Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Transfiguring our Thinking (Part II)

[Soul_of_Shu]

I've this idea about ditching the term idealism and going with ideationism ... the idea being that there is only fundamental, uncaused ideation ... Sorry personified God worshippers, for He/She too is an idea.

I actually find the term "idealism" very misleading and making people to think that "idealism" is the metaphysics posing that the ideas and ideation is the only ontic fundamental (which is exactly Ashvin's formulation). I like Hoffman's term "consciousness realism" suggesting metaphysics of "consciousness" as the totality of all its aspects (where ideation is necessarily included as one of the aspects of course!)

'Conscious Realism' is yet another idea

[Eugene I]

What you call the other aspects of reality (beingness and awareness) we cannot even formulate in this way in the world of Intuition. We can speak of beingness and awareness only through our intellect. In the higher world we are completely united with our meaningful activity. We don't have the means to project it into a concept and say "awareness is what truly exists".
It's for this reason that thinking, feeling, willing are not 'other' aspects of reality but the gradient of spiritual activity. Currently we are awake spiritual beings within thinking and from here we work on to metamorph towards the higher forms of activity.

Correct, we can not formulate them without applying intellect. Yet, these ('awareness-being' ) are aspects of reality that exist regardless whether they are reflected and formulated with the intellect or not.

One cannot of course let thinking arise without having brought about consciousness beforehand.
Steiner

We can make an analogy with physics here. The four fundamental forces are thought to have been united as one force in the primordial state. Then as the universe cools down they differentiate into different forces. This is very crude analogy, that could be quite misleading, but it makes the point that in the primordial state there is a unified spiritual activity which is nevertheless ideating, meaningful. Through the eons of evolution, this activity was 'delaminated' and we now have our lucid being only in thinking. It's also important to mention that what we experience today as will, from the standpoint of our ordinary consciousness, is not the same as the primordial unified spiritual activity. The primordial activity we can know only through higher development in meditation, when we really come to know that state.

No one here argues that the concepts of the intellect (which you seem to mistake for ideas in the general sense) are the foundation of reality. They are at best rigidified points of reference. Much like chocks used in rock climbing to give points of support. But it makes no sense to speak of 'awareness-being' as something completely independent of, or 'above', the forms of spiritual activity (t, f, w).

'awareness-being' is not "above" or "below" anything, it is just irreducible aspect of Reality, unchangeable and unaffected by the other forms of spiritual activity. Whether the spiritual activity is in primordial or "delaminated" state, the 'awareness-being' is still the same. The states and conditions of activity change, you are right, more facets and layers and aspects unfold and the cognition develops and evolves. Yet, the 'awareness-being' never change. That does not make them any more "fundamental" or "above" of the rest of the aspects and activities. It just makes them irreducible to other aspects (as opposed to Ashvin's claim that 'awareness-being' can be "put under" thinking).

[Eugene I]

'Conscious Realism' is yet another idea

Of course it's an idea. But ideas differ by their accuracy of reflecting the Reality: some ideas are more accurate and some are less (just like maps can be more or less accurate in depicting the territory).

[Soul_of_Shu]

'Conscious Realism' is yet another idea

Of course it's an idea. But ideas differ by their accuracy of reflecting the Reality: some ideas are more accurate and some are less (just like maps can be more or less accurate in depicting the territory).

As an idea, I don't find Conscious Realism resonant or adequate, as I'm not sure it implies ideation, whereas ideation implies consciousness. So I'm still going with ideationism

[Eugene I]

As an idea, I don't find Conscious Realism resonant or adequate, as I'm not sure it implies ideation, whereas ideation implies consciousness. So I'm still going with ideationism

Well, and I'm not sure the term "ideationism" implies "being-awareness". So either way they are missing some facets. How about "Sat-Chit-Ideating"?
I'm actually sticking with the Buddhist Trikaya - the unity of the aspects of Beingness/Emptiness (Dharmakaya), Awareness (Sambhogakaya) and Ideation (Nirmanakaya). Buddhists nailed it pretty accurately.

[AshvinP]

'awareness-being' is not "above" or "below" anything, it is just irreducible aspect of Reality, unchangeable and unaffected by the other forms of spiritual activity. Whether the spiritual activity is in primordial or "delaminated" state, the 'awareness-being' is still the same. The states and conditions of activity change, you are right, more facets and layers and aspects unfold and the cognition develops and evolves. Yet, the 'awareness-being' never change. That does not make them any more "fundamental" or "above" of the rest of the aspects and activities. It just makes them irreducible to other aspects (as opposed to Ashvin's claim that 'awareness-being' can be "put under" thinking).

You ironically have a hard time getting past the mere intellectual concepts and focusing on the meaning of what is being discussed. If I say awareness-being can be "put under" Thinking, you assume I am making them reducible and secondary. That completely misses the point - there is no awareness without ideal content. It is that ideal content which allows us to find Unities of phenomenal relations. And finding such Unities is and has always been the only goal of philosophy and science. If you want to divorce spirituality from philosophy and science, then I can only reiterate that my essays have been all about why that cannot be done moving forward without risking perpetual nihilism.

[Cleric K]

'awareness-being' is not "above" or "below" anything, it is just irreducible aspect of Reality, unchangeable and unaffected by the other forms of spiritual activity. Whether the spiritual activity is in primordial or "delaminated" state, the 'awareness-being' is still the same. The states and conditions of activity change, you are right, more facets and layers and aspects unfold and the cognition develops and evolves. Yet, the 'awareness-being' never change. That does not make them any more "fundamental" or "above" of the rest of the aspects and activities. It just makes them irreducible to other aspects (as opposed to Ashvin's claim that 'awareness-being' can be "put under" thinking).

