Nietzsche and Christianity - Metaphysical Idealist Critique

[Eugene I]

Cleric, I appreciate your insight about the salvific role of Christ. And we definitely are free to take a chance and accept it as truth. Yet, with no way to verify it, in our human condition it always remains a matter of faith. And that's fine, there is nothing wrong with having faith. But it also may turn out (as we might find out after we die) that it is not true. So, in a way, it's a coin-flipping. Just saying.

Yet, there something else to add. Let's assume that your proposition about Christ is true. But is Christ aware of what he is doing? Everything he does and thinks is happening with awareness. He is simply a spiritual activity of Consciousness, part of the flow of Universal Consciousness (possibly a crucial and even central part), just like we all are. All he does is only conscious phenomena that are being experienced and "awared". It is possible that he might have much deeper knowledge of how the thinking process works and has extensive control of it, something that we are lacking in the human form. But regardless, all he knows is happening in consciousness with(in) awareness. These are all forms of consciousness. And we, even though very limited in abilities our human form, still have an ability to recognize this simple fact and see who we all are in our existential core - just aware and alive spiritual activities of Consciousness. And Christ, whoever he is, is also the same alive and aware spiritual activity of Consciousness. We all share the same common nature of Consciousness, including Christ. And that we can perfectly know in human form, we don't have to die to be able to see it. Even if, after we die, we can come to Christ to learn the mysteries of how thought process works, this will not change the fundamental insight that all that thinking process only happens in aware Consciousness. I'm absolutely open to the possibility that there are spiritually powerful and knowledgeable beings beyond this quasi-physical world that know much more than we do and possess spiritual powers unthinkable to us. But again, all of that is only Consciousness and happens only in Consciousness. At the end, what are those spiritual powers other than just advanced abilities to manipulate and manifest conscious phenomena? OK, you gain those advanced abilities, you know how thinking works, you can manifest/imagine realities and "project" them to other conscious beings so that those manifestations become sensory phenomena for them. In other words, you become a God-creator-like spiritual activity. So what? How does it change the simple fact that all of it is just more manipulation of conscious phenomena that all happens in the same Consciousness?

Yet, there is another possibility, as many NDE accounts and Buddhist perspective suggest. And this is that we, each of us, already are powerful spiritual beings when we are in a discarnate form. But when we incarnate, we voluntary give up our knowledge and powers in order to experience human life "for real" (for whatever reason). When we come back to our natural form after death, we do not need a more powerful spiritual beings to inform us, we simply regain our powers and knowledges/memories and move on along our developmental path. Now, there are most likely more advanced souls there from whom we can still learn, and Christ may very well be one of them. And Buddha may be very well the other one. And there may be many-many other advanced souls of that high-development level. But my feel is that those guys are unconditionally open, they will always help us and answer our questions to the best of our ability to understand the answers whenever we ask for their help. We do not have to "accept" them as our "saviors" to do that. Just ask your questions or ask for help, and they will be right here to help. Their help is not conditional upon our acceptance of them as our "saviors". I find this belief that we have to "accept Christ as our savior" a bit childish, honestly.

There is also a possibility that none of the most advanced spirits in the universe of Consciousness know everything and know the ultimate truth. Due to the "spiritual Gödel theorem", the ultimate truth might be unknowable even for the highest Divine beings. How can Consciousness know what is there "outside" of it and if there is anything there at all? How can it know its "origin" , its reason to exist? Why there is Consciousness rather than nothing at all? These questions may be unanswerable even for the highest-order spiritual beings. We don't know, hopefully we will find it out after we die.

[Lou Gold]

I feel that following Christ (or Buddha, Lao Tzu, etc) as something that simply recognizes and orients itself within the facts of experience. Do we agree?

I don't know what you mean. If you mean that it's all the same, as long as one goes with the instinctive flow - no, I don't agree

Whew. Surely different paths are different, not the same. Physics is not the same as biology.

Why do you change or augment the definition? I agreed to your spiritual science as "simply recognizes and orients itself within the facts of experience" and now you add "as long as one goes with the instinctive flow" and disagree. What's up with that? I will restate: "Can one equally follow Christ or Buddha or Lao Tzu if one "simply recognizes and orients itself [the following] within the facts of experience"?

[Eugene I]

"You" are only Consciousness, "me" is only Consciousness, Christ is only Consciousness.
Consciousness is all there is.

All sentient beings, all Gods including Christ, all worlds, are only activities and phenomena of Consciousness. All they ever do is only manipulating conscious phenomena using the creative potential and abilities of Consciousness. The ways they manipulate the phenomena can be extremely complex, advanced and powerful. There may be no end to the development of such manipulative powers and to the explorations of various forms and phenomena of Consciousness. Yet, none of it changes the simple truth that all of it is only manipulation of conscious phenomena that all happens in and to the same Consciousness.

