Jordan Peterson “Beyond Order” book excerpt: Aeon of Horus, Osiris, Star Wars, Jung and Crowley

[Cleric K]

Exactly Shu and this is what Cleric seems to me to resist. It's not that I've never been troubled or stressed by contradiction but that I lovingly accept that joy and pain, form and emptiness, blah and blah are the same co-arising events. And, YES, it's appropriately called not the Mind Sutra but the Heart Sutra -- The Heart of Compassion or Unconditional Love.

Time for the daily dose?

Unless you reconsider your antipathy towards the idea of 'higher' you'll never grasp what's going on. If you could investigate your own reasoning, you would find the inner connection between this antipathy and the reason why you consider the Whole to be fully instinctive. The position that you support is like the cells of your body, if they could think individually, to say "We are all cells! No one is more important than the other. There's no higher and lower. Some foolish cells speak of some 'man' that supposedly has 'higher' form of consciousness than us. Some even more foolish cells claim that it's actually possible for them to understand something of his perspective. What nonsense! What ascent-deluded arrogance! This so called man is actually a blindly-instinctive whole. Our job is just to keep our nuclei in loving surrender to it, to flow with it, but it makes no sense of speaking of this man as being some self-conscious organism, let alone to consider his consciousness being 'higher' than ours."

[Lou Gold]

Exactly Shu and this is what Cleric seems to me to resist. It's not that I've never been troubled or stressed by contradiction but that I lovingly accept that joy and pain, form and emptiness, blah and blah are the same co-arising events. And, YES, it's appropriately called not the Mind Sutra but the Heart Sutra -- The Heart of Compassion or Unconditional Love.

Time for the daily dose?

Unless you reconsider your antipathy towards the idea of 'higher' you'll never grasp what's going on. If you could investigate your own reasoning, you would find the inner connection between this antipathy and the reason why you consider the Whole to be fully instinctive. The position that you support is like the cells of your body, if they could think individually, to say "We are all cells! No one is more important than the other. There's no higher and lower. Some foolish cells speak of some 'man' that supposedly has 'higher' form of consciousness than us. Some even more foolish cells claim that it's actually possible for them to understand something of his perspective. What nonsense! What ascent-deluded arrogance! This so called man is actually a blindly-instinctive whole. Our job is just to keep our nuclei in loving surrender to it, to flow with it, but it makes no sense of speaking of this man as being some self-conscious organism, let alone to consider his consciousness being 'higher' than ours."

Of course, to give me my daily dose you must project from your direct experiences onto mine. I'm not a philosopher coherently offering a rationalized interpretation of my experiences. I am a storyteller reporting my direct experiences. I am surely attracted to BK's notion that consciousness is experience. I am similarly comfortable with scriptural statements like "I am That I Am" or "I will be what will be" or "Tell them I am movement and that I am rest." I see no need to assert intentionality other than a Love that instinctively keeps creating and loves everything created. And, finally, I laugh appreciatively with the observation, "If you want to make God laugh, tell your plan."

If I was to offer a morning dose projected onto to you, I would say that you are a committed adult achiever possibly missing the magical mysteriousness of childlike curiosity. I don't know this. Who can ever comprehend a process other than one's own? This is why I often say, "Tell me your direct experience so I can feel it" but you seem to prefer to offer interpretive mental models. What am I missing?

[SanteriSatama]

Time for the daily dose?

Of αρτον επιουσιον...;?

Unless you reconsider your antipathy towards the idea of 'higher' you'll never grasp what's going on. If you could investigate your own reasoning, you would find the inner connection between this antipathy and the reason why you consider the Whole to be fully instinctive. The position that you support is like the cells of your body, if they could think individually, to say "We are all cells! No one is more important than the other. There's no higher and lower. Some foolish cells speak of some 'man' that supposedly has 'higher' form of consciousness than us. Some even more foolish cells claim that it's actually possible for them to understand something of his perspective. What nonsense! What ascent-deluded arrogance! This so called man is actually a blindly-instinctive whole. Our job is just to keep our nuclei in loving surrender to it, to flow with it, but it makes no sense of speaking of this man as being some self-conscious organism, let alone to consider his consciousness being 'higher' than ours."

"Electrons are friendly, They wave at you."

The words and the basic metaphors they convey matter, at least to a language cop*. "Higher", can't wave at you in friendly manner, because it wants to escape the lower part. Also in term's of "higher" frequency, that means sensually "thicker", not more "spaced out". So why insist for the antipathy from a high horse, instead of speaking in more wholesome way, in both more accurate and coherent way, if that is the genuine intention and desire?

