Saving the materialists

[Federica]

For example, tracking back to this comment:

The rest of your post is very interesting. Now we are coming to the real arguments. But I don’t have any clear ideas here. I am unable to evaluate how urgent it is that as many as possible evolve out of the negative spiritual zone, versus “it’s better to wait for future incarnations”.

Yet right after that, in response to Cleric's HHU post, you say - "It's even repeated multiple times: nothing prevents one with an open mind from HHU. If HHU is not experienced it's because of excuses, because one does not allow that comprehension to take shape."

Do you notice the dissonance here? Why does the intellect want to remain with no clear ideas, "unable" to evaluate supersensible realities, if not to continue in its speculative habits? These are the sorts of questions that can generate endless fruits for our self-knowledge if we are willing to seriously entertain them.

There is no dissonance there Ashvin. I am really having a hard time trying to figure out how you could arrive at the conviction that the two statements above are to be brought one against the other, to find a dissonance. If this, together with the rest of your post, is your diagnosis of my ill-doing, as you seem to be determined to deliver, then I encourage you to apply your own admonition to yourself: "First do no harm". Because the very same forces that heal, are the ones that sicken too
(this is the real meaning of the maxim. Thus a healer needs be able to weigh finely. Not to overshoot the mark).

[AshvinP]

For example, tracking back to this comment:

The rest of your post is very interesting. Now we are coming to the real arguments. But I don’t have any clear ideas here. I am unable to evaluate how urgent it is that as many as possible evolve out of the negative spiritual zone, versus “it’s better to wait for future incarnations”.

Yet right after that, in response to Cleric's HHU post, you say - "It's even repeated multiple times: nothing prevents one with an open mind from HHU. If HHU is not experienced it's because of excuses, because one does not allow that comprehension to take shape."

Do you notice the dissonance here? Why does the intellect want to remain with no clear ideas, "unable" to evaluate supersensible realities, if not to continue in its speculative habits? These are the sorts of questions that can generate endless fruits for our self-knowledge if we are willing to seriously entertain them.

There is no dissonance there Ashvin. I am really having a hard time trying to figure out how you could arrive at the conviction that the two statements above are to be brought one against the other, to find a dissonance. If this, together with the rest of your post, is your diagnosis of my ill-doing, as you seem to be determined to deliver, then I encourage you to apply your own admonition to yourself first: "First do no harm". Because the very same forces that heal, are the ones that sicken too (this is the meaning of the maxim).

Perhaps you will see it more clearly if you review the many other times where you have similarly expressed, "I am unable to evaluate", "I don't have clairvoyance", "I haven't reached that stage", and so on. I don't know if you have forgotten all these instances and the context in which they arose, but they surely exist. And they will surely continue when you wish to remain with certain speculations and avoid the deeper logic of why they are problematic.

Another dissonant statement was when you misinterpreted Cleric's quote to mean that lack of meditative practice is used as an excuse to avoid living comprehension, when it's the exact opposite. What is used as an excuse is "I am unwilling or unable to meditate, so in the meantime, I can comprehend these things with incremental intellectual steps". That was the point of the HHU post. Yet another inversion was when you wrote:

Yes, I realize the intellect can always inflate in this way. But I don't see this as a problem. It is even a necessity, I believe, that the intellect be able to take that direction. If one were to succeed in coercing the intellect into accepting spiritual inquiry as a must-have, there would be no point, no value, and no sense in the entire endeavor.

Here, you have inverted the phenomenological method into "coercing the intellect", while the "necessity" of inflating the intellect is somehow the freer and more valuable method. These are obvious dissonant patterns that have come to light through the 'saving the materialist' discussion. The patterns are there to discover and integrate if you are simply willing to entertain the possibility that they exist.

[Federica]

Yet another inversion was when you wrote:

Yes, I realize the intellect can always inflate in this way. But I don't see this as a problem. It is even a necessity, I believe, that the intellect be able to take that direction. If one were to succeed in coercing the intellect into accepting spiritual inquiry as a must-have, there would be no point, no value, and no sense in the entire endeavor.

