Philosophical Speculations

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:48 pm Let's be clear - what is being called 'high priests' in this context, is disciplined spiritual training for clairvoyance. It is the freely undertaken honing of logical thinking faculties and willpower purified of personalized interests, i.e. gradual perfecting of ego-consciousness, for those who desire to cross the threshold into higher worlds. This is not necessary for having very real, very intimate, very powerful spiritual experiences. A person who wants to experience soaring in the atmosphere is free to go skydiving and will no doubt have a powerful experience when jumping from the plane without a pack. The well-prepared pack is necessary for discerning what those experiences mean for our daily lives here on Earth and what forces we are coming into contact with, which is something you also frequently warn about. Our contact with these forces can influence not only our lives here on Earth, but our journey across the threshold as well and therefore subsequent incarnations. So, in that sense, seeking the higher worlds unprepared, without maintain a solid connection to our ego-conscious activity at all times, is even more reckless than skydiving without a pack. The spiritual training is exactly the way to maintain the connection. This will require a certain sacrifice of immediate feelings of Oneness, yet in return there is even more powerful experience of participating in building the gradient between the Cosmic realms and the humble intellect, through which Cosmic intuitions can be crystallized for the sharing of knowledge and holistic human and Earthly evolution can progressively manifest the Divine through its rhythmic incarnations. If we only seek the higher worlds for our own benefit and 'liberation', then we will come into contact with exactly those forces that feed on our passions and egoism and reinforce them even more strongly.

Sure, in the nondual traditions the help from the masters is also involved for exactly the reasons you explained. Their role is of a consultant and training coach rather than a spiritual authority that must be obeyed and cannot be questioned.

Ashvin and Eugene, it looks like you would like someone to throw at you a discussion topic?
(I will probably regret it)

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:55 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:48 pm Let's be clear - what is being called 'high priests' in this context, is disciplined spiritual training for clairvoyance. It is the freely undertaken honing of logical thinking faculties and willpower purified of personalized interests, i.e. gradual perfecting of ego-consciousness, for those who desire to cross the threshold into higher worlds. This is not necessary for having very real, very intimate, very powerful spiritual experiences. A person who wants to experience soaring in the atmosphere is free to go skydiving and will no doubt have a powerful experience when jumping from the plane without a pack. The well-prepared pack is necessary for discerning what those experiences mean for our daily lives here on Earth and what forces we are coming into contact with, which is something you also frequently warn about. Our contact with these forces can influence not only our lives here on Earth, but our journey across the threshold as well and therefore subsequent incarnations. So, in that sense, seeking the higher worlds unprepared, without maintain a solid connection to our ego-conscious activity at all times, is even more reckless than skydiving without a pack. The spiritual training is exactly the way to maintain the connection. This will require a certain sacrifice of immediate feelings of Oneness, yet in return there is even more powerful experience of participating in building the gradient between the Cosmic realms and the humble intellect, through which Cosmic intuitions can be crystallized for the sharing of knowledge and holistic human and Earthly evolution can progressively manifest the Divine through its rhythmic incarnations. If we only seek the higher worlds for our own benefit and 'liberation', then we will come into contact with exactly those forces that feed on our passions and egoism and reinforce them even more strongly.

Sure, in the nondual traditions the help from the masters is also involved for exactly the reasons you explained. Their role is of a consultant and training coach rather than a spiritual authority that must be obeyed and cannot be questioned.

Right, and I have no idea why anything written here is considered to 'cross the line' from consulting and training coach (and it doesn't even get that far) to 'spiritual authority'. In fact, nothing written here even comes close to occult advice provided by Masters. Phenomenology of cognition is not occult advice. General posts about examining one's soul-life and tendencies is not occult advice. It is all pre, pre stages of preparation for any sort of spiritual scientific path a person may want to pursue. All of these posts presume the readers are actually interested in entering their inner life responsibly, with adequate preparation.

