Criticism

[AshvinP]

No. I'd rather not. But I did not go down the easy path.

Ok. Neither did Cleric, but he has explained his difficult drug-fueled path in all its gory details here, and how precisely the sense of ego stands in relation to consciousness which moves towards the threshold of physical death and across it. So I am sure you understand why, without any futher elaboration on your part, there is no reason to assume that you know what you are speaking of here.

[AshvinP]

It should be clear already that all four geometries exist only as eigen bases onto which the intellect can project its thinking. Reality doesn't operate through any such geometry.

OK, so, there is a “harmonious unity” of high-order Intuitive/Imaginative ideas that govern the reality ( including the sense-perceptory world) (the “time-domain ifdeas”), and there are lower-level abstract ideas formed by the intellect that attempt to describe the world but unable to do it properly due to its lower-level character (“Fourtier-tranfrom domain ideas”), and so the latter not belong to the “harmonious unity” of higher-order ieas. And Reason is a faculty of higher cognition that is able to attain clairvoyant insight into and the knowledge of the unity of higher-order world of ideas. I’m sure that this is clearly wrong and Kantian-divide dualistic because any non-initiate like me has no way to get it right, but I hope it at least roughly describes what you are saying.

Well, what to say? The attempts to know the ultimate truth has been humanity’s endeavor throughout all its history. Philosophy, science, religions, spiritual practices (dual or non-dual, Western, Eastern or Indigenous), poetry and art. Neither of them got it right, they all just spinned around in different areas of abstract ideas of lower cognition, all in vain, just rarely being able to get some intuitive glimpses of the higher-order meanings. Eventually, through the work of Goethe and Steiner a breakthrough was achieved into the realm of the unity of higher-order beings and harmonious ideas governing the world that we, lower-level beings, perceive through our senses. With our low-level cognition we can only intellectually speculate about the truths of that realm using abstractions, it’s only through the development of the faculties of Intuitive and Imaginative Reason-Thinking and through esoteric initiation attainable in the order of Anthroposophy where we can gain the true knowledge of these higher-order ideas. Goethe and Steiner were some of those initiates, Cleric is the other one.

But how do we know if the ideas they perceive actually are the true high-order ideas governing the reality and not a result of their self-intoxicating imagination or a manifestation of their personal or group sub-conscious beliefs? The adepts of SS will tell us that the only way to know it is to actually practice it, to develop the high-order Reason, Imaginative and Intuitive abilities and to know these ideas through direct perception by these higher-order faculties. Once you perceive the true high-order meanings, you will know they are true. OK, but are there any other criteria to somehow verify that this knowledge is actually relevant to reality and not just another product of human subtle self-confirming intuitive imagination? Well, let’s look at what knowledge Steiner brought us from the realms of higher-order ideas. There are plenty of them, for example, the knowledge about Atlantis, about ethnic supremacy of Arian and Germanic nations, about Zodiacs governing our life on Earth. Any other breakthroughs into the knowledge of the world of natural phenomena? Did he attain the knowledge about big bang or black holes, or elementary particles, or QM or GR prior to their discovery by science? Or could he explain why the natural phenomena always follow exactly the QM Shroedinger or GR equations? Nope, that’s too abstract, not for clairvoyants, they see much deeper. May be biochemistry, immunology, human biology? Sure:

I understand that SS and Steiner are hot topic, evoking emotions along the full range of the spectrum. That's why I've always tried to speak directly from experience, in the same way one can speak and others can understand Pythagoras's theorem, without mentioning his name.

I just want to say this was simply brilliant...

And that everything written fits with my own experience in the legal field, where the "proof" concept is bandied about quite a bit. It is not at all about what most people assume it to be, but much more about the "harmony of the facts" (at least that is how it should be understood by legal professionals now).

I am comortable linking to this post in response to any subsequent comments by anyone who makes any similar claims about any of these things as a means of avoiding substantive discussion.

Thank you, Cleric!

[Cleric K]

Here's the way I make sense of issues like this:

Expeditions into the 'supersensible' involve dissociation from one's physiological body and can be extremely threatening to one's sense of self. To avoid a psychotic break it is imperative that a new belief structure is available to replace the one that has been shattered. Once this new belief structure has been adopted, it provides a new and valid way of making sense of things. However, the new belief structure, like the old one before it was shattered, can be held very firmly (hence, the difficulties in extricating people from cults, no matter what empirical evidence is provided to them).