Here, you have inverted the phenomenological method into "coercing the intellect", while the "necessity" of inflating the intellect is somehow the freer and more valuable method. These are obvious dissonant patterns that have come to light through the 'saving the materialist' discussion. The patterns are there to discover and integrate if you are simply willing to entertain the possibility that they exist.

I'll take one thing at a time, so we minimize juggling around.

You are getting that wrong Ashvin. There, I meant that if person A could force person B into accepting spiritual inquiry, there would be no point and no benefit for person B, who would not have used their free will to do it. I was talking about free will. That the intellect should choose to take a u-turn, while the choice of keep inflating remains available to it. Therefore, the statement: "The important thing is that the intellect can inflate in this way without limit. Even if we tell him 'There's something more that evades the senses', he'll simply answer 'No problem, I'll just widen the scope of my concepts'", although true, for me is not a valid reason to discourage the intention to attract the materialist's attention on the faults of the law of conservation of energy. (That was the context). Yes, their intellect has always the option to inflate, bu that's good, because the moment it decides not to inflate, while it could, is the moment a choice is really free, and therefore meaningful.

Are you getting it now? And if you are getting it, will you change your mind that I was not making an "inversion"?

[AshvinP]

Yet another inversion was when you wrote:

Yes, I realize the intellect can always inflate in this way. But I don't see this as a problem. It is even a necessity, I believe, that the intellect be able to take that direction. If one were to succeed in coercing the intellect into accepting spiritual inquiry as a must-have, there would be no point, no value, and no sense in the entire endeavor.

Here, you have inverted the phenomenological method into "coercing the intellect", while the "necessity" of inflating the intellect is somehow the freer and more valuable method. These are obvious dissonant patterns that have come to light through the 'saving the materialist' discussion. The patterns are there to discover and integrate if you are simply willing to entertain the possibility that they exist.

I'll take one thing at a time, so we minimize juggling around.

You are getting that wrong Ashvin. There, I meant that if person A could force person B into accepting spiritual inquiry, there would be no point and no benefit for person B, who would not have used their free will to do it. I was talking about free will. That the intellect should choose to take a u-turn, while the choice of keep inflating remains available to it. Therefore, the statement: "The important thing is that the intellect can inflate in this way without limit. Even if we tell him 'There's something more that evades the senses', he'll simply answer 'No problem, I'll just widen the scope of my concepts'", although true, for me is not a valid reason to discourage the intention to attract the materialist's attention on the faults of the law of conservation of energy. (That was the context). Yes, their intellect has always the option to inflate, bu that's good, because the moment it decides not to inflate, while it could, is the moment a choice is really free, and therefore meaningful.

Are you getting it now? And if you are getting it, will you change your mind that I was not making an "inversion"?

I was getting it, but the thing is that it reveals a flawed (or inverted) understanding of "inflating the intellect". The discouragement of inflating the intellect, i.e. the phenomenological / introspective observational / meditative (all these are synonymous) method, is the exact opposite of forcing the intellect into spiritual concepts. It is the invitation that allows the intellect to creatively resist the karmic curvatures of necessity and make a truly free decision as to what meaningful relations it will explore and how to explore them. The inflation of the intellect, on the other hand, leads to more and more elemental conditioning that siphons more and more potential from the intellect to make a truly free decision. Rather, it becomes entangled in the momentum of conditioned pathways and progressively loses sight of any possible exits. Remember, it's not as simple as inscribing the words, "I decide not to inflate anymore" - that will do absolutely nothing to modify the underlying soul curvature which has enchanted the intellect. That is what Cleric began to elaborate in the second PE-KE post - "The intellect striving to reconcile the wobble is actually good, but when it is taken in such a narrow domain, it becomes evil, because it now paralyzes the evolutionary development."

