Philosophical Speculations

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:26 pm

lorenzop wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:13 pm The good news is that the realm of concessions is not the realm where oneness is found and lived.
As a Wise Man once said - Render unto Ceasar what is Ceaser's, and render what is the Lord's unto the Lord.

That's right, concessions/structures are needed to facilitate the development and evolution of our cognition so that at some evolutionary point the cognition becomes mature enough to realize the oneness. Concessions are only the educational tools and the means for that, but oneness is beyond any concessions and can never be found only in the realm of structures and concessions.

Concessions\structures are baked into doing dishes and having conversations, concessions\structures are needed for daily living, etc. 'Cognition' is only on the level of relative existence and can not touch or reach Oneness. For example, one might cognize a sublime or abstract concept, principle, or feature. Oneness, unboundedness is lived not cognized, it is not knowable by the finite mind.

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:40 pm
I'm troubled by labels of all kinds -- fascio, oneness, whatever. Can they be used without triggering comparisons? Can comparisons be made without putting anything higher or lower? Is there a difference between discrimination and discernment? We hope to be careful with words. Like substances, they can be cures or poisons. Doseage, context and timing all matter.

Agreed. Though we have to use words, and evem sometimes a word (like fascio) within a specific context. This can be done with compassion and understanding.

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 5:29 pm Again, apologies for drawing bad associations and please do not get me wrong, Fascio is a word for collectivism, not for fascism.

The way you have been using apologies is in a bewitching goddess manner, just so you can keep navigating your argumentations according to the situation.

Stranger wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:51 pm You are right about noticing that in my responses T comes before F, it has to do with my personality. But that particular quoted passage was rather related to Ashvin's arrogant attitude, and I apologize if it sounded like it was relevant to your attitude.

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 9:39 pm May be for people like me Cleric or you could just make a concise list with descriptions or links to practical exercises and steps with clear instructions. You probably already have topics on the forum that discussed these practical steps and I apologize if I missed them.

However, this is good:

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:38 pm Yet Anthroposophy denies the mystery of the transcendent and reduces all reality only to immanent: to ideas, structures and laws. In a way it is no different from materialism that attempts to reduce all consciousness only to brain neural structures and all reality to physical laws and the structures built according to these laws. I guess this is why anthroposophy is also named "spiritual science", which probably means that, just like secular science, it has the agenda to explain and reduce the whole reality to structures and governing laws. Essentially, anthroposophy is structural reductionism.

When the soul-sodden persona is called out, it has no other strategies than coming all the way out, all the more extreme. It has nothing to lose anymore. This is good, for obvious reasons. It’s how you will eventually get rid of it, Eugene.

Stranger wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 8:00 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 7:44 pm If we are unwilling to sacrifice the qualities which bind us to mere Earthly knowledge and therefore obscure the disincarnate (cosmic) intents, then we only remain with our anti-collectivist theories but continue practically identifying with the collective affiliations from incarnation to incarnation. So, as usual, we end up practically digging ourselves deeper into what we are theoretically railing against. At the root of it all is living Self-knowledge of how our soul-structure is also the World-structure, as Cleric says. It is only that knowledge which sets us free.

The analogy I gave for changing the affiliations with specific Earth structures is pointing to exactly that question: do our cosmic intents extend beyond any specific affiliations with the structures, or not? Or, back to the question in my previous post: are the souls for serving the structures, or the structures are serving the souls? And it is exactly the Self-knowledge that opens us to the deepest knowledge that Consciousness is fundamentally greater than and not reducible to only its World-structure. A while ago in another thread someone called anthroposophy "structural idealism", this is a rather precise term pointing to the reduction of all reality only to its structures.

What happened to the gradient, Eugene? The gradient! It's the depth structure we so often mention.

