Adur Alkain wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:34 pm Ashvin,
I've been too busy these days to properly reply to you. I feel this conversation is an important one, and I think it will take some time to make clear what our differences are. So I hope you will be patient with me and be willing to wait sometimes for days until I respond.
I see two intertwined questions here: one is the relation between thinking and feeling; the other is the question of whether the spiritual evolution of humanity has necessarily to follow one single path.
The first question is too difficult for me to tackle right now. For now I'll only say that I partially agree with that quote from Cleric: when one reaches a certain level of spiritual development thinking and feeling become unified or harmonized, so that there can be no conflict between them. I love the expression "Thinking of the Heart".
But I doubt that the way to get there is to "pass through Thinking and rise its cognitive element into the world of Feeling". From my perspective, the way to harmonize Thinking and Feeling is rather to let the logical mind be guided by the heart.
To reach the Truth, the heart is the guide, not the thinking mind. By "heart" I don't mean egoic sympathies and antipathies, likes and dislikes, of course. In fact, if we inquire into sympathies and antipathies, likes and dislikes, we always find not true feelings, but mental concepts. Sympathies and antipathies are distorted feelings, feelings distorted by thoughts, prejudices, mental constructs. A very clear indication of this is that for the enlightened Heart (the human heart free of distortion and conditioning) there are no antipathies, no dislikes. The Heart loves everything, everything that is real.
It's the Heart what knows the Truth, not the thinking mind (or logical reasoning). The thinking mind can bring understanding and clarity to what the heart knows, but the heart is the only guide. Only the heart can distinguish the real from the unreal (what is really there, or here, from fantasies created by the mind). Only the heart can know the truth directly.
What I call intuition is a working together of heart and head (or thinking mind). But like I said, this is a difficult question for me. I don't know exactly how this works. I'm learning.
Here is an example that may be useful: when I read Cleric's posts, I usually don't understand intellectually most of what he says. My logical reasoning mind would instantly dismiss his words as gibberish. But my heart tells me that there is something deeply truthful and authentic in Cleric's words. That makes me want to read him more carefully and try to understand.
Having said all this, I can go back to the second question: the unified (or not) spiritual evolution of humanity. I can see that I have some egoic dislikes and antipathies against mainstream Western culture (including Christianity). These come from my cultural conditioning, and have to do with mental constructs around ethnic identity, etc. But I can see through those, and find a deeper layer of undistorted feeling, which I know comes from my true heart.
And this is what my heart says: there is only ONE humanity. And this one humanity is the expression and manifestation of the one true nature, the one universal consciousness.
That's it. And now my logical reasoning can come in and try to make sense of that insight, and here is what I can come up with at the moment: cultural diversity is not an obstacle to realizing the fundamental unity and oneness of humanity. We don't need to reach some future evolutionary stage to realize and acknowledge that oneness. We can realize it right now. With all our cultural differences.
So my personal provisional conclusion is that the question of whether the spiritual evolution of humanity will follow a single, unified path remains completely open. Maybe you and Barfield are right, and that's where we are heading. But I don't see any reason why this should be the case. In my imagination I can envision a completely unified humanity (sharing a state of "final participation", or maybe further developments of spirit), and I can also envision a diversified humanity, with different groups living in different spiritual worlds but still being able to communicate with each other and recognize their fundamental unity. Both possibilities seem equally beautiful to me. Maybe I lean more towards the second possibility, but I don't reject the first one at all.
And for the present, I feel it would be wiser if we all remained open and open-minded around this question... None of us knows what is going to happen, after all. My sense is that not even The Creative Intelligence behind all this knows what is going to happen in the end. (And yet again, I'm also open to the possibility that there is a Divine Plan.) In any case, I don't think we can reach any conclusion one way or another by employing logical reasoning alone.
So what do you think? Is it okay to acknowledge that we really don't know? Or do you see that attitude as an obstacle?
