Meditation

[Federica]

so we don't build unreasonable expectations of the higher states, like we are passively observing the activity of beings that are external to us.

You too are misunderstanding me. I was speaking of the logic of the analogy required for it to be fully conducive, fully an analogy. The question was well that the initial analogies might need to be squared? Yes. Nevertheless you have both then switched in mode "let's help her square her soul space".

Actually, that comment was pointing to my own mistake of using a potentially misleading analogy when better ones are available. I didn't say you were building unreasonable expectations of the higher states.

Ok, I see. It was not obvious As I said before, your "we" are not always easy to decipher. Notice, you wrote that minutes after Cleric said "probably you are conceiving of the higher levels of cognition as existing on an entirely different level compared to that of ordinary cognition".

But, after questioning the initial analogies and being presented with different analogies, you did say to us both that you are not in a position to qualify the analogies because you 'lack the experiences' they are pointing to. Yet the only reason you are in any position to question the analogies is because there is something in your experience that makes them seem ill-fitting.

Absolutely. I can't say whether some analogies are better than others (for that, I would need mastery of higher cognition). But I can still see how they work from the limited perspective I hold. And that's what my initial post on the analogies was about.

In my opinion, we should get in the habit of seeing all our confusions about spiritual principles as reflecting something about our soul space to contemplate and work on, not just technical misalignments. Even if that turns out to be a 'misunderstanding', we will benefit greatly from treating it in that way.

I definitely agree.
Now you might think: "if you agree, then why do you separate the confusion in your own soul space from the analogies?"
I don’t separate them, in my own soul space. But when a particular comment of mine referring to the functionality of an analogy, is read as reflecting my own conception of higher cognition (while we were discussing how various metaphors would work from the perspective of the average modern person) that I am forced to point that out.

[Federica]

before we have taken any steps of imaginative meditation, we can sense the Cosmic intentionality in the movements of nature only through conceptual apprehension. In other words, we make logical inferences that there is this intentionality based on our well-grounded belief that reality is spiritual in essence. We don't experience the intentionality like we do with our own thought-perceptions, even if we are thinking in unintelligible gibberish. There is no need to conceptually apprehend the latter because it is immediately and inwardly experienced as being the case.

Sure?

(It's a friendly smile, not a defying one)
((yeah I actually feel the need to subtitle myself))

[AshvinP]

Absolutely. I can't say whether some analogies are better than others (for that, I would need mastery of higher cognition). But I can still see how they work from the limited perspective I hold. And that's what my initial post on the analogies was about.

In my opinion, we should get in the habit of seeing all our confusions about spiritual principles as reflecting something about our soul space to contemplate and work on, not just technical misalignments. Even if that turns out to be a 'misunderstanding', we will benefit greatly from treating it in that way.

I definitely agree.
Now you might think: "if you agree, then why do you separate the confusion in your own soul space from the analogies?"
I don’t separate them, in my own soul space. But when a particular comment of mine referring to the functionality of an analogy, is read as reflecting my own conception of higher cognition (while we were discussing how various metaphors would work from the perspective of the average modern person) that I am forced to point that out.

I don't know, Federica, this doesn't make much sense to me. What is the point of discussing 'how analogies work' if not to base that evaluation on an understanding of higher cognition (which in many ways is an understanding of normal cognition)? Analogies don't "work" or "not work" apart from the first-person thinking perspective that is using them as a means of gaining insight into the flow of reality. Apart from that context, the 'functionality of an analogy' can only mean how personally satisfied we feel with its technical wording independently of its purpose. In which case, we may want to contemplate why such things warrant a question in the first place.

Anyway, you found all subsequent analogies to be unhelpful as well, and there seems to be confusion about the difference between conceptual apprehension of 'intentionality' in nature and experiencing that intentionality in the imaginative state. What do you think may be the outstanding issue(s) now?

[Federica]

Absolutely. I can't say whether some analogies are better than others (for that, I would need mastery of higher cognition). But I can still see how they work from the limited perspective I hold. And that's what my initial post on the analogies was about.

In my opinion, we should get in the habit of seeing all our confusions about spiritual principles as reflecting something about our soul space to contemplate and work on, not just technical misalignments. Even if that turns out to be a 'misunderstanding', we will benefit greatly from treating it in that way.