It's as if we live on Earth and only perceive the mineral kingdom and outer space. The plant, animal, and human kingdoms are also collapsed into the mineral kingdom, treated as practically identical even though we know, if we are paying attention, they each bring unique lawfulness to the whole picture of Earthly life. This isn't reasonably denied by anyone here and no one claims there is a 'pure science' which will magically reveal an antidote to heal all illnesses without penetrating the sphere of nature with knowledge (and hopefully wisdom). This is why you are so willing to dualize the spheres of nature and culture from that of the Spirit and say the former simply dabbles in structures of consciousness which don't reveal to us Consciousness as such. It really is nothing other than the divide we find across analytical philosophies such as BK's.

Couldn't it be that the collective cultural containers, like the kingdoms of nature, serve a specific and evolving purpose in our becoming creatively free individualities at ever higher stages of completion within the Cosmic organism? They are like the embryo or womb in which we grow and mature before we are fully born into the spirit worlds, with complete continuity of consciousness. An honest and careful look at the progression since the dawn of culture reveals exactly that. None of what is needed for modern spiritual life would be possible for more than a few select individuals if not for the support of our cultural institutions. These are not simply abstract things we invented - we are speaking of actual living beings. There is a first-person soul perspective to these 'containers' who consciously intend to bear us up, natural and cultural. There are retrogressive perspectives as well which intend to thrust us down, but even these serve an overarching progressive intent to perfect our spiritual capacities if we are able to make them conscious. We ourselves are tasked with redeeming them. Only through a rhythmic flow and resistance at all scales can the Spirit be born from within into the Earth and Cosmos.

The two tier system we theorize of Earthly collective affiliations and supra-Earthly individual creativity, is not fitted to the metamorphosing depth of reality but can only serve to make us feel that our current incarnation, of the hundreds or thousands we have gone through, happens to be the one in which we have outgrown all cultural affiliations, along with the support of the natural kingdoms, and no longer need them to continue our body-soul-spirit journey. This is the hallmark of modern inner disposition across the board. Imagine you are watching a movie about a hero who descends into a dark abyss to revive the spirit of his Father and gets struck there. Instead of developing his ingenuity, wisdom, courage, etc., he relies on a deus ex machine to suddenly teleport to the surface and the movie ends. We would give this movie 1% on rotten tomatoes, outwardly signaling our disapproval, but that's what we want for ourselves and what motivates our philosophical and religious theories. Anyone who points to this simple discrepancy is labeled something or another and the labels switch to their opposites periodically, because obviously all of that is secondary to the primary goal of avoiding the living implications of what it means to be embedded within a Whole organism as its microcosmic image, and to embrace our own character arc of trials, soul maturation, and redemption.

Stranger wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 1:34 am PS: To clarify my above post, it was not meant to reject or demean the anthroposophic teachings and practices. There is no doubt that the structures of the Cosmic organism and the governing laws and their living knowledge and the development of higher cognition are all needed and essential, and I can only praise Steiner for his spiritual research to bring this knowledge to us. We need spiritual science to progress just like we need secular science to progress. The issue is in the reductionism of the scientific approach of both spiritual and secular science, the neglect of what is beyond the structures and laws and beyond the reach of the scientific approach, but what is open to us all through the mystical direct gnosis of the Oneness of the Divine Essense.

OK, Eugene. Up till a point I was wondering if you simply are not presented with enough angles on the matter and you simply miss the essence because things are not yet clear enough but now I conclude that you have simply settled on supporting this bifurcation no matter what, no matter how contradictory your own threads of reason become. I won't even go into the numerous attempts made here to explain how the higher forms of cognition lead us into the higher orders of reality and not to some reductionistic pattern of abstract thoughts. You have capsulated yourself into a state that you have chosen to call 'nondual oneness' and consider it free, original and immediate expression of the Source. From that pedestal you deflect anything that invites you to question your own conscious expressions. For example, your disinterest in spiritual knowledge (which you see as reductionistic) and your intent to go to another planet or galaxy after death, are considered unquestionable free creative expressions of the One Divine Consciousness that you are. Any attempt to show that these might be biased interferences of higher and lower order realities (which can be experientially known since they are the structure of our conscious experience) is automatically dismissed to be nothing but attempts to reduce the Divine.