Adur,
Thank you again for the very considerate post. I would much rather you take a few days or a few weeks or however long you need and write the sort of post written above than just try to shoot off a few uninformed responses quickly. I think you also sense what Cleric, Scott, and myself (and perhaps a few others) sense - it becomes more and more difficult to be interested in the "what is an 'alter'?" sort of questions when we dig deeper into spiritual science. That is not to simply rag on people who ask that question, but just pointing out the simple fact that those questions never get anyone very enthused. They don't inspire people to write an essay or even wait a few days to think and construct a very considerate response. The one thing I would say is that, in my experience so far, as soon as we start approaching these deeper spiritual questions, especially if it is with someone with a natural antipathy for Western spiritual tradition, there will be a very strong urge to bail out. I hope that does not happen here. Let's put the first question to the side as you suggest and pick it up here:
Adur wrote:But I doubt that the way to get there is to "pass through Thinking and rise its cognitive element into the world of Feeling". From my perspective, the way to harmonize Thinking and Feeling is rather to let the logical mind be guided by the heart.
From what I understand, which is a not a whole lot but I think enough to answer this question (Cleric can correct if I am wrong about anything), spiritual science is speaking of actual spiritual realms which are the source of our thoughts and feelings. We find this in various Western mytho-philosophical traditions. Aristotle speaks of the ten celestial spheres. Aquinas does as well, and makes clear he is speaking of angelic beings. Many others do as well in their own various ways. When the cognitive element is raised by the Spirit into the world of feeling (Soul), this should be taken quite literally. We are never talking about you or my "personal" realm of thoughts and feelings, which essentially do not exist. I think that goes to a larger overall point - this sort of spirituality is, in fact, a science. We cannot simply say "I doubt" or "I feel" it is this way or that way, and we cannot expect to somehow know which way it is without engaging in some deep study first. The intellect does not like to admit that all the science it learned at school was not actually telling it about what gives rise to its internal activities such as thoughts and feelings, and likewise it does not want to admit that mystical experience or "gut instinct" or unconscious "intuition" does not provide reliable knowledge either.
Adur wrote:Here is an example that may be useful: when I read Cleric's posts, I usually don't understand intellectually most of what he says. My logical reasoning mind would instantly dismiss his words as gibberish. But my heart tells me that there is something deeply truthful and authentic in Cleric's words. That makes me want to read him more carefully and try to understand.
I don't think that is what is happening. This is my reasoned conclusion and not simply something I am repeating from Steiner or Cleric, although their Thinking also pointed me in the right direction. The problem is that we don't sense our true Thinking anymore, it just happens in the background without us being aware. It is like our breathing but even harder for modern intellect to bring into full conscious awareness. You are never simply "feeling" Cleric's words without Thinking - if we really reflect on it (and this is where PoF is invaluable), that makes very little sense. Words are products of Thinking and Thinking is essentially shared activity. There are not multiple realms of isolated thoughts for each individual "alter". So you are subconsciously intuiting the deep truth and authenticity of Cleric's words, and since it is subconscious Thinking, you incorrectly attribute it all to your feeling "heart".
Adur wrote:To reach the Truth, the heart is the guide, not the thinking mind. By "heart" I don't mean egoic sympathies and antipathies, likes and dislikes, of course. In fact, if we inquire into sympathies and antipathies, likes and dislikes, we always find not true feelings, but mental concepts. Sympathies and antipathies are distorted feelings, feelings distorted by thoughts, prejudices, mental constructs. A very clear indication of this is that for the enlightened Heart (the human heart free of distortion and conditioning) there are no antipathies, no dislikes. The Heart loves everything, everything that is real.
Everything you are saying here is somewhat true, if we limit "thinking" to abstract intellect. That is one of the things people, especially with sympathy for Eastern background, simply cannot fathom in the modern age. That the intellect is not the max capacity of human Thinking. There is a good reason for this - ancient Eastern people did actually Think through their soul. Except there was no such thing as "abstract intellectual" thinking at that time, only what we now call "Imagination". I would not call sympathies and antipathies "distorted feelings" - they are deeply rooted in our soul by way of past lives, which of course is a whole different topic altogether.
