Anthroposophy for Dummies

[AshvinP]

And this is true, it is sort of exceptional, because it's overlooked. An example I know of is, well what am I doing right now to formulate this comment? There's something to explore.

Luke,

I find it rewarding to recognize, when looking at an illustration such as Cleric presented above, contemplating its meaning, working through the connections, mining its deep insights...

that all of what I so discerned is still a thought-glyph on the tunnel wall. I try to do this quickly after reading. There is a sense of deepening within my conceptual activity that I experience in that recognition. Similar to the experience when reading the part in PoF about the exceptional state and how we never observe our present thinking, even in the exceptional state. In this case, we share a collective soul context of like-minded spiritual seeking which steered our intuitive stream of becoming into the state of contemplating the illustration.

Of course it's still not comparable to the real-time experience-observation of our thinking flow in meditation, but it's something we can do as a complement to reading these posts on the forum.

[LukeJTM]

Luke,

I find it rewarding to recognize, when looking at an illustration such as Cleric presented above, contemplating its meaning, working through the connections, mining its deep insights...

that all of what I so discerned is still a thought-glyph on the tunnel wall. I try to do this quickly after reading. There is a sense of deepening within my conceptual activity that I experience in that recognition. Similar to the experience when reading the part in PoF about the exceptional state and how we never observe our present thinking, even in the exceptional state. In this case, we share a collective soul context of like-minded spiritual seeking which steered our intuitive stream of becoming into the state of contemplating the illustration.

Of course it's still not comparable to the real-time experience-observation of our thinking flow in meditation, but it's something we can do as a complement to reading these posts on the forum.

Thanks, Ashvin. What are you saying is something that came to mind sometimes actually. I actually thought of that before I asked my questions about the exceptional state.
Apparently Steiner suggested to "think these thoughts without believing them"? I suppose that means the same as what you (and Cleric) suggested.

EDIT: Perhaps Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup's "dashboard of experience" theory is comparable? I.e. the thought-glyphs are like icons on the 'dashboard', and not just what is in the sensory world. I wonder if Hoffman and Kastrup have considered this before? I have no idea if they have, so I'm wondering if anyone here does.

[AshvinP]

Luke,

I find it rewarding to recognize, when looking at an illustration such as Cleric presented above, contemplating its meaning, working through the connections, mining its deep insights...

that all of what I so discerned is still a thought-glyph on the tunnel wall. I try to do this quickly after reading. There is a sense of deepening within my conceptual activity that I experience in that recognition. Similar to the experience when reading the part in PoF about the exceptional state and how we never observe our present thinking, even in the exceptional state. In this case, we share a collective soul context of like-minded spiritual seeking which steered our intuitive stream of becoming into the state of contemplating the illustration.

Of course it's still not comparable to the real-time experience-observation of our thinking flow in meditation, but it's something we can do as a complement to reading these posts on the forum.

Thanks, Ashvin. What are you saying is something that came to mind sometimes actually. I actually thought of that before I asked my questions about the exceptional state.
Apparently Steiner suggested to "think these thoughts without believing them"? I suppose that means the same as what you (and Cleric) suggested.

EDIT: Perhaps Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup's "dashboard of experience" theory is comparable? I.e. the thought-glyphs are like icons on the 'dashboard', and not just what is in the sensory world. I wonder if Hoffman and Kastrup have considered this before? I have no idea if they have, so I'm wondering if anyone here does.

Luke,

I am not sure the context of that Steiner quote, but it does sound about the same. We can experience the thinking of thoughts without being sucked into their content and thereby dissociated from the life of thinking.

I would say where Hoffman, Kastrup, and practically all other similar modern thinkers fall short is exactly in not contemplating how their dashboard theories, which are simply modern recapitulations of ancient spirituality and philosophy such as we find in Plato (although made more mathematically precise, in the case of Hoffman), are still thought-glyphs within their dashboards or tunnels. Thereby it never occurs for them to observe-experience the flow of the thinking which results in the thought-glyphs - the experience of this flow remains completely unsuspected.

Steiner said somewhere in his lectures that spiritual science is basically what one gets when one takes all modern world outlooks more seriously than their founders and followers. The idealism of Kant and Schopenhauer should naturally lead one to seek the lawfulness of thinking activity which has discerned the Maya of outer appearances and the 'formatting' tendency of cognition. Materialism likewise leads us to layered streams of activity which finally result in our thoughts-perceptions. Implicit in all formulated world outlooks is the thinking activity which does the formulating, which is the only reality we can ever know, in principle. So there are clearly deeper reasons within the soul why very few people take their our own outlooks quite seriously enough to pursue the exceptional state and beyond.

