Fighters for the Spirit

[Federica]

So you don't need to provide quotes, and this has been a consistent theme of all my posts?

Are you taking substances?

You look very sick. I am used to you skirting the key points and rarely answering questions, but with this one I admit you have been able to surprise me. Be sure you are the only one freaking out in this strange way and reading this foolishness in my posts. Kaje for example wrote that he finds my approach interesting, if you remember (perhaps when you regather your spirits) and I am sure nobody else shares this thing you are throwing up now.

What are you trying to do, Ashvin?

Yes, I suppose that I must be in another dimension where your repeated statements that the introspective promptings are hammering people over the head with a language that "nobody understands", that they "repulse the mind", that they would "trigger a thousand times the same reaction", and are equivalent to "put the heroin-addict into a locked room and let them scream and shout and take a beating, and if they survive well good for them", actually exist. I mean, do I seriously need to produce these quotes for you to remember that you wrote them? You can't just erase history when it becomes inconvenient for your argument or you lack a response.

Let's remember, the reason you started this thread (or the second post of it) is because, "making myself understood in this intention has been a challenge". Therefore, you know that I am not the only one who has pushed back on it, so please don't pretend that pointing out the flaws in your imagined bridging approach is unique to me.

What I said that you quote now does not imply that "many" are stuck forever in their limited understanding. What is out of the question today can change tomorrow, obviously. That's the whole purpose. I never said or suggested that there are some for whom the experience of introspection is completely unavailable and out of the question. This is your distorting dream.

[AshvinP]

So you don't need to provide quotes, and this has been a consistent theme of all my posts?

Are you taking substances?

You look very sick. I am used to you skirting the key points and rarely answering questions, but with this one I admit you have been able to surprise me. Be sure you are the only one freaking out in this strange way and reading this foolishness in my posts. Kaje for example wrote that he finds my approach interesting, if you remember (perhaps when you regather your spirits) and I am sure nobody else shares this thing you are throwing up now.

What are you trying to do, Ashvin?

Yes, I suppose that I must be in another dimension where your repeated statements that the introspective promptings are hammering people over the head with a language that "nobody understands", that they "repulse the mind", that they would "trigger a thousand times the same reaction", and are equivalent to "put the heroin-addict into a locked room and let them scream and shout and take a beating, and if they survive well good for them", actually exist. I mean, do I seriously need to produce these quotes for you to remember that you wrote them? You can't just erase history when it becomes inconvenient for your argument or you lack a response.

Let's remember, the reason you started this thread (or the second post of it) is because, "making myself understood in this intention has been a challenge". Therefore, you know that I am not the only one who has pushed back on it, so please don't pretend that pointing out the flaws in your imagined bridging approach is unique to me.

What I said that you quote now does not imply that "many" are stuck forever in their limited understanding. What is out of the question today can change tomorrow, obviously. That's the whole purpose. I never said or suggested that there are some for whom the experience of introspection is completely unavailable and out of the question. This is your distorting dream.

So the question was, why is it considered "out of the question today"? The way this question is approached has great relevance for whether "tomorrow" will ever come.

And please don't respond by telling me that I also imagined this latest quote in a fever dream

[Federica]

Yes, I suppose that I must be in another dimension where your repeated statements that the introspective promptings are hammering people over the head with a language that "nobody understands", that they "repulse the mind", that they would "trigger a thousand times the same reaction", and are equivalent to "put the heroin-addict into a locked room and let them scream and shout and take a beating, and if they survive well good for them", actually exist. I mean, do I seriously need to produce these quotes for you to remember that you wrote them? You can't just erase history when it becomes inconvenient for your argument or you lack a response.

Let's remember, the reason you started this thread (or the second post of it) is because, "making myself understood in this intention has been a challenge". Therefore, you know that I am not the only one who has pushed back on it, so please don't pretend that pointing out the flaws in your imagined bridging approach is unique to me.

What I said that you quote now does not imply that "many" are stuck forever in their limited understanding. What is out of the question today can change tomorrow, obviously. That's the whole purpose. I never said or suggested that there are some for whom the experience of introspection is completely unavailable and out of the question. This is your distorting dream.

So the question was, why is it considered "out of the question today"? The way this question is approached has great relevance for whether "tomorrow" will ever come.

And please don't respond by telling me that I also imagined this latest quote in a fever dream

I don't know why, there is no universal answer. The reasons are different for different persons. But it's a fact: many today are not interested, or do not seize the importance and nature of the question, when presented with the phenomenological prompts. We have seen it clearly enough here, on Substack, FB, and a bunch of other platforms, and in real life conversations. I don't understand you Ashvin. Say directly what you want to know.

[AshvinP]

What I said that you quote now does not imply that "many" are stuck forever in their limited understanding. What is out of the question today can change tomorrow, obviously. That's the whole purpose. I never said or suggested that there are some for whom the experience of introspection is completely unavailable and out of the question. This is your distorting dream.

So the question was, why is it considered "out of the question today"? The way this question is approached has great relevance for whether "tomorrow" will ever come.

