KASTRUP AND SHELDRAKE ON THE COSMIC MIND

[Federica]

Granted that thinking is the port of entry, I believe that, "who is doing the thinking" is the more interesting question.

There is an unwarranted hidden premise in the question here, Lou: "thinking is a functionality that something/someone "does" in relation to something/someone else".... But thinking is the foundational constituent of the entire Cosmos!


It constitutes all reality, that is, all intelligences, directly! Not that someone, being outside thinking, does the thinking. It's not that we are a body with an organ that does the thinking and/or some other mysterious agent is doing it for us, unbeknownst to us. Any other impressions that obscure this reality are impoverished perceptions going around in circles in the sensory spectrum, read through the prism of favorite interpretation grids - hopelessly arbitrary.


Let's see beyond the grids, through us. We are a flow of conscious experiences in the process of recovering awareness of its entire depth of being as part of the primordial thinking fluid. Is it possible to take this idea seriously in oneself?

I understand your view that all is thought and do not dispute it. Do you assign any meaning to planes of consciousness or the existence of archetypal beings? How shall we speak of them in the context of all is thought? Is it valid to ask, "who is thinking this thought?"

Do you really "understand my view", Lou?

Nominally, Bernardo Kastrup also holds this view. All is mind. And any other so-called idealist nominally holds it as well! The whole problem is when this remains a “view”, entirely dissociated from the reality of it. One does not do A+B. On the one side, one screams “All is mind! All is consciousness!” only to immediately default back, in everything one thinks and does in everyday life, to an implicit inner stance fully centered in the physical world and in one’s physical body. It’s only from that aliased sensory-bound perspective that one can say “I believe the interesting question is who does the thinking”.

The archetypal beings - as well as all other beings who are not humans, animals, or elemental beings bound to the Earth elements - do not have this problem of dreaming that one’s physical extension is the control tower, the super-partes center of one’s activity. It’s not so much about “speaking of them”, as if they were a reality external to us, to which we apply the abstract tool of thinking so that we are enabled to “speak of them”. It is much more that we search and find the direct experience of our interconnectedness with them, by training our spiritual activity (thinking), so that it can become able to perceive spiritual reality meaningfully, in its non-sense-perceptible foundations in which we and the archetypal beings alike have our true home, our true being.

These higher intelligences (flows of conscious intentions) live in creative awareness at the level of the idea-made foundations of reality, but still beam down their archetypal creative power all the way into the dense layers of matter, and stand in relation with the rest of reality (the rest of the large variety of evolving experiential flows, including us) in a way that could be tentatively depicted - in heavily banalized and flattened manner - as in the picture that I’ve now uploaded in my profile.

[Cleric K]

If you look into your direct experience, you will not find any "real I" other than your idea of "I". The idea that there is some "I" behind the actions that cannot know itself "just like an eye that cannot see itself" is only an abstract idea that we have been conditioned to believe in. Essentially it's no different than the idea of "matter" which somehow exists "out there" but cannot be directly experienced. If there is something you cannot find in your direct conscious experience, it means that there is simply no ground to believe that it actually exists. This applies to the abstract idea of a spaghetti monster, the abstract idea of matter, this also applies to the abstract idea of "I".

When looked directly into the actual facts of conscious experience, all that can be found is only Aware-Thinking-Willing (ATW) manifesting thoughts and actions. ATW is not a pronoun ("I"), it's a verb, it's "doing" without an entity of a "doer". The actual "thinker-doer-willer" is nowhere to be found apart from the idea of the "thinker-doer-willer", but this idea is simply another idea that is being willfully thought by ATW. ATW has enormous power to deceive itself, to create abstract thoughts and imaginations about some imaginary entities (like "I", matter, external objects etc) and creating beliefs-thoughts that these entities exist as something other than just thoughts and imaginations produced by ATW.

