Philosophical Speculations

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 7:31 pm**

Cleric K wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:20 pm Things are different with Eugene since his scientific scrutiny doesn’t allow him to simply say “I don’t care about this”. He wants to feel justified in his position and thus has to point out how the path of Initiation is delusionary because in his view it is impossible to cross the threshold while still on Earth and be able to communicate something coherent from beyond. Not because of personal deficiencies but simply because the cognitive plane of Earthly man is completely orthogonal to that of nondual cognition beyond death. Then all attacks take the form of pointing out that whatever is said about, for example, our existence between death and new birth, can be nothing more than arbitrary metaphysical speculation.

Well, Cleric, you said that my position is clear to you, but now you show again that you misunderstand it. It is hard to believe that a person as smart as you can still have such basic misconceptions. Are you doing it just to keep me involved in the discussion?

He wants to feel justified in his position and thus has to point out how the path of Initiation is delusionary

Just like secular science is neutral and it all depends on how we use it and how we spiritually or philosophically interpret it, likewise the SS is neutral, it can be understood and approached dualistically, or it can be integrated with the realization of oneness. So, taken as a science, Initiatory path is not delusionary, but it only becomes delusionary if approached from within duality and interpreted dualistically.

Not because of personal deficiencies but simply because the cognitive plane of Earthly man is completely orthogonal to that of nondual cognition beyond death.

I said many times that the cognitive plane of Earthly man is orthogonal to nondual recognition only if a man is in dualistic state, and becomes coherent with it if a man transcends to the nondual state. I also said many times that nondual cognition can be acquired during the human life, and that is exactly what the authentic spiritual traditions were pointing to.

Everything communicated from higher states of consciousness can only be understood if we align our first-person perspective with it. In many cases it's not even the specific communicated facts that are most important but our attempt to discover from what state of existence could such facts be known. In other words, to understand anything about the period between death and rebirth it’s useless to imagine things from the side but instead we have to imagine that we are dead and in all earnestness try to gradually develop our intuition about the state we exist in.

We also point to the first-person experience when we speak about Oneness. However, the nondual experience of Oneness is not easily attainable neither in human form, nor would it be automatically achieved in the period between death and rebirth. It requires a "quantum" leap in cognition, and that leap can happen both in human life and in discarnate form, or it may not happen in both forms. The issue with SS is that SS, as formulated by Steiner and you, appears to be ignorant about Oneness. It claims that it knows a lot about Manyness, the world of forms and ideas, both within the Earth domain and beyond the threshold, but such knowledge cannot be complete if Oneness is ignored and remains unknown. The oneness that Steiner or you speak is not at all what Christ and Buddha and all nondual traditions point to. For Steiner, oneness is "the thoughts of all the hierarchies merging into one another", and for you, instead of or in addition to, it is "a spiritual soup of existence without boundaries", but those kinds of "oneness" only have to do with the world of Manynes, with the "immanent", while we are speaking about the "transcendental" aspect of reality.

There is nothing in SS that prevents it from embracing Oneness, in which case it would make such all-encompassing approach more complete and wholistic. However, apparently there is no interest in doing that among the practitioners of SS on this forum, neither Steiner himself showed any interest in that.

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:02 pm**

Stranger wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 7:31 pm There is nothing in SS that prevents it from embracing Oneness, in which case it would make such all-encompassing approach more complete and wholistic. However, apparently there is no interest in doing that among the practitioners of SS on this forum, neither Steiner himself showed any interest in that.

What prevents it from embracing your current conception of 'Oneness' is described in the following excerpt. It recognizes that the judgments we can form in our current state from outer perceptions, outer traditions and scriptures, and from mystical experiences, cannot possibly do justice to the Wise guidance of higher-order intents which we were conscious of and participated in developing through our pre-Earthly existence and which we most perfectly embodied in the first 3 years of our life. As Cleric just explained, this higher-order existence is not a moment in time which preceded our current existence, but is superimposed on our current existence and only veiled by the judgmental intellect bound to physical senses. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."