And please don't respond by telling me that I also imagined this latest quote in a fever dream

I don't know why, there is no universal answer. The reasons are different for different persons. But it's a fact: many today are not interested, or do not seize the importance and nature of the question, when presented with the phenomenological prompts. We have seen it clearly enough here, on Substack, FB, and a bunch of other platforms, and in real life conversations. I don't understand you Ashvin. Say directly what you want to know.

We have also seen the opposite - with all of us here. And it would be quite presumptuous for us to assume there aren't many others who get tremendous value from the phenomenological prompts, who we have not come into contact with for whatever reason. The point is that this way of answering the "why" is highly speculative and we can always find examples to support our view of what's going on, and we can always find exceptions to those examples, and exceptions to the exceptions, etc. These speculations cannot give us any further insight into why the promptings are out of the question today, or whether, in fact, they are out of the question today.

The "why" I am interested in are the archetypal inner dynamics, which we learn through spiritual science (introspection) and are not speculative. When we proceed along these lines in seeking the why, we also naturally come into contact with the potential resolution space. Because that is the fundamental question of this and many other threads, after all - in what ways can we contribute to bringing the promptings back into the question today, i.e., helping souls feel that their deeper nature has always been readily accessible, right behind their intellectual mask? What I directly want to know is whether you agree with Cleric and myself that "the only thing we can do is to depict the inner experiences as faithfully and precisely as possible", and whether you see that this is the only way to preserve the freedom of the seeking soul?

[AshvinP]

So the question was, why is it considered "out of the question today"? The way this question is approached has great relevance for whether "tomorrow" will ever come.

And please don't respond by telling me that I also imagined this latest quote in a fever dream

I don't know why, there is no universal answer. The reasons are different for different persons. But it's a fact: many today are not interested, or do not seize the importance and nature of the question, when presented with the phenomenological prompts. We have seen it clearly enough here, on Substack, FB, and a bunch of other platforms, and in real life conversations. I don't understand you Ashvin. Say directly what you want to know.

We have also seen the opposite - with all of us here. And it would be quite presumptuous for us to assume there aren't many others who get tremendous value from the phenomenological prompts, who we have not come into contact with for whatever reason. The point is that this way of answering the "why" is highly speculative and we can always find examples to support our view of what's going on, and we can always find exceptions to those examples, and exceptions to the exceptions, etc. These speculations cannot give us any further insight into why the promptings are out of the question today, or whether, in fact, they are out of the question today.

The "why" I am interested in are the archetypal inner dynamics, which we learn through spiritual science (introspection) and are not speculative. When we proceed along these lines in seeking the why, we also naturally come into contact with the potential resolution space. Because that is the fundamental question of this and many other threads, after all - in what ways can we contribute to bringing the promptings back into the question today, i.e., helping souls feel that their deeper nature has always been readily accessible, right behind their intellectual mask? What I directly want to know is whether you agree with Cleric and myself that "the only thing we can do is to depict the inner experiences as faithfully and precisely as possible", and whether you see that this is the only way to preserve the freedom of the seeking soul?

To elaborate some more on these archetypal inner dynamics referenced above, I will quote something I wrote to Guney previously:

"When we closely identify our personality with a certain opinion, for example, that the brain is the concrete 'material structure' and its obscure dynamics lead to what we experience as 'thoughts', we will feel concrete inner tension if our spiritual activity is led toward the phenomenological experience of being causally responsible for its flow of thoughts. That entire domain of meaningful experience will feel like a sharp thorn that threatens to tear a hole through our personality, to rip out the opinion that is woven into its fabric. All of this can be inwardly felt if we introspectively observe our life situation and its characteristic flow, which, of course, is experienced most lucidly in the flow of imaginative states. This is a sort of inner experience that we can directly observe. (it is likewise the case for the soul that identifies closely with the opinion that thoughts emerge from a mystical void, and we have seen on this forum concrete examples of how such an opinion steers the soul away from the experience of self-willed inner activity, such that phenomenological exercises and examples can hardly be comprehended anymore)."

This is the kind of answer to the question, "why is there so much resistance to phenomenological exercises today?", that we can explore without undue speculation, solely based on what we learn through our introspective practice (also supported by the deeper facts from spiritual scientific research). A key consideration here is that these inner constraints - opinions, beliefs, preferences, desires, etc. - are not something we are normally conscious of. They are tightly merged into the background of our perspective. We know that we have opinions, preferences, and so on, but we aren't clearly aware of our identification with them and how that steers our imaginative life in some directions and away from others. These are the 'soul rashes' that constantly itch the intellect, and the intellect continually capitulates to the itching and scratches out its conditioned thoughts.

Thus it is clear that there are not many options to loosen these constraints. Actually there can only be one option - to become more intuitively and imaginatively conscious of them. There are no clever intellectual tricks to loosen them while remaining in the dark about their existence, to suddenly start thinking through phenomenal reality without prejudices, assumptions, etc., yet without undergoing any self-conscious catharsis through the introspective promptings. We only begin to clearly perceive their influences once we have worked on resisting them and refining our first-person orientation within the experiential flow for some time. Until then, they act as a continual source of distraction and obstruction from the introspective cognitive path, in one form or another.