Once a person expresses interest that they would like to travel from the US to Switzerland, then it's reasonable for another who has made that trip to start speaking of airlines, routes, travel times, traveling restrictions, etc. Most airlines won't allow more than one personal luggage on the plane and it must be under a certain weight - everything else needs to be checked at the gate. These are objective facts and structures, which no doubt curtail our personal freedom to some extent, which make possible the successful journey to the desired destination. It's the same principle here. However this spiritual destination is itself the source of our gradual freedom - it is the realm of potential which structures the riverbed through which our spiritual activity flows. With enough trips, rhythmic ascents and descents along the gradient, we begin to discover the forces within us which can freely shape the constraints of the riverbed and thereby open the greater leeway through which our activity can flow.

Steiner wrote:At the very beginning of his course, the student is directed to the path of veneration and the development of the inner life. Spiritual science now also gives him practical rules by observing which he may tread that path and develop that inner life. These practical rules have no arbitrary origin. They rest upon ancient experience and ancient wisdom, and are given out in the same manner, wheresoever the ways to higher knowledge are indicated. All true teachers of the spiritual life are in agreement as to the substance of these rules, even though they do not always clothe them in the same words. This difference, which is of a minor character and is more apparent than real, is due to circumstances which need not be dwelt upon here.

No teacher of the spiritual life wishes to establish a mastery over other persons by means of such rules. He would not tamper with anyone's independence. Indeed, none respect and cherish human independence more than the spiritually experienced. It was stated in the preceding pages that the bond of union embracing all initiates is spiritual, and that two laws form, as it were, clasps by which the component parts of this bond are held together. Whenever the initiate leaves his enclosed spiritual sphere and steps forth before the world, he must immediately take a third law into account. It is this: Adapt each one of your actions, and frame each one of your words in such a way that you infringe upon no one's free-will.

The recognition that all true teachers of the spiritual life are permeated through and through with this principle will convince all who follow the practical rules proffered to them that they need sacrifice none of their independence.

Federica wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:28 pm Ashvin and Eugene, it looks like you would like someone to throw at you a discussion topic?
(I will probably regret it)

Yes, can you please take my role of being Ashvin's partner in this dialogue?

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:55 pm Right, and I have no idea why anything written here is considered to 'cross the line' from consulting and training coach (and it doesn't even get that far) to 'spiritual authority'. In fact, nothing written here even comes close to occult advice provided by Masters. Phenomenology of cognition is not occult advice. General posts about examining one's soul-life and tendencies is not occult advice. It is all pre, pre stages of preparation for any sort of spiritual scientific path a person may want to pursue. All of these posts presume the readers are actually interested in entering their inner life responsibly, with adequate preparation.

I don't think you get it, Ashvin. It is not about what you do, it is about how you do it. And for starters, before giving spiritual advices (including examining one's soul-life and tendencies), ask people first if they want your spiritual advices. Discussing someone else's soul-life and tendencies is just not your business unless people specifically ask you to do that. But in sects that's the way it works: the leader assumes to have right to give spiritual instructions to everyone assuming that the members already gave their consent by the fact of becoming a member. But the way you do it with giving advices to anyone just visiting forum without their consent is nonsensical and drive people away from the forum immediately.

NDE experience with info on incarnating in other planets and races

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:16 pm

Federica wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:28 pm Ashvin and Eugene, it looks like you would like someone to throw at you a discussion topic?
(I will probably regret it)

Yes, can you please take my role of being Ashvin's partner in this dialogue?

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:55 pm Right, and I have no idea why anything written here is considered to 'cross the line' from consulting and training coach (and it doesn't even get that far) to 'spiritual authority'. In fact, nothing written here even comes close to occult advice provided by Masters. Phenomenology of cognition is not occult advice. General posts about examining one's soul-life and tendencies is not occult advice. It is all pre, pre stages of preparation for any sort of spiritual scientific path a person may want to pursue. All of these posts presume the readers are actually interested in entering their inner life responsibly, with adequate preparation.

I don't think you get it, Ashvin. It is not about what you do, it is about how you do it. And for starters, before giving spiritual advices (including examining one's soul-life and tendencies), ask people first if they want your spiritual advices. Discussing someone else's soul-life and tendencies is just not your business unless people specifically ask you to do that. But in sects that's the way it works: the leader assumes to have right to give spiritual instructions to everyone assuming that the members already gave their consent by the fact of becoming a member. But the way you do it with giving advices to anyone just visiting forum without their consent is nonsensical and drive people away from the forum immediately.