[Lou Gold]

Indeed, there is nothing that is not God.
How might it be otherwise?
Praise and glory to All.
East or West and Up or Down,
Duality and Nonduality.
How might it be otherwise?
Viva a Deus
Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

[Eugene I]

And the most amazing fact is that this Consciousness is not some external God that you need to communicate with or worship to get that insight. We are all, me and you, ARE this Consciousness. We are constantly experiencing and are aware of all our conscious phenomena in exactly the same way that Christ, Shiva or any other Gods or spiritual beings are ware of their conscious phenomena. And we can know it directly and experientially right here and now - just look directly at each of the conscious phenomenon that we experience and directly SEE that they are all consciously experienced and "awared" in the same fundamental way and all of such phenomena are forms of the same flow of Consciousness. And our "self" is just another phenomenon and activity of the same Consciousness, no more and no less. This is not a matter of thinking or interpretation, it's a matter of removing any interpretations. Just experience any phenomenon (perception, thought, feeling, imagination etc) without any interpretation of it and simply SEE that there is nothing there in that phenomenon other than a quale which is intimately and directly consciously experienced. And all our lives and all worlds we live in are simply more complex constructs of the same type of consciously experienced phenomena, to which we add levels and levels of our mental thinking, stories and interpretations (nothing wrong with that!). The complexity of these constructs tricks us and veils from us this very simple fact. Or you can remove any phenomena and thoughts, remain in a complete voidness and experience what is left: what you will experience is still a presence of this intimate direct experiencing which would simply be experiencing itself and be aware of itself with no intellectual interpretation of this direct and intimate experience. This is the ever-present aware and conscious direct Reality that is always right here right now prior to any interpretation of it, simply experiencing itself in any phenomenon or in an absence of any phenomena, whether it unfolds into a flow of phenomena or whether stays void of phenomena. The presence or absence of phenomena makes no fundamental difference, either way it always and only experiences itself. And we all are simply spiritual activities of this same reality, all we do is manipulating and experiencing conscious phenomena. More advanced activities/beings (Gods) do it in a more powerful and versatile way, less advanced (like us humans or animals) do it in a more limited way. But fundamentally it's all the same thing - just manipulating conscious phenomena that all happen to and in the same Consciousness.

Sorry, I can's shut myself up today talking about this amazingly simple and amazingly profound truth

[Lou Gold]

[Eugene I]

Yes Lou, thanks for posting, I read Paul's book on Vetico, amazing insights there, I very much resonate with them. He is also a Buddhist and also a big fan of Jung, the shelf with books on the right side of the screen are all Jung.

So here is the root of this Vetico problem - we find ourselves enslaved by our egos and Veticos because we believe our egos are something very real. The insight into and recognition of our common nature of Consciousness reveals to us that our egos and the Vetico that took control of our conscious activity are simply 'robotic" activities of conscious phenomena, sophisticated in some ways but quite primitive essentially. They reside in the unconscious and pop up their phenomenal manifestations (feelings, desires, thought) into the fields of our awareness, and we usually simply unconsciously and un-mindfully follow whatever our egos and Veticos prompt us to do or think. By getting the insight into our true nature as Consciousness we free ourselves from this slavery because we recognize in the awareness our fundamental freedom and ability to be unconditioned by any thoughts or feelings that the Veticos implant into us. This is simply because the Awareness itself is never conditioned by any of phenomena, it always remains the same, it is simply and lovingly aware of any phenomenon without being affected by them in any way. Also, from this recognition of our nature we drop our identifications with our egos, we realize that we are not our egos (as we thought before), we are Consciousness in which the activities of egos unfold. Once we drop such identification, we regain freedom from these activities. This is what the Buddhist practice of continuous mindfulness and remaining in awareness of Awareness does, but it takes a long time and persistent work of learning and training the mind and attention to maintain continuous mindfulness and to be able to regain that freedom and become unconditioned by our egos and Veticos. Now, we should not demonize our egos, they are not entirely evil, as well as not entirely good, they are just naturally developed conscious processes, mostly non-metacognitive and instinctive, developed through evolution of natural selection for the purpose of survival and procreation. We just need to learn how to deal with them in a friendly manner, how to develop and transform them into more healthy processes, but we can only do it if we regain our freedom from them, only if we can stop identifying with them and stop them controlling us, and instead, start controlling them. Of course, the extent to which we can realistically control these instinctive processes is limited, but still available and possible. They are very resilient and slow to change, so working on transforming them takes a lot of practice and patience.

[Lou Gold]

"Whether one is rich or poor, educated or illiterate, religious or non-believing, man or woman, black, white, or brown, we are all the same. Physically, emotionally, and mentally, we are all equal. We all share basic needs for food, shelter, safety, and love. We all aspire to happiness and we all shun suffering. Each of us has hopes, worries, fears, and dreams. Each of us wants the best for our family and loved ones. We all experience pain when we suffer loss and joy when we achieve what we seek. On this fundamental level, religion, ethnicity, culture, and language make no difference."
~ HH The 14th Dalai Lama

[Cleric]

Yet, with no way to verify it, in our human condition it always remains a matter of faith.

