Nietzsche and Christianity - Metaphysical Idealist Critique

[SanteriSatama]

Can one equally follow 1) Christ or 2) Buddha or 3) Lao Tzu if one "simply recognizes and orients itself [the following] within the facts of experience"?

Fact of experience says that to equally follow three unique paths, you would have to split into three equal parts.

Same does not apply to traveling together, or tracking a ahead.

[Lou Gold]

Can one equally follow 1) Christ or 2) Buddha or 3) Lao Tzu if one "simply recognizes and orients itself [the following] within the facts of experience"?

Fact of experience says that to equally follow three unique paths, you would have to split into three equal parts.

Same does not apply to traveling together, or tracking a ahead.

Question was not posed as walking simultaneously by a single person. Question was are they equal value paths or is there an assertion that one path is better or higher than another. My way is to see if 'my path' helps me appreciate more fully other paths without me losing sense of which one is mine. A Lakota elder explained it like this:

“You know, all of our religions are like spokes on a wheel. They all lead into the Sacred Center where the Creator is, and if you are on one of those spokes and move to the outside, then it is all about strict rules and regulations, and who is holy and who is not, and you have to hold on tight to your spoke or you will be spun off, but if you move into the center, then it is all about love and compassion, and when you get into the center, you can step around all of those other spokes without ever losing your connection to your own spoke.”

I was asking if this would be agreed with by Steiner's Anthroposophy. I don't feel that I received a clear response from Cleric but, instead, additional angles and dangles.

[Eugene I]

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'.

OK, let me try to explain this. The so-called "non-duality" is not a consistent body of teaching but rater a conglomerate of different Eastern schools, traditions and practices, many of them also spilled into the West over the last century. One thing in common to them is that most of them are predominantly idealistic. Some of these schools (specifically in the Vedic tradition) indeed believe that fragmentation of Cosmic Consciousness into the individuated spaces is the problem at the root of "duality" and it is something that needs to be overcome. In these schools a "mukti" (a liberated soul) would be believed to "dissolve" into undifferentiated Consciousness after death. However, the Buddhist tradition is different in that way: Buddhism sees the root cause of duality not in the fragmentation into "conscious spaces", but in an "illusory" interpretation of this fragmentation as the existence of separate "self"-entities (subjects-objects). Such misinterpretation leads to unconscious "personalization" and identification with such idea-sense of self in each of those spaces, and that identification leads to the development of our egos with its fears, clingings, passions/addictions and the whole baggage of psychological problems. So the problem here is not the fragmentation into spaces, but mis-identification and the absence of recognition that these spaces are fundamentally nothing more that simply semi-autonomous spaces of spiritual activity of the same Consciousness (called Buddha's nature). Therefore, what needs to be fixed is not the fragmentation into spaces, but recognizing and dropping the wrong identification/personalization. That does not mean "killing" the selves and egos (lower-level spiritual activities), but it is a way to transform them into more healthier activities and ascend the spiritual activity in each space to higher spiritual levels. Still, even within Buddhism, the early schools (such as Theravada that still exists) interpret the original Buddha's teaching is such a way that they understand nibbana (the Pali spelling of Sanskrit Nirvana, the goal of the Buddhist path) to be the total cessation of any activity of consciousness within the fragmented space, as an entirely formless and inactive state. They do not aim at "dissolving" into the global oneness, but still maintain the aim of "cessation". However, such views were mostly abandoned in later Mahayana schools in which Nirvana is understood as an "enlightened" and "liberated" state of consciousness (still within a fragmented space) without impeding or cessation of conscious activity, without dissolving into undifferentiated oneness, but only without any false identifications, misapprehensions of reality and without bondage to egoic desires and impulses, and instead to be a conscious activity on higher and subtle levels of consciousness, intuitive and imaginative, aesthetic and creative, directly apprehending a variety of forms within the unity of all, telepathically sharing their enlightened state across the community of beings of the same level and extending/projecting their spiritual state to beings in the lower realms who are in need of their help on the spiritual level, so very much like you described in your scheme.