This is not meant to imply that all religions or spiritual systems are cults - it could just as easily be argued that physicalism is a cult. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that spiritual systems are always constructed from a particular situatedness and place in the world. Hence, in my view a good way to assess a religion or spiritual system is through the degree of tolerance and respect it has for other belief systems, and the the extent to which it cultivates humility.

I have a very vivid memory from my childhood. My parents were watching the news on TV every evening. I remember very clearly how I was staring at the person on the screen, I see his lips moving, I hear words sounding but all I understand was "blah-blah-blah ... blah-blah". It's such a vivid memory because I was thinking in my childish mind and I was aware that this is happening. I was simply aware that although I was hearing words in my own language, it was still the case that I understood nothing. It was like foreign tongue to me. Thus with my brother we had to endure the boredom until the news were over so we can watch the kids program.

I believe anyone can come upon something similar in their own experience. So what happens when people today take their supersensible expeditions intentionally or accidentally and when the so called dissociation is threatened? Very simple - they see the news broadcast. In our materialistic age the default mode is to be unaware of the broadcast and in addition, to fiercely deny its existence. The accidental glimpses into other 'TV channels' lead to the intellect saying: "OK, I concede. The news broadcast is really there. But this broadcast is completely unintelligible. I see the movement, I feel that I live within this fabric all the time but all I hear is blah-blah. This 'blah-blah' is the most beautiful sound imaginable. It's deeply aesthetic, far more than anything which even the greatest artists can produce in the sensory realm. It just stands there, all around me and within me. Yet with my thoughts I stand outside it. I can dissolve in it, swim with it but my understanding remains on my side, the mystery - on the other."

Now let's turn my child memory into a metaphor. The children gather together on a high child council and decide on the futurities. They speak "The news broadcast exists. That's a fact we can't deny - the words come forth from the teevo. Yet none of us can understand these words. We understand our toys but these words we don't. As such we are forced to interpret the words through the toys we know. Some of us say that the words speak of a basket of dolls. Others say it's about a trinity of a ball, a stick and a rubber ducky. Still others maintain that it's foolish to seek any understanding of the words - that they are simply noise into which we fantasize shapes, just like we see a face on the Moon. So we've gathered today to sign a treaty of tolerance and humility. All the children tribes are free to have their own interpretation of the broadcast. What unites us all is than none of us knows the truth. So let's hold on to this. We're strong when we are united. We're united when we are One. And we're One in our ignorance. This is what keeps us together. Other than that, let anyone arrange their toys in any way they find pleasure in."

What's missing in that picture? The fact that the children live as Peter Pan in Neverland. They don't know that whether they like it or not, time moves forwards and they with it. There are many things that we can gather from this metaphor. Let's start with the fact that when we grow up, we don't simply begin to make more and more complicated toy-interpretations of the news. Instead, we grow into the words. We begin to live in their meaning from within. Please take note of this simple fact.

I hope it's clear that the metaphor refers to our current evolutionary situation. We're always in a state of transition but this one is particularly charged. People are becoming aware of the broadcast by different means. Yet it is largely unintelligible. We only make interpretations with our intellectual toy-concepts. Yes, this may sound insulting but our concepts like atom, alter, MAL are only toy-approximations of the words. This doesn't mean that they don't refer to anything of value. Indeed they do! In certain sense even more than we allow ourselves to believe. But the great prejudice is that the words can't be understood at their own level of meaning, that the reality of the words is bound to forever remain only in the realm of aesthetic and religious feelings. This is the crucial point.

As it often happens in life, laughter can very quickly turn into tears, love into hate, humility into arrogance. The children's humility, their treaty for tolerance of all toy-interpretations, quickly turns into arrogance as soon as some child proposes that the broadcast can be understood but we must grow into its level of meaning. This breaks the dream of Neverland. Ashvin has written great essays that trace the evolution of consciousness. Most modern people halfheartedly admit that everything is developing in some way but as soon as we reach the question of consciousness - it's all Neverland. The children assume they have always been and will always be what they are now. Thus they are forced to burn at the stake anyone who proposes that consciousness can grow into the meaningful dynamics of the broadcast.