If there is genuine disagreement or uncertainty on this point, then it may be helpful to explore it further, openly and respectfully, dispassionately, and always through the lens of the verifiable inner dynamics. Even if we feel like we have heard it a million times before, it doesn't hurt to hear it again, from within our always integrating intuitive context. We never know beforehand when we may begin seeing these things from a new angle, with new intuitions of their significance.

[Federica]

The whole question is in what direction do we move our thinking to discover the Bridge that alone can counter modern materialistic ways of thinking and being? If we remain with the abstract, non-introspective reading of the content, like we first start off with, we will 100% end up as those who have not "read it correctly or worked hard and thoroughly enough", and therefore we will be countering nothing and only adding more weight to the hardening process of 3rd-person thinking.

What seems problematic to me here is that you see a crossroads. One direction goes to the phenomenological prompts, and the opposite one goes toward more intellectual hardening. But this is not the case. The two perspectives are superimposed, not on the two sides of a crossroads. But your picture is: one direction equals spiritual awakening; opposite direction equals body-soul enslavement.

Notice how the word "only" and "must" is often used by Cleric, Steiner, Palmer, etc., with respect to these introspective promptings. The standard intellectual perspective views such a word as an affront to its 'freedom' - why should this be the only bridge to spiritual awakening, why must I work with the content introspectively?? Yet, from a higher perspective, we realize this only and this must is rooted in the lawful structure of spiritual evolution, and faithfully submitting our inner process to that lawful structure is the meaning of true freedom. If we still desire to rebel against that lawful structure and endlessly fashion our multitude of non-introspective 'bridges', we will inevitably move our inner process in the wrong direction, away from spiritual awakening and further into body-soul enslavement. This is why the inner path is, above all, sacrificial. Our desire for the candy shop of options to bridge reality must be sacrificed, and we must submit our inner process to the service of the one true introspective Bridge that was established at the turning point of Time.

We agree that true freedom is recognizing the lawfulness of reality and finding one’s harmonizing relation to it. But there is not only one way to come to this understanding/experience of freedom. The desire is not to rebel against the lawful structure. As I said before, my desire is to rebel against the submission to a fake lawfulness, to the self-created prison. But to evade, you have to leverage the features of your cell. And every cell is slightly different, has different access points, equipment, positioning.

I believe - and admittedly this is somewhat speculative - that you have a peculiar relation with “lawfulness” - “only”, and “must”. It is a burning reality for you. You have to be extremely careful how you handle it and you have learned to orient your introspection accordingly. But for others the matter may be slightly different. The burning areas may reside primarily elsewhere.

It's not what you say that is scandalous (that is, the surface-level content of the words), but what is implied. Steiner implies that, if a reader works with the thought sequences like an asanic exercise, a high degree of soul purification can be brought about. Is that what you have been implying? Clearly not. You have been implying the opposite - the sequences can be worked with in an "abstract-philosophical" way, and this will also eventually bridge to introspective awakening. I hope you understand this difference and why certain thought sequences can lead to awakening - the reason rests entirely in the goodwill and introspective approach of the reader.

Again, you see things in radically opposite terms. What I mean by "bridge" is not that the sequences can be worked in only abstract-philosophical ways (I have already elaborated on how this is the case) which is probably why you deemed that my approach was actually phenomenological, at the beginning of this thread, remember? If you had a less radical approach (in the sense given in this paragraph) you would probably get a better sense of how I am struggling to imagine an approach that is introspective and intuitive, even before the thinking flow is inverted.

[AshvinP]

The whole question is in what direction do we move our thinking to discover the Bridge that alone can counter modern materialistic ways of thinking and being? If we remain with the abstract, non-introspective reading of the content, like we first start off with, we will 100% end up as those who have not "read it correctly or worked hard and thoroughly enough", and therefore we will be countering nothing and only adding more weight to the hardening process of 3rd-person thinking.

What seems problematic to me here is that you see a crossroads. One direction goes to the phenomenological prompts, and the opposite one goes toward more intellectual hardening. But this is not the case. The two perspectives are superimposed, not on the two sides of a crossroads. But your picture is: one direction equals spiritual awakening; opposite direction equals body-soul enslavement.

Notice how the word "only" and "must" is often used by Cleric, Steiner, Palmer, etc., with respect to these introspective promptings. The standard intellectual perspective views such a word as an affront to its 'freedom' - why should this be the only bridge to spiritual awakening, why must I work with the content introspectively?? Yet, from a higher perspective, we realize this only and this must is rooted in the lawful structure of spiritual evolution, and faithfully submitting our inner process to that lawful structure is the meaning of true freedom. If we still desire to rebel against that lawful structure and endlessly fashion our multitude of non-introspective 'bridges', we will inevitably move our inner process in the wrong direction, away from spiritual awakening and further into body-soul enslavement. This is why the inner path is, above all, sacrificial. Our desire for the candy shop of options to bridge reality must be sacrificed, and we must submit our inner process to the service of the one true introspective Bridge that was established at the turning point of Time.

