Bortoft on Goethean science, and the relevance of this to Steiner's work

[JustinG]

Henrit Bortoft’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Bortoft) book The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way Toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature ( https://www.amazon.com.au/Wholeness-Na ... 0940262797) both describes Goethe’s way of doing science as well as relating this to contemporary philosophy of science. Bortoft emphasizes that Goethe’s way of doing science, which emphasizes the unity of phenomena and the use of sensorial imagination to fully experience and dwell in phenomena, is complementary to, rather than antagonistic to, ways of doing science which emphasize the measurement of objective quantities.

In making his argument Bortoft utilizes Kuhn’s work on scientific paradigms as well as what he refers to as the influence of organizing ideas in perception. Organizing ideas mean that objects are not simply perceived directly but are influenced by theories and concepts. Another name for this is the theory-dependence of observation. The influence of organizing ideas on perception influences both everyday cognitive perception of the world as well as scientific observation. For instance, Bortoft explains how Copernicus was influenced by Renaissance ideals of symmetry and harmony in architecture and painting, so that the origins of Copernican theory do not ‘lie only in astronomy as such but in the entire cultural-historical situation’.

As an example of the influence of organizing ideas in everyday perception, Bortoft describes the seeing of a chair. People who had never seen chairs or had idea of chairs would not see chairs in the way we see them, or discriminate a chair as something distinct from its surrounding environment in the way that we do. The chair is thus a cognitive perception, not just a sense perception. Hence, Bortoft writes ’ “the chair” is the way of seeing. This applies to everything we see about us’.

Because the way of seeing structures what is seen, Bortoft emphasizes that different scientific paradigms can be incommensurable, because they are based on different organizing ideas and cognitive perceptions. However, Bortoft does not think that this leads to relativism. Hence, in relation to Goethean science and science based on quantification, he writes:

Bortoft wrote:
The science of quantity and the science of wholeness are incommensurable, but this is no reason for epistemological pessimism. Their incommensurability does not mean that we cannot know ‘what nature is really like.’ The being of nature can be revealed in different ways by different kinds of science, none of which has any claim to be more basic or fundamental. What becomes visible in each case is nature itself, but only one possible aspect of nature. Thus, nature can be quantity, or causal mechanism, or wholeness, for example.’

Bortoft grounds this avoidance of relativism in Goethean science itself and the notion of ‘multiplicity in unity’:

Bortoft wrote:
Each aspect of nature which is revealed is the same One. The difference here is the self-difference within unity. Hence different kinds of science reveal different aspects of nature but not different parts of nature… [W]e can see how truth can be neither singular or plural, but One truth which is multiple… There is no longer a choice between objectivism and relativism , but a new way of understanding which transcends this dichotomy by seeing the one and the many in a new way.. Goethe’s organic perspective of ‘multiplicity within unity’ can itself become the means by which Goethe’s style of science can be seen to be justified..

Bortoft makes several mentions of Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom in his book, speaking highly of it, although he does not discuss Steiner’s later work or how his (Bortoft’s) application of principles from philosophy of science might also be applied to Steiner’s spiritual science. However, Wayne Hudson's chapter in this book (https://www.routledge.com/The-Gnostic-W ... 0367733124) on Gnosticism, suggests that Steiner’s later work can be read with a similar sort of perspective to that of Bortoft:

Hudson wrote:
..Steiner offers his readers projective anthropology and projective cosmosophy, which, allied to appropriate practices, have the capacity to elicit and support significant changes to their physical and psychological organization. It follows, as he explains, that his spiritual teaching cannot be taken as literal information as if it referred to the physical world, even though many of his followers do take it in this way. Steiner insisted in many places that his esoteric teachings are spatial descriptions of spiritual realities. He also emphasized that his readers needed to suspend their natural tendency to regard such statements as ludicrous and fantastic because by doing so their thinking could become more “living” and “inwardly mobile.” Spiritual science, Steiner emphasized:

speaks to the will. Hence it is not understood by anyone who tries to grasp it by faith or as a theory. I have said to you that for anyone who reads my Occult Science as he would read a novel, passively giving himself to it, it is really only a thicket of words – and so are my other books. Only one who knows that in every moment of reading he must, out of the depths of his own soul, and through his most intimate willing, create something for which the books should be only a stimulus – only such a one can regard these books as musical scores out of which he can gain the experience in his own soul of the true piece of music. (Steiner 1949: 14)

In short, Steiner’s Anthroposophy is a body of material to be worked with, and not an independent mythology or a speculative metaphysics (Kühlewind 1992). The fact that the bodies Steiner describes are objects to be transformed by means of practices alerts the reader to the practical character of his teaching.

This suggests that Steiner’s spiritual science can also be seen as a way of seeing/thinking which structures what is seen or thought. Thus, Hudson’s view is that spiritual science is a set of practices which facilitate personal transformation, and is not dependent on a correspondence theory of truth as applied to objective spiritual entities.