As I said before, I'm open to both venues - dissolving and not-dissolving of spaces into undifferentiated oneness - as possibilities, and it is likely that both possibilities are available to the souls depending on their developmental goals and dispositions. In other words, if you want to dissolve into oneness, you can. If you want to stay fragmented as an individuated space and proceed in in you development and ascending to higher levels, you also can. Either way there is no "you must do it this way", it's simply a matter of free choice.

Now, a few comments regarding you scheme. The Buddhist perspective presents a little different picture. The overall space of Consciousness is not-single-centered. The "core" of this Conscious universe is not the "center" of it, but the very "screen" on which the whole picture is unfolding. And the whole picture is rather a fractal than a concentric structure. The states of consciousness in each individuated space still vary hierarchically with lower or higher levels (just like in your scheme), so you can view it as a 3D-like picture with spiritual levels spreading vertically as "shared" states/realms across the groups and communities of souls. Anyway, the picture is structured in a more complicated and inter-connected way. Now, there are still concentric structures in the fractal similar to what you drew, with certain communities of souls grouping around some centers - powerful spiritual beings, local Gods, so that the Gods would create virtual realities for their groups and the members would grow, learn and ascend to higher levels toward their Gods under their guidance. The "human" group of souls is (possibly) grouped around Christ as their spiritual Master and collective "Self". However, according to Buddhism, none of the souls are captured in such concentric structures and can always voluntarily leave or join back, and after leaving they can join a different community in different realms, or continue on a solitary path. Some of the souls and communities mostly exist in confused and dualistic states (with unconscious beliefs in the reality of non-existent things or entities), others exist in non-dual states mostly clear of such misapprehensions, but this may not be black-and-white and many souls many be in in-between states, not entirely dualistic and deluded, but still not entirely clear. There are also realms with soul groups that are not so much concentrically and hierarchically structured, and where the social organization is more "democratic" and libertarian. These communities typically consist of more mature souls at higher levels of development that do not need to be so closely guided as in the theo-concentric structures, but they still develop and learn from each other and from more mature members. There is a lot of freedom and variety of realms, states, conscious forms across the universe of Consciousness, this space is infinite and inexhaustible, and that is the beauty of it. There is no end to the development of this cosmic fractal. But there is one thing common to all of it - it all happens in the same global infinite space of Cosmic Consciousness, single in its nature of pure Awareness-Beingness, but fragmented into a variety of individuated spaces, temporal states and various forms of conscious phenomena in order to unfold its unlimited creative potential.

So there is an easy answer to the question whether the universe if structured theo-centrically around the highest Divinity Core, or if it is structured not-theo-centrically. And that answer is that it is both. If you are a soul that in the depths of your heart feels a need to connect to a Divine being of a higher spiritual level and join a community of like-minded souls evolving around this Core, where you can be loved, guided and cared by the Core Divinity and its close affiliates, then you can do it, there are structures in the universe available to meet your needs. If you do not have such need and feel that you are free-spirited and/or mature enough to progress without such care and guidance, you can also do it and find more democratically less centralized social soul groups, or even continue on your own travelling across the universe of Consciousness as a pilgrim.

But the bottom line is (according to the Buddhist cosmology) - there is no single God-creator in the whole universe, but many of such God-creators, and also many realms, some realms created by those Gods, others realms are collective creations of the soul communities.

[SanteriSatama]

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.

This seems to be the hard part for certain kind of conditioning. Yet it is very easy to demonstrate that no-boundaries does not equal no-form. No either-or choice involved.

Continuous surface can be folded and stretched in various forms without any lines cutting it. Gravity etc. fields can have forms of various densities without any planes cutting them into separate objects. Etc.

Democritus' theory of atoms was a snow-flake theory. Atoms were different forms. Modern atomism imagines each particle exactly same; as "particle" is ultimately the idea of an infinitesimal point.

The modern theory of individual alters is not exactly atomistic in either sense. More closer analogy is set theory. Sets are closed intervals, separate containers that appear exactly same outwards, but can have different contents. A very close analogue to a 'set' is a Dedekind cut to idea of continuum.