*Language cop = philosopher

[Cleric K]

Of course, to give me my daily dose you must project from your direct experiences onto mine. I'm not a philosopher coherently offering a rationalized interpretation of my experiences. I am a storyteller reporting my direct experiences. I am surely attracted to BK's notion that consciousness is experience. I am similarly comfortable with scriptural statements like "I am That I Am" or "I will be what will be" or "Tell them I am movement and that I am rest." I see no need to assert intentionality other than a Love that instinctively keeps creating and loves everything created. And, finally, I laugh appreciatively with the observation, "If you want to make God laugh, tell your plan."

If I was to offer a morning dose projected onto to you, I would say that you are a committed adult achiever possibly missing the magical mysteriousness of childlike curiosity. I don't know this. Who can ever comprehend a process other than one's own? This is why I often say, "Tell me your direct experience so I can feel it" but you seem to prefer to offer interpretive mental models. What am I missing?

What you are missing is that the contradiction between the philosopher and storyteller can be resolved.

Natural science began as purely observational discipline. Think of botany, zoology, geology, astronomy, etc. Initially it was all about making observations, recognizing the things seen and their relations. Gradually the sensory pool of data becomes exhausted but still many questions remain. From this point begins the theory. As long as one simply makes observations there's no need of theory. There's nothing theoretical in the color of the rose, the shape of the thorns and leaves. Theory begins when we want to relate observations that are not explainable from the given sensory information. For example, the geologists find fossilized bones underground which have nothing in common with the living creatures of today. There's disconnect in the sensory data. Here comes the theory. Mind creates mental scenarios of how this might have happened and tries to fit the facts. That's how science becomes more and more abstract - that is, the vaster part of it exists as mental construction that should explain the sensory data. This hold true for philosophy too. God, being, non-being, time, space - intellectual concepts which philosophers try to put together into various frameworks such that they can make sense.

You say "Tell me your direct experience so I can feel it". That's what I'm doing all the time. But it seems you are not interested to feel it. Yes, thoughts can be felt! The sciences and philosophies of today will disappear. They'll remain in history only as an educational step. Remember when you were learning to write? You drew small lines and dashes, line after line. In a similar sense, the science and philosophy of today is educational exercise for our cognition. We are exploring the directions into which thinking can move in relation to perceptions. The extract of all this is what moves forward. And what moves forward is the spiritual being of man which through exercises, trial and error, has come to know what he really is.

At this stage, philosophy and storytelling become united on a higher (sorry) level. They are no longer the irreconcilable son and daughter (mind and heart). The lucidity and light of thinking emerges out of the old forms and continue as something new to illuminate the deeper world of the heart. Mark this well: it's not that the mind surrenders and becomes unconscious leaf carried on the streams of the heart-world. Neither is the mind rigidified in an imperative mental model. Instead, the mind returns to the Natural sciences. But this time it not only observes the sensory perceptions but the Whole. We no longer create models and theories but observe and comprehend reality itself. What was missing in the sensory world, the missing part that provoked us to build theories, now we find as living spiritual processes and beings.

Of course we need new cognitive habits for this. And this is the greatest inconvenience for scientists and spiritualists alike. The intellect is adapted to the sensory realm where we can lay hold on rigid perceptions and attach concepts to them. Not so simple in the inner world, where everything is constant metamorphosis. And here's the point of bifurcation. People of the mind say "We need something stable like the neurons, of our concept of MAL, something that we can grasp and work with." People of the heart say "Nonsense, this will never do. The mind can never grasp the secret mysteries of the heart. One only surrenders to them in loving devotion". Well, sorry to break the romance, but there's a way that this can be resolved. There's something hidden behind the thoughts - the actual animator of the thoughts - that can be brought to daylight and this something can live in full consciousness within the dynamic heart-world which connects us all together. But as said, this something, requires certain effort to come about, just as learning to write does.

From that point we become storyteller of the reasonable world of the heart. The only problem is that not many people want to hear that story. It's far more convenient to preserve the old habits of thought or to simply let go of everything and let the instinctive universe do everything for us.

[Lou Gold]

Cleric,

I wish you would stop asserting what I don't say. I do not see a contradiction between philosopher and storyteller. I see different direct experiences (stories) resulting in different preferred philosophies (rationalizations). I further intuit that the math-and-physics position of no space-time is correct and from that perspective developmental notions of intent of God or Human make no sense, which is exactly what the mystics say. I further have faith in an instinctively creating loving God that does not distinguish between you and me. Eternity is just in love with the productions of time. I am intrigued by the possibility suggested by Don Hoffman that there may be arising in consciousness an abundance view that will replace the old scarcity view in which competition, striving and conscious intention seem so important and that it may in reality be possible for us to just play in the fields of the Lord. To enter the Kingdom be as a child curious about possibility.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Really, when it comes right down to it ~ or is that 'up' to it? ~ isn't all ontology rendered as story-making, given the ineffability of "___" (enter preferred name for the nameless)

[Lou Gold]

Really, when it comes right down to it ~ or is that 'up' to it? ~ isn't all ontology rendered as story-making, given the ineffability of "___" (enter preferred name for the nameless)

We agree, Shu.