Moreover, if we assume that there exists the "I"-entity and that this "I" is universal for all sentient beings, then we run into a logical contradiction. How come if there is only one "I", then one sentient being does not experience the thoughts and perceptions of any other sentient being? If there is only one "I" which knows and experiences everything, then all knowledge and experiences would necessarily have to be shared and integrated into a single stream of conscious knowledge-experience.

It's precisely because there is no universal "I", a universal center of doing and experiencing, that ATW can think and act "locally" in the individuated streams of thinking and actions. The experiences and ideas can certainly be shared between the individuated streams; however, they also many not.

Eugene, I thought we've grown beyond these Newspeak arguments years ago. The questions that stand before humanity are how our individuated streams are placed within the spiritual Cosmos, how they are related (are they spatially separated or do they increasingly overlap in the higher regions), how they interact, what forces shape them, how they are nested within greater streams, in what direction it is worthy to steer them, and so on.

Now do we take a deep breath, put all these questions aside, and hope for something better after death? Or we awaken to the fact that we are already amidst spiritual reality, and our collective destiny depends on seeking answers to these questions by expanding consciousness into the Cosmic context, and scientifically and artistically taking part in the Cosmic creative process?

[Stranger]

Eugene, I thought we've grown beyond these Newspeak arguments years ago. The questions that stand before humanity are how our individuated streams are placed within the spiritual Cosmos, how they are related (are they spatially separated or do they increasingly overlap in the higher regions), how they interact, what forces shape them, how they are nested within greater streams, in what direction it is worthy to steer them, and so on.

Now do we take a deep breath, put all these questions aside, and hope for something better after death? Or we awaken to the fact that we are already amidst spiritual reality, and our collective destiny depends on seeking answers to these questions by expanding consciousness into the Cosmic context, and scientifically and artistically taking part in the Cosmic creative process?

Apparently we didn't, Ashvin is still arguing about the reality of "I", that's why I wrote my post commenting on it

And on your second paragraph, I agree, but don't you see how our sense of "I" gets into the way of this integration and remains an obstacle?

[Stranger]

Is the desire to reach out, to connect, to share love with another, to harmonize, to attain and maintain peace also related to the same idea-feeling of "I"? Is it similarly dysfunctional? If not, why not?

Yes, while we are within the "personal" (separate self) layer, the good desires that you described are also related to the idea-feeling of "I". So, I'm not saying that it is overall always bad or always dysfunctional. But it's still the root of our dualistic state (when we divide the reality into "I" and not-"I"), and duality necessarily involves the swings between polarities. As long as you have the "I"-sense, you are destined to swing between impulses to share and harmonize and impulses to fear and obtain something for yourself. It's only when we transcend to the transpersonal level when we can transcend this polarity-pendulum altogether, can reach to the unconditional love irrelevant to the sense of "I" and can fully liberate our stream of consciousness from the egoic desires rooted in the sense of "I".

[AshvinP]

Eugene, I thought we've grown beyond these Newspeak arguments years ago. The questions that stand before humanity are how our individuated streams are placed within the spiritual Cosmos, how they are related (are they spatially separated or do they increasingly overlap in the higher regions), how they interact, what forces shape them, how they are nested within greater streams, in what direction it is worthy to steer them, and so on.

Now do we take a deep breath, put all these questions aside, and hope for something better after death? Or we awaken to the fact that we are already amidst spiritual reality, and our collective destiny depends on seeking answers to these questions by expanding consciousness into the Cosmic context, and scientifically and artistically taking part in the Cosmic creative process?

Apparently we didn't, Ashvin is still arguing about the reality of "I", that's why I wrote my post commenting on it

And on your second paragraph, I agree, but don't you see how our sense of "I" gets into the way of this integration and remains an obstacle?

Eugene,

All you have to do is resist assuming that the form of the word used is equivalent to its meaning. This betrays a metaphysical habit of thinking. If I had only used the word "I" without any further context, your assumption could be understandable (if we also allow you to forget our countless discussions on this forum repeating what I am about to say in this post), but there was plenty of further context.

