Cleric, I said it many times, but you keep misinterpreting the non-dual approach to spiritual life. There is a reason for that of course, as I said before, there are indeed some Eastern schools and adepts that interpret it in such way as an escape from life into some seductive "tranquil" state of "walking zombie" because of being "fed up" or because of too much personal suffering. But this approach was criticized by Buddha as "aversion to becoming" and clinging to empty and tranquil states . It is true that in initial stages of the path of many Eastern traditions there is a strong motivation for liberation from suffering, and for some people it remains so strong that it becomes their main motivation in practice and leads to escapism into such seductive "tranquil" states. However, the generic non-dual traditions have nothing to do with that. Liberation it is not about escaping anything, but about continuing the full involvement with the life of forms, including the life of ego-self and higher-Self and whatever, but in a liberated and non-conditioned way. And such liberated state inevitably and naturally leads to transformation and transcendence of the ego-self, and later transcendence of the self-identified higher-Self into liberated and non-self-identified higher-Self. This happens not because one is being "fed up" with anything, but by the intrinsic logic/nature of the non-dual state itself. The liberated state leads to full engagement with life but free from any clinging and aversion to anything - everything is accepted as part of the life flow, and whatever work and involvement is needed to help in the progressive development of the collective consciousness is given freely and openly.Cleric K wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:55 am Eugene, I think we speak of very different kinds of transcendence here
What you say sounds a little like transcendence is a matter of being fed up with ego-life and deciding to do something more interesting after death. I'll try to draw a picture of what we need to pass through in order to reach a point that really transcends our perspective within the Solar system.
But along the way towards such transformation there is often a stage or period in one's spiritual life when one needs certain degree of abstinence from too much involvement in the life of ego in the world of egos in order to be able to focus on the necessary elements of practice. This is not necessary and entirely optional, but this is what we see in the path of monastics and renunciates, both in Eastern and Wester traditions. Most of them do it not because they are "fed up" or are escapists (even though many still may feel that way, at least at some stages), but as a stage in their spiritual life that helps them to accelerate their spiritual transformation, and once they achieve that (whether in the incarnate or discarnate state), they usually return back to involvement with life in a full sense. We see that among many examples of both the masters of the Eastern traditions and saints of the Western traditions, who, once attained transformation, return back to life with ordinary people to help them in their spiritual life. In Zen it is called the 10-stage of "Entering the Marketplace with Extended Hands" that happens after the 9-th stage of "Return to the Origin, Back to the Source".
Return to the Origin, Back to the Source
Entering the Marketplace with Extended Hands
In the rest of your post you gave a wonderful exposition of the Cosmic path through the Spheres towards the higher-Self, this is the path that you took and that you intimately know from your spiritual experience, and the one you strongly adhere with. And it is understandable that because you see the positive results in your life from it, you want to share it with other people who may also want to follow such path, and this is wonderful. But please understand that this is not the only possible path of traversing the Spiritual Universe. Other paths, such as non-dual, one of the indigenous traditions, and perhaps other ones, are not about bypassing or escaping the Spiritual Universe in any way, but about traversing it along different paths. You need to come to peace with the fact that there is not the only one possible path to traverse the Spiritual Universe in the direction of the spiritual progression.
We are here representing various spiritual paths, and there is no reason to compete with each other or demean each other paths. We still may share our personal experiences and insights from our travels along our different paths and let people decide and choose their path of preference for themselves.