This notion that different practices can reveal different aspect of the One, rather than there being a set of practices leading to absolute truth, also seems more in accord with the emphasis in PoF on individual freedom.

To give a concrete example of how the above way of characterising things could be applied to the paranormal - both the hallucinations of a mentally ill person and the vision of a burning bush by a religious prophet or mystic differ from the collective representations which constitute consensus reality. Whilst the mystic may be more spiritually developed than the others, neither the visions of the mystic, consensus reality or the hallucinations of someone who is unwell are more ‘true’ in terms of corresponding with some objectively existing, observer-independent reality. Rather, each perspective reveals a different aspect of the one reality, dependent on the constitution of the perspective from which the seeing occurs (which is not to say that all perspectives are equally useful or beneficial). Another equally developed mystic might see an angel rather than a burning bush.

Anyway, to sum up this ramble and some of what I have learnt from Bortoft:

- Ways of seeing structure what is seen. What is observed is theory-dependent.
- Different ways of seeing mean that different paradigms can be incommensurable with each other, because they are based on different organzing
ideas and observational data.
- This incommensurability does not lead to relativism if different ways of seeing are characterised as revealing different aspects of the one reality.
- The incommensurability but complementarity of different perspectives on reality can potentially be applied to spiritual practices and observations
as well as science.

[AshvinP]

Justin,

It is commendable that you are looking into these matters with discpline and an open mind, and formulating very precise thoughts about them before sharing them here. I appreciate that and, even if we disagree on some things right now, I know this approach will be very fruitful for you and for this forum.

Bortoft makes several mentions of Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom in his book, speaking highly of it, although he does not discuss Steiner’s later work or how his (Bortoft’s) application of principles from philosophy of science might also be applied to Steiner’s spiritual science. However, Wayne Hudson's chapter in this book (https://www.routledge.com/The-Gnostic-W ... 0367733124) on Gnosticism, suggests that Steiner’s later work can be read with a similar sort of perspective to that of Bortoft:

Hudson wrote:
..Steiner offers his readers projective anthropology and projective cosmosophy, which, allied to appropriate practices, have the capacity to elicit and support significant changes to their physical and psychological organization. It follows, as he explains, that his spiritual teaching cannot be taken as literal information as if it referred to the physical world, even though many of his followers do take it in this way. Steiner insisted in many places that his esoteric teachings are spatial descriptions of spiritual realities. He also emphasized that his readers needed to suspend their natural tendency to regard such statements as ludicrous and fantastic because by doing so their thinking could become more “living” and “inwardly mobile.” Spiritual science, Steiner emphasized:

speaks to the will. Hence it is not understood by anyone who tries to grasp it by faith or as a theory. I have said to you that for anyone who reads my Occult Science as he would read a novel, passively giving himself to it, it is really only a thicket of words – and so are my other books. Only one who knows that in every moment of reading he must, out of the depths of his own soul, and through his most intimate willing, create something for which the books should be only a stimulus – only such a one can regard these books as musical scores out of which he can gain the experience in his own soul of the true piece of music. (Steiner 1949: 14)

In short, Steiner’s Anthroposophy is a body of material to be worked with, and not an independent mythology or a speculative metaphysics (Kühlewind 1992). The fact that the bodies Steiner describes are objects to be transformed by means of practices alerts the reader to the practical character of his teaching.

This suggests that Steiner’s spiritual science can also be seen as a way of seeing/thinking which structures what is seen or thought. Thus, Hudson’s view is that spiritual science is a set of practices which facilitate personal transformation, and is not dependent on a correspondence theory of truth as applied to objective spiritual entities.

This notion that different practices can reveal different aspect of the One, rather than there being a set of practices leading to absolute truth, also seems more in accord with the emphasis in PoF on individual freedom.

What is written above is absolutely correct, as far as I understood it. I also wrote briefly about the idolatry of space, here. That is a real problem and can occur with any spiritual worldview, including spiritual science. Steiner himself makes that clear in various places, as you quoted above. SS is not an intellectual theory of any sort, it does not endorse or rely on the correspondence theory of truth (actually this is the major theory he critiques in his epistemological work), all of its claims are only valuable in so far as they have practical significance, and its scientific claims are not intended to describe physical (spatialized) beings or things when speaking of the spiritual realms. We will often find very crude looking diagrams in his lectures (which he drew on blackboards), as we also find in Cleric's illustrations here, and the reason they are so simple is precisely to help mitigate the spatial idolatry which is inherent to making visual diagrams. So we are in much agreement about the above, but I sense, from what is written below, we are also drawing some different conclusions.

To give a concrete example of how the above way of characterising things could be applied to the paranormal - both the hallucinations of a mentally ill person and the vision of a burning bush by a religious prophet or mystic differ from the collective representations which constitute consensus reality. Whilst the mystic may be more spiritually developed than the others, neither the visions of the mystic, consensus reality or the hallucinations of someone who is unwell are more ‘true’ in terms of corresponding with some objectively existing, observer-independent reality. Rather, each perspective reveals a different aspect of the one reality, dependent on the constitution of the perspective from which the seeing occurs (which is not to say that all perspectives are equally useful or beneficial). Another equally developed mystic might see an angel rather than a burning bush.