Agent Smith manifests the set theoretical character. The Matrix avatars look normally all different, they can all self-express. But when possessed by Agent Smith, they all look same externally, they are wearing same uniform, but can still act differently expressing same intentional will of the program.

'Individual' does have same basic mathematical meaning as Greek atom, "indivisible", and deeper analysis all three aspects play some role, Democritus' atomism, point atomism and set/cut. But in each case the shared commonality is separate countability, idea of quantification.

The mathematical etymology of the term 'individual' does not seem coincidental, but comes from sociological definition of separate units, which can be organized and used in countable way. The pragmatic teleology of using individuals for countable purposes does not need to care for their internal life, pragmatics of Fordism etc. are about teleology of productivism, not psychology.

[SanteriSatama]

Question was are they equal value paths or is there an assertion that one path is better or higher than another.

Equal value from which perspective? From the perspective of Creator, for whom each unique has inherent value. Or from the perspective of a unique traveler, and what works best for his unique condition?

No need to answer. It's in the question.

[Eugene I]

One more comment. Since I used to be a very devoted Christian, I very well understand the psychological motives of Christian and any other monotheistic faith and I see no problem with that. Many of us souls on our developmental path have a deep longing in our heart to connect to something much bigger than we are, to a highest-level Divinity in whom we can find the truth that we are seeking, our meanings to live and goals to achieve, who we can love and be loved, by whom we will be protected and guided. This is very understandable and it is indeed an efficient developmental spiritual path, and there are indeed such Divinities in the universe and soul communities grouped around them. And as a consequence, such souls tend to believe that the whole universe is structured so that their Divinity of choice the Core and the Creator of the Universe, such view fits very well with their beliefs and spiritual needs, and again, there is nothing wrong with that.

Yet there are other soul personalities that do not have such needs and are more free-spirited and libertarian in their character. They may be still on the path of spiritual development and ascension to higher levels, but they do it in more democratic and decentralized communities where more mature members help and provide council to less mature. Such souls tend not to believe that the whole universe is created and guided by a single universal Divinity. And there is nothing wrong with that too.

In spite of the incompatibility of their worldviews, both paths are possible and both peacefully coexist in the universe, and each soul has a freedom to choose one type of path or the other.

[Lou Gold]

One more comment. Since I used to be a very devoted Christian, I very well understand the psychological motives of Christian and any other monotheistic faith and I see no problem with that. Many of us souls on our developmental path have a deep longing in our heart to connect to something much bigger than we are, to a highest-level Divinity in whom we can find the truth that we are seeking, our meanings to live and goals to achieve, who we can love and be loved, by whom we will be protected and guided. This is very understandable and it is indeed an efficient developmental spiritual path, and there are indeed such Divinities in the universe and soul communities grouped around them. And as a consequence, such souls tend to believe that the whole universe is structured so that their Divinity of choice the Core and the Creator of the Universe, such view fits very well with their beliefs and spiritual needs, and again, there is nothing wrong with that.

Yet there are other soul personalities that do not have such needs and are more free-spirited and libertarian in their character. They may be still on the path of spiritual development and ascension to higher levels, but they do it in more democratic and decentralized communities where more mature members help and provide council to less mature. Such souls tend not to believe that the whole universe is created and guided by a single universal Divinity. And there is nothing wrong with that too.

In spite of the incompatibility of their worldviews, both paths are possible and both peacefully coexist in the universe, and each soul has a freedom to choose one type of path or the other.

Yes! I also suspect that a shift like yours might be made in either direction, from dualism to non-dualism or reverse with good stuff to be learned in each direction. In a less total way, I have made such shifts among several branches of Santo Daime. Different learnings by prioritizing different rooms in the same house.

[SanteriSatama]

Many of us souls on our developmental path have a deep longing in our heart to connect to something much bigger than we are, to a highest-level Divinity in whom we can find the truth that we are seeking, our meanings to live and goals to achieve, who we can love and be loved, by whom we will be protected and guided.

The idea of Highest-level Divinity has analogue in number theory. P-adic numbers are the "other side" of real numbers. As the three dots of a real number continue towards infinitesimal n,nnn..., p-adic numbers start from what associates with Neo-Platonic idea of Infinite One or Spinoza's idea of Absolute: ...nnn,n. All triangles are isosceles in p-adic norm, a sort of birds eye view to idea of polarity.

