Anthroposophy for Dummies

[AshvinP]

But that's not what you are responding, is it? Instead, the response is that even thinking through such possibilities is the equivalent of 'wandering to exhaustion through the valley of death letting our blood be preyed on by ever-thirstier, shinier and plumpier networks of thought-replicas.' This is stated as absolute fact that should be 'obvious' to everyone (and obviously it's not). In this last post, there is one 'analogy that is another recitation of the conclusion that new technologies cannot be incorporated into spiritual striving without the worst possible consequences, under any circumstances. Any attempt to even think through such a possibility is leading us into the depths of illusion. 

We have seen a similar thing in many discussions with Eugene. He says, 'Yes, I agree that working through the living details of Earthly evolution is integral and needs to be done', but when we come to concrete examples and the prospect of putting that principle into practice, then we hear, 'the genetic structure of humanity doesn't allow it to escape the clutches of duality, so any efforts in that respect can only be tinkering at the edges, missing the core of nondual realization'. All of this dogma serves to put obstacles in the way of doing the redemptive inner work necessary to gradually spiritualize the Earth from the inside-out, such as developing right thought, right feeling, right judgment, etc. and moving our living spirit through the World Content. If you are working with those exercises and concentration, then you are keeping your being unnecessarily split by casting the principles aside on certain topics and defaulting to old passion-fueled habits. We should be honest with ourselves - it's much easier to absorb the principles intellectually and then adapt them to our normal habits than it is to transform the latter and adapt our way of be-ing to the principles. 

We will all oscillate between the poles on the inner path, and this should give us opportunities to gain insight how our intuitive activity is being shaped by the pathways of our soul and intellectual environment. To discern more clearly what is going on in our thinking, we can focus on the potential results if people were to agree with the content of our thinking. If I agreed that there is a conspiracy around every corner from Linnell on FB to the new member showing up on the forum, what would result? How would this stimulate productive dialogue and strengthen our inner forces? Likewise, if I agreed that all creative efforts towards integrating new technologies for spiritual purposes must necessarily be a path towards spider-like beings, where would that leave us? What kind of ideal (inner) atmosphere would we be living in once our thinking is entrained by that content? I ask you to contemplate such questions fairly and deeply. This is the real inner work through which the Divine is born within us. 

Ashvin, what I do with my thinking you do not know. And I hope you don’t know what you're doing with yours either, when the result is such as the words you have impressed here.

Ok, sure, but do you want to know why your thinking states keep falling into these gravity wells of antipathy? I mean, it isn't so hard to connect the dots - one day you are talking about Linnell's "brutal and unartistic ideas" and a week or so later you are identifying him as the center of a conspiracy to radically rewrite the RS archive. This would be perfectly obvious to you if you weren't flowing right in the center of it. If you have no desire now to lift your head above the flow, then I'm not going to bother either.

[lorenzop]

This is only a problem if we mistake Steiner's ideas for 'teachings' to be passed on and list of requirements to adhere to, like the sages of old. Something fundamentally new came into being around the turn of the 20th century, which allowed every thinking individual to rediscover the ancient wisdom from within themselves, independently of any sage, teachings, or requirements imposed from outside.

Then perhaps your above was the message that was lost . . . in fact, all I've read here is how one must first read and understand Kant, Neitshe, Goethe even before trying to decify Steiner.

This thread re 'for Dummies' is on it's 28th page and no progress has been made.

[Jonathan Österman]

This thread re 'for Dummies' is on it's 28th page and no progress has been made.

No progress has been made ?

Lorenzo, how could you possibly know that nobody in this thread made any progress?

Clearly, you are speaking about yourself only — you have made no progress, pal.

If you want to start making some progress, you may wish to consider
participating in an AYAHUASCA ceremony: viewtopic.php?t=956




.

[Federica]

But that's not what you are responding, is it? Instead, the response is that even thinking through such possibilities is the equivalent of 'wandering to exhaustion through the valley of death letting our blood be preyed on by ever-thirstier, shinier and plumpier networks of thought-replicas.' This is stated as absolute fact that should be 'obvious' to everyone (and obviously it's not). In this last post, there is one 'analogy that is another recitation of the conclusion that new technologies cannot be incorporated into spiritual striving without the worst possible consequences, under any circumstances. Any attempt to even think through such a possibility is leading us into the depths of illusion. 

We have seen a similar thing in many discussions with Eugene. He says, 'Yes, I agree that working through the living details of Earthly evolution is integral and needs to be done', but when we come to concrete examples and the prospect of putting that principle into practice, then we hear, 'the genetic structure of humanity doesn't allow it to escape the clutches of duality, so any efforts in that respect can only be tinkering at the edges, missing the core of nondual realization'. All of this dogma serves to put obstacles in the way of doing the redemptive inner work necessary to gradually spiritualize the Earth from the inside-out, such as developing right thought, right feeling, right judgment, etc. and moving our living spirit through the World Content. If you are working with those exercises and concentration, then you are keeping your being unnecessarily split by casting the principles aside on certain topics and defaulting to old passion-fueled habits. We should be honest with ourselves - it's much easier to absorb the principles intellectually and then adapt them to our normal habits than it is to transform the latter and adapt our way of be-ing to the principles. 