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:38 am OK, Eugene. Up till a point I was wondering if you simply are not presented with enough angles on the matter and you simply miss the essence because things are not yet clear enough but now I conclude that you have simply settled on supporting this bifurcation no matter what, no matter how contradictory your own threads of reason become. I won't even go into the numerous attempts made here to explain how the higher forms of cognition lead us into the higher orders of reality and not to some reductionistic pattern of abstract thoughts. You have capsulated yourself into a state that you have chosen to call 'nondual oneness' and consider it free, original and immediate expression of the Source. From that pedestal you deflect anything that invites you to question your own conscious expressions. For example, your disinterest in spiritual knowledge (which you see as reductionistic) and your intent to go to another planet or galaxy after death, are considered unquestionable free creative expressions of the One Divine Consciousness that you are. Any attempt to show that these might be biased interferences of higher and lower order realities (which can be experientially known since they are the structure of our conscious experience) is automatically dismissed to be nothing but attempts to reduce the Divine.

Instead of diverting the topic into criticizing my personal biases and limitations (as you guys usually do), I would invite you to take more humble and open approach and admit that not all of the realty is reducible to laws, gradients and structures and cognizable by spiritual science. We do not deny the usefulness of secular science and we cannot progress without is, yet, its area of applicability is limited and its scientific method has its limitations. Likewise, spiritual science is very useful, and nobody is trying to deny that, but it is also limited in its applicability only to the realm of the immanent. So, without denying the usefulness of the secular and spiritual sciences, we criticize their reductionism and denial of the existence of anything beyond their limits. The right approach for both secular and spiritual sciences would be to take more open approach and to allow the possibility of the aspects of reality that are beyond the limits of their applicability. And the all-embracing approach would be integrate all of them into wholistic vision/method where we use different ways to approach different aspects of reality: use secular science to approach the realm of natural phenomena, use spiritual science to approach the immanent realm of spiritual phenomena, and use mystical gnosis to approach the transcendental aspect of Reality.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:12 am What happened to the gradient, Eugene? The gradient! It's the depth structure we so often mention.

Sure, the gradients too. I need to repeat it like a mantra: "structures, laws, gradients"

Couldn't it be that the collective cultural containers, like the kingdoms of nature, serve a specific and evolving purpose in our becoming creatively free individualities at ever higher stages of completion within the Cosmic organism? They are like the embryo or womb in which we grow and mature before we are fully born into the spirit worlds, with complete continuity of consciousness.

I believe that is exactly how it works.

These are not simply abstract things we invented - we are speaking of actual living beings. There is a first-person soul perspective to these 'containers' who consciously intend to bear us up, natural and cultural. There are retrogressive perspectives as well which intend to thrust us down, but even these serve an overarching progressive intent to perfect our spiritual capacities if we are able to make them conscious. We ourselves are tasked with redeeming them. Only through a rhythmic flow and resistance at all scales can the Spirit be born from within into the Earth and Cosmos.

Correct, and that first-person soul perspective is common to both spiritual-scientific and mystical approaches and it is what differentiates them from the secular scientific approach.

lorenzop wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 3:12 am Concessions\structures are baked into doing dishes and having conversations, concessions\structures are needed for daily living, etc. 'Cognition' is only on the level of relative existence and can not touch or reach Oneness. For example, one might cognize a sublime or abstract concept, principle, or feature. Oneness, unboundedness is lived not cognized, it is not knowable by the finite mind.

That is correct. But cognition can still conceptually and linguistically reflect the gnosis/jnana of Oneness. The very fact you wrote "Oneness, unboundedness is lived not cognized, it is not knowable by the finite mind." points to the fact that cognition is trying to reflect, conceptually make sense and put into words the direct mystical experience of Oneness, yet it can never fully grasp it.