In order not to remain unsubstantiated I'll mention what has been said over and over again on many occasions. In order to move from the metaphor to reality we must understand what it means in practice and not only as poetic expression. So we reach again the question of thinking. As long as we live entirely in the layer of already formed thoughts, the world looks like arrangement of such thoughts. Any idea about the deeper meaning of the world can only be an interpretation, arrangement of toy-thoughts. It looks like we're locked into this interpretative layer. But we're not. Because we can investigate the spiritual process which precedes the formed thoughts. We are active in that process but we haven't developed sensitivity for it. We identify with the already formed words but can't identify with the spiritual activity which speaks forth the thoughts.

This doesn't require anything esoteric. It requires only to investigate the direction that has always laid in the blind spot. Science and philosophy have filled the World with thoughts about the World but so far haven't tried to perceive how the World speaks the thoughts through us and how we are perspective of the World Being.

Mystical and psychedelic experiences throw us into the broadcast. As long as we operate with our toy-concepts it's all a matter of interpretation (and thus belief) about the nature of the broadcast-in-itself. Remember the simple fact from above: the child doesn't learn to understand the broadcast by overlaying it with increasingly complicated toy models but instead it grows into the meaning and finds new concepts. This gives an analogy for higher cognition. Higher cognition is not increasingly complicated intellectual interpretation of the mystical or psychedelic broadcast. It is growing into its meaningful dynamics. This proceeds as evolution of Thinking. Please take good note of the fact that our thoughts do not need interpretation. We don't arrive at the meaning of our thoughts by first perceiving them and then somehow deriving their meaning by interpreting the perceptions (verbal, symbolic, etc.). This would lead to regression because the interpretative thoughts would themselves need interpretation and so on. It's actually the opposite - the meaning that we live in, explains out of itself the thought-perceptions. For all other perceptions we can make thinking interpretations. Similarly, when we grow into the forces at the foundation of our thinking, they are experienced as the immediate meaning which explains ordinary thinking and not as ever increasing number of intellectual thoughts that overlay the broadcast.

To illustrate this point, readers might like to try the following spiritual exercise:

1. Imagine a society in which there are only two classes, a priestly class and a slave class. Members of the priestly class spend all their time, apart from time spent meeting physiological needs, on meditation, spiritual exercises and discussion of higher worlds. Members of the slave class spent all their time meeting the needs of members of the priestly class, apart from time spent meeting their own physiological needs and a half hour of meditation per day which they are permitted. The slave class also interpret the arduous labour they perform day in and day out as a form of spiritual practice.

2. Reflect on the following words of Jesus (Luke 4:18):
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;
he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty them that are bruised,

3. Ask yourself the question - is a member of the priestly class likely to be more or less spiritually advanced than a member of the slave class?

If we're quoting the gospels maybe we should also include:

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

I think this attempt to present spirituality as some elitist club that exploits the ignorant souls has worn out. And I'm not saying that this hasn't been the case all over the world, in the past and today, in Churches and Ashrams. But to present this as an excuse for not pursuing deeper understanding of reality is really just that - an excuse.

The above objections simply fail to grasp that today, understanding the spiritual being of man is not simply a question for picking a leisure time hobby. Our common human destiny depends on this understanding. And this understanding doesn't require that one should become an ascetic. I have a day time job like anyone else.

Once again, it all boils down to the question if one imagines that spirituality is just an exotic fancy about the afterlife, only viable for those who have too much spare time thanks to the fact that they live on the backs of others, or we really take non-dualism/monism seriously and understand that it is our greatest responsibility to deepen our spiritual life and thus our proper comprehension of reality. This we should do not in order to separate ourselves with the elite but precisely as the Christ said - to serve and even give our life. To give one's life doesn't mean to die pointless death. It means to give our life of selfish pursuits of pleasure and replace it with life of higher purpose which takes into account the evolution of the Whole. We take riches from above but we'll be a thief if we keep them for ourselves. Everything must be employed in practical life, for the transfiguration of science, the arts, individual and social life.

Of course this wouldn't be well taken. We'll hear immediately "Oh, no, no, no. This is Earth, this is Neverland. Let God take care of Heaven, here we're on our own. We need politics, we need legislation. We need economics for distribution of toys. We're the masters of this and we must employ our toy-intellect for it. Do whatever you want but don't try to mix the two worlds together, alright?"