[Cleric K]

Cleric,

I wish you would stop asserting what I don't say. I do not see a contradiction between philosopher and storyteller. I see different direct experiences (stories) resulting in different preferred philosophies (rationalizations). I further intuit that the math-and-physics position of no space-time is correct and from that perspective developmental notions of intent of God or Human make no sense, which is exactly what the mystics say. I further have faith in an instinctively creating loving God that does not distinguish between you and me. Eternity is just in love with the productions of time. I am intrigued by the possibility suggested by Don Hoffman that there may be arising in consciousness an abundance view that will replace the old scarcity view in which competition, striving and conscious intention seem so important and that it may in reality be possible for us to just play in the fields of the Lord. To enter the Kingdom be as a child curious about possibility.

OK, Lou. I only tried to show that I'm not pushing imperative mental models but to describe direct experiences where fully conscious spiritual activity lives in the heart-world, and testifies that the beings in that world don't live unconscious instinctive life but are fully self-aware and wide awake. In fact, our human consciousness looks only like a dim, drunken state in comparison. These beings are what give the messages to the shaman, who teach him about the relations between plants and diseases, about the forest and the animals.

You ask me about direct experience - there, I give it. You and Santeri feel that I'm biased by calling these beings higher. Well, suggest a word then! How would you call beings for which all your thoughts, feelings and will are transparent, who understand what you struggle with, what divides you, what your soul longs for and what is sabotaging it? Beings that see human life in the real interconnectedness of all life and not in intellectual concepts as we see it. Beings that see when humans are headed for a precipice long before we fall off the cliff, and try to warn us.

"Higher", can't wave at you in friendly manner, because it wants to escape the lower part

What a beautiful description of human class struggles! Yet it has nothing to do with spiritual reality. These beings are and have always been engaged with us. Just as a parents feels joy and happiness when their children grow bright, loving and healthy, so these beings employ their energies to help us achieve our potential and they feel real joy when we do that. But they also feel very specific sadness when humans stray in the paths leading to desolation. It's especially moving to co-experience with them how they feel when human beings simply don't believe that they exist. And there's nothing egoistical in this sadness. They are not spoiled ladies hungry for attention. They are not sad for themselves - they are sad for us. They have long ago overcome the egoistical state. Parents today love their children and make sacrifices for them but there are many who secretly see this as an investment so that when old age comes there would be someone to take care of them. There's nothing of this character above. The beings can take care of themselves just fine. They don't grow old. They only become more and more perfect in Love and Wisdom.

So tell me - how do you call these beings? Lower, deeper, outer, inner, left, right? I don't really care about the word as long as the reality to which it points is understood. Now you'll tell me that there's no right word because you don't believe that such beings exist or if they exist they are only some kind of blindly-instinctive Cosmic love-energy that glues everything together.

And that's OK. I've always said that these things in no way should be blindly believed. They should simply be experienced in thought. I can't do more than that. I can only describe experiences. I fully understand that from another's perspective it's not possible to distinguish between description of experience and description of imperative mental model.

And this is also the great difference between the East and the West. Here I don't mean West in the sense of science, business and technology. I speak of the West in the sense of something that is barely visible at this moment, so only those who have eyes to see it and ears to hear it can recognize it. It's a delicate sprout, something vulnerable and weak, which can nevertheless grow into something strong, wise and full of Love. The extract of the West emerges as new thinking, new feeling and new acting, from the ruins of western civilization. This fruit of the West will once again illuminate the mighty ancient Cosmic breadth of the East. The East can't do this by itself - it was shaped in an age where thinking was not yet a thing. It received everything readymade in atavistic Imaginations from the spiritual world. But then the problematic child of thinking appeared and with it the "I". The East has easy solution "Throw that baby into the water, it ruins everything!". That's why the East seeks the pure awareness, it wants to restore the splendor of the past, the times when man was beholding the mighty pictures of other worlds. That's why it sees the thinking "I" as a tumor, as unfortunate happening - the sooner it is removed - the better. But thankfully, the beings that oversee our development know better than this and they are fighting together with us. It's a battle for the spiritual seed of man - something that certain forces want to suffocate and destroy before it has gotten the chance to see the light of day.

As the seed grows and becomes stronger it reaches again at the depths of the Cosmos. The fruit of the West doesn't escape the East, as suggested, but comes to it and fertilizes it, so that Feminine Soul (East) and Masculine Spirit (West) become a unity. The "I" finds again through effort and sweat on the brow the mighty vistas that the ancient Hindus knew. But now they are beheld in full consciousness with full understanding how man relates to them.

