Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:22 pm
Adur Alkain wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:13 am
Anyway. My question is, is there a risk of "spiritual bypass" in the "Thinking path" you practice? How do you deal with the unsconscious conditioning, the egoic structures? I'm genuinely interested in that.
Thank you Adur, for these constructive questions!
Let's begin from the more approachable side. Consider a smoking habit. As long as one simply flows together with that habit, it is as an intrinsic part of their being. If at some point, for health or other reasons, the person decides to quit, we witness interesting phenomena. Suddenly both the physical and the psychic aspects of the habit raise against the person as
independent living processes that oppose and effectively try to subdue his free spirit. The key observation here is that the character of the smoking habit
becomes conscious for the person
only when they confront it. Otherwise they are merrily flowing together on the stream of becoming and reaping whatever the consequences of this might be.
Let's now move towards the realm of thought. If one attempts any exercise for concentration of thinking he'll almost immediately be confronted with almost insurmountable difficulty. We realize that we are not at all the rugged, in-control machos that we imagine ourselves to be most of the time. If we simply delve on our frustration that we can't keep our thinking still for even a few seconds, we miss the most important aspect of it. Similarly to smoking, the thing that frustrates us
is the same thing that we're normally flowing along with all the time! It's only when we try to extricate ourselves from this automatic flow, that we
become conscious of the currents on which our soul life is normally flowing. Instead of becoming frustrated we can appreciate that we now at least know some things about soul life, about which we were previously oblivious. We can observe what are the common patterns of thoughts, desires, bodily fidgeting (fingers, foot) which keep us from centering. For example, we may notice that our concentration is constantly being broken as we slip into mental argue with a person. We may be quite astounded to realize that we are doing this quite regularly but the fact has never become conscious.
In this sense, once we begin intense spiritual work we need to gradually master all these things. Here's the important thing: this mastering is not purely mental discipline! Fidgeting requires actual mastering of our will. Mental arguing with people is rarely only about the intellectual subject matter itself. There are real and deeper forces in the soul domain of feeling. We may have been hurt by that person, we may subconsciously want to dominate them and so on. It is true that we become conscious of these things through our focused spiritual activity (as they try to oppose it) but the rectification of these issues require the forces of the
whole man - willing, feeling, thinking.
There can be no question of bypass here. There's a Japanese proverb - "there are no shortcuts in science". This holds to its fullest extent on a spiritual path. The reason that approaching things directly with our spiritual activity is seen as bypass is because it's usually imagined that in this way one disconnects from the body and soul, and simply rises in the clouds. It must be said right away that this is a real problem but not quite in the way commonly imagined. Our civilization has led us to a point where different human endeavors are quite one-sided. For example, it's almost a stereotypical image that a science professor is excelling in the mental world of his expertise but is otherwise of dorky, socially-awkward character, with feeble physique. This can happen also with people that preoccupy themselves with reading esoteric literature (including anthroposophy) and practically stuff their head with myriad of concepts and ideas
but without inner cohesion and practical application. This is a real tendency for those who approach spiritual science in purely intellectual way. Steiner himself has constantly warned about this. So is this a real bypass? Not really. Having a database of dry spiritual concepts which do not connect with reality, by itself makes the person more developed as much as that database would make a hard drive spiritual. We need to be very clear about this.
Anyone who is
honestly seeking the inner realities very quickly realizes that one can't make even the tiniest step forward without constant work on the
whole human being. This is very obvious if we look at the actual exercises. How can one bypass his inability to concentrate? There're no tricks about this, no clever hacks. It would be like being unable to lift 50kg but somehow bypassing it and lifting directly 100. We can only move forward if we slowly and patiently work on the transformation of the forces that prevent us of taking control of our spiritual activity. The work is twofold. One one hand we focus all our energies on the exercises, on the other, we gain self-knowledge and pinpoint tasks that must be worked upon our character in all of the remaining time. Life itself becomes practical school for us.
Rudolf Steiner wrote:The golden rule [for spiritual science] is as follows: For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your character.
Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment
So I hope that we've cleared that Thinking path shouldn't be confused with intellectual-theoretical path. Instead, it is the direct facing with everything that chains the free spirit. It is Thinking path in the sense that we're not blindly following dogmatic rules and rituals but everything must pass through our clear cognition. Yet this is only the beginning. Everything passes through clear cognition but if it doesn't turn into Loving impulse in the Heart and devoted deeds of the Will, we are not yet human in the true sense of the word.
Here a question might be raised: "But Eastern practices lead to the pretty much the same results, even thought they don't focus on spiritual activity but on quiet contemplation and dissociation from the soul content. In this way I'm able to recognize these same deterring factors and become liberated from their influences. Now I can easily quiet the mind and desires, and spend long time in perfect stillness". Up to a point this is true. I myself have gone through yogic practices in the past - both physical and spiritual. (As a personal side note, I don't draw only on anthroposphy. Certainly spiritual science is my main path for the development of cognition but for the practical application of the Sun impulse in life, I have other sources too.) As far as it is all about mastering chaotic thoughts and desires, there are lots of different paths that can lead to that result. But it is precisely if we have attained this level of perfection that the mentioned 'postponing' already becomes an important issue.
Let me put this way. The principle that we must exercise our spiritual activity in order to become
conscious of the spiritual environment holds true on all levels. I guess this is pretty understandable from the examples of smoking and concentration, even for people with no experience in spiritual practices. The interesting stuff happens once the quietness and serenity of soul is achieved. It is at this point where one becomes, for example, spiritual teacher like, say, Rupert Spira. One has attained to the grounds of Consciousness and he now can give Light to other souls, so that they can also achieve mastery and then peace and immensity.
