Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:30 am
While I can make some sense of the projected personification of beings of some empyrean domain, or oversouls, or daemons, or other such entities, this doesn't really address the tendency, typical of monotheism, toward the projected personification of the fundamental, uncaused, unconditioned, irreducible Consciousness posited as the ontological primitive of idealism, such that it is deemed to be a supreme God and Father intent upon wilfully and premeditatively creating a corporeal realm, and intervening upon it with some teleological course correction. In contrast to such a notion, seemingly regardless of religion, when mystics report on having approached this state of Consciousness I've referred to herein, it is as the awareness of being nothing but undifferentiated Awareness ~God-realization/revelation if you will ~ which can be said to transcend any subject><object dynamic whatsoever, and thus precludes it being personified in any way, never mind assigning a gender to it. So I'm curious as to how such a transcendental 'nondual' state fits into cosmology according to Cleric? Delusion or Realization?
This is what our talk is about. Even though the
thought and feeling of subject><object are transcended this doesn't change the fact that we still experience a specific spiritual vantage point within the Awareness. What Eugene says that
"In the non-dual state there is not only a dissolution of the sense of separate self, but also a dissolution of the sense of any "perspective" whatsoever" should be specified further. If we are speaking of
sense of perspective, I would put that together with the sense of self. But what would it mean that the
perspective itself within Awareness dissolves? One possibility is that everything dissolves into vague uniformity, bordering on unconsciousness. Another possibility is that we experience the truly undifferentiated Awareness but if we are true to the principles of nondualism, this would mean that we should be able to experience simultaneously all possible conscious perspectives. After all, the undifferentiated MAL contains every other perspective within itself, so if you transcend your individual perspective, without mine becoming also part of yours, what's the whole meaning of speaking of nonduality and undifferentiatedness? If other perspectives simply disappear, how do we distinguish this from simply becoming unconscious of everything else but our own perspective? Then we simply confuse our featureless perspective for some fundamental grounds.
And I'm not saying that it is impossible to experience the integration of different perspectives. We can indeed approach this state. But ironically this would only
prove from experience the gnostic perspective as we approach a Cosmic holistic conscious perspective which experiences within itself all possible conscious perspectives as potential. If the mystic experiences this he'll also know from direct experience what the Christ is. Because it is precisely the Christ impulse that opens the way for Macrocosmic integration of consciousness. So the mystic would be a Christian Initiate and we wouldn't be leading this conversation
The fact that the mystic describes the undivided state in the opposite way, as void, Great Mysteriousness, etc., only shows that he's approaching the experience through undifferentiating his own consciousness. It is true that in this process many insight about some of the layers of our psyche can be unveiled but ultimately it all succumbs into Cosmic nebulousness.
From the standpoint of higher cognition this experience is very clearly understood. I've spoken before about this. It is achieved by specific configuration of the head and larynx soul organs. We need to balance the two lotus petals in the head but we must also suppress any spiritual activity that proceeds from the larynx organ. What we thus behold is nothing other than the inner experience of our soul/astral body. It doesn't have sharp boundaries as our physical, so it is perfectly well experienced as boundless sea of undivided and undifferentiated Awareness - this is what it really is, it's no delusion! We are experiencing the reality of the soul world. Delusions only issue when we misinterpret the experience. And this delusion is widespread today in the
belief, that reality exists simply as a dream picture within Awareness. And again - this is what the immediate experience looks like! Even in this very moment, everyone of us, doesn't experience some 'outer world' but the screen of the soul/astral body as it is being modified by the etheric and physical on one side and by our spiritual activity on the other. Things become misleading only when we imagine that this astral screen
is the only thing that exists - a thin, floating dream picture that Awareness
somehow simply conjures up.
Eugene says
"What is left is an infinite space of luminous experiencing/awareness where conscious phenomena appear and disappear with no perspective at all, and with no sense of a perceiver or of a locus point of a perspective." Yes, this is exactly the experience we get when we configure the two soul organs as described and we experience the contents within the astral world. And it is precisely here that the error is made: it is simply assumed that this appearance and disappearance of phenomena is some innate/instinctive ability of the dreaming astral Awareness. We assume that we've reached the grounds of existence where things come in and out of the dream as thin floating pictures. But this is exactly what I mean by perspective. Would it be reasonable to claim that all meditators that experience the undivided whole at the same time, experience the exact same phenomena entering and leaving? This should be the case if we really reach some grounds that
truly represent the MAL state before it is differentiated into different perspectives. But this is not the case (otherwise it would have been already used to convince materialists in telepathy). The phenomena that we experience can be completely different from those of other meditators. The only common things are that we don't have a sense of separateness and we experience a boundless soul world. So even without any sense of self or perspective, we still experience an
individual vantage point within MAL.
Things are already clear enough if we simply think things through to their ultimate conclusions. The mystical state is achieved by emptying consciousness and experiencing the boundless sea. This is common knowledge. But at what point do we experience also our surroundings, plants, animals, other people, the Earth, the whole Cosmos, becoming the contents of our awareness? It's simply not experienced (unless someone confuses his
visions of these things for their actual creation - an this happens!). As said previously, these experiences are either claimed to be unexperiencable because MAL is instinctive in nature or it's expected that they can be experienced but only after death - which is a belief.
Things become radically different when we follow the thread of our spiritual activity. As I've said before, the Buddhist type of meditation is not in vain. It can be used as great platform for entering higher cognition - the discipline and clarity of mind are needed. But we need to bring our focused activity into the picture. Through the process of self development we learn that the phenomena of entering and leaving within awareness are not the ground truth but are only the Imaginative perceptions of the deeds of beings. That's how the illusion of a thin and flat dream picture is ripped to shreds. We understand that behind every movement, every color, there's some kind of spiritual activity, experienced from a unique perspective. We also understand that integration of perspectives is really possible. This is what the consciousness of a higher being as the Christ is - our perspectives are integrated within his. That's how we also discover the plants, animals, planets, the Sun from their spiritual side.
As far as the most ultimate, absolute perspective of all - I don't think we can speak of it in any meaningful way. And most certainly we don't at all come even near to that Absolute within mystical meditation experiencing the astral world, let alone to claim that the astral is the Absolute itself.
Eugene I wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 2:08 am
Yet, having experienced the non-dual state myself, I'm puzzled about why any divine being existing in a non-dual state would want to create a world populated with creatures (humans) genetically designed/programmed to experience the world dualistically? Perhaps the experience of the dualistic state and the sense of separation, even though it is so prone to confusion and suffering, is a necessary developmental gate/stage to get some important insights and facilitate further development of consciousness? This remains an open question to me.
The short answer is that this is an attempt of the Spirit to experience the condition which we call
freedom. It's the possibility to learn from experience. We really begin to appreciate this experiment of freedom once the 'vertical' integration of consciousness begins. As long as we view the Earth only as a sandbox for suffering - I agree, it's strange and illogical. But when we begin to comprehend the actual path of evolution we begin to see things differently. When we look at the starry sky we tremble in awe and wonder - we understand that it's not just a floating dream picture but everything that is now external will gradually, bit by bit become internal. Then we understand this is what we have wanted. The deeper we dive into the fragments the more fantastic and interesting our way up is. Everything that is shattered around us, matter, life, humans - everything stands as a riddle that we'll have to solve and integrate piece by piece. This will one day be appreciated as the most scientifically satisfying and artistically fulfilling endeavor imaginable. It can be said that only now we're beginning to glimpse what real life is about. The pain and suffering are only temporary and will remain only as a tiny scar, a memory, just as the pain of a cut to our finger we had years ago is only a memory and a painless mark.