As spoken previously, the problem is that unnoticeably, the experience of oneness is assumed to be the source of our present philosophy instead of recognizing how we have patched it up from the most varied places. Now if we ask "but why do you assume Initiatic science doesn't already include that oneness?" (I have tried to show that it is impossible to live in the Inspirative and Intuitive stages of consciousness and not understand the oneness of spiritual reality in the most living and direct way), then your argumentation goes to say "well, if there was oneness, there wouldn't be any talk about nested existence, about being intrinsic part of the evolution of the Cosmic context and so on". In other words, this oneness is thrown around as a trump card that 'beats everything' (as Joey would say) and it is very conveniently used in the way "if you knew oneness you wouldn't be talking about the things you talk about. Since you don't talk about the things I talk about, you must not understand oneness." But again - here one completely conflates the experience of oneness for something that gives from itself the preferred cosmology about nondual worlds, post incarnational careers and so on.Stranger wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 1:16 pm Right, we need to move ahead and do spiritual science with greater precision to progress further. But how is it greater precision if we deny the realization of oneness which is essential part of knowing the reality with greater precision and leaving behind the distorted and imprecise dualistic perception of reality? We just agreed with Scott that awareness is universal, and knowing this experientially is not an abstraction but a practical tool for the realization of oneness. Then any kind of spiritual science attempting to know the reality with more precision has to include such essential knowledge of oneness and universality of awareness. Otherwise, it would not be precise and so cannot be claimed to be a science.
What I and Anthony are pointing to is that the realization of oneness should be an integral part of spiritual science, otherwise, if such integration is lacking, then it is not spiritual science in a full sense. But no one suggests that SS should be all reduced to only the realization of oneness, we only suggest to integrate it as an essential component and method of scientific exploration and development of thinking.
To give a more concrete example I can take another role. I can take a position similar to Lorenzo's but even more extreme. I take the position that true liberation is nonexistence. I claim that all those talks about nondual worlds, Gödel's candy shop, post incarnational careers are falsity upon falsity. My experience of oneness reveals the Absolute Nothingness (as Adur had called it). All talks about existence as nondual noncorporeal being is a lie perpetuated by the forces of evil. The true experience of oneness reveals to me only the absolute potential of nonexistence and a liberated being dissolves after death in that potential forever. Otherwise it keeps reincarnating.
There. There's nothing of SS here. It's all nonduality and oneness. Of course you would disagree with such a view. It would be a little trickier because you won't be able to blame the disagreement directly on the ignorance of oneness, since my whole philosophy is founded on oneness. The only way would be for you to tell me that my experience of oneness is incomplete. You would say "If you had gone into the experience of oneness all the way, you would have intuited the nondual worlds and the souls enjoying Gödel's candy shop." But I could equally counter: "No, no. It is your experience of oneness that is incomplete. If you had known oneness in its absolute nature you would have known that all that candy stuff is simply a projection of your not yet resolved thirst for continued existence of your ego. You are on the borderline between duality and nonduality. Your ego wants to be liberated from the world of suffering but still wants to maintain immortal existence. Thus it fantasizes heavenly realms which however, after death evaporate as a naive dream and one is hurled back into incarnation."
It's clear that nothing of value can proceed from that point onwards. It's one's word against the other's. Everyone thinks that the other has incomplete experience of oneness. And it is of no use to present me with NDE accounts. I would reply that these are completely expected because they proceed from quite secular people going through abnormal states and naturally their thirst for existence is projected into fantastic visions.
As an exercise you can try to convince my nondual alter out of its position. No Steiner and SS involved. Pure nonduality. Why my experience of oneness is wrong when it tells me that all nondual disincarnate existence is only a fantastic projection of the unresolved thirst of the ego for immortal existence? How would you convince me that from my experience of oneness with ultimate reality, it somehow follows that I'll go in Gödel's candy shop after death?
I hope this makes the point that the arguments about SS have very little to do with oneness or its lack. It's a simple conflict of world outlooks, the cause of which is misidentified. The only reasonable way out is to seek the actual facts of existence in their manifold relations, which are not only a matter of taste but can be lawfully followed in the reality of our flow of becoming. Above all we should start with "How do I know?" I hope the last post in the other thread can help us move further in that direction.