Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Breaking Bad Habits

[AshvinP]

Let us pause for a moment to anticipate an objection - the above does not explain why sensing and thinking are inseparable. True, but that is not the question. Rather, the question is whether they are, in reality, inseparable. I would further argue that those who question the inseparability have the burden of explaining how the activities can be isolated from each other and continue functioning. The givens of our experience show clearly that sensing-thinking activity is always interpenetrating, so any counter-argument should also be derived from the givens of our experience. Refuge cannot be taken in abstract speculations about a simple organism which senses yet does not think, or some other such purely intellectual fantasy.

I'm not sure I get it.... So you would disagree with W. James that babies just perceives a "great blooming, buzzing confusion"? If so, why can we not say that a newborn perceives the world without "thinking"?

James said that in relation to a hypothetical human being who had never thought but only perceived. In reality, there can be no such human being. A newborn experiences perceiving-thinking as unified process of the world with no exterior-interior distinction.

[AshvinP]

Things get their proper relations when we realize that we can't simply develop self-knowledge just for the sake of it. The metamorphic view really assumes it's proper vorticity when we begin to nourish in ourselves the High Ideal. That's key. We always need to aim for something that is beyond our current capabilities if we are to make progress. There are many examples in practical life. Even in fitness - if we have a goal to bench press certain weight we need to actually put bigger weights than our goal. Otherwise we only approach the goal asymptotically without ever reaching it. For this reason we place our goal at infinity. We slowly develop our relations with the living archetype of the Perfect Man - the Representative of Man, the symphony of the metamorphic view. This High Ideal is a goal, a friend, a Master, a counselor, our true potential. Only when we enter into loving communion with this alive Ideal, we gain the strength to overcome our weaknesses. We can never do anything when we stay face to face with our lower nature. Like in electricity or gravity, we need potential difference in order for currents to begin flowing. The Sun Man provides this potential reservoir. By becoming inspired and supported by that Being that reverberates in every act of freedom that we perform, the shades of the lower self are illuminated and we gain the Strength to put them to work for a higher purpose.

Definitely agreed. I am in process of finishing the second part of essay addressing exactly that. (much of it already written in the first part but decided to take it out for sake of length).

[Eugene I]

Cleric, I repeat the 201-th time : the empty state does not provide solutions to anything, it is useless by itself. But in the non-dual path it's only a specific and temporary practice to help discover permanent aspects of consciousness. Once that is done, it is no longer practiced, and in many schools it is never even practiced at all. Experiential discovering of the permanent aspect does not overshadow the impermanent ones in any way, but enhances the overall perception of reality and removes the distorted views on it. It's like you always looked below the horizon paying all your attention only to all the variety of life that happens on the ground and all the mechanics of that, and you thought that the life on the ground is all there is to life and to the world. And suddenly you raised your eyes and the for the first time see the luminous and indivisible sky. There may be a temptation to forget the ground and get stoned just looking at the sky, but I don't think it's a good choice. Instead, it is better to enhance you view and see the whole picture all the time - both the sky and the ground, and keep walking on the ground while enjoying the wholeness of the landscape. This is where we can find the perfect balance between being too much lost and focused in the details of what happens on the ground, or being stoned and focused on the sky only.

And I think the investigation that you pointed is very relevant, useful and it should never stop, whether in incarnate or discarnate states, and I personally always keep doing it. I want to know all those layers and structures and mechanisms of how this construct of reality works, and my non-dual perception does not impede it in any way, but rather enhances and motivates it further. The only thing I said is that in our limited perspective of the human form most of those layers are (temporary) hidden for us, and for a reason. That should not discourage us from keeping the investigation, but we should not bang our heads too much against the wall when we hit the wall. Spiritual science is only one of the aims of our human life and of the spiritual side of life in general, and there are many other goals and purposes and activities in this life, and many other reasons we incarnated other than just to do the spiritual science investigation. So, a good balance is always helpful between neglecting/not-doing and overdoing the spiritual science as if it is the only and ultimate goal of life.