I used the word "I" because Lorenzo said, "if I throw a ball against a wall or break balls in billiards". He then concluded the motion of the balls can be explained without any insightful agency. I responded and referred to the "I" as the "active and insightful force" that is also correlated with all the perceptual motions. This is verb-like activity.

So let's be clear. A person breaks the billiard balls. He then views the motion of the balls from above or from the side and calculates all the ways in which the perceptual states transform. He derives the mechanical laws of motion from this analysis. Now he concludes that the whole phenomenon has been thoroughly explained by these mechanical laws. There is no need to think further through this phenomenon or relate it to his own insightful activity because it has been 'explained' away. This example is simply standing in for countless inquiries across practically all domains of human philosophical, scientific, and religious thinking.

Do you agree that, in this process, the ATW activity has been completely forgotten and this forgetting has the utmost practical real-life consequences for humanity? That it deeply relates to how we steer the whole course of our individual and collective lives in every domain of cultural and natural existence? That is what we were discussing here on this thread, not abstract philosophy of the "I" from the 18th century.

[Federica]

If you look into your direct experience, you will not find any "real I" other than your idea of "I".

Strangeeeeer! I was glad to see you back, before I read your statement here
Staying away from the forum didn't suit you well.
Why do you want to add your name to the list of those who state A, state B, but are unable to do A + B? As if the idea of I - in a reality that one states to be all consciousness (!) - was an evanescent, unreal, second-range thing that is nothing other than..... "our idea"

[AshvinP]

Not that I have any illusion this will influence your view, but it should be mentioned how surreptitiously you have thrown out the "I" who is throwing the ball, breaking the billiard balls, and so forth. This is the 'coherent center' mentioned on the other thread, which is not another 'ball' that will be found on the billiards table, but is the active and insightful force that intends to break the balls for some particular purpose. How can this active and insightful force simply be left out of the flow of reality altogether? Only by thinking away its own existence through some materialistic or mystical reasoning. Then naturally any talk of a 'coherent center' will sound like nonsense because we have obscured it from our thinking.


The "I" can't directly see itself in the process of breaking the balls, as another ball that is being broken, so it forgets about its own existence when theorizing about the 'laws' of reality. It is the same thing every scientist does when they forget to account for the fact that their "I" sets up the experiments that elicit certain movements of natural processes and their "I" analyzes the results to formulate 'laws of nature'. Of course, if the insightful agency that always links Idea and Perception is completely blotted out from consciousness, everything will start to seem mindless and mechanical.

Likewise, it is the insightful and active "I" that doesn't see any advantage in believing some things and not others, or that mimics the transformation of perceptual states in its concepts and thereby derives the 'laws of motion' for planets around the Sun. It is the same "I" that disregards the perceptual states and simply extrapolates the mechanical 'laws of motion' into mathematical models that will supposedly hold good for all time (which has already proven to be a false assumption of the "I" according to the latest research of planetary motion). It is the "I" that dreams it needs to believe in things rather than know them because it forgot its own insightful agency by which all is known.

Again, I'll simply repeat what I stated above, Karma is a belief, and whether this belief includes an impersonal force or a God(s) as manager is an intuition and not a truth. 'Karma' is an idea that belongs to a separate self, the separate self as the feeling that I am a separate human being and live a separate life. The separate self is not a 'coherent center', it is a wisp of a thing and requires minute by minute grasping to maintain it. 'Being' is not subject to or effected by karma.

Well, as Cleric said before, this is the biggest dualism of all. What is expressed above really has no business being related to 'nonduality'. You may feel using the "dualism" label is some bullying tactic, but it's clear as day and we have provided the reasoning for why many times before.

Human beings go about their lives with a clear intuition that moral and immoral actions have the utmost significance in the flow of existence. Yet these same humans conceive that the Source of All, the very Ground of their Being, has nothing to do with their moral intuition. This artificial schism is the basis for all modern duality - it is what maintains the separate self that feels it needs to disconnect from the Source to maintain the moral fiber of its humanity.