I definitely agree.
Now you might think: "if you agree, then why do you separate the confusion in your own soul space from the analogies?"
I don’t separate them, in my own soul space. But when a particular comment of mine referring to the functionality of an analogy, is read as reflecting my own conception of higher cognition (while we were discussing how various metaphors would work from the perspective of the average modern person) that I am forced to point that out.

I don't know, Federica, this doesn't make much sense to me. What is the point of discussing 'how analogies work' if not to base that evaluation on an understanding of higher cognition (which in many ways is an understanding of normal cognition)? Analogies don't "work" or "not work" apart from the first-person thinking perspective that is using them as a means of gaining insight into the flow of reality. Apart from that context, the 'functionality of an analogy' can only mean how personally satisfied we feel with its technical wording independently of its purpose. In which case, we may want to contemplate why such things warrant a question in the first place.

Anyway, you found all subsequent analogies to be unhelpful as well, and there seems to be confusion about the difference between conceptual apprehension of 'intentionality' in nature and experiencing that intentionality in the imaginative state. What do you think may be the outstanding issue(s) now?

Ashvin,

I thought I had made myself well understood on what issue (not really a subjective one) I noticed in the metaphors. It's stated in my initial post. By the way, Cleric in response didn't raise anything similar to the blue paragraph, instead he agreed. Now let me ask you, what would you have replied to that post? And if your viewpoint on my initial post is the blue paragraph, why have you waited until this moment?

(I will answer your last question separately)



PS:
In an effort to be extra-clear, I'll try an analogy.

Let’s say I want to describe lions and tigers to someone who has a standard general culture but for some reason has not the least idea what a lion is, never heard the name “lion” and has not seen any image or noticed any reference to lions before, and the same for tigers. So I may say: “For the lion, imagine a cat, but much bigger. Now, for the tiger, imagine a cat, but much much bigger, and more impressive than the lion. To get the difference between lion and tiger, you can remember that cats have various furs, some are plain-colored, some are spotted. Something similar happens with lions and tigers, they have different furs. A tiger will never have spotted or plain-colored fur. If you see a big cat spotted or plain colored, it may be a lion, but surely not a tiger." Here the person could say: it’s not very clear what a tiger is and how it looks. The person has never seen lions or tigers, but can tell that the hints are not very helpful.

Now I could ask the person: “Do you think it would be better to say that a lion is like a big cat and a tiger is like a striped leopard?" To which the person would have to answer: “I don’t know! How can I answer that without knowing lions and tigers? Still, I think the cat fur types didn’t work well as a metaphor to get an idea of a tiger”. I am not saying that these are the exact terms of our discussion yesterday of course, but I hope this example answers (again) everything in your blue paragraph.

[AshvinP]

PS:
In an effort to be extra-clear, I'll try an analogy.

Let’s say I want to describe lions and tigers to someone who has a standard general culture but for some reason has not the least idea what a lion is, never heard the name “lion” and has not seen any image or noticed any reference to lions before, and the same for tigers. So I may say: “For the lion, imagine a cat, but much bigger. Now, for the tiger, imagine a cat, but much much bigger, and more impressive than the lion. To get the difference between lion and tiger, you can remember that cats have various furs, some are plain-colored, some are spotted. Something similar happens with lions and tigers, they have different furs. A tiger will never have spotted or plain-colored fur. If you see a big cat spotted or plain colored, it may be a lion, but surely not a tiger." Here the person could say: it’s not very clear what a tiger is and how it looks. The person has never seen lions or tigers, but can tell that the hints are not very helpful.

Now I could ask the person: “Do you think it would be better to say that a lion is like a big cat and a tiger is like a striped leopard?" To which the person would have to answer: “I don’t know! How can I answer that without knowing lions and tigers? Still, I think the cat fur types didn’t work well as a metaphor to get an idea of a tiger”. I am not saying that these are the exact terms of our discussion yesterday of course, but I hope this example answers everything in your blue paragraph.

In this example, I think the person who is questioning the helpfulness of the metaphor is being unreasonable unless the person already has some idea of the 'gradient' between lions and tigers. Then he can say, 'I have heard you (or others) talk about this spectrum between lions and tigers before, but what you are presenting isn't really helping me increase the clarity of my dim intuition about them'. If the person has absolutely no idea of the gradient beforehand, then his questioning of the metaphor's helpfulness makes no sense, because he doesn't even know what the metaphor is supposed to be helping him towards. For all he knows, in that case, the metaphor offers the maximum possible clarity to his current level of cognition on what a tiger is and how it looks.