We will all oscillate between the poles on the inner path, and this should give us opportunities to gain insight how our intuitive activity is being shaped by the pathways of our soul and intellectual environment. To discern more clearly what is going on in our thinking, we can focus on the potential results if people were to agree with the content of our thinking. If I agreed that there is a conspiracy around every corner from Linnell on FB to the new member showing up on the forum, what would result? How would this stimulate productive dialogue and strengthen our inner forces? Likewise, if I agreed that all creative efforts towards integrating new technologies for spiritual purposes must necessarily be a path towards spider-like beings, where would that leave us? What kind of ideal (inner) atmosphere would we be living in once our thinking is entrained by that content? I ask you to contemplate such questions fairly and deeply. This is the real inner work through which the Divine is born within us. 

Ashvin, what I do with my thinking you do not know. And I hope you don’t know what you're doing with yours either, when the result is such as the words you have impressed here.

Ok, sure, but do you want to know why your thinking states keep falling into these gravity wells of antipathy? I mean, it isn't so hard to connect the dots - one day you are talking about Linnell's "brutal and unartistic ideas" and a week or so later you are identifying him as the center of a conspiracy to radically rewrite the RS archive. This would be perfectly obvious to you if you weren't flowing right in the center of it. If you have no desire now to lift your head above the flow, then I'm not going to bother either.

Ashvin,

Just because I didn’t react to your repeated accusations and chose to let them fall so far, it doesn’t mean you can keep defiling my personal space, that you do not know, with inappropriate inferences and false statements in this way.

Unfortunately, Linnells ideas are unartistic and brutal indeed, like for example his attempts to convince people that Steiner was a “proto-transhumanist”, or the idea of pressing for amendments to Steiner’s vocabulary in English translation so as to fit his personal vision of what Spiritual Science should be - as per exact wording that I have quoted enough times now. If you don’t see the brutality in such expressions, well, I’ll leave it to you and others to discern what this may indicate, though I recall that, before falling into your own wells, you wrote: “I am leaning towards your position” (what else could any reasonable person do?) Not that these are isolated examples, unfortunately. We could take any of Linnells presentations. Let’s take his very last video on Holy Nights. It’s not even necessary to launch it. The thumbnail is enough to find the signs of unartistry and instrumentalization of art he knows nothing about, not even the name, for community leadership purposes. And it’s not like this is only the first, second, third or fourth time this appears. Hopefully he is reading here, or one of his friends is and will tell him to correct, at least the thumbnail. Believe me, I find it quite heavy and unfortunate to have to make these remarks, but since nobody seems to have the minimum level of discernment and courage to call this out and oppose these worrying expressions that nothing have to do with Anthroposophy, so I do it.

However, I never spoke of “conspiracy”, I never even vaguely meant anything that can be likened to conspiracy. So please aknowledge that clearly. And my statements about your PoF-Chat GPT ideas cannot decently be called dogmas. I won’t keep exchanging with you unless your false implications, insinuations about my honesty, exaggerations about my views on technology, etcetera, are rectified. I will not add anything of substance about the PoF-GPT idea - anything to any discussion with you, for that matter - unless this is made right.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin, what I do with my thinking you do not know. And I hope you don’t know what you're doing with yours either, when the result is such as the words you have impressed here.

Ok, sure, but do you want to know why your thinking states keep falling into these gravity wells of antipathy? I mean, it isn't so hard to connect the dots - one day you are talking about Linnell's "brutal and unartistic ideas" and a week or so later you are identifying him as the center of a conspiracy to radically rewrite the RS archive. This would be perfectly obvious to you if you weren't flowing right in the center of it. If you have no desire now to lift your head above the flow, then I'm not going to bother either.

Ashvin,

Just because I didn’t react to your repeated accusations and chose to let them fall so far, it doesn’t mean you can keep defiling my personal space, that you do not know, with inappropriate inferences and false statements in this way.

Unfortunately, Linnells ideas are unartistic and brutal indeed, like for example his attempts to convince people that Steiner was a “proto-transhumanist”, or the idea of pressing for amendments to Steiner’s vocabulary in English translation so as to fit his personal vision of what Spiritual Science should be - as per exact wording that I have quoted enough times now. If you don’t see the brutality in such expressions, well, I’ll leave it to you and others to discern what this may indicate, though I recall that, before falling into your own wells, you wrote: “I am leaning towards your position” (what else could any reasonable person do?) Not that these are isolated examples, unfortunately. We could take any of Linnells presentations. Let’s take his very last video on Holy Nights. It’s not even necessary to launch it. The thumbnail is enough to find the signs of unartistry and instrumentalization of art he knows nothing about, not even the name, for community leadership purposes. And it’s not like this is only the first, second, third or fourth time this appears. Hopefully he is reading here, or one of his friends is and will tell him to correct, at least the thumbnail. Believe me, I find it quite heavy and unfortunate to have to make these remarks, but since nobody seems to have the minimum level of discernment and courage to call this out and oppose these worrying expressions that nothing have to do with Anthroposophy, so I do it.

However, I never spoke of “conspiracy”, I never even vaguely meant anything that can be likened to conspiracy. So please aknowledge that clearly. And my statements about your PoF-Chat GPT ideas cannot decently be called dogmas. I won’t keep exchanging with you unless your false implications, insinuations about my honesty, exaggerations about my views on technology, etcetera, are rectified. I will not add anything of substance about the PoF-GPT idea - anything to any discussion with you, for that matter - unless this is made right.

Federica, I apologize for mischaracterizing your position by saying you 'identified a conspiracy', or that your GPT-PoF statements are 'dogmas'.