We agree that true freedom is recognizing the lawfulness of reality and finding one’s harmonizing relation to it. But there is not only one way to come to this understanding/experience of freedom. The desire is not to rebel against the lawful structure. As I said before, my desire is to rebel against the submission to a fake lawfulness, to the self-created prison. But to evade, you have to leverage the features of your cell. And every cell is slightly different, has different access points, equipment, positioning.

I believe - and admittedly this is somewhat speculative - that you have a peculiar relation with “lawfulness” - “only”, and “must”. It is a burning reality for you. You have to be extremely careful how you handle it and you have learned to orient your introspection accordingly. But for others the matter may be slightly different. The burning areas may reside primarily elsewhere.

It's not what you say that is scandalous (that is, the surface-level content of the words), but what is implied. Steiner implies that, if a reader works with the thought sequences like an asanic exercise, a high degree of soul purification can be brought about. Is that what you have been implying? Clearly not. You have been implying the opposite - the sequences can be worked with in an "abstract-philosophical" way, and this will also eventually bridge to introspective awakening. I hope you understand this difference and why certain thought sequences can lead to awakening - the reason rests entirely in the goodwill and introspective approach of the reader.

Again, you see things in radically opposite terms. What I mean by "bridge" is not that the sequences can be worked in only abstract-philosophical ways (I have already elaborated on how this is the case) which is probably why you deemed that my approach was actually phenomenological, at the beginning of this thread, remember? If you had a less radical approach (in the sense given in this paragraph) you would probably get a better sense of how I am struggling to imagine an approach that is introspective and intuitive, even before the thinking flow is inverted.

Right, and everything you are saying and intending with this approach starts to make much more sense when placed within the context of the introspective path and promptings. Within that context, there is endless room to creatively leverage the unique features of our intellectual cell, through the conceptual lenses of science, philosophy, religion, and art. Your initial diagram makes much more sense when it is seen as an introspective prompting, a basic conceptual lattice whose meaning will be further explored and refined through introspective gestures. This further exploration can be pursued in many different ways based on the soul's unique set of circumstances, its 'burning reality'. Yet it needs to remain crystal clear that all of this unfolds on a wider Bridge, which is synonymous with phenomenological prompting and orientation. Our imaginative and intuitive being only benefits when its conceptual exploration feels to correspond with experiences it has lived through or could potentially live through, if it continues moving along a concrete inner axis of development.

As I am sure you are already aware, the inversion of the thinking flow is not a one-time event. In a sense, it is the ongoing evolutionary process that will unfold for the remaining Earthly epochs and beyond (the transition from Imagination to Inspiration, for example, is also an inversion of the flow). Even at our local imaginative scale, it is a reorientation of perspective that we cultivate gradually through the introspective promptings. For example, we know that a pernicious obstacle to deeper spiritual understanding is our sensory-conditioned habit of thinking about cause-and-effect events in linear sequence, as they unfold within our aliased sensory perspective. Another obstacle is the habit of thinking about reality as a space-like arena in which discrete objects (including other souls) interact with each other through the exchange of particles, energies, forces, etc., from a distance. If these habits are imported into our considerations of supersensible realities, they can only lead to great misunderstandings and illusions. Such habits can only be gradually loosened through a sustained introspective practice, as the soul intuitively feels its spatiotemporal perspective embedded within a deeper contextual flow, a flow that cannot be found in space or placed within a cause-and-effect sequence in time. We simply cannot imagine these habits ever loosening through more 3rd-person intellectual efforts.

So the crossroad that I see is what Cleric also described here, and which is very important to keep sight of:

"So to summarize, we need to comprehend (that which you have also very exactly pointed out) – our next step of development depends on finding the flow-centric mode of existence. This is at the same time the attunement of the SoFs and the SoMs within the human being into a musical ensemble. It is inevitable that SoFs that maintain the form-centric mode will preserve their Cosmic meditation, which, however, is already on a descending path. It goes increasingly out of tune with the ascending Divine flow. The corresponding religions sheltered in these SoFs will inevitably degenerate. If we contemplate the John impulse from within these descending communities, we’ll say, “It is not yet the time. The souls around me are not yet prepared to approach these things. For the time being, I’ll keep them a private concern.” On the next day, however, we’ll say, “Conditions have worsened. The transition needs to be delayed a bit more.” And in this way, with each new day, instead of getting closer to the transition, it becomes more and more remote. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t help the souls that are still form-bound. But we need to be aware that the full blossoming of the flow-centric human being will require new wineskins."

The souls are imagined to be not yet prepared to approach what things? The flow-centric introspective promptings, which naturally lead the souls into the depths of spiritual science. The ongoing phenomenological reorientation of the soul is the new wineskin into which the deeper teachings can alone be received. As long as our bridging approaches are centered within this overarching ideal, then there are many unique and creative ways to seek a living experience of the soul flow that coincides with the Cosmic flow. Yet there is a fine line, and we should remain aware that the intellect is constantly tempted into form-centric mode, i.e., the manipulation and rearrangement of already finished conceptual content within its soul life, which flows through already etched aspects of its personality (like the thinking habits mentioned above). Only the introspective bridge is capable of withstanding these temptations, as the soul becomes more conscious that they exist and, gradually, of its potential degrees of freedom to loosen their constraints.