Ashvin,

I thought I had made myself well understood on what issue (not really a subjective one) I noticed in the metaphors. It's stated in my initial post. By the way, Cleric in response didn't raise anything similar to the blue paragraph, instead he agreed. Now let me ask you, what would you have replied to that post? And if your viewpoint on my initial post is the blue paragraph, why have you waited until this moment?

I would have replied that, although I understand your confusion when most of the section under "inspiration" deals with imagination again and only the last sentence of the 1st paragraph and the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph deal with inspiration, I could also discern that is what had happened the first time that I read it. So I don't think there is anything objectively wrong or misleading with that section. If anything, one could criticize that he didn't devote more space to speaking of inspiration, although that's also the reason why we can ask questions for him to elaborate and wait for answers, or go back to review earlier posts where he has already metaphorically differentiated imagination, inspiration, and intuition. That's what I thought you were doing, to get a better orientation towards the difference between imagination and inspiration. If you haven't attained such an orientation yet, I hardly think there is an objective fault in the metaphors themselves. They are all just limited angles of conception that we can use as tools to clarify our dim intuition of the strata of our current thinking-perceptual activity in which these higher forces are always at work.

[Federica]

In this example, I think the person who is questioning the helpfulness of the metaphor is being unreasonable unless the person already has some idea of the 'gradient' between lions and tigers. Then he can say, 'I have heard you (or others) talk about this spectrum between lions and tigers before, but what you are presenting isn't really helping me increase the clarity of my dim intuition about them'. If the person has absolutely no idea of the gradient beforehand, then his questioning of the metaphor's helpfulness makes no sense, because he doesn't even know what the metaphor is supposed to be helping him towards. For all he knows, in that case, the metaphor offers the maximum possible clarity to his current level of cognition on what a tiger is and how it looks.

I would have replied that, although I understand your confusion when most of the section under "inspiration" deals with imagination again and only the last sentence of the 1st paragraph and the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph deal with inspiration, I could also discern that is what had happened the first time that I read it. So I don't think there is anything objectively wrong or misleading with that section. If anything, one could criticize that he didn't devote more space to speaking of inspiration, although that's also the reason why we can ask questions for him to elaborate and wait for answers, or go back to review earlier posts where he has already metaphorically differentiated imagination, inspiration, and intuition. That's what I thought you were doing, to get a better orientation towards the difference between imagination and inspiration. If you haven't attained such an orientation yet, I hardly think there is an objective fault in the metaphors themselves. They are all just limited angles of conception that we can use as tools to clarify our dim intuition of the strata of our current thinking-perceptual activity in which these higher forces are always at work.

"If the person has absolutely no idea of the gradient beforehand, then his questioning of the metaphor's helpfulness makes no sense,because he doesn't even know what the metaphor is supposed to be helping him towards."

Not accurate: he wants help to form a visual image of the tiger.


"So I don't think there is anything objectively wrong or misleading with that section."

I really don’t like this way of expressing things that tries to bend the spirit of my initial post, suggesting that I said Cleric's post was “wrong”. That was certainly, and clearly, not the spirit. And it was not the word either. I said that I felt 'misled' (as representative of the standard modern person) by the metaphors, and I logically showed exactly how. And I put 'misled' between quotes. What you are doing is insidious, Ashvin. This discussion doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

[AshvinP]

In this example, I think the person who is questioning the helpfulness of the metaphor is being unreasonable unless the person already has some idea of the 'gradient' between lions and tigers. Then he can say, 'I have heard you (or others) talk about this spectrum between lions and tigers before, but what you are presenting isn't really helping me increase the clarity of my dim intuition about them'. If the person has absolutely no idea of the gradient beforehand, then his questioning of the metaphor's helpfulness makes no sense, because he doesn't even know what the metaphor is supposed to be helping him towards. For all he knows, in that case, the metaphor offers the maximum possible clarity to his current level of cognition on what a tiger is and how it looks.

I would have replied that, although I understand your confusion when most of the section under "inspiration" deals with imagination again and only the last sentence of the 1st paragraph and the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph deal with inspiration, I could also discern that is what had happened the first time that I read it. So I don't think there is anything objectively wrong or misleading with that section. If anything, one could criticize that he didn't devote more space to speaking of inspiration, although that's also the reason why we can ask questions for him to elaborate and wait for answers, or go back to review earlier posts where he has already metaphorically differentiated imagination, inspiration, and intuition. That's what I thought you were doing, to get a better orientation towards the difference between imagination and inspiration. If you haven't attained such an orientation yet, I hardly think there is an objective fault in the metaphors themselves. They are all just limited angles of conception that we can use as tools to clarify our dim intuition of the strata of our current thinking-perceptual activity in which these higher forces are always at work.

