Anthroposophy as Fascio

[Lou Gold]

Eugene,

I'm enjoying this conversation between you and Cleric, learning much from it. Thanks to both of you for keeping it going. I'm not prepared to comment on the dialog because I've never entered the territory of Spiritual Science and, though somewhat familiar with Eastern traditions, I've never plunged deeply into any of its practices. However, as a storyteller my interest is drawn toward the "God - The Architect" image. The 'architect' has one foot in the painting and one outside suggesting transcendence, immanence and communication as a bridging of both. I like!

Agni Parthene

etc ...

Thank you Eugene. Lovely, indeed!
The Mothers month of May is not faraway.
I'll try to build Agni Parthene into some of our daily practices.

[Stranger]

Thank you Eugene. Lovely, indeed!
The Mothers month of May is not faraway.
I'll try to build Agni Parthene into some of our daily practices.

Agni Parthene

[Lou Gold]

It was just a metaphor - one of great many possible. Like we spoke with Eugene, no one has ever implied that such an image is the faithful depiction of reality. No image can capture the infinite richness of the soul. Even a single photograph can't capture all the sides of a 3D object, what's left for the manifoldness of the spiritual world! What I presented was only meant to point at one of the aspects - the musical beauty of Cosmic relations which weave the soul. Obviously if these harmonic relations are taken in isolation they become only lifeless mathematics and machinery. It is up to each one of us to separate the chaff from wheat.

Other than that, I agree that these computer generated images can never have deeper spiritual impact on the viewer simply because they are produced in a completely computational way. It is different with human-made pieces of art which are inspired through higher intuition. Then the art is also means for communication, the artist can lead the viewer to the spiritual state from whence the artform was inspired. Alas, there's plenty of modern art which is not too different from the computer generated one. There's no deeper inspiration, only reshuffling of forms. As long as it's something new and original, and tingles the senses, it's applauded. In fact, for many modern people this is the preferred form of art. Art with deeper message demands too much effort to appreciate, furthermore it clashes with views and opinions. Thus computer art will be welcomed by many as politically correct, which expresses no deeper ideas, let alone spiritual realities - which many can find offensive if they clash with their views - but only presents endless combinations of forms, colors and sounds, for the senses to enjoy.

Yes, I understand it was just a metaphor and I didn't think you offered it as a faithful depiction of reality. I was just quite surprised that among the images offered by you as models of science the chosen one was the most mechanical in appearance and that, for further elaboration, you employed the tool of machine learning, which is, as you note, most deficient in spirit -- hardly anything like, as you say, "the musical beauty of Cosmic relations which weave the soul."

I do agree with what you say about there being only a reshuffling with nothing inspired through higher intuition but surely political correctness is not the main reason for avoidance of offense of portions of the audience. The man reason for such avoidance is that the algorithm is well designed to maximize profits, which is why the corporate giants are now investing and competing in a race to develop it. Simply put, machine learning is going to generate some very rich companies.

Lou,

Think of the orderly course of the stellar sphere under sway of what we dimly know as the fundamental physical forces, especially relative to the chaotic course of human culture. Our mechanical constructions pale in wisdom compared to the designs of physical nature, but nevertheless they utilize these same physical forces which we have attained a certain mastery of through our thinking consciousness. So I think these can serve as great metaphors for the ideal aims of our spiritual activity if we are able to imbue them with a new imaginative life. The images of the World will only have as much life as we can give them. There is nothing in the Cosmos which is absolutely deficient in spirit, or must remain at a certain level of deficiency, independent of our own spiritual activity.

We can also ask, what is the purpose of maximizing profits? For one thing it helps people accumulate material services and goods. And that is done precisely to indulge in convenient activities which please the senses. It is also done to accumulate power over others, to subject the will of others to our own will. I would say the current wave of political correctness and the associated 'cancel culture' is another manifestation of that will-to-power over others, under guise of outwardly 'virtuous' motives. At the end of the day, it all comes back to archetypal soul-tendencies which are rooted in our high ideals or, more often these days, our lack of them.