As usual, I hope it's clear that when I speak of 'gravity wells', 'antipathies', and so forth, I am not implying this is something you are plagued with while I have transcended those. Not at all. A clear example of a gravity well that attracts my stream of thinking experience are these heated arguments with you. When you posted the initial comment on the FB post, my intuition told me it was best not to respond and let the whole thing subside, since probably no one else would respond either. But then I talked myself into commenting. Why? I can come up with all sorts of ex-post rationalizations for why, 'I needed to make sure Linnell's name was not defamed, I needed to point out to Federica why she was projecting too much into the situation, etc.' But the reality is that there is a gravity well within my egoistic soul structure that desires to get caught up in heated arguments and publicly express my opinion on such matters. This is a subconscious desire - even my conceptual expression of it right now does not mean I really know what it is. I only know its effects that can be later condensed into concepts.

This is the most important thing - that we admit the concrete existence of gravity wells attracting our thinking states, that we take them seriously as something always at work. Phenomenological and analogical thinking is practically the only way to mitigate against the gravity well that attracts our thinking toward forming inflexible judgments about the 'nature' of phenomena in our experience, including other souls. Everything and everyone we encounter should remain a living experience that we attend to and endlessly explore from varying angles, not become an object of our speculations and conclusions. All the subsidiary exercises are aimed at cultivating these virtues within us. The other critical factor is, of course, becoming objectively aware of our soul-structure from the inside through concentration. It also helps to remember and be honest about why we all often choose to avoid becoming so aware whenever the opportunity for such avoidance presents itself. If we remember the first time we heard our own voice recorded, we may have had a peculiar feeling about it, maybe even a slight sense of shame and disgust. In any case, we probably didn't imagine we 'sound that way'. Now magnify that feeling 1000x and we get a sense for why most don't want to step beyond the personality and perceive their soul-structure as something objective.

Cleric presented a great metaphor for this previously:

Maybe something like 3D Tetris:





Imagine that we're facing the pile of blocks from above and the new blocks are coming from behind our head. If we're too close to the pile, the moment we see the new block we have very limited time to find a place for it. On the contrary, if we're farther from the pile, we see the block early, we guide the temporal unfolding of thinking. This is an analogy of course. There are many forces behind our back which coalesce the potential. In the Tetris example we can say that finding the place of the new block is the domain of thinking. Shallow thinkers are too close to the pile and simply see almost random blocks accumulating. Deeper thinkers are few steps removed from the pile and have greater awareness how thoughts can be guided to fit in the picture. But what if we can go even further back? Where even the block is still only a meaningful potential, not yet concretized? Then we are even more free (like we start planning the house even earlier). Here not only we guide the block but we can guide the crystallization of the block such that we can manifest the type of block that would be most useful for our concrete pile. This would correspond to our life of feeling - sympathies, antipathies, desires, hopes and fears. The cognitive depth is attained by loosening the etheric body from the physical. This gives us the depth leeway to perceive our thinking in the process of making. The second deepening is even further loosening of the etheric which makes our thinking capable to resonate with the time-meaning curvatures of the astral body. Now we're in position to slowly work upon our astral nature such that we can guide the manifestation of the Time flow. Without this work, we're stuck with whatever character we have. For some we say "Oh, he's such a grumpy man" or "She's such a lovely person, can always make you smile". These persons have their astral configuration in particular constellation. By gaining consciousness of these depth layers, we can recognize our grumpiness and work upon transforming it. If we don't do that, this astral grumpiness is far behind our back, which coalesces our thoughts way before they approach our cognition. The plans for our thought-houses has been laid in the astral body and as the future approaches us, it's already too late to change their general architecture - we're stuck with what our subconscious astral nature has prepared for us and we can only polish it here and there.

This is the most important thing on the inner path and, frankly, the only thing I am really interested in exploring from various angles. I have slowly learned that it makes little sense to start evaluating the state of the World in any conclusive way while my own intuitive orientation to reality, including my own soul life, needs so much additional work. My gravity well has often attracted me into these discussions about varying personalities, what they were saying, what they meant, what we can conclude about them, etc. But now I realize that I cannot keep indulging that tendency, especially because it invariably leads to more confusion and heat than clarity and light. I need to set a firm intention to resist the attractive pull so my higher self takes notice and comes to my aid, attracting me in quite orthogonal directions towards my freely chosen ideals. So, with that said, I will finally heed my original intuition and let my participation in this particular topic subside. I won't be responding to anything that mentions Linnell or anyone similar in the future, and probably I will stop posting videos from other people as well, only relevant quotes from books that I am reading.

[AshvinP]

This is only a problem if we mistake Steiner's ideas for 'teachings' to be passed on and list of requirements to adhere to, like the sages of old. Something fundamentally new came into being around the turn of the 20th century, which allowed every thinking individual to rediscover the ancient wisdom from within themselves, independently of any sage, teachings, or requirements imposed from outside.

Then perhaps your above was the message that was lost . . . in fact, all I've read here is how one must first read and understand Kant, Neitshe, Goethe even before trying to decify Steiner.

This thread re 'for Dummies' is on it's 28th page and no progress has been made.

I am not sure where you read that, Lorenzo. In fact, one does not even need to read Steiner to grasp Steiner. Why? Because he is simply expressing experiential realities that are naturally revealed through the observation of our intuitive activity as it engages with the World Content. One can only read Cleric's posts on this forum (that hardly ever reference Steiner), while engaging in the inner investigation and work they are pointing to, and begin to grasp the core claims of spiritual science. That may even be the most productive way to go about it for most modern thinkers.

