The purpose after full comprehension of itself?

[dkpstarkey]

This is an excellent discussion that I feel compelled to contribute to in my own way. The contrast of light and darkness can also be illustrated on a more human scale, in the context of lives that embody it. Here is a brief study of this archetypal contrast as revealed by juxtaposing the life of Carl Jung with that of Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, who is pictured here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.p ... d=19001273.

In the unlikely event I found myself in Rome, I would make every effort to visit the Basilica of San Crisogono. I am transfixed by this scene, with the Blakean angels at the corners of her elegant casket, at the entrance to the Chapel of Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, a Catholic laywoman and mystic.

Born in Sienna in 1769, Anna Maria and her family moved to Rome when she was six years old. She later married and had seven children. Known for her charity and devotion, she joined the Secular Trinitarians in 1802. Of the many holy gifts attributed to her, the most impressive was the “miracle of the mystic globe-sun.” She could, upon request, receive visions of a sun-shaped globe that held images of current, past, and secret events. Thus, she became a celebrated seer and mystic, with bishops and cardinals requesting audiences with her.

In 1868, thirty years after her death, her original casket was opened, and her body was found to be incorrupt. More recently, some wax restoration has been done. Beatified in 1920, in her chapel special masses are still held to this day. The original church site is one of the oldest in Rome, dating from the 400s.

This study of Carl Jung’s birth chart is, of necessity, imagistic. Anna Maria Taigi was born with the same rare planetary figure as Carl Jung, more than a century before his birth. In this way, I identify metaphorical 'counterparts'. In contrast to Jung’s descent into the underworld and dark images of his Red Book, there are many accounts of her spontaneous ecstasies and heavenly visitations. To the faithful, the display of Anna Maria’s remains gives a powerful symbol of Christianity’s victory over death, the ascension story, the gifts of prophecy, the whole fantastic drama.

In bringing these two hallowed personages together, I find myself at a loss for the right words. I will not attempt to interpret further, leaving it to these juxtaposed images to tell their story.

This type of study is intended to identify metaphorical counterparts of a selected native, by screening out all but the very few births that share a given rare planetary figure. Counterparts may be similar, but the most striking ones also reveal sharp contrasts. A good metaphor requires a combination of similarity and contrast; the same is true of the metaphorical counterparts that I’ve sought out and documented.

[Soul_of_Shu]

... a darkness that Shu once attempted to describe as 'dazzling'

Just to clarify, the descriptor 'dazzling' was borrowed from a piece written by John Wren Lewis attempting to recount his NDE, available here ... https://www.nonduality.com/dazdark.htm

But I don't feel that the essence of awareness can actually be understood in any observational subject><object way, as in observing a dazzling darkness as the progenitor of it, since being uncaused, irreducible primal awareness has no source.

[Cleric K]

All I can do is ask, "having seen the way, why would you not take it?" This is why, out of respect, I ask "have you seen it or are you offering speculations?" I am also asking, respectfully, not if you can see in the dark but if you have seen the palpable darkness that defies description, a darkness that Shu once attempted to describe as 'dazzling'?

I admit you managed to confuse me What way I'm not taking?
To the question if I've seen the palpable darkness, yes, I've seen both the dark and light, that was the whole point of the last posts. I perceive both as realities and that's why I don't have the need to intellectually postulate one as fundamental and the other as illusionary effect.

[Lou Gold]

All I can do is ask, "having seen the way, why would you not take it?" This is why, out of respect, I ask "have you seen it or are you offering speculations?" I am also asking, respectfully, not if you can see in the dark but if you have seen the palpable darkness that defies description, a darkness that Shu once attempted to describe as 'dazzling'?

I admit you managed to confuse me What way I'm not taking?
To the question if I've seen the palpable darkness, yes, I've seen both the dark and light, that was the whole point of the last posts. I perceive both as realities and that's why I don't have the need to intellectually postulate one as fundamental and the other as illusionary effect.

"What way I'm not taking?"

I'm asking "why would you not choose the way you see?" Is this other than a choiceless-choice?

"I don't have the need to intellectually postulate one as fundamental and the other as illusionary effect."

Then, there's no need to use lingo privileging the light.