[Federica]

Right, and everything you are saying and intending with this approach starts to make much more sense when placed within the context of the introspective path and promptings. Within that context, there is endless room to creatively leverage the unique features of our intellectual cell, through the conceptual lenses of science, philosophy, religion, and art. Your initial diagram makes much more sense when it is seen as an introspective prompting, a basic conceptual lattice whose meaning will be further explored and refined through introspective gestures. This further exploration can be pursued in many different ways based on the soul's unique set of circumstances, its 'burning reality'. Yet it needs to remain crystal clear that all of this unfolds on a wider Bridge, which is synonymous with phenomenological prompting and orientation. Our imaginative and intuitive being only benefits when its conceptual exploration feels to correspond with experiences it has lived through or could potentially live through, if it continues moving along a concrete inner axis of development.

As I am sure you are already aware, the inversion of the thinking flow is not a one-time event. In a sense, it is the ongoing evolutionary process that will unfold for the remaining Earthly epochs and beyond (the transition from Imagination to Inspiration, for example, is also an inversion of the flow). Even at our local imaginative scale, it is a reorientation of perspective that we cultivate gradually through the introspective promptings. For example, we know that a pernicious obstacle to deeper spiritual understanding is our sensory-conditioned habit of thinking about cause-and-effect events in linear sequence, as they unfold within our aliased sensory perspective. Another obstacle is the habit of thinking about reality as a space-like arena in which discrete objects (including other souls) interact with each other through the exchange of particles, energies, forces, etc., from a distance. If these habits are imported into our considerations of supersensible realities, they can only lead to great misunderstandings and illusions. Such habits can only be gradually loosened through a sustained introspective practice, as the soul intuitively feels its spatiotemporal perspective embedded within a deeper contextual flow, a flow that cannot be found in space or placed within a cause-and-effect sequence in time. We simply cannot imagine these habits ever loosening through more 3rd-person intellectual efforts.

So the crossroad that I see is what Cleric also described here, and which is very important to keep sight of:

"So to summarize, we need to comprehend (that which you have also very exactly pointed out) – our next step of development depends on finding the flow-centric mode of existence. This is at the same time the attunement of the SoFs and the SoMs within the human being into a musical ensemble. It is inevitable that SoFs that maintain the form-centric mode will preserve their Cosmic meditation, which, however, is already on a descending path. It goes increasingly out of tune with the ascending Divine flow. The corresponding religions sheltered in these SoFs will inevitably degenerate. If we contemplate the John impulse from within these descending communities, we’ll say, “It is not yet the time. The souls around me are not yet prepared to approach these things. For the time being, I’ll keep them a private concern.” On the next day, however, we’ll say, “Conditions have worsened. The transition needs to be delayed a bit more.” And in this way, with each new day, instead of getting closer to the transition, it becomes more and more remote. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t help the souls that are still form-bound. But we need to be aware that the full blossoming of the flow-centric human being will require new wineskins."

The souls are imagined to be not yet prepared to approach what things? The flow-centric introspective promptings, which naturally lead the souls into the depths of spiritual science. The ongoing phenomenological reorientation of the soul is the new wineskin into which the deeper teachings can alone be received. As long as our bridging approaches are centered within this overarching ideal, then there are many unique and creative ways to seek a living experience of the soul flow that coincides with the Cosmic flow. Yet there is a fine line, and we should remain aware that the intellect is constantly tempted into form-centric mode, i.e., the manipulation and rearrangement of already finished conceptual content within its soul life, which flows through already etched aspects of its personality (like the thinking habits mentioned above). Only the introspective bridge is capable of withstanding these temptations, as the soul becomes more conscious that they exist and, gradually, of its potential degrees of freedom to loosen their constraints.

I don’t think your last two paragraphs offer a fair comparison. You are mixing up the Catholic project referred to in Cleric's pointing on the one hand - based indeed on a double game, and a premeditated split of life for souls of first and second category, the John-like and the Peter-like - and the bridge we are talking about here on the other hand, which is in fact the opposite of a pre-meditated split. It’s a bridge, meaning it has the purpose of consolidating and reuniting what can be consolidated, on the ascending path. These are quite opposite projects. The Catholic project imagines, indeed, that many souls are not ready, and will not be ready for a long time, hence the wish for a transepochal gathering shell. I'm not imagining. I am observing life as it unfolds now. We have detailed records of real, iterative discussions and presentations that show exactly how many are sleeping through the introspective prompts. If even only one soul could be bridged towards the right activity, a bridge would still be worthwhile. So there is no presumptuousness in observing the lack of sensitivity for the introspective prompts. (However, let it be said in passing, you should apply the same critique of pretentiousness to the Catholic project, if you want to stay true to your own arguments, unless you prefer to give friend’s prices to your special friends).

One metaphor that can convey the whole idea of bridge could be this. Spiritual development implies that there is a scary leap to take and the purpose is not to discourage or divert people from taking it, but to add more mattresses and safety equipment so that the will is assisted in the decision to finally put effort and training and prepare. Because there is one element that connects the intellectual to the living gestures, and the form-centric to the flow-centric, and this is the will. This is a true element of continuity, as it seems to me.