Jonathan's point, although I don't prefer his mode of expression, is also important - "Clearly, you are speaking about yourself only". This is not an insult I am throwing out for no reason, but rather it is an important observation for all of us to consider. We have all experienced positive feedback loops in our lives. Let's say we are in school studying for a chemistry exam. It is grueling work but we try hard and eventually get good marks on the exam. Then we begin feeling some control over our destiny - like our efforts pay off and the field of chemistry isn't as impenetrable as we first thought. So we are inspired to pay more attention in class, do the experiments carefully, and study for the next exam. Before we know it, we are at the top of the class. The teacher's lectures and textbook material that before seemed like our worst enemy, is now our greatest asset. Every experiment we enthusiastically engage in now reveals more meaningful insight than when we were frustrated and skeptical. That only further boosts our confidence and motivates our efforts. 

This metaphor also points to a very characteristic experience on the intuitive thinking path. After all, the latter is simply a means of perfecting the activity by which we perfect all other skills and gain all other meaningful insights. After some time, even the 'failures', obstacles, arguments, etc. that normally frustrate us and make us feel like we haven't made any progress, are experienced as great revelations of our spiritual core, giving us opportunities to creatively engage our stream of experience and unveil more of our higher inner potential.  We aren't discovering anything that isn't already there - our failures and obstacles are always giving us these opportunities and always generating reservoirs of insight that can be tapped into. In the normal stream of life, however, our perspective is too aliased to notice this is happening, so we mostly feel a victim of circumstances and can't perceive any good that has come from the resistance we keep meeting. The intuitive thinking path simply widens our aperture of attention (via concentration, spiritual exercises, and loving interest in the World Content) and allows us to notice the potential for more holistic insight into our spiritual core that otherwise goes unnoticed. We are thereby more confident and inspired to continue the inner work and widen our aperture even further, gaining exponentially more insight from our stream of experience in a loop of positive feedback.

 

[lorenzop]

You and Jonathan are correct in that I have made little progress in understanding your (and Cleric's) posts - and that I'm projecting when I suggest little progress has been made in this thread.
And yet I know what you (and Cleric) are writing about . . . a couple days ago I rewatched one of my favorite films (Thunderheart), a film which on the surface is about the clash of Western civilization and indigenous people - - but is also about a skeptical lead character (and perhaps a skeptical viewer) both evolving to an appreciation of the 'unseen'.

[Jonathan Österman]

You and Jonathan are correct in that I have made little progress in understanding your (and Cleric's) posts - and that I'm projecting when I suggest little progress has been made in this thread.

Dear Lorenzo, your above reply is a clear indication that you have made a genuine spiritual progress, my friend.

You have paid attention to your own mind, and thus you have increased the level of your self-awareness. Only you can do it for yourself.

Cleric is the most spiritually advanced person on this forum, so if it is not entirely clear to you what he meant, simply ask him for clarification. This way you will learn a lot of practical quality spiritual wisdom from him.

I have been learning from Cleric every time he kindly replied to me, and especially when he has asked me questions that inspired me to inner reflection and contemplation.

Don't be fooled by Cleric's genuine spiritual humility, please!

The lack of genuine humility is a serious barrier to spiritual progress,
and so is the lack of compassion for others' suffering.

How could a spiritual aspirant be compassionate and loving
toward all of his fellow suffering sentient beings
while he enjoys un-ethical and im-moral behaviour ?

Lorenzo, please ask yourself how would you feel
when people would be un-compassionate, un-ethical,
and im-moral to you ?

Truly, we are all ONE big dream, and therefore when you cause
suffering to others, you harm yourself (THE LAW OF KARMA).

Dear Lorenzo, ask Cleric if I got the above correct, please.


Otherwise, our daily Baloney-Idealism will look like this :

viewtopic.php?t=955







.

[Federica]

Ok, sure, but do you want to know why your thinking states keep falling into these gravity wells of antipathy? I mean, it isn't so hard to connect the dots - one day you are talking about Linnell's "brutal and unartistic ideas" and a week or so later you are identifying him as the center of a conspiracy to radically rewrite the RS archive. This would be perfectly obvious to you if you weren't flowing right in the center of it. If you have no desire now to lift your head above the flow, then I'm not going to bother either.

Ashvin,

Just because I didn’t react to your repeated accusations and chose to let them fall so far, it doesn’t mean you can keep defiling my personal space, that you do not know, with inappropriate inferences and false statements in this way.

Unfortunately, Linnells ideas are unartistic and brutal indeed, like for example his attempts to convince people that Steiner was a “proto-transhumanist”, or the idea of pressing for amendments to Steiner’s vocabulary in English translation so as to fit his personal vision of what Spiritual Science should be - as per exact wording that I have quoted enough times now. If you don’t see the brutality in such expressions, well, I’ll leave it to you and others to discern what this may indicate, though I recall that, before falling into your own wells, you wrote: “I am leaning towards your position” (what else could any reasonable person do?) Not that these are isolated examples, unfortunately. We could take any of Linnells presentations. Let’s take his very last video on Holy Nights. It’s not even necessary to launch it. The thumbnail is enough to find the signs of unartistry and instrumentalization of art he knows nothing about, not even the name, for community leadership purposes. And it’s not like this is only the first, second, third or fourth time this appears. Hopefully he is reading here, or one of his friends is and will tell him to correct, at least the thumbnail. Believe me, I find it quite heavy and unfortunate to have to make these remarks, but since nobody seems to have the minimum level of discernment and courage to call this out and oppose these worrying expressions that nothing have to do with Anthroposophy, so I do it.