[Cleric K]

Thanks, Ashvin. What are you saying is something that came to mind sometimes actually. I actually thought of that before I asked my questions about the exceptional state.
Apparently Steiner suggested to "think these thoughts without believing them"? I suppose that means the same as what you (and Cleric) suggested.

I think the easiest way to grasp this is through an analogy with mathematics. For example, we can certainly say that to understand the proof of the Pythagoras theorem we have to think it and not simply believe it. The proof is the actual thinking path that we have to walk. As a simpler example, consider that I give you instructions:
"Take a step forward (S), Turn 90 degrees to the right (T), S, T, S, T, S, T. After doing this you'll find yourself in your initial state."
Now if you simply believe this, it's not of much use. But if you perform the steps - physically or only mentally - then what was said would be found as a fact of experience.

This is really the basic spirit of everything in PoF and even in spiritual science, even though the latter requires additional skills. It's not about believing some philosophical system, it's about walking the thoughts. In this way we probe unsuspected soul geometry. Then we can produce PoF out of ourselves because we now understand that it is not simply a philosophical theory but living phenomenology.

EDIT: Perhaps Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup's "dashboard of experience" theory is comparable? I.e. the thought-glyphs are like icons on the 'dashboard', and not just what is in the sensory world. I wonder if Hoffman and Kastrup have considered this before? I have no idea if they have, so I'm wondering if anyone here does.

In addition to Ashvin's reply, it can be noted that both DH and BK don't demonstrate any openness that we can ever know something more than the dashboard - or at least not while we're in a body (dissociated). 'Something more' not in the sense of a better model but as actual spiritual experience of reality and not only of the dashboard. So not only that reality is thought about only through the glyphs but it is also asserted (even if implicitly) that this is all we can ever know while on Earth. This attitude basically forecloses any possibility for gaining deeper consciousness of our flow of becoming.

[LukeJTM]

So, apparently, in Steiner's earlier lectures and writings, he included Indian and Theosophical terminologies or descriptions-- such as the causal body, mental body, higher astral body, and so on-- when referring to the different layers of man's bodily organization. Here is a link for reference: https://en.anthro.wiki/Causal_body

The wiki cites various lectures from Steiner for that, but they are all in German... my knowledge of the German language is not advanced so I am unable to read them. But that is besides the point Does anyone know of any particular reason Steiner rarely referred to things such as the causal body in his later work? I think he gave his lectures to the average working person, so maybe he wanted to keep things simpler by just sticking with the etheric body and astral body terminologies, but I'm not sure.


Aside from that, I am seeking some suggestions the context of Steiner's supplementary exercises. He recommends practicing seeing the positive angle and truth in everything. And developing more open-mindedness to new or unknown things. I try to do these things, but I tend to find them difficult--in particular seeing the positive in unpleasant or unenjoyable experiences. So I'm asking if anyone has had successful experiences with this? Or successful methods that can help purify negative attitudes about life experiences? I have, at least, noticed that negative attitudes I can hold in myself often come from negative emotions that haven't been processed, and making some effort to do so can help purify the mental attitude connected with it. But it can be really difficult sometimes.

EDIT: Some things I came up with is counting my blessings, which can be from the day's activities, or something like that. Or practicing gratitude. If there is anything else that is useful, I am very interested to learn.

[Cleric K]

So, apparently, in Steiner's earlier lectures and writings, he included Indian and Theosophical terminologies or descriptions-- such as the causal body, mental body, higher astral body, and so on-- when referring to the different layers of man's bodily organization. Here is a link for reference: https://en.anthro.wiki/Causal_body

The wiki cites various lectures from Steiner for that, but they are all in German... my knowledge of the German language is not advanced so I am unable to read them. But that is besides the point Does anyone know of any particular reason Steiner rarely referred to things such as the causal body in his later work? I think he gave his lectures to the average working person, so maybe he wanted to keep things simpler by just sticking with the etheric body and astral body terminologies, but I'm not sure.

