Federica wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 2:32 pm
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.
Cleric wrote:
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.