Stranger wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 12:28 pm Instead of diverting the topic into criticizing my personal biases and limitations (as you guys usually do), I would invite you to take more humble and open approach and admit that not all of the realty is reducible to laws, gradients and structures and cognizable by spiritual science. We do not deny the usefulness of secular science and we cannot progress without is, yet, its area of applicability is limited and its scientific method has its limitations. Likewise, spiritual science is very useful, and nobody is trying to deny that, but it is also limited in its applicability only to the realm of the immanent. So, without denying the usefulness of the secular and spiritual sciences, we criticize their reductionism and denial of the existence of anything beyond their limits. The right approach for both secular and spiritual sciences would be to take more open approach and to allow the possibility of the aspects of reality that are beyond the limits of their applicability. And the all-embracing approach would be integrate all of them into wholistic vision/method where we use different ways to approach different aspects of reality: use secular science to approach the realm of natural phenomena, use spiritual science to approach the immanent realm of spiritual phenomena, and use mystical gnosis to approach the transcendental aspect of Reality.

The problem with this tripartition is that the boundary between the realm of 'immanent spiritual phenomena' and the transcendental aspect, is arbitrarily placed such that certain conscious expressions can be conveniently classified as transcendental and thus deemed unquestionable. This is such a basic thing. It's like learning to jump to a certain height and then saying "That's the boundary, anything more than that belongs to the transcendental and any attempt to jump higher would result in illusions." But how do we know that? How do we know that we haven't simply placed our own ceiling and feel comfortable that there's no point to go further in that direction?

No one here has ever denied that transcendental aspect. In fact, over and over again it is repeated that at any state, no matter how enlightened and divine, half of reality is always transcendental in relation to our perspective. Yet the nature of evolution is such that the transcendental continually turns inside out. What has formerly pulled our string subconsciously from the transcendental depths has to become clear consciousness.

For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.
Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

If this turning inside out is not recognized, then we have no choice but draw the hard line. But the moment we do that the only thing that we achieve is that we provide the perfect conditions for part of our being to remain forever (or at least while in a body) hidden in the shadows. This part says of itself "There are things which can can be understood and examined but from this line upwards my nature is completely transcendental and thus every my thought and action that proceeds from there is free and original creation of the One."

The problem is that with this philosophy anything can pass for transcendental. The criminal can also say that his acts are the pristine expressions of the One because before incarnation this is what the One wanted to experience. Thus everyone draws the line at their personal point of comfort and rests blissfully that they won't have to consider in depth the 'transcendental' part of their behavior because it is 'irreducible' anyway.

Stranger wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 12:35 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:12 am What happened to the gradient, Eugene? The gradient! It's the depth structure we so often mention.

Sure, the gradients too. I need to repeat it like a mantra: "structures, laws, gradients"

We're not asking you to repeat it back to us like a mantra, but try and follow the reasoning to understand it. We wouldn't be sharing it with you if there was any indication you already understood it, but there isn't any such indication and every indication to the contrary. The only reason you feel investigating the 'structures, laws, gradients' are something different from knowing the One Consciousness is because you have flattened the former out into only those structures, laws, etc. you are already familiar with, which are the same ones everyone with intellectual cognition is familiar with (also it's interesting you have now switched back to accusing spiritual science of trying to reduce the Oneness to the individuated structures and streamlines, whereas you started this thread to accuse the exact opposite). Again, this comment shows you have not understood the depth gradient:

Correct, and that first-person soul perspective is common to both spiritual-scientific and mystical approaches and it is what differentiates them from the secular scientific approach.

The nested, hierarchical first-person soul perspectives are common to living, evolving reality and are what explain all the approaches - where, when, how, and why they exist. As long we consider such things as attributes which belong to one approach or another, we are understanding them only as flattened concepts in our intellect and treating those concepts as the full measure of their meaning. Once we begin to let these realities flow into our own first-person soul perspective from unsuspected directions, all the abstract debates about 'structures of consciousness vs. essential consciousness' dissipate like a dream we had last night. It is revealed how they were simply being dreamed up in our conceptual life without the overarching context of the waking Self, which renders them useful as feedback to intuitively steer our stream of becoming but completely irrelevant with regards to the 'truth value' of their content.