nothing more remains to be said.

I grok your drift Eugene although I confess that I can at times stumble on your words as much as on Ashvin's. Indeed, I fall hardest stumbling on my own words. Perhaps, it is far simpler for me to skip the analytic layers and arguments and go directly to sharing the shine, noting with Blake that "eternity is in love with the productions of time." Perhaps the results can hold a bit of splendor or at least its promise or maybe just some pleasure or joy. I dunno the deep story with logical certainty but the promise of perhaps is enough to hold my heart in a happy way.

[Stranger]

I grok your drift Eugene although I confess that I can at times stumble on your words as much as on Ashvin's. Indeed, I fall hardest stumbling on my own words. Perhaps, it is far simpler for me to skip the analytic layers and arguments and go directly to sharing the shine, noting with Blake that "eternity is in love with the productions of time." Perhaps the results can hold a bit of splendor or at least its promise or maybe just some pleasure or joy. I dunno the deep story with logical certainty but the promise of perhaps is enough to hold my heart in a happy way.

Lou, I hope my answer to Federica also addresses your above reply. There is nothing inherently wrong with the "production of time" and with the Mother Earth and material realm, it is not dualistic by itself. Duality is only an incoherent way of perceiving the World of forms unfolding in time.

[mikekatz]

This is a great explication, Eugene! It seems you really put in the effort for Mike The bold is especially a key insight, which Cleric has also illustrated through the hysteresis rhythm of thinking-perception.

Indeed it is difficult to verbalize these nondual experiences, but clearly there is a gradient of understanding through which it can be crystallized into very useful images and concepts, as you have just shown.

I'm glad we finally converged to this common ground!

Thanks for the detailed and clear explanation Eugene! We at least achieved a high point of agreement between you and Ashvin here, although it didn’t continue for long, lol.

[Stranger]

Thanks for the detailed and clear explanation Eugene! We at least achieved a high point of agreement between you and Ashvin here, although it didn’t continue for long, lol.

As usual, only until the next Ashvin's tantrum