Ashvin,

I see the Cosmos as fluctuating or cycling through changing periods of relative order or chaos. Times of profound initiation are not easy times. Now, at many levels, it seems a time of climate change -- the general context/climate in awareness -- in politics, in economies, in culture and civilization, in weather and whatever, we see extremes. Right now profit maximization needs to be constrained against severe inequality and identity politics needs to be held to promoting mutual respect within a great diversity. Sadly, it's cancel culture that's bursting forth as a symptom of the times. Just read the news -- Yuval Harari and Ali Khamenei both trying to cancel or constrain AI; schools from Massachusetts to Florida attempting to cancel the presentation of art forms. Like tornadoes, these are symptoms of a system state. I'm not advocating for one side or the other. I'm saying "Be aware. It's getting harder to walk calmly on this slippery earth."

[AshvinP]

I'm not sure what you expect to hear from spiritual science about the transcendental. Since you ask the question in this way, I presume that whatever you have heard so far doesn't count as viable. For example, the fact that after death our being gradually expands to the size of the Solar system (we should of course think of inner space, as there's no longer physical sight which can see things externally) and that the Spheres and the beings form our shared Cosmic organism, obviously doesn't count as transcendental knowledge to you (this expansion can be known experientially (not through intellectual speculation) even on Earth through the higher forms of consciousness). That is, all the details about the spiritual worlds, the journey of the human being through them, the way the spiritual manifests in the physical and so on, are 'behind' with respect to the transcendental that you speak of. Also you say that the few examples you have seen about the transcendental and about oneness are too vague. So at this point I'm not really sure what more concrete (the opposite of vague) you would like to read in a book presenting transcendental knowledge. Can you give a few examples of concrete things about the transcendental, that you would love to see in an anthroposophical book? In other words, would you write a paragraph or two of an imaginary anthroposophical book which, when you read it according to your own criteria, will make you glad and say "Now these guys know what they are talking about. They have really reached the essence of the transcendental and do a great job of putting it into concepts and words (which are of course only shells as we have agreed)"?

That's right, the " Solar system, the Spheres and the beings form our shared Cosmic organism, obviously doesn't count as transcendental knowledge" - all this belongs to the realm of the immanent and the knowledge of the immanent, of the Creation/World and all its content. Transcendental is the Creator, not the created, even though the created WC is never separate from the Creator, but the Creator is more than all the content of its creation. And the spiritual path to transcendental is experiential realization of our fundamental oneness and identity with the Creator. One of the best descriptions of transcendental is given in that quote that I gave from Dyonisius, so this would be something that I would expect to see in anthroposophy. Rumi, one of the most outstanding Sufis, is another example. Or, we can look at sacred texts of many spiritual traditions, I can give tons of such quotes.

Right, so anything which speaks of the Spirit manifesting its eternal Being in the realm of becoming, even through forms of activity which are entirely unimaginable for current humanity, is still below your line of transcendence. As soon as we start using words which are not simply different ways of saying, 'everything is One', as in the quotes you shared, even if we are using those words with full consciousness that they are only shells for experiential, unutterable realities, we are only pointing to phenomena within the realm of immanence, creation, etc. We can investigate and interact with that created realm if we want to, but it has little bearing on the eternal, unchanging nature of the transcendent Creator.

So we come full circle back to the question, how is it possible that some (perhaps not you, but certainly others) have risen above all that to the realm of Creator transcendence, yet they don't know the higher-order details of the created WC which is never separate from the Creator, such as the Spheres/Beings we pass through in disincarnate state, or when they are presented such details, they can't determine immediately whether they are true expressions of the Creator or not (or can only do so based on personal preferences of how we can relate with Oneness)? Wouldn't this mean that Creator and creation are, in fact, phenomenologically, epistemologically, ontologically separate? I know you assert they are not separate, but how do you explain this glaring epistemic discrepancy?

[AshvinP]

Yes, I understand it was just a metaphor and I didn't think you offered it as a faithful depiction of reality. I was just quite surprised that among the images offered by you as models of science the chosen one was the most mechanical in appearance and that, for further elaboration, you employed the tool of machine learning, which is, as you note, most deficient in spirit -- hardly anything like, as you say, "the musical beauty of Cosmic relations which weave the soul."