Why would we encourage (or not discourage) that paralysis when we know of the redemptive and liberating method, which has worked for us (and probably countless others)? It simply makes no sense to do that.

[Federica]

Yet another inversion was when you wrote:



Here, you have inverted the phenomenological method into "coercing the intellect", while the "necessity" of inflating the intellect is somehow the freer and more valuable method. These are obvious dissonant patterns that have come to light through the 'saving the materialist' discussion. The patterns are there to discover and integrate if you are simply willing to entertain the possibility that they exist.

I'll take one thing at a time, so we minimize juggling around.

You are getting that wrong Ashvin. There, I meant that if person A could force person B into accepting spiritual inquiry, there would be no point and no benefit for person B, who would not have used their free will to do it. I was talking about free will. That the intellect should choose to take a u-turn, while the choice of keep inflating remains available to it. Therefore, the statement: "The important thing is that the intellect can inflate in this way without limit. Even if we tell him 'There's something more that evades the senses', he'll simply answer 'No problem, I'll just widen the scope of my concepts'", although true, for me is not a valid reason to discourage the intention to attract the materialist's attention on the faults of the law of conservation of energy. (That was the context). Yes, their intellect has always the option to inflate, bu that's good, because the moment it decides not to inflate, while it could, is the moment a choice is really free, and therefore meaningful.

Are you getting it now? And if you are getting it, will you change your mind that I was not making an "inversion"?

I was getting it, but the thing is that it reveals a flawed (or inverted) understanding of "inflating the intellect". The discouragement of inflating the intellect, i.e. the phenomenological / introspective observational / meditative (all these are synonymous) method, is the exact opposite of forcing the intellect into spiritual concepts. It is the invitation that allows the intellect to creatively resist the karmic curvatures of necessity and make a truly free decision as to what meaningful relations it will explore and how to explore them. The inflation of the intellect, on the other hand, leads to more and more elemental conditioning that siphons more and more potential from the intellect to make a truly free decision. Rather, it becomes entangled in the momentum of conditioned pathways and progressively loses sight of any possible exits. Remember, it's not as simple as inscribing the words, "I decide not to inflate anymore" - that will do absolutely nothing to modify the underlying soul curvature which has enchanted the intellect. That is what Cleric began to elaborate in the second PE-KE post - "The intellect striving to reconcile the wobble is actually good, but when it is taken in such a narrow domain, it becomes evil, because it now paralyzes the evolutionary development."

Why would we encourage (or not discourage) that paralysis when we know of the redemptive and liberating method, which has worked for us (and probably countless others)? It simply makes no sense to do that.

I didn't suggest encouraging that paralysis. Presenting thought images that point to the failure of the law of conservation of energy is not an encouragement of that paralysis. It's the presentation of a certain thought content that the intellect can decide either to hoard, or to let go of. The intellect is the only interlocutor one can speak to, to begin with, and some content of some sort has to be provided. There is no other way than to speak to the intellect in its own language. You can know of the redemptive liberating method as much as you want, but in what language will you convey it? One that is undecipherable for the counterpart? So the goal is to convey an intellectual content that moves the intellect in a direction where it can see for itself that it contains an inevitable flaw. And it makes no sense at this point to remind that the intellect can always decide to inflate. Yeah, it can. It's like saying: the important thing is, it's going to be difficult. Yes, we know it's going to be difficult. That's not what one wants to focus on. The focus is on how to speak of, and encourage to learn, a certain language, only by using the words and rules of another language, the only the counterpart understands.