You still don't get that any genuine spiritual path to the higher worlds, which is the only thing we have been discussing since your return, goes through the soul life. Not some abstract hypothetical soul life we can examine in abstractions from a safe distance, but our own living and breathing soul lives as they express themselves in desires for nondual, no separate me realizations.

But at this point, trying to elucidate the content of what is being written simply doesn't work. I only want to hear answers to 2 questions, and if you decline to answer and decide to divert to sectarianism again, have at it, I won't respond.

(A) Do you understand we are not misunderstanding your approach after threads and threads of you elaborating that approach?

(B) Do you understand that Cleric, Federica, and myself all disagree with that approach and have been trying to convey that disagreement to you in many, many different ways. We all think the separate me exercise of your OP is working in the opposite direction of strengthening the will and ego-consciousness needed to steer our intuitive 'me' perspective through to greater degrees of freedom and manifest the Divine potential from within the intellect. This isn't thinking deluded into conceiving itself separate from the Divine Unity, but thinking becoming self-conscious of its non-separateness in ever greater stages, continuing to develop from within its current localized aperture and expand that aperture.

This is what you don't like - our disagreement and critiques - not our 'sectarianism' or whatever.

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:16 pm

Federica wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:28 pm Ashvin and Eugene, it looks like you would like someone to throw at you a discussion topic?
(I will probably regret it)

Yes, can you please take my role of being Ashvin's partner in this dialogue?

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:55 pm Right, and I have no idea why anything written here is considered to 'cross the line' from consulting and training coach (and it doesn't even get that far) to 'spiritual authority'. In fact, nothing written here even comes close to occult advice provided by Masters. Phenomenology of cognition is not occult advice. General posts about examining one's soul-life and tendencies is not occult advice. It is all pre, pre stages of preparation for any sort of spiritual scientific path a person may want to pursue. All of these posts presume the readers are actually interested in entering their inner life responsibly, with adequate preparation.

I don't think you get it, Ashvin. It is not about what you do, it is about how you do it. And for starters, before giving spiritual advices (including examining one's soul-life and tendencies), ask people first if they want your spiritual advices. Discussing someone else's soul-life and tendencies is just not your business unless people specifically ask you to do that. But in sects that's the way it works: the leader assumes to have right to give spiritual instructions to everyone assuming that the members already gave their consent by the fact of becoming a member. But the way you do it with giving advices to anyone just visiting forum without their consent is nonsensical and drive people away from the forum immediately.

Eugene, I find your accusations unfair. Ashvin doesn’t write “sectarian” arguments, and I wonder where those “discussions on someone else’s life” can be found. Sectarian means manipulative, or grossly partisan. There’s nothing of that kind in Ashvin's posts. Not even if someone believed that Steiner founded a political party or a cult. And when soul life is mentioned, it is certainly not in a strange or curious way, as your expression seems to suggest.

Now, we are clearly having unusual conversations on this forum, compared to the standard flow of talk of an average day, in the average life of an average person. And yes, Ashvin addresses any topics in a straightforward way that is not at all habitual, especially when applied to sensitive questions like the ones we explore here. Surely his tone is sometimes not the easiest to receive, and I am no exception, I have occasionally disagreed about it. But how is this important?
This is not a customer service desk, it’s a place where we have the chance to discuss crucial things that should be very close to our hearts, with the helpful participation of some, like Ashvin, who never tire of sharing their insights and responding to everyone’s thoughts and questions. Sure, tackling these topics is not everyone’s goal, but if we are here and part of the discussion, we'd better put aside our moods, and face the possibility of realizing something uncomfortable or unexpected. We all have our styles and our tones (and you have yours too, Eugene) and we all have preferences, but what's the purpose of obsessing on that, when honesty and goodwill are evident? Let's keep our energy for the things that require our efforts. For my part, I am thankful that Ashvin is doing what he's doing, even with the sometimes blunt tone, and I suspect that if he suddenly disappeard everyone would miss him, including you.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:41 am You still don't get that any genuine spiritual path to the higher worlds, which is the only thing we have been discussing since your return, goes through the soul life. Not some abstract hypothetical soul life we can examine in abstractions from a safe distance, but our own living and breathing soul lives as they express themselves in desires for nondual, no separate me realizations.