I do agree with what you say about there being only a reshuffling with nothing inspired through higher intuition but surely political correctness is not the main reason for avoidance of offense of portions of the audience. The man reason for such avoidance is that the algorithm is well designed to maximize profits, which is why the corporate giants are now investing and competing in a race to develop it. Simply put, machine learning is going to generate some very rich companies.

Lou,

Think of the orderly course of the stellar sphere under sway of what we dimly know as the fundamental physical forces, especially relative to the chaotic course of human culture. Our mechanical constructions pale in wisdom compared to the designs of physical nature, but nevertheless they utilize these same physical forces which we have attained a certain mastery of through our thinking consciousness. So I think these can serve as great metaphors for the ideal aims of our spiritual activity if we are able to imbue them with a new imaginative life. The images of the World will only have as much life as we can give them. There is nothing in the Cosmos which is absolutely deficient in spirit, or must remain at a certain level of deficiency, independent of our own spiritual activity.

We can also ask, what is the purpose of maximizing profits? For one thing it helps people accumulate material services and goods. And that is done precisely to indulge in convenient activities which please the senses. It is also done to accumulate power over others, to subject the will of others to our own will. I would say the current wave of political correctness and the associated 'cancel culture' is another manifestation of that will-to-power over others, under guise of outwardly 'virtuous' motives. At the end of the day, it all comes back to archetypal soul-tendencies which are rooted in our high ideals or, more often these days, our lack of them.

Ashvin,

I see the Cosmos as fluctuating or cycling through changing periods of relative order or chaos. Times of profound initiation are not easy times. Now, at many levels, it seems a time of climate change -- the general context/climate in awareness -- in politics, in economies, in culture and civilization, in weather and whatever, we see extremes. Right now profit maximization needs to be constrained against severe inequality and identity politics needs to be held to promoting mutual respect within a great diversity. Sadly, it's cancel culture that's bursting forth as a symptom of the times. Just read the news -- Yuval Harari and Ali Khamenei both trying to cancel or constrain AI; schools from Massachusetts to Florida attempting to cancel the presentation of art forms. Like tornadoes, these are symptoms of a system state. I'm not advocating for one side or the other. I'm saying "Be aware. It's getting harder to walk calmly on this slippery earth."

I'm pointing to the fact that it doesn't fluctuate or cycle independently of our first-person spiritual activity, at the level of individuals and collectives. Neither the polity, the economy, the civilization, nor the weather do so independently of that inner activity. This doesn't mean current humans are the only spiritual agencies involved or the highest, in fact we are among the lowest, but everything which manifests within the Earthly realm flows through our consciousness. That means our soul-states and our thought-states have an increasing level of influence on future fluctuations and cycles. There are some things seeded through our past states of consciousness which have too much momentum that we can expect to change them with our current spiritual activity, and I agree we can't judge any such occurrences with our Earthly concepts of 'good' and 'bad'. That is something the PC crowd surely hasn't learned yet - that their current concepts can hardly evaluate what actually promotes 'mutual respect within a great diversity'. That we need to inwardly transform before we are in any position to make that evaluation. We have a responsibility to the future (which is also us) for dropping the mostly passive outward 'activism' and actively cultivating the inner ideals which will seed future worlds. That is the true activism.

[Federica]