Ashvin's claim points to something else. It's not about putting anything under but discerning the proper relations of things. What you call the 'awareness-being that never changes' is actually something that we experience very vaguely. The thing is that we don't go anywhere if we simply recognize that 'awareness-being' exists. We only move forward if we metamorph in the direction where more and more of the creative activity of the beings that operate from the heights, becomes integrated into our perspectives. And this integration begins with thinking because in our ordinary state it contains in the purest form the unification of phenomena and noumena. It's from this point that we expand further. Otherwise it's not much different than saying "God's irreducible and can't be taken under thoughts". Fair enough, but it's also true that unless we investigate how God's activity is stepped down and reduced to intellectual activity, we'll also never be able to bridge the chasm (unless we believe that the chasm will be bridged for us after death). So Western esoterism has no problem with acknowledging that intellectual thinking is only a very crude form of spiritual activity. But it goes further and traces how this activity is stepped down from the Divine worlds. And this is not something that modern nondualism does. Mysticism says "combination of thoughts can never produce reality". Alright, Western esoterism says the same. But Mysticism freezes at that point because it throws away thinking as inessential (except for its practical Earthly aspects) and focuses on the general feeling of pure awareness. Western thought recognizes that thinking is the light-rope of our own Spirit that hangs from the Divine worlds into the sensory spectrum and it is by climbing that rope that we reach higher and higher forms of spiritual activity (of which the intellect and its rigid concepts are only limited manifestations). In this way we're not left only with a general and nebulous feeling for the unity of the world but we actually live within the creative activity of that world (every higher form of activity reveals the corresponding noumena - the beings that through their ideated activity support the matrix of our world). Where things become confused is when mysticism, which refuses that there's something of substance behind the Spiritual force concealed in thinking, thinks that reality can be found by focusing on the general feeling of being aware. From that point it is forced to see anything brought forwards by Western esoterism as intellectual speculations, as 'mere ideas', simply because it refuses to investigate for itself the deeper origins of cognitive spiritual activity, from which the concepts of spiritual science precipitate. Yes, what precipitates from spiritual science are intellectual concepts but they are projected from higher realms. They serve as medium of exchange, a translation between modes of cognition. It's a constant warning that things should never remain in the abstract when we begin to familiarize ourselves with the concepts of the higher worlds. They are only pointers to something of a different order.

[Soul_of_Shu]

As an idea, I don't find Conscious Realism resonant or adequate, as I'm not sure it implies ideation, whereas ideation implies consciousness. So I'm still going with ideationism

Well, and I'm not sure the term "ideationism" implies "being-awareness" ...
I'm actually sticking with the Buddhist Trikaya - the unity of the aspects of Beingness/Emptiness (Dharmakaya), Awareness (Sambhogakaya) and Ideation (Nirmanakaya). Buddhists nailed it pretty accurately.

What would ideation even mean absent being aware of it? Anyway, maybe Buddha Nature ideation is equatable with Nirmanakaya ... Work in progress for most, to be sure

[Eugene I]

But Mysticism freezes at that point because it throws away thinking as inessential (except for its practical Earthly aspects) and focuses on the general feeling of pure awareness.

Cleric, we discussed this many times before. Eastern mysticism does not freeze at this point. It may only seem to do that to people unfamiliar with its spirit and practices.

I agree with what you said about the importance of the development of cognitive spiritual activity, and agree that freezing at the "mystical" point is a stagnation, but Eastern mysticism does not teach that "freeze" actually. What it teaches that the "being-awareness" aspect of Reality needs to be experientially recognized and embraced/included in the cognitive perception of reality to make it more complete. Eastern practices do put a lot of emphasis on such experiential realization because they consider it crucial, but never say that such realization is a "hard-stop" freeze point. Quite the opposite, they say that it's a "gate" to a more complete spiritual activity and unleashes a further development of cognition on a different (post-enlightenment) level. And I agree with the rest of what you said.

[Cleric K]

Cleric, we discussed this many times before. Eastern mysticism does not freeze at this point. It may only seem to do that to people unfamiliar with its spirit and practices.

I agree with what you said about the importance of the development of cognitive spiritual activity, and agree that freezing at the "mystical" point is a stagnation, but Eastern mysticism does not teach that "freeze" actually. What it teaches that the "being-awareness" aspect of Reality needs to be experientially recognized and embraced/included in the cognitive perception of reality to make it more complete. Eastern practices do put a lot of emphasis on such experiential realization because they consider it crucial, but never say that such realization is a "hard-stop" freeze point. Quite the opposite, they say that it's a "gate" to a more complete spiritual activity and unleashes a further development of cognition on a different (post-enlightenment) level. And I agree with the rest of what you said.

Well, I don't know what other word to use If the post-enlightenment level of cognition was really unleashed, the Logos (the Word) would also be known from direct experience. It is still possible to have experiences in the astral world (Moon sphere, world of Imaginative consciousness) without encounter of the Logos but it's simply not possible to venture in the world of archetypes (the Sun sphere, world of Inspirative consciousness) and further in the higher spiritual world (the domain of the Zodiac, Intuitive consciousness), without finding our relation to the Logos-being. And as mentioned many times, this is not a relation as Meister Eckhart says, between man and a cow, but more like an animal and thinking. It would be like desiring to think but refusing to find the proper relations with the head. In other words we simply have no self-consciousness in the higher world if our Earthly ego is not embedded concentrically within the Sun-being.