"If the person has absolutely no idea of the gradient beforehand, then his questioning of the metaphor's helpfulness makes no sense,because he doesn't even know what the metaphor is supposed to be helping him towards."

Not accurate: he wants help to form a visual image of the tiger.


"So I don't think there is anything objectively wrong or misleading with that section."

I really don’t like this way of expressing things that tries to bend the spirit of my initial post, suggesting that I said Cleric's post was “wrong”. That was certainly, and clearly, not the spirit. And it was not the word either. I said that I felt 'misled' (as representative of the standard modern person) by the metafors, and I logically showed exactly how. And I put 'misled' between quotes. What you are doing is insidious, Ashvin. This discussion doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

Federica,

You have basically ignored all of my reasoning and made this a discussion of how I am 'insidiously bending' things. I was simply responding to your question of how I would respond to that post. If you can't make the connection between your 'blunt' statement of how you felt 'misled' and the term that I used, 'misleading', that's not me bending things. Just like the shortfall of your orientation to the higher stages of cognition does not reflect on the objectively defective structure of the metaphors employed. Or how your confusion with the term 'bodily sensations' does not reflect on its objectively defective nature.

I keep trying to bring this back to the only thing that matters - our inner orientation towards the gradient between intellect, imagination, and inspiration, which anyone can start illuminating conceptually through ordinary thinking experience.

[Federica]

In this example, I think the person who is questioning the helpfulness of the metaphor is being unreasonable unless the person already has some idea of the 'gradient' between lions and tigers. Then he can say, 'I have heard you (or others) talk about this spectrum between lions and tigers before, but what you are presenting isn't really helping me increase the clarity of my dim intuition about them'. If the person has absolutely no idea of the gradient beforehand, then his questioning of the metaphor's helpfulness makes no sense, because he doesn't even know what the metaphor is supposed to be helping him towards. For all he knows, in that case, the metaphor offers the maximum possible clarity to his current level of cognition on what a tiger is and how it looks.

I would have replied that, although I understand your confusion when most of the section under "inspiration" deals with imagination again and only the last sentence of the 1st paragraph and the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph deal with inspiration, I could also discern that is what had happened the first time that I read it. So I don't think there is anything objectively wrong or misleading with that section. If anything, one could criticize that he didn't devote more space to speaking of inspiration, although that's also the reason why we can ask questions for him to elaborate and wait for answers, or go back to review earlier posts where he has already metaphorically differentiated imagination, inspiration, and intuition. That's what I thought you were doing, to get a better orientation towards the difference between imagination and inspiration. If you haven't attained such an orientation yet, I hardly think there is an objective fault in the metaphors themselves. They are all just limited angles of conception that we can use as tools to clarify our dim intuition of the strata of our current thinking-perceptual activity in which these higher forces are always at work.

"If the person has absolutely no idea of the gradient beforehand, then his questioning of the metaphor's helpfulness makes no sense,because he doesn't even know what the metaphor is supposed to be helping him towards."

Not accurate: he wants help to form a visual image of the tiger.


"So I don't think there is anything objectively wrong or misleading with that section."

I really don’t like this way of expressing things that tries to bend the spirit of my initial post, suggesting that I said Cleric's post was “wrong”. That was certainly, and clearly, not the spirit. And it was not the word either. I said that I felt 'misled' (as representative of the standard modern person) by the metafors, and I logically showed exactly how. And I put 'misled' between quotes. What you are doing is insidious, Ashvin. This discussion doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

Federica,

You have basically ignored all of my reasoning and made this a discussion of how I am 'insidiously bending' things. I was simply responding to your question of how I would respond to that post. If you can't make the connection between your 'blunt' statement of how you felt 'misled' and the term that I used, 'misleading', that's not me bending things. Just like the shortfall of your orientation to the higher stages of cognition does not reflect on the objectively defective structure of the metaphors employed. Or how your confusion with the term 'bodily sensations' does not reflect on its objectively defective nature.

I keep trying to bring this back to the only thing that matters - our inner orientation towards the gradient between intellect, imagination, and inspiration, which anyone can start illuminating conceptually through ordinary thinking experience.