By the way, that things are read intellectually, is already what happens, in many cases, when introspective prompts are provided. And so in a sense, what I would like to open to is a presentation that takes that into account more - a presentation that integrates the possible soul environments on the other side of the communication. And this is exactly what PoF does. It was conceived and expressed from a place of higher consciousness, however the form is such that it can be followed and introspected at various levels, including the intellectual (which is capable of certain introspective gestures, through the connecting power of the will). In this sense, PoF is a limpid example of flow-centric communication. It can take place and operate within various shapes. It doesn't work only for the Imaginative mind. And I guess this flow nature can stand as an eminent example of bridging thought sequences that can simultaneously nourish different minds at different levels - for convergence in the flow, not for harboring split communities of souls.

[AshvinP]

I don’t think your last two paragraphs offer a fair comparison. You are mixing up the Catholic project referred to in Cleric's pointing on the one hand - based indeed on a double game, and a premeditated split of life for souls of first and second category, the John-like and the Peter-like - and the bridge we are talking about here on the other hand, which is in fact the opposite of a pre-meditated split. It’s a bridge, meaning it has the purpose of consolidating and reuniting what can be consolidated, on the ascending path. These are quite opposite projects. The Catholic project imagines, indeed, that many souls are not ready, and will not be ready for a long time, hence the wish for a transepochal gathering shell. I'm not imagining. I am observing life as it unfolds now. We have detailed records of real, iterative discussions and presentations that show exactly how many are sleeping through the introspective prompts. If even only one soul could be bridged towards the right activity, a bridge would still be worthwhile. So there is no presumptuousness in observing the lack of sensitivity for the introspective prompts. (However, let it be said in passing, you should apply the same critique of pretentiousness to the Catholic project, if you want to stay true to your own arguments, unless you prefer to give friend’s prices to your special friends).

Everyone conceives of what they are doing as a 'bridge' toward the right activity, but the question is whether the imagined bridge actually consolidates what can be consolidated on the ascending path, based on what we know of the inner dynamics. When the introspective prompts are slept through, do we put them on the shelf for a later time and try 'other stuff' in the meanwhile, or do we find new and creative ways of presenting them?

One metaphor that can convey the whole idea of bridge could be this. Spiritual development implies that there is a scary leap to take and the purpose is not to discourage or divert people from taking it, but to add more mattresses and safety equipment so that the will is assisted in the decision to finally put effort and training and prepare. Because there is one element that connects the intellectual to the living gestures, and the form-centric to the flow-centric, and this is the will. This is a true element of continuity, as it seems to me.

By the way, that things are read intellectually, is already what happens, in many cases, when introspective prompts are provided. And so in a sense, what I would like to open to is a presentation that takes that into account more - a presentation that integrates the possible soul environments on the other side of the communication. And this is exactly what PoF does. It was conceived and expressed from a place of higher consciousness, however the form is such that it can be followed and introspected at various levels, including the intellectual (which is capable of certain introspective gestures, through the connecting power of the will). In this sense, PoF is a limpid example of flow-centric communication. It can take place and operate within various shapes. It doesn't work only for the Imaginative mind. And I guess this flow nature can stand as an eminent example of bridging thought sequences that can simultaneously nourish different minds at different levels - for convergence in the flow, not for harboring split communities of souls.

It is not only the will that bridges the intellect to the living, but the will educated by self-conscious thinking (exceptional state). That is the core theme of PoF. We have returned to PoF as the limpid example, and that's generally a good thing. You point out that it offers varying levels of introspective depth, and I agree with that, just as the Bible or other spiritual, philosophical, scientific, or artistic works. What I have been trying to emphasize is that, at all levels, there must be an introspective element present, which alone allows the soul to benefit from the content. Just so it's really clear what that means, let's use a simple example from one of Cleric's illustrations.


Cleric: "We start with an ordinary image of a landscape and apply very simple transformations (rotation, mirroring, scaling), over and over again. Very soon, the original image is unrecognizable. Now it feels like we look at some geometric patterns. We can conceive of the spectrum of Being in a similar way. At the highly integrated Cosmic heights, the phenomenal spectrum feels like superfluidic, weightless, frictionless, phenomenal flow, which reflects the intuitive intents of Being, much like the sounds of our inner voice feel translucent and reflecting our intuitive navigation."

Where is the introspective element in this text? Well, it's not something we can see side by side with the visual perceptions. The written thought sequences do not determine the introspective element out of their combinations, although they can certainly support it by removing levels of indirection, i.e., depicting the inner experiences as faithfully and precisely as possible. The element is only to be found in the liminal space where the reader, when reaching the bold, actually turns attention inward to the experience of their inner voice and feels how "translucent" and "reflecting our intuitive navigation" act as symbolic pointers (or conceptual arrows) to how some aspects of that concrete inner experience, which the reader is now attending to, characteristically feel and unfold. The reader can then say, "Yes indeed, if I were to use a pictorial word to depict my intuitive experience of the inner voice, it may be something like translucent, because the phenomenon of translucence gives me a similar feeling to what I experienced when attending to my inner voice." Something as simple as this is already introspecting at a level far deeper than what would arise through the ordinary course of life and intellectual inquiry, even if the latter pertains to the deepest questions of reality (at the content level). When we become sensitive to this unique quality of our inner voice, and feel how our thought trains dangle like ropes from the intuitive meaning that is dreamily navigated, inscribing shapes on our imaginative tracks, we have already begun inverting the thinking flow to a significant extent.