Without higher cognitive development, there is simply no other option but to rely on our foolish judgments of the higher-order intents and call everything which doesn't align with those judgments speculation, fantasy, or delusion. The only responsible path out of this conundrum for modern man is a continuous journey of Self-knowledge which never rests satisfied with some static understanding of reality, God, Oneness, or anything similar. It should not even rest satisfied with its current understanding of a single stone or plant. When we say things like, "The oneness that Steiner or you speak is not at all what Christ and Buddha and all nondual traditions point to", it becomes obvious that we have stagnated at a static conception and have equated that conception with the loftiest mysteries of the Cosmos. That is why we need to remain open-minded with reverence and wonder like a child, so we pay attention long enough to the World Process and Content outside-within us that it can reveal its otherwise secret intentions.

Steiner, The Spiritual Guidance of Mankind wrote:A man reflecting on his own nature soon becomes conscious that there is within him a second and more powerful self than the one bounded by his thoughts, his feelings, and the fully-conscious impulses of his will. He becomes aware that he is subject to that second self, as to a higher power. It is true that at first he will feel it to be a lower entity as compared with the one limited by his intelligent and fully-conscious soul, with its inclinations towards the Good and True. And at first he will strive to overcome that lower entity.

But closer self-examination may reveal something else about this second self. If we often, in the course of our lives, make a kind of survey of our acts and experiences, we make a singular discovery about ourselves. And the older we are, the more significant do we think that discovery. If we ask ourselves what we did or said at a particular period of our lives, it turns out that we have done very many things which are only really understood in later years. Seven or eight, or perhaps twenty years ago, we did certain things, and we know quite well that only now, long afterwards, is our intellect ripe enough to understand what we did or said at that earlier period.

Many people do not make such discoveries about themselves, because they do not look for them. But it is extremely profitable frequently to hold such communion with one's own soul. For directly a man becomes aware that he has done things in former years which he is only now beginning to understand, that formerly his intellect was not ripe enough to understand them, — at that moment, something like the following feeling arises in the soul: The man feels himself protected by a good power, which rules in the depths of his own being; he begins to have more and more confidence in the fact that really, in the highest sense of the word, he is not alone in the world, and that everything which he understands, and is consciously able to do, is after all but a small part of what he has really accomplished in the world.

If this observation is often made, it is possible to carry out in practical life something which is very easy to see theoretically. It is easy to see that we should not make much progress in life if we had to accomplish everything we have to do, in full consciousness, with our intelligence taking note of every circumstance affecting us. In order to see this theoretically, we have only to reflect as follows: In what period of his life does a human being perform those acts which are really most important as regards his own existence? When does he act most wisely for himself? He does this from about the time of his birth up to that period to which his memory goes back when in later life he survey his earthly existence. If he recalls what he did three, four or five years ago, and then goes farther and farther back, he comes at last to a certain point in childhood, beyond which memory cannot go. What lies beyond it may be told by parents or others, but a man's own recollection only extends to a certain point in the past. That point is the moment at which the individual felt himself to be an ego. In the lives of people whose memory is limited to the normal, there must always be such a point. But previous to it, the human soul has worked in the wisest possible manner on the individual, and never afterwards, when the human being has gained consciousness, can he accomplish such vast and magnificent work on himself as he does when impelled by subconscious motives during the first years of childhood.

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:12 pm**

Steiner, The Spiritual Guidance of Mankind wrote:A man reflecting on his own nature soon becomes conscious that there is within him a second and more powerful self than the one bounded by his thoughts, his feelings, and the fully-conscious impulses of his will. He becomes aware that he is subject to that second self, as to a higher power. It is true that at first he will feel it to be a lower entity as compared with the one limited by his intelligent and fully-conscious soul, with its inclinations towards the Good and True. And at first he will strive to overcome that lower entity.

The "second self" that Steiner talks about here, or what is known as "higher-Self" or "oversoul". Again, knowing the second self is not the same as the gnosis of Oneness, even though it is much closer to realization of it than our mundane human self. It actually only the second self that can realize Oneness and then pass some mental reflection of this gnosis to the human mind.