However, I never spoke of “conspiracy”, I never even vaguely meant anything that can be likened to conspiracy. So please aknowledge that clearly. And my statements about your PoF-Chat GPT ideas cannot decently be called dogmas. I won’t keep exchanging with you unless your false implications, insinuations about my honesty, exaggerations about my views on technology, etcetera, are rectified. I will not add anything of substance about the PoF-GPT idea - anything to any discussion with you, for that matter - unless this is made right.

Federica, I apologize for mischaracterizing your position by saying you 'identified a conspiracy', or that your GPT-PoF statements are 'dogmas'.

As usual, I hope it's clear that when I speak of 'gravity wells', 'antipathies', and so forth, I am not implying this is something you are plagued with while I have transcended those. Not at all. A clear example of a gravity well that attracts my stream of thinking experience are these heated arguments with you. When you posted the initial comment on the FB post, my intuition told me it was best not to respond and let the whole thing subside, since probably no one else would respond either. But then I talked myself into commenting. Why? I can come up with all sorts of ex-post rationalizations for why, 'I needed to make sure Linnell's name was not defamed, I needed to point out to Federica why she was projecting too much into the situation, etc.' But the reality is that there is a gravity well within my egoistic soul structure that desires to get caught up in heated arguments and publicly express my opinion on such matters. This is a subconscious desire - even my conceptual expression of it right now does not mean I really know what it is. I only know its effects that can be later condensed into concepts.

This is the most important thing - that we admit the concrete existence of gravity wells attracting our thinking states, that we take them seriously as something always at work. Phenomenological and analogical thinking is practically the only way to mitigate against the gravity well that attracts our thinking toward forming inflexible judgments about the 'nature' of phenomena in our experience, including other souls. Everything and everyone we encounter should remain a living experience that we attend to and endlessly explore from varying angles, not become an object of our speculations and conclusions. All the subsidiary exercises are aimed at cultivating these virtues within us. The other critical factor is, of course, becoming objectively aware of our soul-structure from the inside through concentration. It also helps to remember and be honest about why we all often choose to avoid becoming so aware whenever the opportunity for such avoidance presents itself. If we remember the first time we heard our own voice recorded, we may have had a peculiar feeling about it, maybe even a slight sense of shame and disgust. In any case, we probably didn't imagine we 'sound that way'. Now magnify that feeling 1000x and we get a sense for why most don't want to step beyond the personality and perceive their soul-structure as something objective.

Cleric presented a great metaphor for this previously:

Maybe something like 3D Tetris:





Imagine that we're facing the pile of blocks from above and the new blocks are coming from behind our head. If we're too close to the pile, the moment we see the new block we have very limited time to find a place for it. On the contrary, if we're farther from the pile, we see the block early, we guide the temporal unfolding of thinking. This is an analogy of course. There are many forces behind our back which coalesce the potential. In the Tetris example we can say that finding the place of the new block is the domain of thinking. Shallow thinkers are too close to the pile and simply see almost random blocks accumulating. Deeper thinkers are few steps removed from the pile and have greater awareness how thoughts can be guided to fit in the picture. But what if we can go even further back? Where even the block is still only a meaningful potential, not yet concretized? Then we are even more free (like we start planning the house even earlier). Here not only we guide the block but we can guide the crystallization of the block such that we can manifest the type of block that would be most useful for our concrete pile. This would correspond to our life of feeling - sympathies, antipathies, desires, hopes and fears. The cognitive depth is attained by loosening the etheric body from the physical. This gives us the depth leeway to perceive our thinking in the process of making. The second deepening is even further loosening of the etheric which makes our thinking capable to resonate with the time-meaning curvatures of the astral body. Now we're in position to slowly work upon our astral nature such that we can guide the manifestation of the Time flow. Without this work, we're stuck with whatever character we have. For some we say "Oh, he's such a grumpy man" or "She's such a lovely person, can always make you smile". These persons have their astral configuration in particular constellation. By gaining consciousness of these depth layers, we can recognize our grumpiness and work upon transforming it. If we don't do that, this astral grumpiness is far behind our back, which coalesces our thoughts way before they approach our cognition. The plans for our thought-houses has been laid in the astral body and as the future approaches us, it's already too late to change their general architecture - we're stuck with what our subconscious astral nature has prepared for us and we can only polish it here and there.

This is the most important thing on the inner path and, frankly, the only thing I am really interested in exploring from various angles. I have slowly learned that it makes little sense to start evaluating the state of the World in any conclusive way while my own intuitive orientation to reality, including my own soul life, needs so much additional work. My gravity well has often attracted me into these discussions about varying personalities, what they were saying, what they meant, what we can conclude about them, etc. But now I realize that I cannot keep indulging that tendency, especially because it invariably leads to more confusion and heat than clarity and light. I need to set a firm intention to resist the attractive pull so my higher self takes notice and comes to my aid, attracting me in quite orthogonal directions towards my freely chosen ideals. So, with that said, I will finally heed my original intuition and let my participation in this particular topic subside. I won't be responding to anything that mentions Linnell or anyone similar in the future, and probably I will stop posting videos from other people as well, only relevant quotes from books that I am reading.