[Cleric K]

You are asking key questions and I don't pretend to know the answers. I can only tell you my current views on it. The "veil" is set up and is controlled by the beings who created this material universe. The veil is "not a bug, it's a feature", it is here for a reason. There is not a single reason, but multiple ones. Our Earthly life is a multi-dimensional and multi-purpose endeavor. We are learning certain experiences of key importance here that we can never learn in the noncorporeal realms, and could never learn in the corporeal form if the veil would be not present. This is why we are not supposed to "brutally" break through the veil in our human form, but can only see through it intuitively, mystically and esthetically. There have been many attempts in many esoteric groups and traditions over the history to break through the veil, but they would always end up being deluded by the products of their own psyche and imagination, just like what happened with Steiner and his followers. We signed up for this veiled existence when we agreed to incarnate (of course we forget it, which is also part of the plan). Don't worry, we will be back with more open access to the universal knowledge after we quit our corporeal life, but we will also bring back the unique experiences of this corporeal life that will enrich our spiritual maturity in deep ways.

I find the anthroposophic views rather narrow and limited, just like any other human-made worldview, philosophy or religion. Moreover, their sectarian rejection of any other possibilities not aligned with their rigid set of beliefs makes their views even narrower. The reality is much more multi-dimensional and rich compared to the "linear" way anthroposophy sees it. The collective "curvatures of meanings" and larger flows do exist, but beings do not travel entirely along pre-defined collective "curvatures of meanings", but rather expand into the unlimited universe along a huge variety of multi-dimensional paths and degrees of freedom by exercising their fundamental spiritual freedom. However, like many other philosophies and spiritual traditions, anthroposophists do have their unique insights into certain facets of the Reality at Large. The difference between a open and living knowledge-experience and a sectarian one is openness-vs-closeness. Sectarian approach is based on a belief that it is only their view that presents the ultimate Truth in its completeness, and any other view that is not in full compliance with their view is undoubtedly wrong. But hey, may be that is exactly the experience of being a sectarian believer that these people need to learn in this corporeal life, who knows May be it is an important learning experience to be deluded, so that we can later understand how the delusion works and why/how we get into these states. This is also a lesson in humility.

But it's good that you are now asking questions instead of being confident that you already know all the answers (if that is really what you are doing).

The circle is complete We've done this few times already. Each time I hope we'll gain some altitude and turn the circle into a spiral but alas, we end up in the same place.

I'm fine with it. Like Ashvin also has explained previously, it's not the point to force some beliefs on others. It's just that one must explain things when the ideas are rejected for all the wrong reasons, driven primarily by emotional responses, refusing to penetrate the depth of the matter.

I think I'm now at peace with this circle and can leave it as it is. I would just like to point attention to something. Everything you wrote above ultimately proceeds from thinking. It doesn't matter if it is thinking about ancient scriptures, about NDE accounts, about personal mystical experiences. The thing is that when we postulate the other inaccessible world, we create the Kantian divide at its finest. You and Ashvin argue a lot about this but let at least be known where it all stems from. Just like in engineering, we can do the root cause analysis. The root cause is this - the deep postulation of the yonder world which is cut clean from Earthly consciousness. From this point onwards, this fundamental duality multiplies fractally in all our ideas, thoughts, statements.

To be honest, if we're to talk about cults, I'm the one who is more justified to speak of instilled beliefs because all that you say above by definition can never be anything but belief. Your whole philosophy ensures that any statement about the other world is inherently uncertain. Practically you need to throw beans and pick a set of beliefs that you feel most sympathetic to. In this sense I'm much more 'conservative' because I refuse to believe in things that by definition can be verified only after death. There's One world in the given and I'm determined to follow its threads to wherever they may lead me.

It's so simple: we lock ourselves in a system of beliefs but completely forget that it is ultimately thinking, influenced by sympathies, antipathies, fears, hopes, which places the seal of approval. And we realize that. We know that our beliefs are irrational, that no matter how much we interpret the perceptions of reality in the end we simply pick emotionally what to believe in. Isn't it glaringly obvious that the only way out is by deepening our soul life, to understand the nature of the sympathies and antipathies and how they steer our thinking? They guide the carrot on the stick which our thinking follows. We're outraged by rules, regulations, religious creeds that construct the system of ducts and channels within which thinking is forced to flow but we're surprisingly tolerant of our own prejudices and desires which force our thinking in the same way.

The only verifiable way out of this spell, while still on Earth, is to deepen our consciousness of the thinking process and the curvature of our soul which guides it. In the spiritual forces concealed in thinking lie the passageway to the reality of the 'other' world.