At this stage it already makes
real difference if one will continue to work with focused spiritual activity because in this case we are really on our way to the higher worlds.
It is not true that once we attain to peace, serenity, Love, joy, we have already done our job. Just as with smoking and concentration, if we continue with concentration of the spirit - the Universal Creative - we soon find out that even in these states of quiet and blissful contemplation, seemingly completely free of egoic elements, we're still flowing along certain, admittedly, higher order currents. But they are still currents. And as any other, we need to differentiate from them in order to become conscious of them. In the sea of serenity we no longer have any means to become conscious of these currents because we have cleared out all sources of noise and distractions. We're completely at one with the blissful flow of Consciousness. And this is precisely the issue. Unless we find a form of even higher order spiritual activity, we can never become conscious that this blissful flow is only one of the many more layers of the Worlds within which we are embedded.
When we continue our active concentration, even when in the midst of stillness and serenity, our discoveries continue. Just as our ordinary concentration becomes, in a sense, an
organ for perception for all these things that work against our spiritual intent, so through the sustained concentration of our creative spiritual being we begin to feel that even our tendency to free flow in complete bliss on the sea of serenity, is something that drags us along and as such we're not conscious of it. Gradually, this tendency becomes more and more clearly perceptible for us and rises against us as an actual being. This being has been known in all genuine esoteric schools and is commonly called The Guardian at the Threshold. This is no other but our actual self, within which we have been embedded even when in complete serenity and without
perceptible traces of egoic structures.
This is probably the greatest insult for a mystic - to dare and state that at the stage that they value the highest, complete mystical union with the flow of Cosmic Consciousness, they don't really overcome the self - it's simply that all traceable perceptions of it have been completely smoothed out and now the
reality of the ego has simply spread out and merged quietly and imperceptibly with the Cosmic background, so to speak. If what we speak here is understood, it will be clear that we have
absolutely no means to distinguish this completely laminar and blissful ego from the general environment. The only way to distinguish it is if we come to know ourselves as a spiritual being active at an even higher level of consciousness, against which the chameleon ego becomes once again visible as the Guardian at the Threshold.
Honest thinking can already forebode that this is indeed the case. I often ask people (without really getting an answer) - "If you were really One with All within the serene state where the ego dissolves, how come you know nothing about the perspective of the One? How the world was created? The perspectives of other beings?" Somehow this mystical state is still experienced from a very specific perspective
within the One. This leaves the mystic with the only conclusion that there are some hard rules that define this perspective
while incarnated but they will hopefully dissolve after death. Well, precisely these hard rules are what the true nature of the Earthly self is and what becomes perceptible to us as the Guardian at the Threshold when we deserve to raise in Spirit above this Earthly cocoon. This transition is no other but the crossing the Threshold of Death, yet without leaving the physical body behind.
All the previous work has only been the preparation for the spiritual scientists. It is after we cross the Threshold that the real work begins. The principle remains the same. We are active Spirit and in relation to that activity we perceive (now according to the higher forms of cognition) the processes and beings in the higher realms. Here I would like to mention that we shouldn't imagine that every step higher is achieved through spiritual activity opposing and becoming conscious of harmful unconscious currents. This is largely the case while we work on our Earthly character, but the higher we go, it would be much more appropriate to compare the differentiation of our spiritual being as a kind of
maturing. The young person at some point leaves his parents and becomes conscious of many things (food, shelter) that were provided for him unconsciously, but now enter his field of consciousness because they are his responsibility from now on. Something similar happens when we are engaged in higher development. In other words, higher knowledge comes at a price - we take responsibility and this has karmic effects. The repercussions for our destiny are of one kind if we get drunk now or then. But once we've come to know our Earthly self from a higher perspective and we have seen clearly the kinds of beings and forces that are active in us when we give in to the desire to get drunk, and we still allow ourselves to be united with them, then the repercussions are of a different kind.
Beyond the Threshold we can really follow the curvature of Time between the Alpha and Omega (if you have followed the side discussions here). Just as in our personal investigation we become conscious of layers after layers of our Earthly self, weaved out of instincts, opinions, prejudices, desires, habits, so this process continues but now we become conscious of the workings of karma. What was previously layers of personal psyche, now are layers of our entanglement with other souls - family, friends, enemies - the layers of the social organism, of the nation, of all humanity. Again, if you have followed our talks here, you know that as we raise in this way, these relations also encompass more and more Time. In this way we reach the rhythmic waves of the incarnations, which are embedded within the rhythms of the evolutionary cultural epochs (which are, by the way, related with the precession of the equinox or the so called Platonic year ~26 000 years).There are so many things that can be spoken about here but I wanted just to make a point. Just an indication about the way the Thinking path metamorphoses into higher forms of cognition which put us in relation with corresponding higher worlds.
As before, I'm not writing all this to shaken your trust in your chosen method of work. I'm quite sure you can extract many many more precious jewels from your practices. I hope that the above exposition has shown that it is not about various paths leading to the same results, only differing in the methods they use. If the above is fully internalized we do understand clearly, even with nothing but unprejudiced thinking, that where some teachings stop, others are only beginning.
in this case, it was "I know science and spirituality are ultimately connected, but still I choose to treat them differently." Notice you are not treating them differently as an initial approach with the goal of discovering the ultimate connections between them, but you are treating them differently because it is your preference to always treat them differently. Now consider which approach completely forecloses on the possibility of ever seriously considering another's approach.
in this case, it was "I know science and spirituality are ultimately connected, but still I choose to treat them differently." Notice you are not treating them differently as an initial approach with the goal of discovering the ultimate connections between them, but you are treating them differently because it is your preference to always treat them differently. Now consider which approach completely forecloses on the possibility of ever seriously considering another's approach.