Ashvin,

Simply correcting certain words would have been enough, but thanks for your apologies. I certainly recognize the presence of these attractive wells in me as well. I am surely drawn to situations where I can be the avenger, and where I can fight for what I believe is good, so I can support a certain fearless image of myself also. I see how it works, down to some of the effects on the physical plane. I’ve been very careful not to write anything under impulsion, though, in this thread and on FB. And I am resisting a few impulsions in this reply as well. Not to say this is enough, but that I do recognize the importance of this issue.

However, that one might be attracted to fight for certain causes because of one’s soul constitution doesn’t mean the causes in themselves are necessarily wrong, do you agree? Surely it’s crucial to distinguish between the cause, and our attachment to it, but if a moral cause exists, it must be worth the support of some? Who is supposed to do it then? Morality is inseparable from action and from judgment. So from which point of spiritual development onward, do you deem that one can allow oneself to take action in relation to the world content, and how should life look like in practical terms, until that point is reached (provided that one can know it has been reached)?

Your thoughts about not engaging with the world content the way you used to, call forth some questions. Please don’t feel these are personal questions. I am asking them in general, and also to anyone else who wants to weigh in. For me your decision not to evaluate the world content in any conclusive way is understandable in principle, but it's my impression that it quickly leads to paradoxes, since not making or expressing choices and evaluations is a choice, in the face of a life that imposes actions, choices and communications. No evaluation is ever conclusive anyway, so when you say that you don’t want to evaluate anything in conclusive ways, what it really means is that you don’t want to evaluate anything really? Is this not utopic and simply incompatible with a responsible life?

For example, if your proposition is now to avoid sharing videos, since a video is too personal a way to communicate ideas (if I understand you correctly) compared to a written page, then, in all logic, you should also avoid in person, video, and voice communications yourself, when the object is philosophical or Anthroposophical discussions (not personal relationships family friends of course). And when you write, your goal should now be to make your personal style as little recognizable as possible, correct? Are these intentions also part of how you conceive your next steps in your spiritual evolution? And what about your evaluation of the path of living thinking? That preference that brought you where you are now, spiritually? Is it also a non conclusive one? One could also wonder how to read the fact that Steiner clearly didn’t refrain from expressing critical judgements on this or that philosopher, politician, scientist, or public figure.

I find this whole ideal of soul neutrality not only difficult to grasp in a holistic, real way, but also strewn with pitfalls, as a path. It’s “easy” to say “I want to work until I can see my soul-attractors objectively” but even after those Guardians have been met, when life confronts us with individual situations that continually require responsible, individual choices, where else, if not in our soul consitution, can we really tap into? (I don't think the "I" can be considered individual, but our interaction with the world content is)

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Simply correcting certain words would have been enough, but thanks for your apologies. I certainly recognize the presence of these attractive wells in me as well. I am surely drawn to situations where I can be the avenger, and where I can fight for what I believe is good, so I can support a certain fearless image of myself also. I see how it works, down to some of the effects on the physical plane. I’ve been very careful not to write anything under impulsion, though, in this thread and on FB. And I am resisting a few impulsions in this reply as well. Not to say this is enough, but that I do recognize the importance of this issue.

However, that one might be attracted to fight for certain causes because of one’s soul constitution doesn’t mean the causes in themselves are necessarily wrong, do you agree? Surely it’s crucial to distinguish between the cause, and our attachment to it, but if a moral cause exists, it must be worth the support of some? Who is supposed to do it then? Morality is inseparable from action and from judgment. So from which point of spiritual development onward, do you deem that one can allow oneself to take action in relation to the world content, and how should life look like in practical terms, until that point is reached (provided that one can know it has been reached)?

Your thoughts about not engaging with the world content the way you used to, call forth some questions. Please don’t feel these are personal questions. I am asking them in general, and also to anyone else who wants to weigh in. For me your decision not to evaluate the world content in any conclusive way is understandable in principle, but it's my impression that it quickly leads to paradoxes, since not making or expressing choices and evaluations is a choice, in the face of a life that imposes actions, choices and communications. No evaluation is ever conclusive anyway, so when you say that you don’t want to evaluate anything in conclusive ways, what it really means is that you don’t want to evaluate anything really? Is this not utopic and simply incompatible with a responsible life?

For example, if your proposition is now to avoid sharing videos, since a video is too personal a way to communicate ideas (if I understand you correctly) compared to a written page, then, in all logic, you should also avoid in person, video, and voice communications yourself, when the object is philosophical or Anthroposophical discussions (not personal relationships family friends of course). And when you write, your goal should now be to make your personal style as little recognizable as possible, correct? Are these intentions also part of how you conceive your next steps in your spiritual evolution? And what about your evaluation of the path of living thinking? That preference that brought you where you are now, spiritually? Is it also a non conclusive one? One could also wonder how to read the fact that Steiner clearly didn’t refrain from expressing critical judgements on this or that philosopher, politician, scientist, or public figure.

I find this whole ideal of soul neutrality not only difficult to grasp in a holistic, real way, but also strewn with pitfalls, as a path. It’s “easy” to say “I want to work until I can see my soul-attractors objectively” but even after those Guardians have been met, when life confronts us with individual situations that continually require responsible, individual choices, where else, if not in our soul consitution, can we really tap into? (I don't think the "I" can be considered individual, but our interaction with the world content is)

Federica,

On the issue of the gravity wells, I want to emphasize that we don't really know what these are. Yes, we can perceive the after-effects, like ripples on a lake, at the surface of our waking consciousness, but the sea creatures that are stirring the waters from below are entirely unsuspected. The ways that we unknowingly search out to self-sabotage and self-destruct reach down into normally unfathomable depths.  Not all wells are bad - there are also 'levity wells' that attract our state. In our normal thinking, however, we can only tell the difference between them in the broadest outlines with low resolution. In that sense, the question is not whether there are 'moral causes' worth supporting, but whether we even know what the proper 'causes' are and how we can usefully contribute to them without making things worse.