[Marco Masi]

James said that in relation to a hypothetical human being who had never thought but only perceived. In reality, there can be no such human being. A newborn experiences perceiving-thinking as unified process of the world with no exterior-interior distinction.

But, as far as I can see in babies, they don't understand a thing when looking around. There is the seeing, and the exterior-interior distinction is lacking precisely because they can make no sense of these inner-outer concepts. As adults we still can have experience suggestive of this as well. Think of certain Gestalt figures. First one doesn't see anything but, after a while, suddenly a meaning emerges and one "sees" a semantic object. First there is the perceiving, then the thinking.

[Eugene I]

In reality, there can be no such human being. A newborn experiences perceiving-thinking as unified process of the world with no exterior-interior distinction.

In reality, such statement is only unprovable hypothesis (at the current stage of science anyway), because we can not know, recall or imagine how a new-born child actually perceives the reality and whether he/she has any thinking abilities.

[Apanthropinist]

We slowly develop our relations with the living archetype of the Perfect Man - the Representative of Man........Only when we enter into loving communion with this alive Ideal, we gain the strength to overcome our weaknesses.

If we were to adopt this view then would we not also be inevitably creating a seat at the table for the aphorism "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" (The best (perfect) is the enemy of the good)? Moreover, the notion of perfect, as I think you mean it here but could be wrong, seems to me to be logically impossible to defend.

Like in electricity or gravity, we need potential difference in order for currents to begin flowing.

...or plasma. But your examples are ones of how you need imperfection in order for anything to move/act/progress/regress etc. It is that very asymmetry (potential difference) that gives motive force to movement. Perfection, if that's the end game of Man, would be a symmetric state, in which nothing further could happen without breaking the symmetry, thus breaking the 'perfection'. This is the issue, as I see it, with any notion of perfection, whether it be physics or spirituality, it is a state of stasis, it 'holds' itself in a state out of which it cannot 'move' without breaking. Life is dynamic is it not, all life I suspect, and for that you need imperfection and asymmetry. It's the same with DNA, where adaptivity happens through genetic imperfection that gives a new advantage.

The Sun Man provides this potential reservoir.

Plasma 'Sun Man' or 'Squatting Man':
"The notion of a transient blazing humanoid in the sky was fated to remain utterly bizarre until a decade ago, when plasma physicist Anthony Peratt reported on high-energy density plasma instabilities that transform an initially cylindrical plasma beam via a stack of toroids into a so-called ‘squatting man’, emitting extremely dazzling synchrotron radiation light. Recognising this modern-day homunculus in countless petroglyphs, Peratt was man enough to go public with the idea that such ‘stickmen’ had graced prehistoric skies in the form of intense aurorae. Mythical data such as presented above, of which Peratt was unaware, bolster this hypothesis, especially insofar as the preternatural ‘man’ materialises as a form of the axis mundi. In other traditions, the creator dispatches a paradigmatic man to the earth shortly before departing; drawing a curtain over the ‘golden age’, the teachings of the ideal man usher in the age of ‘history’. Peratt’s simulations converge to the extent that the ‘squatting man’ emerges towards the end of the plasma sequence, just before the pinch collapses."

The Sun Man or 'Squatting Man' is represented across cultures and times in one way or another. On petroglyphs, in ancient art, in myths. People saw this in the sky apparently, as noted above. Nowadays we can exactly replicate this in plasma labs in a way that is directly observable, repeatable, testable and verifiable.

It may be wise to be cautious about what is now an explainable, observable and repeatable natural phenomena but it does highlight how readily we can create narratives of spiritual ideation, even if innocently because we lacked knowledge.

[AshvinP]

James said that in relation to a hypothetical human being who had never thought but only perceived. In reality, there can be no such human being. A newborn experiences perceiving-thinking as unified process of the world with no exterior-interior distinction.

But, as far as I can see in babies, they don't understand a thing when looking around. There is the seeing, and the exterior-interior distinction is lacking precisely because they can make no sense of these inner-outer concepts. As adults we still can have experience suggestive of this as well. Think of certain Gestalt figures. First one doesn't see anything but, after a while, suddenly a meaning emerges and one "sees" a semantic object. First there is the perceiving, then the thinking.