I think it was just a choice of terminology. As it is said in the wiki, the Causal body is practically the same as what is called Spirit-Self or Manas. The latter terms are the most commonly used (especially Spirit-Self). Steiner has explained on some occasions that the terminology of modern spiritual science has been deliberately chosen in this way in order to emphasize that spiritual knowledge today is drawn from a new and completely different source. We're not simply reiterating ancient revealed knowledge but seeking the fully conscious experiences through which our inner life is understood. Just like in our ordinary consciousness we can introspect and differentiate that our soul life consists of perceptions, thoughts, feelings and will, so higher experiences present our existence as being weaved out of the forces of the different bodies. Although, we can speak of bodies in our familiar sense only in respect to the physical and to some extent the etheric. With the higher bodies we should rather imagine that we're much more embedded in the Cosmos. For example, the Causal body shouldn't be pictured as yet another egg-shell around our physical. Actually, space largely loses meaning with respect to it. To approach the reality of the Causal body we have to feel along the threads of destiny. That's the completely real 'curvature' of the potential through which our life unfolds (metaphor borrowed from the spacetime curvature of General Relativity that we often use here).

Aside from that, I am seeking some suggestions the context of Steiner's supplementary exercises. He recommends practicing seeing the positive angle and truth in everything. And developing more open-mindedness to new or unknown things. I try to do these things, but I tend to find them difficult--in particular seeing the positive in unpleasant or unenjoyable experiences. So I'm asking if anyone has had successful experiences with this? Or successful methods that can help purify negative attitudes about life experiences? I have, at least, noticed that negative attitudes I can hold in myself often come from negative emotions that haven't been processed, and making some effort to do so can help purify the mental attitude connected with it. But it can be really difficult sometimes.

EDIT: Some things I came up with is counting my blessings, which can be from the day's activities, or something like that. Or practicing gratitude. If there is anything else that is useful, I am very interested to learn.

These are not skills that we can develop overnight. We have to be prepared that we'll probably have lifelong struggle with them but the important thing is to never give up. Every sincere effort counts. Even if we don't change too much in this life, our unceasing attempts become a force that will give a sure direction of our next incarnation.

On the more practical level, probably one of the stumbling stones is if we expect that unenjoyable experiences should somehow become pleasant. This is very tempting of course but it is rarely possible. So that's the first thing - to see the positive thing shouldn't be mistaken for immediately transforming the unpleasant into pleasant. There's hardly a better example than the labor pains of the mother. Anticipating with joy the new life doesn't necessarily act as anesthetic. The pain is still gone through and it is not pleasant by any means, yet in our spirit we live in the idea of something greater which makes the whole thing worth it. So these exercises really help us to see and understand the broader picture and from there we draw real soul forces which rarely eliminate the unpleasant experiences but surely give us an almost inexhaustible power to endure and understand that these are only the inevitable difficulties along a highly meaningful path. In that respect suffering is the greatest benefactor at our stage of evolution. It continually keeps us awake and urges us to understand why it exists in the first place. If suffering was to be taken away, the constitution of man today is such that we would quickly destroy ourselves through overindulgence.

BTW there's a very interesting experiment in that respect which can become a very valuable habit. We know how it is customary when people hit their head in the cupboard or kick the table leg, they begin to curse. Not many know why they do it (they just contracted it from their environment). Others may say that it acts as an outlet for the pain, as if they channelize the steam out, so to speak. But in my experience even better way to channelize the steam is by repeating in our mind "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!" accompanied with opening our soul in gratitude as if something of great value has been poured over us. One might be surprised how effective that is. Not only that it helps us to channelize the feeling of pain but through this soul mood we may immediately become aware of what we have been thinking when we hit ourselves. Sometimes this is our higher nature's way to tell us to watch our thoughts or simply to be more conscious of our will and surroundings. If we instead go on to curse, not only that we fill our soul with ugly forms but we also arrogantly shut ourselves out as if the Universe is at fault.

[LukeJTM]

I think it was just a choice of terminology. As it is said in the wiki, the Causal body is practically the same as what is called Spirit-Self or Manas. The latter terms are the most commonly used (especially Spirit-Self). Steiner has explained on some occasions that the terminology of modern spiritual science has been deliberately chosen in this way in order to emphasize that spiritual knowledge today is drawn from a new and completely different source. We're not simply reiterating ancient revealed knowledge but seeking the fully conscious experiences through which our inner life is understood. Just like in our ordinary consciousness we can introspect and differentiate that our soul life consists of perceptions, thoughts, feelings and will, so higher experiences present our existence as being weaved out of the forces of the different bodies. Although, we can speak of bodies in our familiar sense only in respect to the physical and to some extent the etheric. With the higher bodies we should rather imagine that we're much more embedded in the Cosmos. For example, the Causal body shouldn't be pictured as yet another egg-shell around our physical. Actually, space largely loses meaning with respect to it. To approach the reality of the Causal body we have to feel along the threads of destiny. That's the completely real 'curvature' of the potential through which our life unfolds (metaphor borrowed from the spacetime curvature of General Relativity that we often use here).