Adur wrote:Having said all this, I can go back to the second question: the unified (or not) spiritual evolution of humanity. I can see that I have some egoic dislikes and antipathies against mainstream Western culture (including Christianity). These come from my cultural conditioning, and have to do with mental constructs around ethnic identity, etc. But I can see through those, and find a deeper layer of undistorted feeling, which I know comes from my true heart.
And this is what my heart says: there is only ONE humanity. And this one humanity is the expression and manifestation of the one true nature, the one universal consciousness.
I think there is really a complete misunderstanding of "spiritual evolution" here. Again, this comes from the abstract intellect only thinking in rigid and linear concepts. Let me put it this way - there are many, many spiritual beings undergoing evolution in various 'places' of the Cosmos, and they are all at different stages of evolution. It is precisely the spiritual evolutionary view which allows us to say there is not one linear path of development for everyone, or a couple of paths in this part of the world, a couple in that, and a few of them can get absorbed or wiped out at any given time. That is purely Earthly intellectual thinking. When we raise into higher cognition and perceive the ONE essentially spiritual realm and the manifold beings who populate it with their own paths and capacities and interwoven 'stories' and 'timelines', we will see how it is actually our Earthly perspective which invents the false narrative of one small planet in a mostly empty Cosmos with limited resources and all cultures fighting over them endlessly. I am not speaking from experience of higher cognition now, but just my carefully Reasoned conclusions.
Adur wrote:So my personal provisional conclusion is that the question of whether the spiritual evolution of humanity will follow a single, unified path remains completely open. Maybe you and Barfield are right, and that's where we are heading. But I don't see any reason why this should be the case. In my imagination I can envision a completely unified humanity (sharing a state of "final participation", or maybe further developments of spirit), and I can also envision a diversified humanity, with different groups living in different spiritual worlds but still being able to communicate with each other and recognize their fundamental unity. Both possibilities seem equally beautiful to me. Maybe I lean more towards the second possibility, but I don't reject the first one at all.
And for the present, I feel it would be wiser if we all remained open and open-minded around this question... None of us knows what is going to happen, after all. My sense is that not even The Creative Intelligence behind all this knows what is going to happen in the end. (And yet again, I'm also open to the possibility that there is a Divine Plan.) In any case, I don't think we can reach any conclusion one way or another by employing logical reasoning alone.
So what do you think? Is it okay to acknowledge that we really don't know? Or do you see that attitude as an obstacle?
I think I mostly addressed this above. It is very egotistical for us to say, "I have limited knowledge of these matters, so I am just going to assume Reality is the way I envision it to be" or "how I feel it to be". (we all do this to varying extents, so I am not singling you out by any means). All beings (not just humanity) will be integrated under our view (which is not to be confused with smearing out the perspectives into one unified blob or anything similar). Humans will play a critical role in raising up other beings into this integral Unity just like other beings are currently raising us up. We should definitely remain open minded, and we can definitely admit what we do not yet know, but there is no warrant to say "we can never know in this lifetime". It is only our abstract intellect guided by unconscious or semi-conscious sympathies and antipathies which leads us to that conclusion. We can still pursue logical reasoning through higher cognition, just of a much different qualitative sort. Of course this is a conclusion which we have reached through argument and experience (especially in Cleric's case), and again PoF is invaluable in this regard - we are not asking anyone to simply take our word for it. In fact, that would defeat the entire purpose of our current spiritual evolutionary state, which is to develop spiritual freedom through genuine Self-knowledge. We are simply asking people to put some time and effort into researching and reasoning these things for themselves, and it appears you are already beginning to do that. The real test for all of us is whether we can persevere when the excuses, doubts, subconscious desires and feelings, etc. inevitably manifest in full force and try to convince us it's hopeless to seek this higher knowledge and to simply give up.