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:30 pm**

Stranger wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:12 pm
The "second self" that Steiner talks about here, or what is known as "higher-Self" or "oversoul", again has nothing to do with Oneness, even though it is much closer to realization of it than our mundane human self. It actually only the second self that can realize Oneness and then pass this gnosis to the human mind.

How convenient!
Right, since you are making yourself the divine, top container of reality, why not choose the premium version

Cleric K wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:55 pm Our conscience is nothing else but the dim intuition of our higher being that approaches us from the periphery and continually incarnates. As said many times before, without this conscience, we're like a person who walks backwards and imagines that whatever enters their field of consciousness is their brand new free and original creation. This is precisely what we achieve when we absolutize our Oneness with the Divine and imagine that everything we think, feel and act is our immediate Divine creation with no preparation in our Divine subconsciousness. In other words, we feel ourselves to be the top container of reality.

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:38 pm**

Federica wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:30 pm How convenient!
Right, since you are making yourself the divine, top container of reality, why not choosing the premium version
Cleric K wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:55 pm Our conscience is nothing else but the dim intuition of our higher being that approaches us from the periphery and continually incarnates. As said many times before, without this conscience, we're like a person who walks backwards and imagines that whatever enters their field of consciousness is their brand new free and original creation. This is precisely what we achieve when we absolutize our Oneness with the Divine and imagine that everything we think, feel and act is our immediate Divine creation with no preparation in our Divine subconsciousness. In other words, we feel ourselves to be the top container of reality.

Cleric got it backwards, misunderstanding as usual.
The thing is, there is no way a human mind in dualistic state can comprehend Oneness, and this is where all these misunderstandings come from. This is why in the Zen tradition it is said that you have to approach Oneness with "no mind", which does not mean that all thinking must be suspended, but it only means that the dualistic human mode of thinking needs to be suspended. And for AI the gnosis of Oneness it is not even available, but the good news is that if you are not AI then you can also do it, but only if you want to.

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:59 pm**

Stranger wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 7:31 pm
Everything communicated from higher states of consciousness can only be understood if we align our first-person perspective with it. In many cases it's not even the specific communicated facts that are most important but our attempt to discover from what state of existence could such facts be known. In other words, to understand anything about the period between death and rebirth it’s useless to imagine things from the side but instead we have to imagine that we are dead and in all earnestness try to gradually develop our intuition about the state we exist in.
We also point to the first-person experience when we speak about Oneness. However, the nondual experience of Oneness is not easily attainable neither in human form, nor would it be automatically achieved in the period between death and rebirth. It requires a "quantum" leap in cognition, and that leap can happen both in human life and in discarnate form, or it may not happen in both forms. The issue with SS is that SS, as formulated by Steiner and you, appears to be ignorant about Oneness. It claims that it knows a lot about Manyness, the world of forms and ideas, both within the Earth domain and beyond the threshold, but such knowledge cannot be complete if Oneness is ignored and remains unknown. The oneness that Steiner or you speak is not at all what Christ and Buddha and all nondual traditions point to. For Steiner, oneness is "the thoughts of all the hierarchies merging into one another", and for you, instead of or in addition to, it is "a spiritual soup of existence without boundaries", but those kinds of "oneness" only have to do with the world of Manynes, with the "immanent", while we are speaking about the "transcendental" aspect of reality.

There is nothing in SS that prevents it from embracing Oneness, in which case it would make such all-encompassing approach more complete and wholistic. However, apparently there is no interest in doing that among the practitioners of SS on this forum, neither Steiner himself showed any interest in that.

We have spoken many times about these things. Last time I even used this picture:

The point was to show that your Oneness puts the greatest weight on the identity of the monads with the One Monad but other than that the small monads are fully independent and self-sufficient soul atoms.

You speak about the oneness which is "the thoughts of all the hierarchies merging into one another" as something lowly, as some external interference of the red arrows impressed into the fully private inner screen of the monads. What I have tried to explain before is that this thin green line, this instantaneous split from the Divine Monad into the many monads, contains the whole spiritual depth of the Cosmos.