[AshvinP]

I didn't suggest encouraging that paralysis. Presenting thought images that point to the failure of the law of conservation of energy is not an encouragement of that paralysis. It's the presentation of a certain thought content that the intellect can decide either to hoard, or to let go of. The intellect is the only interlocutor one can speak to, to begin with, and some content of some sort has to be provided. There is no other way than to speak to the intellect in its own language. You can know of the redemptive liberating method as much as you want, but in what language will you convey it? One that is undecipherable for the counterpart? So the goal is to convey an intellectual content that moves the intellect in a direction where it can see for itself that it contains an inevitable flaw. And it makes no sense at this point to remind that the intellect can always decide to inflate. Yeah, it can. It's like saying: the important thing is, it's going to be difficult. Yes, we know it's going to be difficult. That's not what one wants to focus on. The focus is on how to speak of, and encourage to learn, a certain language, only by using the words and rules of another language, the only the counterpart understands.

Federica,

You keep coming back to this point as if you don't already know the phenomenological method that we have been exploring for years now through this forum. This is the way to "convey an intellectual content that moves the intellect in a direction where it can see for itself that it contains an inevitable flaw", while simultaneously guarding against the risk of inflation (in fact, encouraging a deflation through the pinhole of cognition). The inner contradiction (hysteresis) does not exist at the scale of thought-images and therefore cannot be addressed at that scale. The conservation law fails at the soul scale, not the physical-sensory scale. This is what all of our recent posts have been about - there is no way to establish the 'just right' configuration of thought-images that step-by-step awakens the intellect to its flattened perspective on reality. How do we know this? We know it most intimately from awakening at the deeper scales ourselves, such that we then realize the fundamental constraints on the intellectual gestures (Kant was right about these intellectual constraints but wrong to universalize them). We start to look at the familiar intellectual content of scripture, philosophy, scientific theories, etc., and discern much deeper meaning in which we participate. At the same time, we intuitively know why we couldn't previously see that meaning, even though it was staring us in the face. We realize that indulging the intellect's flattened perspective and tendency, no matter how clever the presentations become, actually works counter-productively. It encourages the paralysis even if we don't intend it to.

And trust me, I have done my fair share of presenting thought-images and intellectual argumentation on this forum. I know very well how this feels like the low-hanging fruit, it feels more accessible and straightforward than constructing a phenomenology and inviting readers to participate. I can still feel that temptation tugging at my soul states and sometimes I decide to simply share a quote from Steiner or make some abstract argument about the nature of reality. But this tendency should not be rationalized or justified - I always try to keep in sight that it is mostly a convenience for me rather than a productive way to invite people onto the spiritual path. This is something that comes into clearer and clearer focus as we inwardly develop. The testimonial language of inner experience is what holds the hope for genuine transformation of souls, sooner or later as the case may be.

[Federica]

Do your essays encourage the paralysis?

[AshvinP]

Do your essays encourage the paralysis?

The earliest ones, yes, but the more recent ones patterned after the phenomenological method, not so much. As long as we are painting the inwardly experienced metamorphoses of experiential states with our concepts, then we are inviting liberation and not paralysis.

[AshvinP]

The following is a nice lecture to contemplate, which points to what's at stake with 'inflating the intellect'. It can help us orient toward the fact that we are not only dealing with whether logical conceptual associations and configurations are grasped, but with the health or illness of the organism. And this doesn't require clairvoyance to understand - at the very least, we can confirm how we become sleepy while studying spiritual science or meditating and we can intuit how this is related to the intellect losing its familiar supports, the algorithmic pathways that the intellect wishes to serve as the 'perfect oracle', as Cleric put it. When we become responsible for weaving our thought-connections independently of those supports, on the other hand, the first inclination is to drop into sleep. That's one way in which we know it is truly a free activity. More than that, it's a free activity that can gradually restore the unhealthy imbalances we have etched into the living body through the inflated intellect.

