Philosophical Speculations

AshvinP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 3:43 pm We are lapsing back into a planar conception of "self" here, where it is 'one form among many'. It is better to conceive the individual self as a fractal image of the higher, macrocosmic Self. Our sense of individual creative thinking agency gives us the most direct intuition of this higher Self and its nature. All the forces of 'selfishness' we currently harbor are polar opposites which have 'distended' from sublime spiritual forces, i.e. hate/love, greed/charity, anxiety/peace, etc. This distention comes about precisely because the polar forces remain subconscious within us, deeply buried within the layers of our soul-strata, acting as impulses, instincts, passions, etc. without the Light of cognition to illuminate them. That is how the individual self has become so impure and therefore alienated from its true nature as an image of the Divine.

To ascend perpendicular with our thinking here, we should become very interested in the precise details of how we are images of the Divine, through the substances-processes of our anatomy, physiology, biology, psychology, etc. Every little detail of the inner-outer world should begin to speak to us of how it fits into the holistic evolutionary structure through the mediation of our thinking consciousness. Since Steiner has been quoted a lot, I think we should be more clear on what he is speaking of in terms of imaginative, inspired, and intuitive cognition. Here is a typical excerpt below. It should be noted that we are not dealing with any stages of consciousness which can be reached without much spiritual training and inner purification, although we can certainly begin brining a new life of depth to our thinking which makes clear that these higher stages are living realities in which our "I"-consciousness is always nested.

Stranger wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 4:46 pm
I agree, the right approach is through the nested structure of our individual soul and discovering the Self though vertical introspection rather than through outward planar conception. However, Steiner also points to our self "streamed forth over all beings; it has merged with them" and "to enter into all things, one must first step outside oneself". So, there are two developments going on at the same time - both vertical introspection and expansion ("entering into all things" and "streaming and merging with them"). This happens because, as we discover the Self at the vertical pinnacle, or, as another metaphor, at the central core of our own being, we also inevitably discover the same Self at the core of all things and beings everywhere in the universe and hence naturally "enter into all things" and "merge with them". This is the point where the dichotomy between the "deep MAL" and "flat MAL" is resolved, it becomes simultaneously deep with all vertical depth structures perfectly preserved, and at the same time "flat" in a sense that everything is equally permeated by the Self and equally contained within the same multi-dimensional space of the Self.

All that appears in this realm of forms
Is alone the Atman, indivisible Self, selfless.
Immutable, auspicious, One
I am that God who is the Self of all;
Pure, indivisible, like the sky.
All is verily the absolute Self.
I indeed am immutable and infinite - of the form of pure Intelligence.
I am the nectar of Knowledge
I, the One only, am all this, beyond space and continuous.
Know the Self always to be everywhere, one and unintercepted.
Know me to be that Self who is everything and everywhere at all times,
the one who is eternal, steady, the All, the nonexistent, and the Existent.
I know that all, in every way, is the one indivisible "I" which is self-sustained and full
The Self is neither divided nor undivided. Know the Self to be immutable.
The Lord of the universe is devoid of all names.
He is subtler than the subtlest, supreme, He is spotless, beyond the senses, mind, and intellect.
That is Consciousness - blameless, omniscient, and perfect.
Space is pervaded by It, but It is not pervaded by anything.
It is existing within and without. It is undivided and continuous.

from Avadhuta Gita of Dattatreya

Federica wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 8:02 pm Eugene,
In the understanding that you have described here, how would you intend the peculiar individual perspective that each of us holds? In visual terms - the unique perspective, angle, or point on the surface of the Deep MAL sphere (one of the faces emerging at the surface of the sphere, in the image contained in Cleric's essay)? How do you allow for that singular viewpoint in a flat MAL reality without falling back in the trap of planar diversity or variety?

Stranger wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 4:46 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 3:43 pm We are lapsing back into a planar conception of "self" here, where it is 'one form among many'. It is better to conceive the individual self as a fractal image of the higher, macrocosmic Self. Our sense of individual creative thinking agency gives us the most direct intuition of this higher Self and its nature. All the forces of 'selfishness' we currently harbor are polar opposites which have 'distended' from sublime spiritual forces, i.e. hate/love, greed/charity, anxiety/peace, etc. This distention comes about precisely because the polar forces remain subconscious within us, deeply buried within the layers of our soul-strata, acting as impulses, instincts, passions, etc. without the Light of cognition to illuminate them. That is how the individual self has become so impure and therefore alienated from its true nature as an image of the Divine.