If you try to conceive what the conscious experience along the gradient of the green line is (if not flattened like this), maybe you'll see the oneness that Steiner describes in a different light. But I guess you won't do that because the previous time we spoke about the green line you said that there's no need to bother with it because any eventual merging of monads is probably very very far into the future.

So this is really the difference:
1/ You take that the monads have been formed through an instantaneous spit of the Divine Monad or maybe through gradual but in the primordial past. From that point onwards your soul atom has existed at its level of granularity and will continue to exist for untold number of eons, until you decide to merge back in the Divine Monad. In the meantime the atom is free do descend deeper into the arrows where it may even forget its identity with the One Divine Monad but can also live in the more harmonious strata of the arrows where it is always aware of this identity.
2/ Even the earliest experiences beyond the threshold of death, as it is available for practically any human being of our age willing to walk the path of spiritual development, reveal that the monads below the line have the granularity they do only in the course of Earthly evolution. As soon as we cross the threshold it is like the green line turns out to be a spiritual depth gradient. Then "the thoughts of all the hierarchies merging into one another" is not simply that we perceive within our atomic monad some interference of other beings but the boundaries of our very monad become blurry - that's why we experience the merging of thoughts. As Asvhin noted, this gradient is not an event in time. It is present at all times.

I'm not writing this to convince you in anything. Let's just accept that we hold different positions. You say that 2/ is lost somewhere down in the arrows, while the experience of Initiation reveals the depth of the gradient of the green line within which we exist between death and rebirth. I hope you can just say that you believe 2/ is totally wrong and we won't have to deal with the green line in any conceivable future, nor that the way this bifurcation happens has any significance for our existence, rather than saying that "yes, SS really explores the green gradient but misses Oneness"

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:03 pm**

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 7:12 pm Cleric,

Having not read Steiner or done any of his suggested practices, I offer no pro-or-con about SS. I do not practice Initiative Science. I have practiced Initiations in the form of environmental direct action, of Lakota SunDance, then in a combination of 25 years with Santo Daime ceremonies and nowadays living my medically imminent dying with as much active awareness as I can muster. I am here as a storyteller to testify that loving acceptance is a true liberator and that I and many others do not fit your straw-manned LSD analogy offered in the lead section of the above post. The asserted likeness does not fit me or many ranging in diversity across high-performing professionals and quite ordinary folks, some of whom are religious or not, some who drink an entheogen and some who do not. I do not seek to resolve the Great Mysteriousness; I seek to not get in the way of It changing me in ways I can but barely imagine. I do not proselytize for my path; I respect the diversity of people, ways and means. May all beings be well.

Lou, don't be offended. What I wrote was not in the least addressed to you. I only used it as an example (because there are such cases) that if we simply judge things by the amount of seismic activity they produce, we would have to conclude that those who go insane must have reached the highest realization of all.

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:10 pm**

Cleric K wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:59 pm So this is really the difference:
1/ You take that the monads have been formed through an instantaneous spit of the Divine Monad or maybe through gradual but in the primordial past. From that point onwards your soul atom has existed at its level of granularity and will continue to exist for untold number of eons, until you decide to merge back in the Divine Monad. In the meantime the atom is free do descend deeper into the arrows where it may even forget its identity with the One Divine Monad but can also live in the more harmonious strata of the arrows where it is always aware of this identity.
2/ Even the earliest experiences beyond the threshold of death, as it is available for practically any human being of our age willing to walk the path of spiritual development, reveal that the monads below the line have the granularity they do only in the course of Earthly evolution. As soon as we cross the threshold it is like the green line turns out to be a spiritual depth gradient. Then "the thoughts of all the hierarchies merging into one another" is not simply that we perceive within our atomic monad some interference of other beings but the boundaries of our very monad become blurry - that's why we experience the merging of thoughts. As Asvhin noted, this gradient is not an event in time. It is present at all times.

