AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 12:30 pm
Federica wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 8:14 pm
When we get insights all the way into the red, we are aligning the layers, that's what I mean.
Because, the thing is,
we need to make choices and take action in the red, in our every life.
Examples: Should we accept mRNA vaccines? Should we vote for doubling governmental military spending? Should we agree with editing the genome of plant, animal, man? Should we buy fake meat next time we go grocery shopping? Should we watch/listen to XYZNews or regularly expose ourselves to xyz content? These are all choices we can't exempt us from making. So, I was saying, I have the ambition to work towards making these deeds consistent with the rest of my being.
PS. If I may, it seems possible to me that you are too worried about not being worried.
Ok, let me try to characterize your position as I understand it now so we are on the same page. I think
this post threw me off.
Then, I believe there is also another, distinct source of illness, that meets us from the opposite side, so to say. It penetrates our being from the side of the sensory spectrum, the physical body, and the choices we continually make in relation to it. In a sense, these illnesses are are more directly karmic, and they also form a continuum with the so-called accidents of life, including accidents occurring during embryonic development, and resulting in congenital illnesses, but also extending to the accidents-illnesses with origin in everyday life, like a car accident, a domestic accident, or a suffered violent event.
In response to these illnesses-accidents that are not directly generated by inner habits, but enter our reality from outside, so to say, we should maybe venture into less proximate layers of being, as if maintaining a large front of intents, where we aspire to become ‘polymaths’ of the fight against evil forces, I dare to say.
And I assumed that was how you were thinking of the 'outer edge'. But now it seems you are speaking of the more proximate soul work which we have discussed at some length on the forum - we try to gain inner sensitivity to environmental spiritual influences
insofar as they modulate our soul rhythms/states, steering us toward unhealthy habits, emotions, impulses, etc. We do that through concentration/meditation, prayer, study-meditate, certain resistance exercises, and overall trying to remain present and attentive within the flow of sensory experience, whether we are out shopping, watching TV, browsing the internet, following current events, and so forth.
Is that accurate, and is there something in addition you think we can do to gain more 'direct insight' into the nature of sensory occurrences that are relatively independent of (or much more attenuated from) our soul activity and states? For ex. 'to develop a sensitivity for the accidents we are able to escape'?
It's not that I think there is no reason to worry about the course of modern life, or that we can escape all worrying, but that we can easily add too much on our plate and burn out in our enthusiasm to 'fight against evil forces', when we also have great Allies who are involved in that fight and can trust their locus of activity will be more effective than ours.
Ashvin
Let’s start from your own words:
When we begin to recover the intuition (…) that perceptions are symbols for the constraints-possibilities of our thinking, feeling, and willing activity, then our activity grows stronger as it works through the perceptual resistance and experiences itself contributing to the alterations of the constraints.
Everything I said in this thread remains within the framework of your own characterization. To the above you added:
But all of this starts from the humble seed point in thinking, where we have the most creative freedom to expand the palette of our possible states.
All I have said can be resumed as follows: We have the most creative freedom in the humble seed point we find in concentration/meditation. Nevertheless I wouldn't
only rely on concentrated introspection as the
exclusive way to find orientation in the flow of becoming. Creative freedom, as yourself implied, is also available in the other layers of our activity. For myself, I want to be all-round in this sense. Only proceeding linearly, with concentration, prayer, study-meditation, and trying to be present in the sensory flow, we are in a conservative position (
in archetypal sense). It could be that I am simply more (
in archetypal sense) liberal, I don’t know
Maybe it’s just that: you are more inspired by protecting, and I am more inspired by innovating-discovering
Naturally, I don’t forget that everything we perceive can only be perceived because of thinking, and in this sense we never go anywhere other than in and around consciousness - there’s nothing else, and ‘nowhere else’ to go. That being acknowledged, my point has really not changed throughout these posts. It is this: I don’t want to wait until I am an initiate before I bring attention and effort to “contributing to the alteration of the constraints” through the perceptual resistance. It means that I want to also work from the entry point of feeling, and will/action in the world, keeping in mind that, within the collapsing interference, there is always a window of possibility. I can to some extent change my future (I don’t care if it’s a minor way) by altering my activity in daily life, even before I have accomplished a complete mastery of my thinking freedom. Not as an excentric whim, but because I believe it's necessary to deploy all the available strategies! The exemple I gave, by the way (to imagine another version of myself that supposedly intended a mishap experienced in the past) is an exercise
in feeling. It’s not concentration, nor study meditation, but a way to leverage a layer that is not the most proximate, with the intention to expand sensitivity within the ever-collapsing interference of becoming, starting from a memory as an ‘easy’ way in. Of course, the goal is to open degrees of freedom that allow to put self-generated pressure on the curvatures of the flow as it unfolds. In other words, to push toward the edges of the karmic possibilities.
Another example: Cleric recently wrote:
“Living in the world should not be equated to being on the hamster wheel. Our life indeed becomes a quite different experience. This is where the teachings of OMA and BD are indispensable because they are full of such small advices that with little practice can become integral parts of our daily life.”
So I have recently started to drink some hot water (from the kettle) first thing in the morning. Is it because I clearly understand how it has an effect on me? No, not at all. I don’t know. But I still do it. It’s a small choice that stretches the front of my intentions to the outer edge, and, incidentally said, has brought with it some positive ‘side effects’. Is it exhausting, since it stretches spiritual activity to the outer edge? No it isn’t. Still, it’s more than simply remaining present in the sensory flow. It's a small way to change my flow of becoming from the outer edge. Again, I don’t care if it turns out I’m actually not able to generate any significant effect by paying attention to the outer edge, in the creative ways I try to reclaim from the periphery of the collapsing flow. Also, as I tried to emphasize, the exemple I gave (filling another version of me with imaginative life), was just that: one example.
I will give you another one that, like drinking hot water, is more action-based. I recently chose to undergo a surgery that was not strictly necessary. It would have been completely fine to simply leave things as they were. Surely, if the situation had presented itself to me a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have done it. But I decided to challenge my default approach. So on the one hand, I would say, I have not yet been able to clearly pinpoint what my personality is made of, to bring it into the light of full consciousness yet, but on the other, through a decision like that, I have acted
as if I had. Notice, there is also a clear relation with technology here. Now, you may say, that’s stupid, to act in the blind, pretending to be disengaged from your current soul curvatures, when you actually aren’t, and maybe it was a pointless attempt (I can’t certify it wasn’t). But I am sure the intention itself is not pointless. And, it’s been a revealing physical and spiritual experience in more than one unexpected sense. Also, I am hopeful that it will clarify further going forward. Again, let me point out, this is only another example. However, now you have three examples in total. Do they help make my “position” a bit more sensical in your perspective?
To answer your question explicitly:
Is that accurate, and is there something in addition you think we can do to gain more 'direct insight' into the nature of sensory occurrences that are relatively independent of (or much more attenuated from) our soul activity and states?
Yes, it is accurate, and (as I hope I have illustrated) there is more. Yet another thing that we can add is, as I said, the intellectual exploration of technological ideas. I don’t intend to consider that as a separate, close-circuit, second best endeavor that requires to be “bridged”. As you also said elsewhere, we want to make an effort and dive into some scientific-economic-political intellectual details, not to reinforce unscrutinized personal opinions, but to substantiate the context of evolution at macro- as well as microcosmic level. In other words we collect data, that we can use to map the situation and put into fruition the insights gained through our overall spiritual activity.