[Lou Gold]

All I can do is ask, "having seen the way, why would you not take it?" This is why, out of respect, I ask "have you seen it or are you offering speculations?" I am also asking, respectfully, not if you can see in the dark but if you have seen the palpable darkness that defies description, a darkness that Shu once attempted to describe as 'dazzling'?

I admit you managed to confuse me What way I'm not taking?
To the question if I've seen the palpable darkness, yes, I've seen both the dark and light, that was the whole point of the last posts. I perceive both as realities and that's why I don't have the need to intellectually postulate one as fundamental and the other as illusionary effect.

"What way I'm not taking?"

I'm asking "why would you not choose the way you see?" Is this other than a choiceless-choice?

"I don't have the need to intellectually postulate one as fundamental and the other as illusionary effect."

Then, there's no need to use lingo privileging the light.

"SANCTIFY don't JUSTIFY"



PS: NOWHERE = NOW HERE

[Cleric K]

Cleric K wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 1:13 pm
Time experience consist in gradual coming together of the timeless.
Hmm... really?

Yup

The exact way that 'empty set' in the context of axiomatic set theory and 'point' in the context of Hilbert's axioms of theory is that in the purely mathematical meaning they are not concepts, they are the opposite of concepts. Mathematical concept should be and is definable in very exact and lucid way

OK. So we are using the concept of 'concept' in different ways. I'm looking at math just as one of the forms of cognitive activity. In this sense 'concept' is a broad term that refers to anything that we can grasp through thinking and potentially even give it a word or other symbol. In this sense pure mathematics is a space of cognitive states of being. Something like:



All these are perfectly valid cognitive experiences, including empty sets, points, etc.

I'm not sure if you are trying to find the beautiful mathematical ideas which are the grounds out of which spiritual experience unfolds or you use mathematics as a metaphorical language to describe spiritual experience (which is not limited to math).

I'm not sure of the origin or exact meaning of your concept of ether, but recent experimental evidence as well as revaluation of older experiments points again towards ether theories. Measurements of very small but real ether inertia take us back to Michelson-Morley starting point and falsify the whole Einstein-paradigm, what was left of it after falsification by QM.

No. it has nothing to do with the ether, the supposed medium for propagation of EM waves. As explained, it's not about some superimposed 'rarefied substance'. The closest things I can use as a scientific metaphor would be to speak as spiritual processes extending in time that shape the wavefunction of biological life. But we'll be on very wrong track if we go on to search for the equations of these processes. The only way to understand these life processes is to perceive them first within ourselves.

Speaking of trees, interesting fact is that the sugars from photosynthesis flow down along the bark, water and minerals go up in the core. I don't know what the correct English term is, we call starving the roots by cutting off a section of bark 'necking' (kaulaaminen).

Yes. There's also a cloning technique based on this, called air layering. I did some successful experiments last year with figs.

[Cleric K]

I'm asking "why would you not choose the way you see?" Is this other than a choiceless-choice?

Then, there's no need to use lingo privileging the light.

So you are asking me why would I decide to seek light if light and darkness are both realities? You think it's better to stay in the choiceless-choice middle point and accept trustingly whatever happens?

There's a great difference between privileging light in the Cosmic Pole sense and knowing when you need light. See what I posted to Santeri. Do you see anything wrong in such a privileging of light? Is there anything blasphemous in having light to know where you're going? In what way is it better for the whole if humans are groping in the darkness that we're currently in?

[SanteriSatama]

Now what feels more natural - to compare this rising in consciousness, with increase of light or with darkness?

Both and neither. Metacognition as such - as they say, light of consciousness - is light. It's also a layer on top of ground, a finite duration. Interpersonal peer-to-peer dialogue increases the strength of metacognitive durations. It has empirically verifiable combinatory and cumulative aspect.

On the other hand it is clear that light in this sense, forms a dependence hierarchy with the dark ground. The ground continues also when light is off.

Think of the deep sea, where the liquid dark gets more thick and vast. Sentient beings become more scarce the deeper you dive, but they also become self-radiant sources of light in very concrete and deeply aware sense. Obviously, this is reflected in the stars of the aerial deep space. As above, so below. We are both stars in the sky and weird creatures of the deep sea. Demanding that either-or question makes good sense in this context leads astray.

Next, think of healthy soil in the forest. The amount of life in a cubic inch is astounding in that fairly solid form of dark where elements of mineral and organic matter, wet and dry mix and interact. senses of human heads and their metacognition durations have very little understanding of the richest environment of life. Much less than a tree.