This post was from a discussion with Guney a few months ago, when many similar questions about PoF came up. He felt there were some theoretical axioms built into the epistemology, like the chaotic aggregate of sensory impressions. That is a critique shared by FB, and seems to be a quite common way of reimagining what PoF is about and how its 'metaphysical assumptions' subtly influenced the rest of spiritual science. In any case, you contributed some very interesting posts on the inner dynamics to help Guney orient to what is going on with PoF and spiritual scientific communications more generally. For example:

Federica: "So the chaotic aggregate of percepts is merely a convenience. It is a mere conceptual arrow that facilitates the identification of the point where we can start working phenomenologically towards the experience of how the thickness of thinking - the activity in which we are unobservably engaged - becomes the flatness of conceptual thought (flat thought-shadows) where intellect borders with imagination."

You also contributed a very helpful post that utilized esoteric physiology as support for introspective prompting:

"By contrast, through mystical dilution of thoughts and feelings, the path to clairvoyance is pursued from the other side, the inward side. By discarding willed thinking, one sinks entirely into oneself, in the unconscious/unwilled, in one’s own organism, to try and emerge from the other side. Physically, this correlates with thrusting the blood into the inner organs, with deepening and strengthening (not severing) the connection between the sympathetic nervous system and the blood. This is the opposite of the intuitive thinking path. Man is dual, connected to reality-at-large through both sides of the human organism, the outer and the inner, the head system and the metabolic system. The mystical path attempts to reach the unity of being from the other side - the inner side - taking the personality along as is, rather than keeping it out. In this way, a level of clairvoyance may be developed, through the metabolic organs (which are nothing else but images of the inner/outer planets). However, there are various problems with this inward path that goes through the unconscious. The ego is taken along, with all its possibly unpurified features, while on the spiritual scientific path, catharsis is a precondition. Moreover, in our time it is not possible to completely emerge into oneness from that side (as it was in more ancient times, when man had a different organism, and a more unitary and aware relation to the inner organs, felt as direct portals to the continuity between worlds."


Indeed, as Cleric also mentioned on that thread, a core function of any proper phenomenology is unknowing the default assumptions, opinions, and habits of thinking which constrain the imaginative spirit and prevent it from feeling the truthful flow of inner experience. So, if you still recognize that, in any possible bridge from ordinary consciousness to higher consciousness, the key element will be the invisible introspective mood that the reader brings, which is necessary for catharsis as a precondition, and therefore our efforts will always be, first and foremost, to support that mood by faithfully and precisely depicting the inner experiences to the best of our ability, then there's no argument whatsoever from me. If PoF, in the introspective sense we have described above, is the limpid example of where your intention is headed, then I think it's clear we all share that same intention for the bridge and our efforts here, although sometimes unique in presentation and adaptive to new intellectual conditions (the morphing conceptual lattice), have all taken their primary inspiration from the PoF example. There is no alternative method here, only an elaboration and refinement of the existing method.

[Federica]

We have also seen the opposite - with all of us here. And it would be quite presumptuous for us to assume there aren't many others who get tremendous value from the phenomenological prompts, who we have not come into contact with for whatever reason. The point is that this way of answering the "why" is highly speculative and we can always find examples to support our view of what's going on, and we can always find exceptions to those examples, and exceptions to the exceptions, etc. These speculations cannot give us any further insight into why the promptings are out of the question today, or whether, in fact, they are out of the question today.

The "why" I am interested in are the archetypal inner dynamics, which we learn through spiritual science (introspection) and are not speculative. When we proceed along these lines in seeking the why, we also naturally come into contact with the potential resolution space. Because that is the fundamental question of this and many other threads, after all - in what ways can we contribute to bringing the promptings back into the question today, i.e., helping souls feel that their deeper nature has always been readily accessible, right behind their intellectual mask? What I directly want to know is whether you agree with Cleric and myself that "the only thing we can do is to depict the inner experiences as faithfully and precisely as possible", and whether you see that this is the only way to preserve the freedom of the seeking soul?

To elaborate some more on these archetypal inner dynamics referenced above, I will quote something I wrote to Guney previously:

"When we closely identify our personality with a certain opinion, for example, that the brain is the concrete 'material structure' and its obscure dynamics lead to what we experience as 'thoughts', we will feel concrete inner tension if our spiritual activity is led toward the phenomenological experience of being causally responsible for its flow of thoughts. That entire domain of meaningful experience will feel like a sharp thorn that threatens to tear a hole through our personality, to rip out the opinion that is woven into its fabric. All of this can be inwardly felt if we introspectively observe our life situation and its characteristic flow, which, of course, is experienced most lucidly in the flow of imaginative states. This is a sort of inner experience that we can directly observe. (it is likewise the case for the soul that identifies closely with the opinion that thoughts emerge from a mystical void, and we have seen on this forum concrete examples of how such an opinion steers the soul away from the experience of self-willed inner activity, such that phenomenological exercises and examples can hardly be comprehended anymore)."