Every introduction to spiritual endeavors should begin with such pointers that help the intellect to begin deflating its destructive need to micro-manage the flow of imaginative states with rules, definitions, 'proofs', and so on, to begin deconditioning from familiar movements which keep it cycling within infernal loops of strict necessity. Pointing to this deeper reality of the inflated intellect and discouraging those movements is no more coercive than pointing to the fact that certain foods and medicines contain poisons that we are better off avoiding. It simply allows the intellect to make more informed decisions about how it will conduct its movements going forward. Not by giving it more theoretical constructs about how "my intellectual thoughts are destructive", but by opening introspective-meditative portals which invite the intellect to experience its destructive nature more intimately. And the fact that most souls don't immediately accept this invitation should not serve as a justification to begin adapting the underlying method to the intellect's destructive wishes. If we are interested in leaving souls in a truly free state, then we need to make peace with their free decisions to reject the invitation.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA152/En ... 01p01.html

The chief characteristic of ordinary thinking is that each single act of thinking injures the nervous system, and above all, the brain; it destroys something in the brain. Every thought means that a minute process of destruction takes place in the cells of the brain. For this reason sleep is necessary for us, in order that this process of destruction may be made good; during sleep we restore what during the day was destroyed in our nervous system by thinking. What we are consciously aware of in an ordinary thought is in reality the process of destruction that is taking place in our nervous system.

We now endeavour to practise meditation by devoting ourselves to contemplation, for instance, of the saying: Wisdom lives in the Light. This idea cannot originate from sense-impressions because according to the external senses it is not so.

In this example, by means of meditation we hold the thought back so far that it does not connect itself with the brain. If in this way we unfold an inner activity of thinking that is not connected with the brain, through the effects of such meditation upon the soul we shall feel that we are on the right path. As in meditative thinking no process of destruction is evoked in our nervous system, this kind of thinking never causes sleepiness, however long it may be continued, as ordinary thinking may easily do.

It is true that the opposite often occurs when someone is meditating, for people often complain that when they devote themselves to meditation they at once fall asleep. But that is because the meditation is not yet as it should be. It is quite natural that in meditation we should, to begin with, use the kind of thinking to which we have always been accustomed; it is only gradually that we can accustom ourselves to give up thinking about external things. When this point is reached meditative thinking will no longer make us sleepy, and we shall then know that we are on the right path.

When the inner power of thinking can thus be developed without using the thinking faculty of the body, then and only then shall we acquire knowledge of the inner life and recognise our real self, our higher ‘I’.

[Federica]

The following is a nice lecture to contemplate, which points to what's at stake with 'inflating the intellect'. It can help us orient toward the fact that we are not only dealing with whether logical conceptual associations and configurations are grasped, but with the health or illness of the organism. And this doesn't require clairvoyance to understand - at the very least, we can confirm how we become sleepy while studying spiritual science or meditating and we can intuit how this is related to the intellect losing its familiar supports, the algorithmic pathways that the intellect wishes to serve as the 'perfect oracle', as Cleric put it. When we become responsible for weaving our thought-connections independently of those supports, on the other hand, the first inclination is to drop into sleep. That's one way in which we know it is truly a free activity. More than that, it's a free activity that can gradually restore the unhealthy imbalances we have etched into the living body through the inflated intellect.

Every introduction to spiritual endeavors should begin with such pointers that help the intellect to begin deflating its destructive need to micro-manage the flow of imaginative states with rules, definitions, 'proofs', and so on, to begin deconditioning from familiar movements which keep it cycling within infernal loops of strict necessity. Pointing to this deeper reality of the inflated intellect and discouraging those movements is no more coercive than pointing to the fact that certain foods and medicines contain poisons that we are better off avoiding. It simply allows the intellect to make more informed decisions about how it will conduct its movements going forward. Not by giving it more theoretical constructs about how "my intellectual thoughts are destructive", but by opening introspective-meditative portals which invite the intellect to experience its destructive nature more intimately. And the fact that most souls don't immediately accept this invitation should not serve as a justification to begin adapting the underlying method to the intellect's destructive wishes. If we are interested in leaving souls in a truly free state, then we need to make peace with their free decisions to reject the invitation.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA152/En ... 01p01.html

The chief characteristic of ordinary thinking is that each single act of thinking injures the nervous system, and above all, the brain; it destroys something in the brain. Every thought means that a minute process of destruction takes place in the cells of the brain. For this reason sleep is necessary for us, in order that this process of destruction may be made good; during sleep we restore what during the day was destroyed in our nervous system by thinking. What we are consciously aware of in an ordinary thought is in reality the process of destruction that is taking place in our nervous system.