We often think of that life as beneath the surface, but that is misleading. It is part of the surface, the internal structure of the surface, the skin where all touches. Banish LEMming control from your sociolinguistic programming!

The Below and Above the surface reflect each other. Where life and complexity increases, is the surface itself, the mouth of the door which tastes both the in and the out, the limitless structure and creativity in-the-between. That is what feels most natural, this Middle.

[Lou Gold]

I'm asking "why would you not choose the way you see?" Is this other than a choiceless-choice?

Then, there's no need to use lingo privileging the light.

So you are asking me why would I decide to seek light if light and darkness are both realities? You think it's better to stay in the choiceless-choice middle point and accept trustingly whatever happens?

There's a great difference between privileging light in the Cosmic Pole sense and knowing when you need light. See what I posted to Santeri. Do you see anything wrong in such a privileging of light? Is there anything blasphemous in having light to know where you're going? In what way is it better for the whole if humans are groping in the darkness that we're currently in?

The problem, in my view is that we are not speaking of the same "darkness". Though words are totally inadequate, I am speaking of the "pregnant void of pure potential" or "the source of all excitations of consciousness" or "the womb of the mysterious female" to which one surrenders (enters) in order to become/receive one's unique light.

The I Ching has a marvelous observation that goes something like, "The problem is not with having a wrong intention but with having an intention." Thus I ask you to tell me what's wrong with just surrendering to the Will of God by doing as God does and simply loving?

"Be calm - Be clear - See the faults - See the suffering - Give your love"

[Shaibei]

Ashvin, Eugene, thanks!

Certainly, concepts and notions can be a springboard for higher spiritual spheres. In what sense do they really elevate the soul? When you hear from them the spirit and will of the one who wrote them. This includes means like poetry, rhetoric and the like and not mere concepts. I was not convinced by the "philosophy of freedom" that Steiner had really solved the problem with Kant. He simply divides reality into concepts and sensory perception like Maimon. Only that unlike the latter he assumes it is the bottom line.
This perception is also reflected in what Steiner calls "clairvoyance." You probably know what claims Steiner made that I can not agree with and that history has proven to be nothing but mere imagination not "concepts" reflecting the world of senses. And this is exactly the problem

My previous post could be fully comprehended without anyone ever heard of Steiner. I was especially careful not to enter into pro/anti Steiner discussion. I won't do that now either. I'll only point out few things that you seem to have gotten wrong about PoF, again not in Steiner's defense but for the sake of the facts.

"He simply divides reality into concepts and sensory perception". This is incorrect in many ways. First, it's not about dividing anything but recognizing what is already there, just as recognizing red and blue is not some artificial division of 'color'. Second, it's not at all about only sensory perceptions. The term perception should be taken in the widest sense possible. We can say it thus: anything that we can think about is a kind of perception. Clearly, this includes not only sensory perceptions but all inner experience, including thinking itself and potentially higher experiences. For example, the feeling of humility can be perceived and thought about. Third, the other half of existence is the world of ideas, with concepts being only more specific ideas. PoF is not about dividing these two worlds - of perception and ideas - but showing how they can be united. This unity finds its seed point with the realization than when thinking becomes the object of itself, we have an instance where idea and perception belong together. Everywhere else perceptions and ideas meet like aliens, they seem so different and irreconcilable. But in the experience of thinking we find an actual point where both worlds flow into each other. For example, when we hear external word we have clear separation between the perception and the concept, they are almost orthogonal experiences, leading us to speak of subjective and objective worlds. When we hear our inner thinking voice, perception and concept are inseparably united.

"This includes means like poetry, rhetoric and the like and not mere concepts". This is a good example and shows the difference between thinking about concepts abstractly (for example, verbal thought 'table' in absence of sensory perception) and concepts that are experienced in relation to other perceptions. For example, if I read poetry about love but I've never experienced it, I'll be having only abstract concepts, mere words. If I do have real experience of love then the concepts will relate to these feelings. Yet even if I don't know how love feels like this doesn't prevent me to understand at least logically something about it. For example, from the words of the poet I may understand that this love, whatever it is, can be related with other soul experiences, such as inspiration, enthusiasm, self-renunciation and so on. When these things are experienced livingly we can get very good intuition where this love feeling is to be sought. It's almost like spiritual triangulation - we don't know the 'location' of the experience we're reading about but through its relation to other experiences, that we may already know, we are able to form some idea. Finally, at some point we may arrive to the actual experience of love and then the concept finally finds the corresponding perceptions.