[Stranger]

Strangeeeeer! I was glad to see you back, before I read your statement here
Staying away from the forum didn't suit you well.
Why do you want to add your name to the list of those who state A, state B, but are unable to do A + B...
As if the idea of I - in a reality that one states to be all consciousness (!) - was an evanescent, unreal, second-range thing that is nothing other than..... "our idea"...

We communicate using languages, languages use labels. There is no problem with using linguistic labels, such as personal names od "I" pronoun, as long as we do not ascribe to them any reality other than just being labels. These ideas certainly do exist, but only nominally as labels.

[Stranger]

I used the word "I" because Lorenzo said, "if I throw a ball against a wall or break balls in billiards". He then concluded the motion of the balls can be explained without any insightful agency. I responded and referred to the "I" as the "active and insightful force" that is also correlated with all the perceptual motions. This is verb-like activity.

So let's be clear. A person breaks the billiard balls. He then views the motion of the balls from above or from the side and calculates all the ways in which the perceptual states transform. He derives the mechanical laws of motion from this analysis. Now he concludes that the whole phenomenon has been thoroughly explained by these mechanical laws. There is no need to think further through this phenomenon or relate it to his own insightful activity because it has been 'explained' away. This example is simply standing in for countless inquiries across practically all domains of human philosophical, scientific, and religious thinking.

Do you agree that, in this process, the ATW activity has been completely forgotten and this forgetting has the utmost practical real-life consequences for humanity? That it deeply relates to how we steer the whole course of our individual and collective lives in every domain of cultural and natural existence? That is what we were discussing here on this thread, not abstract philosophy of the "I" from the 18th century.

OK, sorry if I misunderstood. I agree with this statement, it is certainly essential to realize the ATW activity as the creative source of the world of appearances and perceptions.

[Federica]

Strangeeeeer! I was glad to see you back, before I read your statement here
Staying away from the forum didn't suit you well.
Why do you want to add your name to the list of those who state A, state B, but are unable to do A + B...
As if the idea of I - in a reality that one states to be all consciousness (!) - was an evanescent, unreal, second-range thing that is nothing other than..... "our idea"...

We communicate using languages, languages use labels. There is no problem with using linguistic labels, such as personal names od "I" pronoun, as long as we do not ascribe to them any reality other than just being labels. These ideas certainly do exist, but only nominally as labels.

Not really. The above can only be concluded when one avoids the first-person, vertical experience of language, and conceptualizes its 'hydrogen bonds' and secondary and tertiary and quaternary structures as flat nominal "labels".

I'm sure that the whole field of linguistics will be one of the first areas to be spiritualized, that is, we'll need to become clairvoyantly conscious of the whole process of thinking-language formation. Today we still think magically. We wish to express something, and the words simply arrange themselves. And once again, humanity has already explored this intellectually. Grammar, syntax, morphology, and so on, are only the shadowy conceptualization of spiritual processes, just like a bone is the crystallization of the life processes.

Necessarily, our language takes sequential form, just like the primary structure of the protein consists of a specific sequence of amino acids. I believe this is how most of the writings here feel for many - just as an endless string of words, without beginning or end, that just go on and on without anything happening. This however, as we have explained many times, is only because it is unsuspected that the value of these words only comes if through them we grasp an ideal secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure of the Word. The speaker assumes certain ideal form with their "I" which is then sequenced into words. Those reading can reconstruct the ideal form if the string of letters is folded in the proper way.

When I encountered the symbol it felt to me like the hydrogen bond in the image above. Even though the words are far apart in their primary (sequential) form, in their folded ideal form, they are closely related.

This is another area which will be so interesting for our future (and we can even now glimpse something of it). Our thinking and speech become much more volumetric. This is really the result of the expanded etheric space that we develop through inner organization. When our spiritual activity begins to scientifically and artistically weave in this space, we indeed feel like in the Minority Report scene. Our inner auric volume becomes the most incredible interface to reality.