I'm not sure what you expect to hear from spiritual science about the transcendental. Since you ask the question in this way, I presume that whatever you have heard so far doesn't count as viable. For example, the fact that after death our being gradually expands to the size of the Solar system (we should of course think of inner space, as there's no longer physical sight which can see things externally) and that the Spheres and the beings form our shared Cosmic organism, obviously doesn't count as transcendental knowledge to you (this expansion can be known experientially (not through intellectual speculation) even on Earth through the higher forms of consciousness). That is, all the details about the spiritual worlds, the journey of the human being through them, the way the spiritual manifests in the physical and so on, are 'behind' with respect to the transcendental that you speak of. Also you say that the few examples you have seen about the transcendental and about oneness are too vague. So at this point I'm not really sure what more concrete (the opposite of vague) you would like to read in a book presenting transcendental knowledge. Can you give a few examples of concrete things about the transcendental, that you would love to see in an anthroposophical book? In other words, would you write a paragraph or two of an imaginary anthroposophical book which, when you read it according to your own criteria, will make you glad and say "Now these guys know what they are talking about. They have really reached the essence of the transcendental and do a great job of putting it into concepts and words (which are of course only shells as we have agreed)"?

That's right, the " Solar system, the Spheres and the beings form our shared Cosmic organism, obviously doesn't count as transcendental knowledge" - all this belongs to the realm of the immanent and the knowledge of the immanent, of the Creation/World and all its content. Transcendental is the Creator, not the created, even though the created WC is never separate from the Creator, but the Creator is more than all the content of its creation. And the spiritual path to transcendental is experiential realization of our fundamental oneness and identity with the Creator. One of the best descriptions of transcendental is given in that quote that I gave from Dyonisius, so this would be something that I would expect to see in anthroposophy. Rumi, one of the most outstanding Sufis, is another example. Or, we can look at sacred texts of many spiritual traditions, I can give tons of such quotes.

Right, so anything which speaks of the Spirit manifesting its eternal Being in the realm of becoming, even through forms of activity which are entirely unimaginable for current humanity, is still below your line of transcendence. As soon as we start using words which are not simply different ways of saying, 'everything is One', as in the quotes you shared, even if we are using those words with full consciousness that they are only shells for experiential, unutterable realities, we are only pointing to phenomena within the realm of immanence, creation, etc. We can investigate and interact with that created realm if we want to, but it has little bearing on the eternal, unchanging nature of the transcendent Creator.

So we come full circle back to the question, how is it possible that some (perhaps not you, but certainly others) have risen above all that to the realm of Creator transcendence, yet they don't know the higher-order details of the created WC which is never separate from the Creator, such as the Spheres/Beings we pass through in disincarnate state, or when they are presented such details, they can't determine immediately whether they are true expressions of the Creator or not (or can only do so based on personal preferences of how we can relate with Oneness)? Wouldn't this mean that Creator and creation are, in fact, phenomenologically, epistemologically, ontologically separate? I know you assert they are not separate, but how do you explain this glaring epistemic discrepancy?

Here we indeed make a full circle because these are the very same things we’ve been speaking for years. It all boils down to the following:

I have to say at this point, I do feel like we have come full circle back to my original response.

[Stranger]

So we come full circle back to the question, how is it possible that some (perhaps not you, but certainly others) have risen above all that to the realm of Creator transcendence, yet they don't know the higher-order details of the created WC which is never separate from the Creator, such as the Spheres/Beings we pass through in disincarnate state, or when they are presented such details, they can't determine immediately whether they are true expressions of the Creator or not (or can only do so based on personal preferences of how we can relate with Oneness)? Wouldn't this mean that Creator and creation are, in fact, phenomenologically, epistemologically, ontologically separate? I know you assert they are not separate, but how do you explain this glaring epistemic discrepancy?

Each form/phenomenon (percept, cognition, idea etc) is ontologically the Creator, and so each of us are processes of the interdependent streams of forms/cognitions within the consciousness of the Creator. The interdependency within and between the streams is governed by the lawful structures. But the fact that each phenomenon and stream is ontologically the Creator does not mean that each stream or act of cognition automatically knows every other form/phenomenon in the World.

