Philosophical Speculations

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Dec 23, 2021 11:30 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Dec 23, 2021 9:50 pm

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:28 pm Ashvin,

I'm not sure if this belongs here because I've lost track of which of many threads one of your comments belong. Somewhere you mentioned that you believe that there was an opportunity to make a spiritual progress at the beginning of the pandemic but that the opportunity was lost. Would you flesh out some particulars concerning how we might have better responded, and why you believe we did not? Thanks.

Lou,

People were forced to stay at home and many to stop working for awhile. Assuming they were still able to provide for themselves and their family, how many took that opportunity to read, write, and generally Think more? How many turned inwards to work on themselves and grow spiritually? I'm not trying to blame anyone, because, as I also mentioned, many people simply have no idea that strenghtening their Thinking organism and "growing spiritually" is a possibility. I was into philosophy at that time, but of the purely abstract sort. It was only after I came across PoF via Scott and Cleric that I began to realize that it is even a possibility to move from pure abstract intellectual thinking to concrete spiritual activity. Once we become aware of that possibility, it then takes effort to act on it and make it more manifest in our own thinking experience. We are really very fortunate to be on this forum, but that treasure is wasted if it remains buried in the arid desert of the intellect. A major part of the problem is we have lost sight of the eternal. Actually we have lost interest in anything we can't hold in our hands or which does not manifest results within hours or a few days. That is the catch-22 of the modern age - that what will strengthen our individual, family, communal, national, and cultural lives the most - the concrete, living, and evolving Idea (and Thinking) - is viewed as emphemeral "subjective" things that have little to do with practical realities. We have even seen that sentiment expressed quite a bit on this 'idealist' forum. In my view, that is the exact opposite of the true situation for humanity today.

Yes, the challenges and joys of moving from the abstract to the concrete are great.

Here's how some have been thinking about it.

Happy holidays to you.

The Festivals have become abstractions, matters of indifference to modern people. The word as a medium of strife and blasphemy often means more than the Word conceived as the power by which the world itself was created. Yet the alphabetical word ought to be the representative, the symbol of the Word Creative in Nature around us, in the great universe and within us too when self-knowledge awakens, and of which all mankind can be made conscious by those who truly understand the course of Nature...

Christmas is not a Festival of Christendom only. In ancient Egypt, in the regions we ourselves inhabit, and in Asia thousands and thousands of years before the Christian era we find that a Festival was celebrated on the days now dedicated to the celebration of the birth of Christ.

Now what was the character of this Festival which since time immemorial has been celebrated all over the world on the same days of the year? Wonderful Fire Festivals in the northern and central regions of Europe in ancient times were celebrated among the Celts in Scandinavia, Scotland and England by their priests, the Druids. What were they celebrating? They were celebrating the time when winter draws to its close and spring begins. It is quite true that Christmas falls while it is still winter, but Nature is already heralding a victory which can be a token of hope in anticipation of the victory that will come in spring — a token of confidence, of hope, of faith — to use words which are connected in nearly every language with the Festival of Christmas. There is confidence that the Sun, again in the ascendant, will be victorious over the opposing powers of Nature. The days draw in and draw in, and this shortening of the days seems to us to be an expression of the dying, or rather of the falling asleep of the Nature-forces. The days grow shorter and shorter up to the time when we celebrate the Christmas Festival and when our forefathers also celebrated it, in another form. Then the days begin to draw out again and the light of the Sun celebrates its victory over the darkness.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 1:38 pm Thanks, Lou. Merry Christmas to all!

The Festivals have become abstractions, matters of indifference to modern people. The word as a medium of strife and blasphemy often means more than the Word conceived as the power by which the world itself was created. Yet the alphabetical word ought to be the representative, the symbol of the Word Creative in Nature around us, in the great universe and within us too when self-knowledge awakens, and of which all mankind can be made conscious by those who truly understand the course of Nature...

Christmas is not a Festival of Christendom only. In ancient Egypt, in the regions we ourselves inhabit, and in Asia thousands and thousands of years before the Christian era we find that a Festival was celebrated on the days now dedicated to the celebration of the birth of Christ.

Now what was the character of this Festival which since time immemorial has been celebrated all over the world on the same days of the year? Wonderful Fire Festivals in the northern and central regions of Europe in ancient times were celebrated among the Celts in Scandinavia, Scotland and England by their priests, the Druids. What were they celebrating? They were celebrating the time when winter draws to its close and spring begins. It is quite true that Christmas falls while it is still winter, but Nature is already heralding a victory which can be a token of hope in anticipation of the victory that will come in spring — a token of confidence, of hope, of faith — to use words which are connected in nearly every language with the Festival of Christmas. There is confidence that the Sun, again in the ascendant, will be victorious over the opposing powers of Nature. The days draw in and draw in, and this shortening of the days seems to us to be an expression of the dying, or rather of the falling asleep of the Nature-forces. The days grow shorter and shorter up to the time when we celebrate the Christmas Festival and when our forefathers also celebrated it, in another form. Then the days begin to draw out again and the light of the Sun celebrates its victory over the darkness.