In my view, the normal evaluation of 'causes' to fight for is a purely horizontal one. Such evaluations are necessary in practical life. For ex., if someone from a spiritual organization reaches out to me and says, 'Hey, I would like to meet with you and see if you can join our organization and contribute to it', then I need to do more homework. I need to research what this organization is all about, who is its founder, etc. and make some judgments to inform my decision. This is a somewhat rare example, but it highlights the fact that circumstances on the physical plane require us to develop these habits of evaluation and judgment in certain cases. On the inner path, however, we start to become more like two different beings. Or, rather, we take a more conscious stance towards our already dualized nature, creatively participating in its management and harmonious unfoldment. 

On the forum, for ex., it is clear we are distancing from the normal horizontal orientation and devoting energy to the vertical axis. When it comes to vertical development of the inner life, we need quite orthogonal habits to the horizontal ones we are accustomed to. We really need to start 'quarantining' ourselves from the diseased rhythms of thinking, feeling, and willing that have grown around our normal physical-sensory habits. We will eventually spiral the new habits together with the old, spiritualizing the latter, but first, we need to establish a solid inner foundation for this redemptive work. Of course, the place to start is with our thinking. Once we have deconditioned our thinking organism to some extent, we can work through that into the deeper layers of feeling and will. Everything is modulated through our life of thinking. 

Steiner provides indications of these new inner habits to cultivate in no uncertain terms throughout KHW. These are essential to internalize and keep within our intuitive context in all possible circumstances. For ex:

This brings us to the third condition. The student must work his way upward to the realization that his thoughts and feelings are as important for the world as his actions. It must be realized that it is equally injurious to hate a fellow-being as to strike him. The realization will then follow that by perfecting ourselves we accomplish something not only for ourselves, but for the whole world. The world derives equal benefit from our untainted feelings and thoughts as from our good demeanor, and as long as we cannot believe in this cosmic importance of our inner life, we are unfit for the path that is here described. We are only filled with the right faith in the significance of our inner self, of our soul, when we work at it as though it were at least as real as all external things. We must admit that our every feeling produces an effect, just as does every action of our hand.

As we have discussed before, there are ways to approach the World Content in our thinking, in a thorough and insightful way, without resorting to conclusive judgments that we need for some 'cause'. That is the symbolic ordering approach. Every perception and concept we approach can become a more phenomenological experience, as if it is a portal into the mysteries of inner existence, because that is, in fact, the function of all concepts and perceptions that go beyond mere sensuous stimulation or technical applications. Cleric provided a key metaphor for this here. Every conceptual state of being we experience is a point-like balance of the most complicated relations of idea-beings that structure the flow of existence. Not only every concept we experience, but our whole state of being is a symbol for these deeper ideal relations. It is easier to keep this in mind when we realize every meaningful state of being is experienced through the lens of a concept-idea. The art of higher thinking development first consists in resisting the concept-idea turning from a symbolic point of balance into a sclerotic judgment.

The inverted cone above symbolizes the manifold relations of the ideal (spiritual world). For example, if we take something like 'freedom' or 'evolution', these are certainly ideas but they can never be understood in isolation. What would be the meaning of 'evolution' in an empty world? The meaning of this idea is grasped only because we have realized certain lawfulness in the temporal unfolding of existence. It is something we 'read out' from the totality of our experience. We have to consider the kingdoms of Nature and the development of human soul life, and explore their dynamics in order to grasp certain gradation which we call 'evolution'. The key however is that this idea shouldn't remain abstract but we need to remember that it is extracted from the totality of our experience (or we could say that we attune to it as we penetrate the mystery of existence). This is what the widening inverted cone symbolizes - the fact that ideas ultimately lead us into the reality of the World's totality and the Intelligent intents that drive its metamorphoses.

The point of balance is the concept. When we think of a concept we can always imagine something point-like. This doesn't in the least mean that a concept is self-sufficient point that can exist in isolation. The concept of 'evolution' is the point-like experience of ideal balance through which we basically say "When I concentrate on the concept of 'evolution' it is like I exist amidst a totality of complicated ideal relations. I cannot easily grasp this totality. It is living, it is dynamic. I have to consider simultaneously all the Kingdoms and beings in their continual metamorphoses and complicated relations if I'm to grasp it. My mind would burst If I were to do that - I simply can't fit it all. Nevertheless I feel that there's certain lawful unity within the totality, something which captures a specific ideal current with it. In my mind I can find this specificity as a kind of point of balance. When my mind is focused in this point I feel as if I have found a peculiar point of stability within the totality - it is the point-experience that makes sense of the totality. The ideal totality is vastly larger than the soul life I experience at any instance, yet in my mind I can find a point which is stable and somehow remains at rest amidst the dynamics of the ideal. This ideal point in my mind I can call the concept. It is only a symbolic point of balance within my intellect which captures something essential of an ideal totality.