That makes sense. There is still sometimes a tendency in me to think of those things in a spatial manner, and it just causes confusion, so I will take that as time to focus again on opening up more non-conceptual understanding (non-intellectual).

To approach the reality of the Causal body we have to feel along the threads of destiny [...]".

There is a book I have by Rudolf Steiner that explains review exercises. When I say review exercises, I mean the ones where you go over what happened in the day, and considering what you can learn from the day's experiences (at least the main events). I'm sure you know what I am referring to. And there are similar exercises he recommended which are used for major events in one's life (to awaken the Higher Self), and so on. Is that what you meant by "feeling along the threads of destiny" to approach the Causal Body?

These are not skills that we can develop overnight. We have to be prepared that we'll probably have lifelong struggle with them but the important thing is to never give up. Every sincere effort counts. Even if we don't change too much in this life, our unceasing attempts become a force that will give a sure direction of our next incarnation.

On the more practical level, probably one of the stumbling stones is if we expect that unenjoyable experiences should somehow become pleasant. This is very tempting of course but it is rarely possible. So that's the first thing - to see the positive thing shouldn't be mistaken for immediately transforming the unpleasant into pleasant. There's hardly a better example than the labor pains of the mother. Anticipating with joy the new life doesn't necessarily act as anesthetic. The pain is still gone through and it is not pleasant by any means, yet in our spirit we live in the idea of something greater which makes the whole thing worth it. So these exercises really help us to see and understand the broader picture and from there we draw real soul forces which rarely eliminate the unpleasant experiences but surely give us an almost inexhaustible power to endure and understand that these are only the inevitable difficulties along a highly meaningful path. In that respect suffering is the greatest benefactor at our stage of evolution. It continually keeps us awake and urges us to understand why it exists in the first place. If suffering was to be taken away, the constitution of man today is such that we would quickly destroy ourselves through overindulgence.

BTW there's a very interesting experiment in that respect which can become a very valuable habit. We know how it is customary when people hit their head in the cupboard or kick the table leg, they begin to curse. Not many know why they do it (they just contracted it from their environment). Others may say that it acts as an outlet for the pain, as if they channelize the steam out, so to speak. But in my experience even better way to channelize the steam is by repeating in our mind "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!" accompanied with opening our soul in gratitude as if something of great value has been poured over us. One might be surprised how effective that is. Not only that it helps us to channelize the feeling of pain but through this soul mood we may immediately become aware of what we have been thinking when we hit ourselves. Sometimes this is our higher nature's way to tell us to watch our thoughts or simply to be more conscious of our will and surroundings. If we instead go on to curse, not only that we fill our soul with ugly forms but we also arrogantly shut ourselves out as if the Universe is at fault.

Thank you, that clarified everything, and cleared up some confusion I had about that. The experiment you gave at the end sounds good, and something that came into my mind in the past. What I mean is, I have noticed sometimes when I end up with some minor physical injury or issue, such as bashing my foot against an object, or something like that, it tends to be connected with engaging in negative thoughts, or not being grounded and thinking too much about something. So I can relate to what you are saying.

[Anthony66]

The depth of PoF, which turns out is very hard to grasp for many, leads us to the idea that the more we undress the layers of conditioning of personality, family, nation, race, gender, religion, the more we discover ourselves as a spiritual being that draws upon a holistic source of inspiration, which is inherently coherent.

Cleric,

I'm still pondering this sense perception/intuition distinction. What I'm struggling with is how we understand intuitions that appear in our consciousness before we "undress the layers of conditioning". If we haven't reached the state of intuitive cognition, how do we have intuitions? Can we understand them as murky, convoluted shadows of pure intuitions?

[AshvinP]

The depth of PoF, which turns out is very hard to grasp for many, leads us to the idea that the more we undress the layers of conditioning of personality, family, nation, race, gender, religion, the more we discover ourselves as a spiritual being that draws upon a holistic source of inspiration, which is inherently coherent.

Cleric,

I'm still pondering this sense perception/intuition distinction. What I'm struggling with is how we understand intuitions that appear in our consciousness before we "undress the layers of conditioning". If we haven't reached the state of intuitive cognition, how do we have intuitions? Can we understand them as murky, convoluted shadows of pure intuitions?