To ascend perpendicular with our thinking here, we should become very interested in the precise details of how we are images of the Divine, through the substances-processes of our anatomy, physiology, biology, psychology, etc. Every little detail of the inner-outer world should begin to speak to us of how it fits into the holistic evolutionary structure through the mediation of our thinking consciousness. Since Steiner has been quoted a lot, I think we should be more clear on what he is speaking of in terms of imaginative, inspired, and intuitive cognition. Here is a typical excerpt below. It should be noted that we are not dealing with any stages of consciousness which can be reached without much spiritual training and inner purification, although we can certainly begin brining a new life of depth to our thinking which makes clear that these higher stages are living realities in which our "I"-consciousness is always nested.

I agree, the right approach is through the nested structure of our individual soul and discovering the Self though vertical introspection rather than through outward planar conception. However, Steiner also points to our self "streamed forth over all beings; it has merged with them" and "to enter into all things, one must first step outside oneself". So, there are two developments going on at the same time - both vertical introspection and expansion ("entering into all things" and "streaming and merging with them"). This happens because, as we discover the Self at the vertical pinnacle, or, as another metaphor, at the central core of our own being, we also inevitably discover the same Self at the core of all things and beings everywhere in the universe and hence naturally "enter into all things" and "merge with them". This is the point where the dichotomy between the "deep MAL" and "flat MAL" is resolved, it becomes simultaneously deep with all vertical depth structures perfectly preserved, and at the same time "flat" in a sense that everything is equally permeated by the Self and equally contained within the same multi-dimensional space of the Self.

An intuition, which claims to project itself with one bound into the eternal, limits itself to the intellectual. For the concepts which the intelligence furnishes, the intuition simply substitutes one single concept which includes them all and which consequently is always the same, by whatever name it is called: Substance, Ego, Idea, Will.

Philosophy, thus understood, necessarily pantheistic, will have no difficulty in explaining everything deductively, since it will have been given beforehand, in a principle which is the concept of concepts, all the real and all the possible. But this explanation will be vague and hypothetical, this unity will be artificial, and this philosophy would apply equally well to a very different world from our own. How much more instructive would be a truly intuitive metaphysics, which would follow the undulations of the real! True, it would not embrace in a single sweep the totality of things; but for each thing it would give an explanation which would fit it exactly, and it alone. It would not begin by defining or describing the systematic unity of the world: who knows if the world is actually one?

Experience alone can say, and unity, if it exists, will appear at the end of the search as a result; it is impossible to posit it at the start as a principle. Furthermore, it will be a rich, full unity, the unity of a continuity, the unity of our reality, and not that abstract and empty unity, which has come from one supreme generalization, and which could just as well be that of any possible world whatsoever. It is true that philosophy then will demand a new effort for each new problem. No solution will be geometrically deduced from another. No important truth will be achieved by the prolongation of an already acquired truth. We shall have to give up crowding universal science potentially into one principle.

- Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (1946)

AshvinP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 8:54 pm It is through the gradual perfection of our willing-thinking organism that we can begin to comprehend our own immediate soul dynamics, which we generally don't comprehend at all with undifferentiated planar conceptual activity. Then we can gradually enter into the "I"-consciousness of human collectives, kingdoms of Nature, the Earth organism. Without traversing this lawful gradient of activity, there is no hope of "entering into all things". We first need to enter into our own soul-life. Since about 1,000 years ago, the human being has been evolving the consciousness soul which allows for precise scientific thinking. So far this has been directed mostly towards outer endeavors, like engineering the perfect bridge, but building the inner bridge to the higher worlds has been neglected. We here on this forum are in a position to stop neglecting that work and reorient the scientific "I"-consciousness towards its attainment.

Experience alone can say, and unity, if it exists, will appear at the end of the search as a result; it is impossible to posit it at the start as a principle. Furthermore, it will be a rich, full unity, the unity of a continuity, the unity of our reality, and not that abstract and empty unity, which has come from one supreme generalization, and which could just as well be that of any possible world whatsoever.

- Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (1946)

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 11:39 pm Aloha Everyone,

I have a general question about what I perceive as an "accent bias" >>> Why do we assume in our models that every soul is on an achievement trip seeking greater awareness? Is it not possible that some more evolved souls are descending or grounding (in Bodhisattva-like fashion) in order to help reduce the suffering or to reveal in an embodied state the way to go? As some may know, I've been critical of the individual achievement orientation. For example, I do not believe that Jesus arrived to work His way toward the Father but, rather, that He arrived as a gift from the Father to perform, through a very powerful story, a Love and Forgiveness that birthed into human consciousness the embodied example of a shared Divinity between the Whole and its parts.