Ashvin,

I said it clearly. I am ready to continue the discussion on the question of higher cognition, and I was about to do it, through the other post. But you are making it impossible by being biased in this way. I think this is the reaction you succumb to every time someone dares to make half a remark on Cleric's posts.

The metaphors are supposed to help those who don't know higher cognition to understand it, in their standard cognition, you agree? And the expressions employed, such as "bodily sensations" are directed to standard people, who still have an intrinsically involuntary dualistic apprehension of the world, correct?

The metaphors' expressed intention is to make it manageable for motivated, well intentioned, but spiritually undeveloped people, to take a step in the direction of higher knowledge, correct?

So, if this is correct, there is no being objectively defective or not defective for the metaphors. There is no being "of objectively defective" or not defective nature for the expressions used. This doesn't mean anything. A metaphor fulfills its purpose if it brings the intended meaning across a certain obstacle existing on the receiver's end. That's all. That's the only reason to be, for the metaphor. Now, I think I am a good representative of how a metaphor works for the motivated, applied, but still spiritually undeveloped person mentioned above, who is the target of Cleric's post. So, if a metaphor does not fulfill its goal for me, I think there is nothing wrong with saying that. Moreover, as a comment, it could even have a chance to be helpful.

From the standpoint of a lived unitary understanding of reality, one might have forgotten the feel of dualism. So I am here to thoughtfully suggest, as I did in that post, that "for many who are new to these discussions, there are still clearly separated inner and outer worlds. For this reason, when one hears "bodily sensations" one has a hard time thinking about the house one sees over there, or the sound of the traffic on the road, etc." I am convinced this is a reasonable, and hopefully helpful note from my side. I really think it's like I say. We should do a survey to confirm that.
Please go out there, for example to the discord BK forum, and ask educated people around if they would call seeing a house on the street a "bodily sensation"!
In any case, my comment was said with the best intentions, and after thoughtful consideration.

So I repeat: I am interested in and ready to continue the discussion as previously indicated, but not if you are not able to recognize that there is nothing evil, or disrespectful, or wrong in the way I have 'questioned' the expressions and metaphors.

[AshvinP]

"If the person has absolutely no idea of the gradient beforehand, then his questioning of the metaphor's helpfulness makes no sense,because he doesn't even know what the metaphor is supposed to be helping him towards."

Not accurate: he wants help to form a visual image of the tiger.


"So I don't think there is anything objectively wrong or misleading with that section."

I really don’t like this way of expressing things that tries to bend the spirit of my initial post, suggesting that I said Cleric's post was “wrong”. That was certainly, and clearly, not the spirit. And it was not the word either. I said that I felt 'misled' (as representative of the standard modern person) by the metafors, and I logically showed exactly how. And I put 'misled' between quotes. What you are doing is insidious, Ashvin. This discussion doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

Federica,

You have basically ignored all of my reasoning and made this a discussion of how I am 'insidiously bending' things. I was simply responding to your question of how I would respond to that post. If you can't make the connection between your 'blunt' statement of how you felt 'misled' and the term that I used, 'misleading', that's not me bending things. Just like the shortfall of your orientation to the higher stages of cognition does not reflect on the objectively defective structure of the metaphors employed. Or how your confusion with the term 'bodily sensations' does not reflect on its objectively defective nature.

I keep trying to bring this back to the only thing that matters - our inner orientation towards the gradient between intellect, imagination, and inspiration, which anyone can start illuminating conceptually through ordinary thinking experience.

Ashvin,

I said it clearly. I am ready to continue the discussion on the question of higher cognition, and I was about to do it, through the other post. But you are making it impossible by being biased in this way. I think this is the reaction you succumb to every time someone dares to make half a remark on Cleric's posts.

The metaphors are supposed to help those who don't know higher cognition to understand it, in their standard cognition, you agree? And the expressions employed, such as "bodily sensations" are directed to standard people, who still have an intrinsically involuntary dualistic apprehension of the world, correct?

The metaphors' expressed intention is to make it manageable for motivated, well intentioned, but spiritually undeveloped people, to take a step in the direction of higher knowledge, correct?