[AshvinP]

Here's the way I make sense of issues like this:

Expeditions into the 'supersensible' involve dissociation from one's physiological body and can be extremely threatening to one's sense of self. To avoid a psychotic break it is imperative that a new belief structure is available to replace the one that has been shattered. Once this new belief structure has been adopted, it provides a new and valid way of making sense of things. However, the new belief structure, like the old one before it was shattered, can be held very firmly (hence, the difficulties in extricating people from cults, no matter what empirical evidence is provided to them).

This is not meant to imply that all religions or spiritual systems are cults - it could just as easily be argued that physicalism is a cult. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that spiritual systems are always constructed from a particular situatedness and place in the world. Hence, in my view a good way to assess a religion or spiritual system is through the degree of tolerance and respect it has for other belief systems, and the the extent to which it cultivates humility.

I have a very vivid memory from my childhood. My parents were watching the news on TV every evening. I remember very clearly how I was staring at the person on the screen, I see his lips moving, I hear words sounding but all I understand was "blah-blah-blah ... blah-blah". It's such a vivid memory because I was thinking in my childish mind and I was aware that this is happening. I was simply aware that although I was hearing words in my own language, it was still the case that I understood nothing. It was like foreign tongue to me. Thus with my brother we had to endure the boredom until the news were over so we can watch the kids program.

If Eugene and Justin stop launching these criticisms, I may have to take over just to inspire more of these top-notch posts from you Just kidding of course, but this was truly another brilliant illustration. Thanks again!

[Cleric K]

If Eugene and Justin stop launching these criticisms, I may have to take over just to inspire more of these top-notch posts from you Just kidding of course, but this was truly another brilliant illustration. Thanks again!

Thanks Ashvin

And Thanks to everyone who participates in these discussions. They have been tremendously valuable for me. Very little of the analogies and the metaphors I've written about here, I've known before the forum. It's very interesting exchange. When there's a question, the answers flows and it is always a new answer. It's like the question is an empty vessel and by filling it with substance some new way to express things is found. For example, the metaphor with the news broadcast is not something that I've thought of previously. But when I meditated on Justin's post it just filled the vessel.

I hope Eugene will be back because he's been a major stimulus. I've always imagined that he would be the first here to grasp the inner realms of the spirit because he has such a disciplined mind and also experience in meditation.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I hope Eugene will be back because he's been a major stimulus. I've always imagined that he would be the first here to grasp the inner realms of the spirit because he has such a disciplined mind and also experience in meditation.

You're very gracious Cleric, showing great forbearance. I suspect this would be so, even if you read the extremely derogatory email that Eugene sent to Bernardo to warn him about your twisted brainwashing propaganda and techniques, evocative of some iron-curtain era gulag re-education program, leaving one to wonder what subliminal karmic factors are at work in some Russian descended soul-beings

[Mark Tetzner]

Bernardo just posted his twitter-message on his FB as well. He thinks that a forum with different opinions could confuse his readers, as if readers dont know what a forum is. Strange one.

[Cleric K]

You're very gracious Cleric, showing great forbearance. I suspect this would be so, even if you read the extremely derogatory email that Eugene sent to Bernardo to warn him about your twisted brainwashing propaganda and techniques, evoking some iron-curtain era gulag re-education program, leaving one to wonder what subliminal karmic factors are at work in some Russian descended soul-beings

Well, I'm not the one to judge. I'm thankful for my atheistic period because I know very well what I've been raging against - it's windmills really. We project on our shadow everything we hate about the world. This is part of the meeting with the Guardian at the Threshold actually. The world that we reject is really our being. Alas, it's not enough to simply be at peace with the world while secretly hoping that we'll go our own way after death. This keeps the seed of duality deep within. It's only through the Love impulse, that streams from something inexhaustible, far greater than us, and flows through our "I", that we may have the strength to endure. Without this Love we would be crushed if we are to prematurely realize that everything we hate about the world is our future work.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Bernardo just posted his twitter-message on his FB as well. He thinks that a forum with different opinions could confuse his readers, as if readers dont know what a forum is. Strange one.

I wonder how many of BK's more casual audience, who have only watched some youtube interviews, if even having delved into the books, might be confused at the mere mention of Kant in relation to BK's ideas, never mind the nuanced deconstruction that has gone on in this thread of Kantian metaphysics vis-a-vis Heideggerian anti-metaphysics—as per JW's take who has actually read and digested it all in German at a truly sophisticated level? As mentioned elsewhere, many may find it might as well be written in Inuktitut, and I would not be surprised if they would be lulled to sleep after page 3.