As an analogy, imagine we are the waves of the surface of the same ocean. When our cognition only runs along the surface, we only see and experience waves (little ripples within our own wave, or other waves closely around us), and from such horizontal perspective the waves seem to be separate from each other. We can develop our surface-cognition further and see more waves around in the horizontal dimension and understand their groups and structures and flows and the laws that govern their flows etc. However, at some point we may look down into the depth and discover that, oh!, it is all just one and the same ocean, there is only water and all waves are made of the same water! But that does not mean that each wave, when it realizes that is it just water, immediately knows what is going on with every other wave across the surface of the ocean. Ontological unity does not mean the full informational access across the full "space" of the ocean. Still, each wave can experientially and directly know that it is made of water and so in no way separable from the water of the ocean. Why? Because the "water" of the ocean is Consciousness, it is the Self, and Consciousness has the fundamental ability to knowingly experience itself. Don't you know that you are conscious? So do I and everyone else, duh! But we have a weird belief that "my consciousness is something different and separate from your consciousness" because we cannot immediately experience what other people experience. That belief is especially supported in materialism where consciousness is believed to be an epiphenomenon of material brain, so there are as many separate and different consciousnesses as there are human brains in the world. But no way, materialism aside, there cannot be ontologically a multitude of separate consciousnesses, otherwise they would not be able to communicate with each other. Ontologically there can be only one consciousness within which there is a multitude of the cognitive processes running and interacting with each other but not necessarily having direct access to all the cognitive experiences of each other.

So, as Cleric described it somewhere else, there is "vertical" expansion of the boundary where we reach to the dimension of the ontological oneness and acquire the knowledge of various universal aspects of that ontological dimension of the "depths of the ocean", and there is "horizontal" expansion into higher order details of the created WC (meaning that, of course, such "horizontal" is actually multidimensional fractal with its own vertical hierarchy). Correspondingly, there are "mystical reductionists" who do not care about the WC and only expand to the vertical dimension, and there are "structural reductionists" who don't pay any attention to the vertical and only expand into the "horizontal" WC. Both of those approaches are limited and both can only acquire a distorted and one-sided knowledge of reality. If we indeed want to know the truth of what reality is and all that it does, we need to push the boundary in both vertical and horizontal dimensions, into the widths of the ocean (the world of the ocean waves and forms) and into the depths of it (the transcendental dimension of what the ocean IS).

[Stranger]

and at min 44 he talks about why there is a "veil" and "law of forgetting" in our 3-rd density realm

[Cleric]

That's right, the " Solar system, the Spheres and the beings form our shared Cosmic organism, obviously doesn't count as transcendental knowledge" - all this belongs to the realm of the immanent and the knowledge of the immanent, of the Creation/World and all its content. Transcendental is the Creator, not the created, even though the created WC is never separate from the Creator, but the Creator is more than all the content of its creation. And the spiritual path to transcendental is experiential realization of our fundamental oneness and identity with the Creator. One of the best descriptions of transcendental is given in that quote that I gave from Dyonisius, so this would be something that I would expect to see in anthroposophy. Rumi, one of the most outstanding Sufis, is another example. Or, we can look at sacred texts of many spiritual traditions, I can give tons of such quotes.

It seems we have quite different notions of 'vague' and 'concrete' What you have provided, is what Ashvin noted:

simply different ways of saying, 'everything is One'

As a matter of fact, this looks like a perfect job for AI:

Q: write in twenty different ways "all is one"

A:
1. The universe is a unified whole, where all things are interconnected and interdependent.
2. There is no separation between anything in existence; all is part of one seamless fabric.
3. The essence of all things is one and the same, regardless of their apparent diversity.
4. The diversity we perceive is an illusion; at the deepest level, all is one.
5. The same underlying force animates everything in the universe; all is one energy.
6. All things arise from the same source; all is one origin.
7. The same intelligence that governs the cosmos is present in all things; all is one consciousness.
8. The same laws of nature that apply to one thing apply to everything else; all is one order.
9. The same patterns that emerge in one area of the universe can be found elsewhere; all is one pattern.
10. All things are interrelated and interconnected, forming a vast web of existence where all is one.
11. The boundaries that we perceive are artificial constructs of the mind; all is one without division.
12. The same fundamental particles that make up all matter are present in everything; all is one substance.
13. The same life force that animates us is present in all living things; all is one life.
14. The same emotions that we experience are universal, shared by all beings; all is one feeling.
15. The same thoughts that we have are echoed in the minds of others; all is one thought.
16. The same spirit that animates us is present in all spiritual traditions; all is one spirit.
17. The same potential for growth and evolution exists in all things; all is one potential.
18. The same beauty that we find in one thing can be found in everything else; all is one beauty.
19. The same love that we feel for one thing can be felt for everything else; all is one love.
20. All is one, and to recognize this fundamental truth is to experience the unity of existence.