So, if this is correct, there is no being objectively defective or not defective for the metaphors. There is no being "of objectively defective" or not defective nature for the expressions used. This doesn't mean anything. A metaphor fulfills its purpose if it brings the intended meaning across a certain obstacle existing on the receiver's end. That's all. That's the only reason to be, for the metaphor. Now, I think I am a good representative of how a metaphor works for the motivated, applied, but still spiritually undeveloped person mentioned above, who is the target of Cleric's post. So, if a metaphor does not fulfill its goal for me, I think there is nothing wrong with saying that. Moreover, as a comment, it could even have a chance to be helpful.

From the standpoint of a lived unitary understanding of reality, one might have forgotten the feel of dualism. So I am here to thoughtfully suggest, as I did in that post, that "for many who are new to these discussions, there are still clearly separated inner and outer worlds. For this reason, when one hears "bodily sensations" one has a hard time thinking about the house one sees over there, or the sound of the traffic on the road, etc." I am convinced this is a reasonable, and hopefully helpful note from my side. I really think it's like I say. We should do a survey to confirm that.
Please go out there, for example to the discord BK forum, and ask educated people around if they would call seeing a house on the street a "bodily sensation"!
In any case, my comment was said with the best intentions, and after thoughtful consideration.

So I repeat: I am interested in and ready to continue the discussion as previously indicated, but not if you are not able to recognize that there is nothing evil, or disrespectful, or wrong in the way I have 'questioned' the expressions and metaphors.

Of course, there is nothing evil, wrong, or disrespectful in the questioning. What is unproductive, however, is that we are still discussing the structure of the metaphors, and presumably would still be discussing the term 'bodily sensations' if we didn't move on to the metaphors. Those initial questions should just be a starting point for figuring out what it is in our understanding that is acting as an obstacle for the metaphors (which now include many refined ones that you consistently found unhelpful) or the terms to resonate and clarify our intuitive orientation. That is the only thing that matters.

No, I don't think it is ever wise to assume we stand in as a 'representative' of some large population of people trying to understand. It reminds me of the numerous comments on this forum that speak of Steiner or Cleric, the ideas they present and the terms they use, not being "accessible" to the "average person". Why do we use 'meaning', 'thinking', 'spiritual activity', 'world content', etc.? Why do we use the metaphor of a hole in the ground? Invariably, such sentiments end up being a reflection of our own obstacles and limitations that need to be worked through. Everything we perceive and understand in the World flows through our temperament, habits, preferences, emotions, beliefs, etc., so that is the place to start. Most of our inner development consists precisely in that process of working through. I don't think you or I are any exception, either. Once a question leads to additional comments and those comments reveal a certain way of thinking about the underlying principles that is acting as a hindrance, we should be open to that reality and to dealing with it in some way.

I'm not here to force you or placate you into discussing the question of higher cognition. If you don't feel the burning need to explore that right now, as I would hope you would, then we can set it aside for later.

[Federica]

before we have taken any steps of imaginative meditation, we can sense the Cosmic intentionality in the movements of nature only through conceptual apprehension. In other words, we make logical inferences that there is this intentionality based on our well-grounded belief that reality is spiritual in essence. We don't experience the intentionality like we do with our own thought-perceptions, even if we are thinking in unintelligible gibberish. There is no need to conceptually apprehend the latter because it is immediately and inwardly experienced as being the case.

Sure?

Ashvin,

I propose that we resume the discussion from your words above and drop the other exchange. It takes me effort not to reply to your last post just above, but I agree that it wouldn't be productive in terms of higher cognition.

Since I wrote that in the movements of nature, one can sense the Cosmic intentionality in standard cognition" you have referred multiple times to my "confusion about the difference between conceptual apprehension of 'intentionality' in nature and experiencing that intentionality in the imaginative state."

I think your argument forgets that the modes of cognition are not compartments, and that beyond the conceptual conclusion that reality is spiritual in nature, it is possible to evolve one's soul state holistically towards a realization of the spiritual essence of natural bodily sensations like wind, rain, or sunshine. When I say holistically I mean by actively merging thinking with feeling and will, including in artistic ways. You haved forgotten feeling. That's why I said "sense" the Cosmic intentionality. I believe this is easier with dynamic or meteorological phenomena and away from man-made direct environments. Now, I don't fantasize that this is imaginative cognition, but it's an evolution of the soul state that can't be dismissed as "confusion".

Also, that there's no need to conceptually apprehend things when we immediately and inwardly experience them, seems a strange statement. If there's an image there should definitely by a concept. Do you mean that in imaginative cognition the phenomenology of cognition as in PoF is not relevant? That's not my understanding.