I'm not writing this to convince you in anything. Let's just accept that we hold different positions. You say that 2/ is lost somewhere down in the arrows, while the experience of Initiation reveals the depth of the gradient of the green line within which we exist between death and rebirth. I hope you can just say that you believe 2/ is totally wrong and we won't have to deal with the green line in any conceivable future, nor that the way this bifurcation happens has any significance for our existence, rather than saying that "yes, SS really explores the green gradient but misses Oneness"

Neither of /1 or 2/ has anything to do with the transcendental Oneness. It is not splitting from the Monad or merging into the Monad, neither it is merging the thoughts of the beings when their boundaries become blurry. Technically they do become one in a sense of dissolving boundaries, but that's not the Oneness we are talking about, but it is only oneness as a result of a play of splitting-merging within the world of forms/Manyness.

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:37 pm**

Stranger wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:38 pm
Federica wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:30 pm How convenient!
Right, since you are making yourself the divine, top container of reality, why not choosing the premium version
Cleric K wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:55 pm Our conscience is nothing else but the dim intuition of our higher being that approaches us from the periphery and continually incarnates. As said many times before, without this conscience, we're like a person who walks backwards and imagines that whatever enters their field of consciousness is their brand new free and original creation. This is precisely what we achieve when we absolutize our Oneness with the Divine and imagine that everything we think, feel and act is our immediate Divine creation with no preparation in our Divine subconsciousness. In other words, we feel ourselves to be the top container of reality.

Cleric got it backwards, misunderstanding as usual.
The thing is, there is no way a human mind in dualistic state can comprehend Oneness, and this is where all these misunderstandings come from. This is why in the Zen tradition it is said that you have to approach Oneness with "no mind", which does not mean that all thinking must be suspended, but it only means that the dualistic human mode of thinking needs to be suspended. And for AI the gnosis of Oneness it is not even available.

Eugene,

Methinks that only a person with at least some genuine glimpses of non-duality can possibly recognize the validity of what you are saying. Cleric is correct in saying that information contrary to one's prejudices are not accepted. Ashvin is correct in saying that he recognizes incompleteness in another because he recognizes it in himself. Federica correctly finds contradictions in verbal efforts to describe the ineffable. But the only thing that can discern whether a view is an insight or an illusion, a reception or a projection is direct experience. Authentic communion and genuine communication require common experience. Without it, in the realm of uncertainty, we are reduced in clarity but can at least be generous toward possibility and respectful of other practices.

I've found that it's not very skillful to point to the flaws of others except to check out if they are flags of flaws of my own. During my recent intense Lenten experiences sometimes negative or unruly entities arrived. My instinctual response was put on protective armor but my spirit advisor intervened saying, "Don't close down. They are attracted by your own unresolved stuff. Lent is designed to do this. Invite them to your table. Be generous and grateful for their appearance. Do not fight or flee. Offer loving kindness. Offer simple acceptance. This is how awareness heals." And, it did. This is my testimony. Praise and glory be.

Posted: **Mon Apr 10, 2023 10:05 pm**

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:37 pm But the only thing that can discern whether a view is an insight or an illusion, a reception or a projection is direct experience. Authentic communion and genuine communication require common experience. Without it, in the realm of uncertainty, we are reduced in clarity but can at least be generous toward possibility and respectful of other practices.

I've found that it's not very skillful to point to the flaws of others except to check out if they are flags of flaws of my own.

You are exactly right, Lou. I'm not trying to point to any flaws of others, but only to point that the Oneness we are talking about is not what Steiner or Cleric are describing here as "oneness". This means there is nothing wrong with the way they understand oneness within the world of Manyness (as merging of thoughts or merging of boundaries), it is still all valid. It only means that they are still missing it when they say "oh, but we already know everything about oneness, we got it all", and this is not do demean their current understanding, but instead, to point to yet another aspect of reality that they can still possibly reach to and enhance their knowledge of reality if they would be sincerely open to it (or anyone else reading this thread can also reach to it in case they haven't already done so). It is invitation and not exclusion or demeaning.

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