ScottRoberts wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 11:34 pm
Federica wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 2:27 pm
Oh, thanks for counting me on the side of those who delve into actual spiritual science! The reality is, though, that I also don't have a great focus with exercises. But I know I can improve, and you probably mean something similar, and future-oriented, when you say " I seem unable".
Interesting. My initial response was to say that, while I know it is possible to improve, I had doubts that I will. But thinking about it, I realized that I will not "give up". Many a time I have thought about doing that, and hope for a stronger will in my next life, but that thought passes quickly.
May I ask (if you feel like sharing a few thoughts, and if not, sorry for the inappropriateness): from the standpoint of your accomplished and refined philosophical understanding, how do you see your philosophical-spiritual way forward?
I suspect my philosophical understanding might have reached its end, barring some new "Aha!" moment. Which is how it started, with the realization that no strictly spatio-temporal entity, like a computer, could have a perception of something extended in space and/or time, since every micro-event in a computer is separated by space and/or time from all others. But we can have such perceptions, so we are not strictly spatio-temporal. To be sure, it took about 30 years, and lots of help from Coleridge (via Barfield's
What Coleridge Thought) and others before I got it packaged into shape to use it effetively in forum debates, mostly with mystical reductionists. But now that it is packaged, I don't really know if there is a further direction to take. In a way, what it shows is a limit to intellect, since tetralemmic polarity is not understandable in the way normal intellect understands concepts. And since it is an intellectual product, who knows what higher cognition would make of it, if anything.
As for spiritual way forward, I think it is just keeping working on gaining more control over my thinking. When reading forum posts I am constantly distracted. Because of that, it takes me a long time and uses up lots of mental energy. One might say that this from Steiner has been inspirational (from
Occult Science):
All civilized life and all spiritual effort really consists in the one work, which has for its object to make the ego the master. Everyone now living is engaged in this work whether he wishes it or not, and whether or not he is conscious of the fact.
So I would say that my current work is trying to do this work more consciously.
What keeps you interested in following SS discussions, is it a kind of preparation, an inexplicable appeal, something else?
I guess I find them inspirational, and that if I had more mental energy I would be able to get a lot more out of them.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts!
Yes, to me "I seem unable" means there's an appearance, and there's an underlying reality. And the reason for highlighting the appearance, must be that it's not fully coincident with its reality.
What higher cognition would make of the "packaged" philosophical understanding... there is only one way to tell
What this accomplished philosophical product can deliver (delivers) right now, I would guess, is a comfortable pedestal to approach SS with a rare level of trust, confidence, and ability to attune oneself to the course change SS facilitates, benefitting from the sound reasoning and the grounded common sense Steiner often speaks of.
Regarding the struggles with mental energy and distractions, and the reason for not "giving up" - I have just read what Ashvin has quoted from Cleric, about
the spaceless nested quality of reality and our being nested within higher intelligences through the activity of our higher selves. The reading made me think, in connection with this exchange, that, when we see ourselves in dynamic terms, not as bodies accessorized with a mind, but as trajectories of becoming who continuously operate a willed narrowing down of a certain potential becoming that's structured and shaped from above - and who get the result of this navigation through the sea of becoming in form of continuous print-out on the screen of perception - what we do with our mental energy - i.e. how we stir our becoming along the shape of the constraints - is just as important as what we don't do with it. Not doing, or resisting, certain actions, is just as important as doing. Both equally exist before us as undifferentiated potential, until we decide to extend our grasp to encompass and realize a certain step and leave behind other ones. And so an alternative (and possibly more accessible?) way to willfully determine our becoming is to resist certain actions, or distractions.
A simple method (nothing to do with Steiner, I just find it helpful) to train our mental energy in this direction, and gain control over distractions is the five minute rule. When a distraction impels us to consider it, we can tell ourselves that we will give in, but not now, only in five minutes. I think that even one minute postponement is useful!