This has some nice pictures for some intuitive idea:

[Eugene I]

I don't do math anymore, too old for that

[Cleric]

Thanks Eugene,
if we had cleared out the 'individual spaces' earlier we could have spared quite a lot of the self/no-self back and forths

About the rest, well, to be honest, I don't see how the pictures you describe don't demand faith As we spoke, the only certain thing (considering the intellectual state up to the mystical) is the existence of consciousness with its screen (world of perceptions) and the fact that we can think about the perceptions and relate them with ideas. Everything else about the souls journeys free to do whatever they want in yonder state after death is in no way different than the belief in the Christian Heaven. The only difference is that the Buddhist Heaven has no God in the garden.

I agree that the color disc picture can never be complete. This is true of a photograph - we can't show on a flat surface an all around picture of a tree - let alone for the multidimensionality of consciousness. Nevertheless it illustrates something that is very fundamental and verifiable because it's a symbolic representation of a real inner experience. But clearly, unless there's at least some openness that higher forms of consciousness are possible it'll forever remain only an abstraction.

I myself have also passed through a period when I was fascinated by the vista of leaving the Earth and creating freely in Cosmic space. Yet as my inner experiences deepened I just saw this for what it was - simple reluctance to face the facts of reality. As the higher strata of consciousness began to unveil it was becoming clear that our 'individual space' is not the atomic private bubble that I thought it was. And how could I have thought otherwise when we are indoctrinated in this way? A person and his/her soul or brain - inner and private bubble of consciousness. It's simply convenient to imagine the soul as a bubble that goes on its way after death as something complete in itself.

The soul turned out to be something infinitely more complicated - our being turned out to be truly a 'slice' of all levels of consciousness. At the stage of evolution that we're in, these layers are 'out of tune' so to speak and their grand unity is experienced only as a reduced wholeness within the intellect and perceptions. From the viewpoint of higher cognition it simply makes no sense to speak of the soul as some unit that can go in other dimensions.

Our ordinary "I" experience is the wholeness we experience within our thoughts and perceptions. But as said, the whole spectrum-slice is there, even if not yet brought to light. But we still interact with it. How? Through our thinking! This is tremendously important. Although we here speak about Idealism all the time it seems that it's not really taken seriously for what it means.

The levels of our slice are always there but in our ordinary intellectual state we only probe mineral shards from them. Yes, the ideas that we experience are not some private possessions but the actual mineralized structure of Cosmic Consciousness. The thoughts through which we conceptualize these ideas truly are local to the brain but the ideas are the real things themselves. This might sound outrageous but its confirmed in higher consciousness. In the experience of ideas we are really in the Cosmos, only the perceptions of our thoughts (which embody the ideas) give the correct impression that we are thinking in the brain. Higher stages of consciousness could be thought as becoming conscious of the ideal realities we are otherwise probing in our ordinary state. As I've said many times, these realities are not simply more complicated conceptual structures but are something living, mobile metamorphosing and conscious. So when we think about a nation it is really the fact that we are probing something of that level of unity - a real living idea-being - the Folk Spirit of a nation.

One more comment. Since I used to be a very devoted Christian, I very well understand the psychological motives of Christian and any other monotheistic faith and I see no problem with that. Many of us souls on our developmental path has a deep longing in our heart to connect to something much bigger than we are, to a highest-level Divinity in whom we can find our meanings to live and goals to achieve, who we can love and be loved, by whom we will be protected and guided. This is very understandable and it is indeed an efficient developmental spiritual path, and there are indeed such Divinities in the universe and soul communities grouped around them. And as a consequence, such souls tend to believe that the whole universe is structured so that their Divinity of choice the the Core and the Creator of the Universe, such view fits very well with their beliefs and spiritual needs, and again, there is nothing wrong with that.

