Cleric K wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 3:16 pm
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.
You are right, in fact this dispute between "nothingness" nondualists and "nondual existence" nondualists have been going on in the Buddhist tradition from the early years of Buddhism and continues still in our days. Here is my answer. Consciousness is infinite and there is an unlimited variety of conscious states. Roughly, the states that we know so far can be classified in three categories: nothingness, dualistic and nondual, but there may be more categories of which we do not yet know. First thing to note is that there is always a free choice if a soul (understood as an individuated spiritual activity) chooses to stay in one state or category and refuses to change. However, IMO, the Spirit on the Cosmic scale is on the quest to evolve, explore and get to acquire the knowledge of itself and of all its states. It is a quest of “We want to know”, and all individuated spiritual activities are invited to participate in it but with no obligations or expectations. And there is no end to this quest because the variety of conscious states is infinite and the progression of evolution is endless. We have no idea what lies ahead of us, and how beautiful it is! So, if we are in line with this motivation to know, then we would also want to know the “nothingness” nondual state, but then why would we become stuck in this state? There is no reason to stay in the “nothingness” forever unless one chooses to prefer this state to any other states, but then why is there such preference? Likewise, if we are in line with this motivation to know, then we certainly would also want to know dualistic state, but then why would we become stuck in it and refuse to move along to explore other states such as nondual ones, unless we become addicted to and cling to it, but then why would there be such preference? Likewise, we would also want to know the nondual existence state in all its variety, but again, why would we stick to it and prefer it to other states if there are likely other even more advanced states for us to know? This is the curvature of the progression of the true SS – the quest to know that motivates us to develop our cognition on progressively higher levels and push the limits of our knowledge frontier in all directions with non-stop. Now, because as we push the frontier, its “surface” becomes so large that it may become intractable for a single soul to cover everything, so, it is not a problem if some souls may temporarily specialize and focus more on some specific areas. Also, you are right, the motivation of “I want to know” should also go along with “How do I know?”, because we need to also understand and apply the right scientific method if we want to do the science of consciousness in an efficient way.
On the lower evolutionary states we exist within the lawful structures created by more evolved beings with the purpose for us to learn and evolve. It’s a training platform and we should follow their lawful structures to "pass the tests” and graduate. On the higher levels, as we evolve and master our manifestation skills, we become co-creators of new structures that we further explore to enhance our knowledge.