This is not what I meant by concrete details. Let me put it thus. You have confirmed that all the details about the higher worlds, the path of the souls and so on, belong to the immanent below the transcendent. For this reason you are highly suspicious about anything presented by higher cognition. Your view is that these intuitive experiences are limited because they miss the essential transcendent oneness. For example, anything discovered about the incarnational rhythms is considered half-truth because it is valid only as far as one is entangled with the Spheres. For those who have realized the transcendent state, these entanglements become optional.

Alright. But there's a 'small' logical gap here. So far, the only knowledge that you have presented from the transcendental state is "I'm one with the Divine" (even if rendered in thousand ways). By 'concrete' I was hoping to hear, for example, how would you describe the experience that gives you the certainty that you'll be completely free from the Spheres after death? It would be fair to do that. Initiates have shown in the most various concrete details how the journey of the soul between incarnations proceeds. What would be the concrete transcendental experience which tells you that you don't have to incarnate anymore? Obviously the transcendental experience of oneness in itself is not enough. We are one even in this very moment, yet we're not all-powerful. We can't simply dematerialize, create a new body at will or stay without a body, in any way we want. Thus the realization of oneness on Earth doesn't mean that we become immediately free of all curvatures of becoming. But what makes us certain that after death we'll be absolute masters of the curvatures? What is the nature of the transcendental experience that we can have here and now, which unveils the truth that we are free of all karmic threads, that we no longer have any obligations to humanity and we'll be able to choose our future path completely freely, in this or another galaxy?

[Stranger]

But what makes us certain that after death we'll be absolute masters of the curvatures? What is the nature of the transcendental experience that we can have here and now, which unveils the truth that we are free of all karmic threads, that we no longer have any obligations to humanity and we'll be able to choose our future path completely freely, in this or another galaxy?

Transcendental experience is not something that in a moment makes you free from all karmic knots and makes you a master of the universe. But once you start your journey into the depths of the transcendent and experientially discover the attributes of the transcendent, such as Love, Compassion, Beauty and Unity of all, your karmic knots will start to untie, and you will start to disentangle from the karmic entanglements that are not aligned and not coherent with those aspects of the transcendent. At the same time, you can continue enhancing your boundary of knowledge of the World Content. After evolving along this path for a certain period (it may take one or multiple incarnations) you eventually graduate/ascend to a level of consciousness where there is no interest and necessity to incarnate into the 3-rd dimension (where Earth resides) anymore because you have all its lessons learnt and disentangled all karmic knots tying you to the 3-rd dimensional entanglements. That does not mean you are now the absolute master of the universe and can transmute yourself into any possible form and any density dimension, there is still a continuity of the soul's structure and developmental path towards higher densities, it is just that the path no longer goes through the 3-rd density and through human incarnations. You may incarnate into other races/planets on higher dimensions that is a better fit for your level of development. There are different Speres and different entanglements on those higher levels that are better aligned with your knowledge of the transcendental. So, once you are mature enough in your nondual realization of the transcendental dimension, there is no reason to go back to the dualistic state of the 3-rd dimension, unless you voluntarily take the bodhisattva mission. In that video above Aaron describes it quite well.

Think about it: once you graduate from high school, why would you keep goin back to grade 12, or 11 or even less? Do you have any obligations to high school students that force you to go back next year? No, you move on to a college to study what fits better your personal predispositions and talents. You don't make you choice of the degree totally random, you carefully contemplate on it, take advise from other people, consult with the college, make sure you are capable of completing it, and the college will admit you only after making sure you are ready and mature enough to take and complete that study etc. But if you still feel affiliation with school students and want to help them, you can get a teacher's degree and come back to school, but now as a teacher.