So that's in a nutshell. The concept is the concrete point-like ideal experience in our intellect. It's not 'some thing'. It's a point of balance, point of rest from within which our mind feels it keeps some aspect of the ideal world balanced like the inverted cone. We simply feel that in that point we grasp the idea. If we were to explicate the conceptual point of balance we would have to go into the wider reality of the ideal cone. We would have to write whole books (like for example Darwin had) in order to triangulate that point from many different sides.

I am not so great at developing metaphors or giving concrete examples for this inner experiential path (which is something I am working on), so it may often seem like I am just postulating more abstract rules of conduct, making other kinds of conclusive judgments to set against the conclusive judgments of others. But I am trying to speak of something very intimate that is embedded within the experiential course of life itself. The reality is that we can only speak of 'me' at the very tip of our becoming in our intuitive activity. Every other aspect of our personality and our body is woven from diverse streams of influence that are practically beyond us - they are practically independent spiritual beings - and that we need to dialogue and negotiate with in gratitude and humility. And if that applies to our own body and soul, then it applies even more to other human souls whom we observe from a distance. 

The other day I was driving and trying to pay attention to how I judge other souls on the road. It is a very habitual process for me. If I see a car swerve recklessly at high speed from one lane to another, for ex., it is like a reflex to conclude from that outer appearance that the soul steering the car is an inconsiderate scumbag of sorts. But what do I really know about this soul? I don't know that soul's history, what its life has been like, what psycho-physical conditions it may have, what happened to it that day, etc. I don't know what other deeds that soul has been engaged in to help its fellow beings. I don't know if it is speeding to the hospital with a woman in labor or speeding to a friend's house who has indicated they are about to commit suicide. Likewise, I don't know why our new friend is recklessly swerving through the lanes of this forum for what seems to be his personal entertainment 

The other thing to consider concretely is how, through our intuitive activity, we are continually imploding thought-forms into the World, which eventually manifest as deeper soul and physical forms. If we try to keep the idea of a stream of incarnations within our intuitive context, then we can sense how all the circumstances we find ourselves in, the technologies we encounter, the people we come across, etc. are reflections of our own "I"-activity and are teaching us something about the deeper layers of that activity. We are quite literally perceiving ourselves in the mirror of the World at all times and, therefore, back at ourselves should be the first place we look when a negative judgment about the World occurs to us. Again, these considerations transcend horizontal distinctions of 'right' and 'wrong'. All such judgments may be 'right' in some abstract way, but using them as tools to work on ourselves is the only concretely helpful way to establish the vertical axis of our Being.

The point of this inner soul development is initially to develop more fluid and creative ways of thinking. We liberate from the rigid logical pathways, the universal precepts and norms that we normally rest our WFT life on. We engage with ideas and decisions on the inner path as living experiences, living beings that we are negotiating with in real-time. We are in a continual process of coordinating the decisions of our lower self with the holistic insight of the higher self, triangulating the most harmonious path of development toward our ideals like the two physical eyes triangulate sensory objects to grasp. Each new case needs to be considered on its own unique basis. We are not setting any inflexible rules for ourselves that must persist for all time or must equally apply in all domains of life according to some logical calculation.  Our stream of experience cannot help but grow richer when we expand its personal center to also coincide with the concentric Centers of the higher self. 

The idea to stop sharing videos is because, while it might bring me satisfaction and a sense of 'doing good in the world', it is usually not the result of a carefully thought-out decision, but rather it is the lowest hanging fruit, the most convenient way to proceed without needing to artistically render the ideas myself and provide a gradient of context for others to approach the ideas. When I just throw out videos with esoteric discussion from Linnell, Gabriel, or anyone else, even if that discussion seems really 'basic' to me, the result is usually confusion and the reinforcement of existing prejudices - it presents content while doing little to help others grow into the orientation from which the content can be usefully integrated into a healthy intuitive orientation. Maybe that will change someday or some videos will be more appropriate for building the gradient, in which case I will share them. There is no absolute rule I am setting for myself against using videos.  

The very interesting thing is that when we sacrifice the temptation for short-term conceptual judgments about other people and the 'nature' of the World we experience, an inner certainty of the general direction of World Evolution and our place in it begins to shine through. It is like the personal judgments were veiling this inner stream that gives us a more concrete orientation to reality than the judgments ever could. We begin to experience our soul-structure within the very flow of reality, interwoven into the Comsic threads of the karmic organism (all other souls). The 'moral causes' that we imagined were benefitting from our outer judgments are revealed to be much more profoundly influenced through the rhythms of our inner stream, and it is exactly as Steiner said - "by perfecting ourselves we accomplish something not only for ourselves, but for the whole world." Then we are in a position to work back from the vertical axis to the horizontal stream of outer experience, setting living examples that may make a difference through the wise Time-rhythms. 

I also urge you and anyone else reading this and similar posts not to ever be satisfied with the first or second pass. Everything may seem very clear and grasped well, but there are surely deeper insights to be mined (that I myself am not aware of) and it is through repeated streaming of our spirit into these rivers of meaning that they gradually integrate into our intuitive orientation. As you can see, I have lately been working in many of Cleric's old metaphors into the discussion and I can't stress enough how helpful it has been to work back through those regularly, engaging the exercises and experiments and thinking the thoughts expressed (not just observing and believing them) with kinesthetic imagination. That alone gives me a concrete experiential sense of 'changing the World' in ways that I simply cannot experience by jumping into outer causes, even those engaged in the name of Anthroposophy.