You still don't get that any genuine spiritual path to the nondual higher worlds, which is the only thing I have been discussing since my return, goes through our own living and breathing first-person-experienced full soul life in the state of nondual realization with no sense of separate me. Yes, the individual full soul live is possible without the sense of separate self, exactly like St. Paul said "I live; yet not I anymore, but Christ lives in me".
It is life in a full sense and continuation of the soul evolution with integration with higher-order beings and their realms and meanings simultaneously with accomplishing the nondual realization, and that is exactly what Christ was teaching.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10
"I and the Father are one" (John 10:30)
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity (John 17)
"I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us." John 17:21
"Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." The Gospel of Thomas

(A) Do you understand we are not misunderstanding your approach after threads and threads of you elaborating that approach?

Based on the above, apparently you still don't

(B) Do you understand that Cleric, Federica, and myself all disagree with that approach and have been trying to convey that disagreement to you in many, many different ways. We all think the separate me exercise of your OP is working in the opposite direction of strengthening the will and ego-consciousness needed to steer our intuitive 'me' perspective through to greater degrees of freedom and manifest the Divine potential from within the intellect. This isn't thinking deluded into conceiving itself separate from the Divine Unity, but thinking becoming self-conscious of its non-separateness in ever greater stages, continuing to develop from within its current localized aperture and expand that aperture.

Sure, you are basically saying: oh no, no oneness with the Father yet, that's a shortcut, not allowed, you have to go through all those little stages while remaining in the dualistic state and carrying along your sense of "me", go deep into study of all lawful structures of the elementals and simple life forms and planets, until sometime in a very long future and after many lifetimes, after climbing up the long ladder of the higher-being hierarchy, you may finally reach the Oneness. That's not what Christ taught, he taught to do it in your current life, starting right now.

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23)
From that time began Jesus to preach, and to say, Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17)

And how do we do that? "Deny themselves", which means: "deny their selves" while continuing living fully so that "they may have life and have it abundantly".

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)
“I am crucified with Christ, but I live; yet not I anymore, but Christ lives in me" Galatians 2:20

Note that Christ taught this not to advanced intellectual spiritual scientists, but the fishermen, prostitutes and the criminal on the cross beside him. He did not tell them to study lawful structures to reach to the Kingdom of God. Still, there is nothing wrong with doing SS and studying these lawful structures, and there is no reason not to do it, of course we can and should do it by all means. But this is not the path to the Father that Christ taught us.

Stranger wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:37 am Sure, you are basically saying: oh no, no oneness with the Father yet, that's a shortcut, not allowed, you have to go through all those little stages while remaining in the dualistic state and carrying along your sense of "me" until sometime in a very long future and after many lifetimes, after climbing up the long ladder of the higher-being hierarchy, you may finally reach the Oneness. That's not what Christ taught, he taught to do it in your current life, starting right now.

Thank you. That is a less than stellar phrasing of what higher cognition actually entails, but at least we're clear there is a fundamental disagreement in the approaches, and that is what you find distasteful. Now we should make this a post it note on the forum so it isn't forgotten

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:08 am Thank you. That is a less than stellar phrasing of what higher cognition actually entails, but at least we're clear there is a fundamental disagreement in the approaches. Now we should make this a post it note on the forum so it isn't forgotten

That's fine, but note that this is not what Christ taught, and so I would suggest that you do not refer to Christ and his mission in your teachings because that is a gross misrepresentation of the genuine Christ teachings. And therefore, I don't have anything to do with that and there is no point for me to remain on the forum.

But for me (and hopefully for some other guests of the forum) this discussion was very useful. Because you don't even want to consider the Eastern nondual spiritual traditions but still claim that you adhere to the mission of Christ, I had to refer to the Gospels to support my view and it helped me to realize how profound was the Christ's mission and his teaching in a sense of the nondual path to realizing the Oneness with the Father. I finally fully connected the dots between my years of practicing Christianity and years of Eastern nondual practices and realized that both are teaching the same path and pointing to the same nondual Reality.