The above completely misses the point of the diagram I drew. It's not a matter of connecting externally to something bigger but unveiling the structure of our own individual space - our space is the whole Cosmos. And please note that I don't even have to mention anything about God, Christ or whatever. The Core doesn't represent an external divinity but it represents the reason that we experience ourselves to be one being - one individual conscious space, one creative source. If we don't feel this within ourselves the diagram will never be properly understood. I know that this can be objected with: "Yes, but the diagram represents precisely one individual space and its center. It is pure projection to imagine that this center is common. In reality there are infinitely many such diagrams, everyone with its own center, existing in a common Cosmic Awareness but there's no global center." OK. It's a metaphysical position, no doubt about it. But I can ask "Have we ever directly experienced another Core somewhere out there together with its private individual space? Since all we ever now is our individual space and our own Core, can we support that there are many other Cores in any other way except through belief?"

So if we really penetrate into the depth of these color discs we can find real understanding of many things:
* The mystery of the one and the many. No separate bubbles that we wonder how to reintegrate. The center and the periphery. The mystery of the "I" and how it exists in complete harmony with the One Consciousness. Macrocosm and microcosm are united. Solipsism and multiplicity are united.
* Our spectrum slice is dependent on layers of increasing harmony towards the Core. We can never understand personal, family, social, national, planetary, cosmic life without this. We are always within this nested context, yet our individual perspective spans the whole spectrum. It is up to us raise in consciousness and recognize these layers. Only then the One can be free. Otherwise the layers are there as always but we act unconsciously and compulsory under their influence. World peace can never be achieved on the physical plane if we consider souls as free electrons and try to make them all friends. Only when people begin to understand their full spectrum will also understand the differences between nations and how to harmonize them at the proper level, where the disharmony issues in the first place.
* Karma is real. It's the entanglement in the spectrum. The free bubble electron picture requires some spooky additional mechanisms that keep record which soul owes what to whom. From my example form my previous post, our soul/astral 'substance' is not entirely private - it is made of entanglements with other beings, where our slices overlap so to speak. These entanglements are real and are what Karma is.
* Reincarnation is also comprehensible
* Evolution, telos and time are naturally comprehensible. I've given many analogies so far. The closer to the Core, the more time-potential the living idea-beings encompass as whole, as a 'now'. The differentiated idea-potential is experienced in linear-like time integration.
* Different levels of consciousness are clearly understandable. Higher/lower is comprehensible at a glance.
* Morality emerges in completely natural way - it is the result of becoming aware of our spectrum and our collective parts of the slice. It's not externally imposed.
* Deep understanding of our ordinary consciousness. We understand that even in our ordinary state, we probe the whole Cosmos of ideas.
* It does not require some preconceived religious notions. It's the opposite - it helps us understand all religions and their differences.

I can continue with other things but I think I made the point. So even if we take the above in this purely abstract, theoretical way, we can see how many of the riddles of existence are harmoniously resolved. And let's not forget the most important:
* It's verifiable. The path of self-development is disclosed and described in the greatest details. We can understand these things even only with sound and unprejudiced thinking, which alone can convince us that we are working with something serious. But that's not the ultimate goal. It's not a matter of subscribing to a philosophy or a theory that only after death we'll verify. Anyone who wants can tread the path which is also fully comprehensible and logical.

My personal experience, ever since my scientific period, has always been driven with the desire to understand, to make sense. And sure enough, whoever searches finds. So yes, everyone is different. For me it simply doesn't work to stare at the Universe, imagine that it's all one and hope that I'll go have fun in Heaven after death. If someone shows me another path that leads to the depths of our own structure and there we also discover and understand the Cosmos and the riddles of life, I'll give it full consideration. But I can't take seriously something like "Hey, look at all those other paths that lead nowhere. Why be so one-sided to go in just one?" There's nothing democratic in staying in a state of limbo, hoping for the best and inviting everyone else to do the same.

As always, I write all these things with utmost respect and Love for everyone here. If someone just tells "I like to believe in the Christian Heaven, it gives me comfort and I don't want to consider anything else" not a word will be heard from me. But since we hear things about Christian superiority and domination, I just feel obliged to try and say some things. If it's not clear already - I'm in no way defending the church institutions. My only interest is Truth. And I'll simply be a liar if I say that there's no Sun in spiritual space.