We now endeavour to practise meditation by devoting ourselves to contemplation, for instance, of the saying: Wisdom lives in the Light. This idea cannot originate from sense-impressions because according to the external senses it is not so.

In this example, by means of meditation we hold the thought back so far that it does not connect itself with the brain. If in this way we unfold an inner activity of thinking that is not connected with the brain, through the effects of such meditation upon the soul we shall feel that we are on the right path. As in meditative thinking no process of destruction is evoked in our nervous system, this kind of thinking never causes sleepiness, however long it may be continued, as ordinary thinking may easily do.

It is true that the opposite often occurs when someone is meditating, for people often complain that when they devote themselves to meditation they at once fall asleep. But that is because the meditation is not yet as it should be. It is quite natural that in meditation we should, to begin with, use the kind of thinking to which we have always been accustomed; it is only gradually that we can accustom ourselves to give up thinking about external things. When this point is reached meditative thinking will no longer make us sleepy, and we shall then know that we are on the right path.

When the inner power of thinking can thus be developed without using the thinking faculty of the body, then and only then shall we acquire knowledge of the inner life and recognise our real self, our higher ‘I’.

Thanks, Ashvin. Yes, I am sure the movements of the intellect are connected to processes of health and illness, as I wrote before in this thread. And yes, the choice to engage in spiritual exercise is free. However, the choice of a materialist not to follow a phenomenological invitation, not to engage in those exercises, is not really a free decision. The pointers that help deflate the intellect are necessary. But giving pointers only by “opening introspective-meditative portals which invite the intellect to experience its destructive nature”, no matter how skillfully it's done, runs big risks of being a prohibitive invitation. It's like describing for a prisoner how you freely roam in the open. Therefore my sense is still that your viewpoint is too radical.

I understand that the hysteresis cannot be addressed at the scale of thought images, but does that mean that it can't be conveyed at that scale? That it can't be addressed is clear: the solution is found on a different plane of activity. But I don’t want to exclude that the hysteresis can be illustrated in many ways, not with the purpose of addressing it in the intellectual space, but of evoking the motivation to break free from the old habits and address it on another plane. If only the testimonial language of inner experience is valid, then faith is required. Because the sensitivity to the thinking process necessary to grasp what’s meant by even the most simple pointer, like the 1-to-10 counting experiment for example, is simply not there in the first place. If the only way to speak to a materialist without pushing them into paralysis is to describe for them spiritual metamorphoses of experiential states, then the only viable way to connect with the testimony and take action (because that’s the requirement) on an unfamiliar plane is by faith. In this regard, I do have in mind this post, but I still tend to think that proposing “free” engagement in unfamiliar practices only on faith is too much. Especially in times when faith should cease to be an engine for inner transformation.

This said, I realize the deadly risks of inflating the intellect. And that this discussion is inevitably an abstract one, as you said before. I guess it will be a matter of gauging the particular situation every time, possibly making use of the deadly faculty of brain thinking, which, after all, is a crucial constituent of our humanness on Earth, deadly only for our material body. In a way, only transhumanists with their dream of immortality of the body should be really worried about dead thinking, from the other edge of it, because as long as they want to keep using it, their body is condemned to death. But looking above the level of dead thinking, one can accept that the sphere of dead thinking is, after all, the sphere from which freedom has to emerge, and freedom is required to take active steps on the spiritual path. It seems to be in that order: freedom --> spiritual rebirth in action. So I believe the main discriminator should be, in every situation, whether or not the prompt helps the intellect rise up above the level of its own necessity.