Right, you are referring to meta-cognitive thinking (or at least partially meta-cognitive), which is necessary for a being to "understand a thing". That is only a later form of thinking which has unfolded from earlier non-meta-cognitive forms of thinking. Barfield calls the former mode of thinking "alpha-thinking". Newborns do not have alpha-thinking but they do have thinking which can structure perceptions to some degree. The fact that they can even pay attention to some aspect of their experience for a little while is evidence of thinking.

In reality, such statement is only unprovable hypothesis (at the current stage of science anyway), because we can not know, recall or imagine how a new-born child actually perceives the reality and whether he/she has any thinking abilities.

In the metamorphic view, all later forms of consciousness include all earlier forms. So there is no absolute barrier to us experiencing the newborn form. But that is not necessary, because we can also experience our own perceiving-thinking and see how all perceiving is structured by thinking. As I stated in the essay, the burden is on those challenging the inseparability to explain how one can exist without the other, since that is certainly not our normal experience. I am also curious, how do you explain the phenomenon of "object permanence" developing a few months after birth?

[Eugene I]

...or plasma. But your examples are ones of how you need imperfection in order for anything to move/act/progress/regress etc. It is that very asymmetry (potential difference) that gives motive force to movement. Perfection, if that's the end game of Man, would be a symmetric state, in which nothing further could happen without breaking the symmetry, thus breaking the 'perfection'. This is the issue, as I see it, with any notion of perfection, whether it be physics or spirituality, it is a state of stasis, it 'holds' itself in a state out of which it cannot 'move' without breaking. Life is dynamic is it not, all life I suspect, and for that you need imperfection and asymmetry. It's the same with DNA, where adaptivity happens through genetic imperfection that gives a new advantage.
...
It may be wise to be cautious about what is now an explainable, observable and repeatable natural phenomena but it does highlight how readily we can create narratives of spiritual ideation, even if innocently because we lacked knowledge.

I agree. The dynamics and variety of life only takes place between the polarities/singularities of the darkest point of nothingness and the brightest point of the absolute perfection. Both of those singularities are the points of stagnation. But when we are in the dynamic state, there is an "impression" of a gradient of the common flow from darkness to perfection. Yet, in fact, the perfection mat not be something to ever reach, but rather one of the moving forces of the dynamics of the world.

[Cleric K]

If we were to adopt this view then would we not also be inevitably creating a seat at the table for the aphorism "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" (The best (perfect) is the enemy of the good)? Moreover, the notion of perfect, as I think you mean it here but could be wrong, seems to me to be logically impossible to defend.

I understand your concern and I would support it both hands if it was a matter of humans walking the Earth as perfect beings. But I have something completely different in mind. I don't know if you have taken a look at this essay. Unless the idea of evolution and the gradual development of the microcosmic metamorphic view into Macrocosmic is considered, the idea of perfection can never be grasped in the proper sense.

[Apanthropinist]

I agree. The dynamics and variety of life only takes place between the polarities/singularities of the darkest point of nothingness and the brightest point of the absolute perfection. Both of those singularities are the points of stagnation. But when we are in the dynamic state, there is an "impression" of a gradient of the common flow from darkness to perfection. Yet, in fact, the perfection mat not be something to ever reach, but rather one of the moving forces of the dynamics of the world.

In ancient wisdom traditions and in Nature we see cycles and spirals and polarities. If one of the Hermetic Axioms of 'As above; so below' is accurate then I'll go with that, along with the polarity of opposites, another Hermetic Axiom. Nature has much to reflect back at us it seems and loves efficiency and re-use. It's also why I don't privilege 'light' over 'dark', to me they both have value, in a Jungian sense I suppose. I'm curious and have a lot of questions on the one hand and yet on the other I love to forget everything, withdraw and just revel in the beauty and awe of Nature. Hence the username Apanthropinist.