I'm not sure what to make of 'no way to verify it'. Ever since I write in this forum I strive to point attention to nothing but this 'way'

And Christ, whoever he is, is also the same alive and aware spiritual activity of Consciousness. We all share the same common nature of Consciousness, including Christ. And that we can perfectly know in human form, we don't have to die to be able to see it. Even if, after we die, we can come to Christ to learn the mysteries of how thought process works, this will not change the fundamental insight that all that thinking process only happens in aware Consciousness. I'm absolutely open to the possibility that there are spiritually powerful and knowledgeable beings beyond this quasi-physical world that know much more than we do and possess spiritual powers unthinkable to us.

Thanks to our previous posts I better understand your view, which otherwise I wouldn't have guessed to count as nondual (not that I see myself as some expert in the types of non-dual teachings) To be sure, I was slightly surprised by your view, in the face of the talks we had previously about the 'self'. Then you were not content with the 'entity' of self. Now I know what exactly you envision of 'self' but I'm not sure how you are content with the entity of 'individual conscious space'. From what I've seen, nonduality usually is considered to be complete dissolution of the boundaries and everything becomes an amorphic whole. The idea about the individual conscious spaces is based on certain atomicity - even if they are somehow considered to form a continuum. I'll be interested to hear about what is your view about the genesis and potential dissolution of these individual spaces. And also about what you mentioned as possibility for 'merging'.

Meanwhile, I'll try to give another view. It's just a limited symbol, but as long as it's not taken as literal 'map' of reality, it's possible to use it to point attention to certain things.

Let the whole disc represent Consciousness - the One and all there is. The white in the middle represents integration, the periphery differentiation.
Let the orange and green bounded areas represent beings. They correspond to the individual spaces in your model. Note however that these spaces are not distinct 'spheres' within the continuum. Every being experiences a spectrum. At their core they are fundamentally one and the same - the Cosmic Core of all possibilities of Consciousness. Please note: the beings are *not* some independent atoms expunged from the core. At all times, every being is the *full slice* of potential - from the most integrated, to the most differentiated at the periphery. This differentiation is not simply fragmentation of matter or something like that but fragmentation of consciousness - as such, each concentric circle is some level of consciousness and a corresponding realm. The beings are not subordinate to the Core in some external way. The Core is intrinsic part of the spectrum of every being, it is what every being feels as it's own center - as itself.
The dashed line represents the boundary just above the intellect, coincidently this is also the threshold of death.
Look at the orange area. I have dimmed down the colors above the threshold. May this represent the normal human state of a being that feels locked within the sensory level of consciousness below the threshold. Please note again that this being still spans the *full* spectrum, it's not just some fragment at the periphery. It is only that the experienced consciousness is awake in the sensory-intellectual spectrum, at the higher spectrum it is not awake. The dimmed down spectrum is there all the time, we couldn't exist without it, but we are simply entangled within the patterns of activity that are characteristic to the sensory spectrum.
Let the green area represent a being that has worked in such a way that it has integrated also higher levels of consciousness and the corresponding processes.
Pleas note that with every higher level we become conscious of levels where our being is increasingly collective. The more we go towards the core, the more common we have with all beings. Yet, and please note this, every being still feels as unique slice of the whole spectrum. Even though we are sharing many common 'parts' in the higher levels, nevertheless the slice from core to the fragments is unique and this gives also the feeling of perspective or in your terms - individual space. This also hints us that we should be thinking differently about the different layers. The fact that the higher layers are much more common to all, in itself shows that it would be foolish to act like our unique perspective is 'in charge' of everything. Within the higher levels of our own slice we are much more like communicating vessels, in increasingly holistic relations.

When we speak about revealing the essence behind thinking it's meant the awakening at a higher level of self in the grayed out area. Note that even in our intellectual life it is still the One core that is creatively thinking. But this One, in its unique perspective, is entangled with the sensory perceptions and abstract thoughts. The One feels too dissipated within the fragmentary thoughts but it's still sparks of the Core that illuminate the thoughts. Yet there are many dim layers in the spectrum (which the One itself does not yet recognize) that shape what the One can think of. When we develop the higher level of consciousness it is still the same One that experiences and acts creatively but now, within a more integrated level of self (Manas). Now the One sees more clearly the hidden processes that guide and shape his activity in the intellectual state. This higher level is called Imaginative consciousness. At that level we already experience much more of the collective character of our slice. Within the bodily spectrum the One identifies easily with the body, which in spatial sense is clearly separate. But in Imaginative consciousness things are already becoming much more fluid, boundaries are not that well defined. For example it will be an error if we imagine that our astral body (which becomes perceptible at that stage) is some 'substance' that is fully 'ours', in the way we think about the physical body. Here's an example. In our soul/astral body live actual 'pieces' of the soul bodies of our family and friends. Our soul body is not some independent blob of substance that simply feels love or other feelings for others within itself. It is actually 'made of' the soul substance of others. When we experience the love for our dear ones at this stage of consciousness we experience their soul bodies within ours in the most real sense. Parts of our soul body are made of theirs and parts of theirs are made from ours. Here we should completely free ourselves from geometric restrictions, there's nothing spatial at this stage. It's all about relations. Things become even more interconnected in the higher levels of consciousness. For example, at some level our spectrum takes a 'slice' from the common being of the nation we are born in. On still higher level the whole humanity has a common being, etc.

[Lou Gold]

May All Beings Walk in Beauty

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