Anthony,

As we await a response from Cleric, let me offer some thoughts. We should understand imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions as weaving the entire manifest world we experience - not only our dim soul-life of shadowy thoughts, feelings, and will impulses, but also the human, animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms, the experience of light/color, air/breath, water, etc. They weave even the social relationships we enter into, the destiny we encounter on our life path. It is the meaningful depth of these experiences, of which we normally only pay attention to the quantitative structure and the superficial life of sensory impressions or dim thoughts. Higher cognitive development resurrects this meaningful depth of experience, which is always implicitly present, in and through our thinking consciousness. Our capacity to think is what awakens us to the presence of these cognitive forces which weave the World, but at first only as the convoluted shadows you mention. We use them to build up a world-conception through laws, principles, models, etc. (previously our ancestors experienced them as the spiritual beings of mythology and religion - the relations between cosmic and elemental spirits - which is more accurate).

When we observe the world, at first, we are presented with living impressions of colors, sounds, smells, tastes, textures. This much is given. But as soon we try to bring order into these impressions through arrangements of thoughts, the living quality recedes and we are left with increasingly grayed out mental pictures and verbal tokens. The spiritual world is continually dying in our thoughts. We can distinguish between the ‘living’ and ‘dead’ as follows: what is alive impels us to bring our organism into movement. Few people can enter a stadium with the rhythmic pulsation of music and stand as stiff as a board, failing to sway with the beat. Even fewer people can hold their hand close over a flame and fail to move it after some quick duration of time. How many people, on the other hand, can sit and think about the mathematical structure of a piece of music, or the chemical properties of a flame, without this compelling their life of feeling or impulses of will in the slightest?

In the corpse of our thought, sundered from the compulsive life of sensory impressions, also resides the key to our freedom. When we are not impelled to react in one way or another to our thoughts, we gradually gain the degrees of freedom to steer our thinking according to our desired ideals. That is where we are now. Our abstract thoughts, as reflections or shadows, force us to think in one direction or another so long as we remain unaware of their reflective nature and idolize them into the power that is causally prior to their appearance. When we have awakened to that reflective nature, we can then freely choose the direction of our thinking. To keep our thinking attached to personal desires - our thoughts dragged along helplessly by dark instincts and hedonistic pleasures - is ignorance of and enslavement to alien impulses of will. Instead, we can choose to devote its energy towards the archetypal and the Good, which alone is capable of enlightening, and thereby redeeming, the personal and the sensuous, recovering the higher cognitions which were always within them. That is the path of spiritual freedom.

[Cleric K]

Cleric,

I'm still pondering this sense perception/intuition distinction. What I'm struggling with is how we understand intuitions that appear in our consciousness before we "undress the layers of conditioning". If we haven't reached the state of intuitive cognition, how do we have intuitions? Can we understand them as murky, convoluted shadows of pure intuitions?

We shouldn't imagine the stages of cognition as completely separate floors of existence. If we use the folding metaphor again, it should be clear that we experience something of Intuition even in this moment.

Lastly, at the fourth stage of knowledge Inspiration also ceases. Of the elements customarily observed in everyday knowledge, the ego alone remains to be considered. The attainment of this stage by the occult student is marked by a definite inner experience. This experience manifests itself in the feeling that he no longer stands outside the things and occurrences that he recognises, but is himself within them. images are not the object, but merely its imprint. Also, inspiration does not yield up the object itself, but only tells about it. But what now lives in the soul is in reality the object itself. The ego has streamed forth over all beings; it has merged with them. The actual living of things within the soul is Intuition. When it is said of Intuition that “through it man creeps into all things,” this is literally true. — In ordinary life man has only one “intuition” — namely, of the ego itself, for the ego can in no way be perceived from without; it can only be experienced in the inner life.

https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA012/Engli ... 2_c01.html

So Intuition shouldn't be thought of as something which gives us consciousness only of the higher worlds. It is really the knowing essence of our existence. Probably the closest concept for those familiar with nondual philosophies would be 'awareness'. To be aware implies certain intuitive knowing. Of course, knowing not in conceptual sense. Maybe we can compare this with a kind of intuitive orientation. For example when you look at your room you don't have to think of anything in particular yet you feel 'oriented', you simply know what you're experiencing, it 'makes sense', you are not lost or confused about it.

As the quote above goes, this kind of knowing, for the normal man of today, is experienced only in respect to our "I". The "I" is like the coherent intuition which makes sense of the stream of existence.

Today we understand the world as far as everything that we experience fits in the intuition of our "I"-existence. After all, we can't really speak of understanding of anything outside our experience. Even if we imagine that we understand the universe from a bird eye view, all of this is still the very human philosophical experience of our own "I".

We speak of Intuitive cognition when we know the true nature of the world in the same way we know our "I".