You see, there's no need to believe in these things. They can be thought about. And it simply requires that one follows the thoughts to their ultimate conclusions. If one takes the idea of balance between the two Cosmic Principles to the heart, not only as abstract smearing out of differences within the mind, one cannot fail but arrive at conclusions as the above. The very fact that in Eastern mood the Universe is seen as grand instinctive Soul/Void/Awareness (the Great Mother) while the Spirit is seen only as an accidental side effect, and truth is approached by undoing that side effect, is one of the most glaring examples of Cosmic disbalance one can imagine. Yet it is not recognized as such. Just as the example with the seesaws was not recognized for what it was.

And there's a great difference between the ancient Wisdom and what is today breaking its way. Ashvin, Scott and others also feel it in their battles in other threads. It is something very simple. The "I" that penetrates the spiritual structure of reality has certain experiences which the Eastern mind doesn't have - not because it can't have them but because it doesn't want to - it fiercely rejects them. The wide awake "I" does not have any problem to understand the Eastern state. I can testify this for myself. The shamanic state, the no-thought/no-self state, the trance state, the psychedelic state, the sleep and dream states - these are all things that the growing "I" knows and understands - not theoretically but from direct experience. The "I" doesn't reject the mystical state of awareness devoid of content. It doesn't say "I don't believe that such a thing exists". Quite the contrary - I personally confirm from direct verification that these states exist. But I also confirm the existence of a higher stage of cognition, where the "I" doesn't dissolve but experiences its spiritual sources, within a world of living beings.

That's the great difference between East and West:
The Soul says - "I don't believe in what you say. I outright reject it. From my perspective you are a deluded mind on a power trip, too intoxicated with its 'higher' experiences to notice the fundamental peace of the undivided being"
The Spirit says - "Not only that I don't reject the fundamental peace of undivided being but I fully confirm it from my own experience. But I also testify that the nature of the Spirit can't be derived from whirlpools in the soul waters. We sin against the truth if we are to do this, we fall into Cosmic one-sidedness. It is the Spirit that swirls these vortices in the first place. The Spirit, the creative principle that reveals today within the thinking "I" is only now beginning to organize the soul waters so that the Macrocosmic "I" can discover its reflection in them. The Spirit needs the Cosmic Waters of the Soul to know of its existence and the Soul needs the Light of the Spirit if it's not to remain in deep Cosmic sleep."

So there it is. A point to ponder. A real test for those who claim to love balance of dualities.

[Soul_of_Shu]

@ Cleric ... I take it that you're not referring to these beings ...

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

(Lou) Akathisia Bingo! This is why I instantly recognized him papably as a "wounded healer." No one should therefore less value the healing message, However, the shadow should be recognized as well and held, with compassion, in balance.

(Ashvin) This was a result of taking benzodiazepines for too long, as prescribed by his doctor, which he put out into the public even before this latest tragedy. He has always been forthright about his struggles with depression throughout his life as well.

You and Santeri have a knack for formulating criticisms with a lot of style and very little substance.

Why do you hear this as criticism? JF has been open about it, so has GM and they emerged with different "wounded healer" approaches. This is why a dialogue between them would be so interesting, specifically on the topic of compassion, which is where they seem to differ.

If not that particular post, then plenty of others which are obviously critical. Again, I have no problem with people being critical of JP, BK or anyone else, only when the critics seem aghast that others are criticizing their criticisms, and therefore write their critics off as engaged in this or that psychological defense mechanism, or better yet pretend they were never being critical in the first instance.

I would also like to hear a dialogue between JP and GM. Specifically I would want to hear what GM makes of JP's argument that compassion by itself is never a good long-term strategy for dealing with anyone other than infants. At a minimum it must be balanced by conscientiousness, i.e. sharp value-priority distinctions and related negotiations between consenting adults.

Yes, Ashvin. This would certainly make it a most interesting dialogue.

Furthermore, if the New Physics is correct about no space-time, if there is only an Eternal Now and if Don Hofman's speculation pans out that there is a New Mathematics that will shift from Scarcity to Abundance Consciousness, this may be the Second Coming under which we can all enter Heaven as playful children and be freed from the development model requiring egos that go bump in the dark in order to bring fallen bodies to the Light. To think of it merely as substance-less poetry is a very rational way to block the possibility.

Circling back on this because it was a thoughtful and substantive response! I agree Hoffman's speculation is intriguing. I am wondering whether his mathematical models can distinguish between conscious activity and activity networks which engage in seeking of spiritual and material abundance voluntarily, from the bottom-up so to speak, rather than through top-down compulsion mechanisms. Maybe our resident matheticians can shed some light on that