This is the kind of answer to the question, "why is there so much resistance to phenomenological exercises today?", that we can explore without undue speculation, solely based on what we learn through our introspective practice (also supported by the deeper facts from spiritual scientific research). A key consideration here is that these inner constraints - opinions, beliefs, preferences, desires, etc. - are not something we are normally conscious of. They are tightly merged into the background of our perspective. We know that we have opinions, preferences, and so on, but we aren't clearly aware of our identification with them and how that steers our imaginative life in some directions and away from others. These are the 'soul rashes' that constantly itch the intellect, and the intellect continually capitulates to the itching and scratches out its conditioned thoughts.

Thus it is clear that there are not many options to loosen these constraints. Actually there can only be one option - to become more intuitively and imaginatively conscious of them. There are no clever intellectual tricks to loosen them while remaining in the dark about their existence, to suddenly start thinking through phenomenal reality without prejudices, assumptions, etc., yet without undergoing any self-conscious catharsis through the introspective promptings. We only begin to clearly perceive their influences once we have worked on resisting them and refining our first-person orientation within the experiential flow for some time. Until then, they act as a continual source of distraction and obstruction from the introspective cognitive path, in one form or another.

If there is genuine disagreement or uncertainty on this point, then it may be helpful to explore it further, openly and respectfully, dispassionately, and always through the lens of the verifiable inner dynamics. Even if we feel like we have heard it a million times before, it doesn't hurt to hear it again, from within our always integrating intuitive context. We never know beforehand when we may begin seeing these things from a new angle, with new intuitions of their significance.

OK, I thought you were asking about another level of “why”.

When it comes to the “why” you are interested in, I agree with what you say about the nondualist seeker. In that case, I recognize the immediate resistance to deepen the experience of thinking. That would instantly challenge the nondualist’s core beliefs and nirvanic dreams. This is by the way the reason why I said that perhaps the nondualist could be more successfully lifted from adherence to their beliefs by a big-picture elaboration where it is made clear that thinking, as they understand it, has to be given up indeed, but just not immediately. This idea would constitute a ‘mattress’ or a safety equipment, that would make inner experimentation with thinking appear more purposeful and acceptable at the beginning, from their perspective.

I see things differently when it comes to the one who believes that matter is the origin of everything. In that case I am not so sure that the inner dynamic of the "why" is precisely as you describe. Because, as soon as the materialist is able to recognize that the entire knowledge at their disposal is appended to perception as elaborated by the reflecting and analyzing natural researcher, there should be no in-principle obstacle to experiment - to do science - whatever the object of research is. This should include experimenting with consciousness. We see a whole generation of academics who are open to that, at least in principle, from Levin to Riddle, to name a few. In the genuine scientific impulse to knowledge, any inquiry based on experimentation leading to perception/collection of information and its subsequent consideration and analysis, should be positively received. Yes - the phenomenological findings would then create an inner tension against the existing beliefs, but the situation should be digestible, in the same way that it is accepted that a scientific finding is subject to falsification and possibly to reversal. This has often happened in the history of science, as the typical scientist never tires of reminding with satisfaction. The genuine natural scientist should be open to that, in principle. New findings can rewrite the understanding of the world. This is also why Steiner called the impulse to knowledge that he established, “spiritual science”. It was to highlight the continuity of scientific impulse. “Science” is the common element, that is an independent drive of the soul towards knowledge, a knowledge that is progressive, and can overturn older findings.

I agree with what you say about having an opinion, being aware of having it, but unaware of how it gives direction to our entire flow of becoming. There is a merging that makes it very difficult to identify the invisible choices, or lack thereof, we continually make. But as I see it, this plays in favor - not against - the intention to play alongside, not against, the force of these hidden vectors, at the beginning, as the only reasonable way to facilitate a shared journey that requires some major reorientation. Only when there is already a strong predisposition can the phenomenological prompts work fine from the get-go, as is. This only happens if the inner flow of the individual in question was already flowing in more or less harmonious relation with the main drivers of the consciousness soul. But if this is not predominantly the case, it is clear that the flow needs to be met in accordance with its current momentum and direction, for a coupling to have a chance to work out. You cannot just put a big U-turn sign in front of a consciousness rolling forward with great momentum and expect that it will see it, understand it, accept it, and simply follow the new direction. No, the only chance is to embark with it first, join their current trajectory, and only from there propose to recalculate and redirect. This should be so easy to agree with and accept. The loosening of the constraints must begin from within a moving situation. I can’t be planned with pure exercises elaborated from the perspective of a blank slate. The exercises must fit the dynamics of a speeding vehicle that already has a certain direction and momentum.

In this sense, I don't agree that "the only thing we can do is to depict the inner experiences as faithfully and precisely as possible". This would be like putting a sign “make a x-degrees turn” on the trajectory of a speeding vehicle. The extra step I would like to attempt is to embark the vehicle, see the direction from within it, and help reorient from there. This is by the way what Steiner's life is dedicated to.