It's the same in relation to descriptions of the higher worlds. Normally they sound as the wildest abstractions but they are never intended to remain that way. For example, if we hear about 'etheric body', this sounds just as abstract as the concept of 'string' in string theory. The big difference is that through the appropriate development we can reach to the perception of the etheric body and then the concept is no longer abstract. But even long before that we can form intuition about this by 'triangulating' the concept through as many other experiences as possible. For example when it's said that the physical body is what we have in common with minerals, while the etheric body is what we have in common with plants, we are already pointing attention at specific direction. What makes plants different from minerals is that the mineral substance within the plant is animated in very characteristic way. This still doesn't lead us to the reality of the etheric body but gradually we are able to think about it. As we develop more concepts taken from spiritual perception in this way, we gradually begin to feel their logical relations. For example, if someone describes to us the contents of a room we gradually build a picture of it. Then if they say "There's a chair in the corner" and later say "there's a cupboard in the corner", if we are really attentive we'll say "wait a minute, make up your mind, is it a chair or cupboard?". So it is with the higher worlds. As we become acquainted with their descriptions we begin to feel the logic and even if we may not be a seer ourselves, we're quite capable of feeling if there's something out of place in certain descriptions.

The logical question is: how can we be sure that these "seers" are not simply charlatans and they have created purely abstract and consistent formal system that they talk about but that doesn't correspond to anything perceptible? The answer here is that everyone individually should judge this for themselves. The character of the higher worlds is such that everything that is revealed from there has direct implications for ordinary life. The higher worlds are not remote parallel worlds but the deeper spiritual reality of which the sensory world is only a shadow. For this reason everything about higher cognition can be tested against the sensory world. This is actually the whole point of looking into the higher worlds - not in order to satisfy our curiosity but to draw the impulses that we need for solving the Earthly problems. This is possible because we live in the higher worlds with our feelings, thoughts, will. These elements are the 'substance' of the higher worlds, it's just that we project them entirely on the screen of sensory perceptions, instead of seeking to comprehend them within their native environments. Man is a cross-section of all worlds but in our age all is being flattened over the sensory screen. We simply refuse to speak of anything unless it is somehow grounded into sense perceptions.

I may not have explained myself well enough. I will repeat what I have written in other comments. Kant separates the senses from thinking.
To this Maimon responds that the senses are nothing but a vague thought that our mind can penetrate and conclude its concepts. Thinking and perception are not really different domains.
At the same time, Maimon believes that reality is not only rational, since there is always a dimension that is not conceivable. Everything we explain, we explain through other things (e.g atoms by electrons), but as our explanation goes down more and more to the details we are left with the answer "it's just the way it is". Science can define general laws, but why the world appears in this way and not in another, science has no answer.
The limit of thinking is also expressed in Godel's theorem. In order to make a determination in language S1 we must go higher to language S2 and so on indefinitely, something our limit thinking - this is its nature - is incapable of.
Science strives to define the world objectively and to free itself from the subject, But even if we were to find all the equations that describe the world science would not be able to explain the subject itself since the subject does not perceive itself objectively by thinking, it simply exists.

You talked about higher worlds (that exist of course objectively independent of us). There are various spiritual traditions that describe higher worlds. Of course we have to believe in their existence and we have no way other than "personal experience" to prove it. What should we do with different
traditions giving different descriptions of these higher worlds? We must choose whom to believe.
Even if we all use the same concepts the way we experience things will be subjective. We can discuss very complex matters, but regarding the question "Is what I call sweet the same as what you call sweet" - we have no answer.
To me it is relevant to talk about Steiner since he saw himself as a "seer". And since he also expressed his views on the public and political plain, I can observe his ability to create concepts that fit or don't fit reality.
We return again to the problem that our mind is trying to grasp the sensory reality and miss it due to the gap between thinking and senses. In science at least we can conduct experiments that will disprove our assumptions, but in spiritual matters like "higher worlds" we have no such possibility. Also in matters of morality. I think a different method is needed here and this is where faith comes in