Anyway, to sum up this ramble and some of what I have learnt from Bortoft:

- Ways of seeing structure what is seen. What is observed is theory-dependent.
- Different ways of seeing mean that different paradigms can be incommensurable with each other, because they are based on different organzing
ideas and observational data.
- This incommensurability does not lead to relativism if different ways of seeing are characterised as revealing different aspects of the one reality.
- The incommensurability but complementarity of different perspectives on reality can potentially be applied to spiritual practices and observations
as well as science.

First, I think the bold are absolutely correct as well, and many confusions can be cleared up by coming to understand what you have understood above.

I think a few assumptions are embedded in the first paragraph. For instance, it may be assumed that our way of perceiving and cognizing the world content has remained the same from the time of the 'burning bush' to present day. Perhaps it is also assumed that ancient vessels of mytho-spiritual tradition were writing everything they perceived literally. That is a very rich topic to get into. Suffice to say here, the crux of my point is that we cannot extrapolate our current mode of intellectual cognition-vision back into ancient times or project it into future times.

Higher cognition is, in a real sense, developing future capacities within the present, and those higher perceptual capacities could make our non-spatial vision capable of functioning in a way that is not "theory-dependent". For ex., in addition to our five normal senses natural science recognizes today, we also have a warmth-sense and balance-sense. These are much more direct i.e. non-representational modes of perceiving environmental conditions, which also explains why they aren't even considered "senses" by secular natural science. So our thinking-sense, which perceives ideas, can also be transfigured into a faculty more like those which perceive touch, balance, or warmth. The issue to keep in mind, however, is that in order to understand what this practically means, our intellect must reduce it to mental images, and in that process we are left with abstract concepts which will make it sound absurd, fanciful, impossible, etc. We must not stop logically reasoning at this point, but instead we should logically reason through the implications of this abstracting process and, in my experience, we will naturally form conclusions which make the existence of higher cognition very difficult to deny. Of course, that is all a conceptual bridge to the actual process of seeking out the higher cognitive (imaginative) mode of thinking, through exercises of the sort Cleric has illustrated here.

I will leave it there for now. I am sure Cleric also has some helpful feedback here.

(note: this post was edited to add a few more sentences at the end)

[JustinG]

AshvinP wrote:
Higher cognition is, in a real sense, developing future capacities within the present, and those higher perceptual capacities could make our non-spatial vision capable of functioning in a way that is not "theory-dependent".

Thanks for the comments and food for thought. A few remarks re the above statement:

- I don't think the possibility of such higher cognition that is not theory-dependent (ie not mediated by other organizing ideas, perceptions and cognitions) can be denied. However, using language to describe such cognitions would be theory-dependent.
- As the ways language can be used is limitless, in the case of unmediated, non theory-dependent higher cognition (if it exists), the ways such cognitions could be described or explained in language is also limitless.
- Further, as the ways of seeing or cognizing aspects of the one reality are potentially limitless, it follows from this that there are also a potentially limitless number of spiritual practices or paths which may have their own validity, even though they may be incommensurable with each other.

[Cleric K]

- I don't think the possibility of such higher cognition that is not theory-dependent (ie not mediated by other organizing ideas, perceptions and cognitions) can be denied. However, using language to describe such cognitions would be theory-dependent.
- As the ways language can be used is limitless, in the case of unmediated, non theory-dependent higher cognition (if it exists), the ways such cognitions could be described or explained in language is also limitless.
- Further, as the ways of seeing or cognizing aspects of the one reality are potentially limitless, it follows from this that there are also a potentially limitless number of spiritual practices or paths which may have their own validity, even though they may be incommensurable with each other.

What exactly does the bold part imply? There are indeed infinite ways to cognize, just as there are infinite angles from which we can see a tree. There can also be infinite words we can coin for 'tree'. But does this mean that some can see an elephant instead of tree and that should be considered just as valid?

[AshvinP]

AshvinP wrote:
Higher cognition is, in a real sense, developing future capacities within the present, and those higher perceptual capacities could make our non-spatial vision capable of functioning in a way that is not "theory-dependent".

Thanks for the comments and food for thought. A few remarks re the above statement:

- I don't think the possibility of such higher cognition that is not theory-dependent (ie not mediated by other organizing ideas, perceptions and cognitions) can be denied. However, using language to describe such cognitions would be theory-dependent.
- As the ways language can be used is limitless, in the case of unmediated, non theory-dependent higher cognition (if it exists), the ways such cognitions could be described or explained in language is also limitless.
- Further, as the ways of seeing or cognizing aspects of the one reality are potentially limitless, it follows from this that there are also a potentially limitless number of spiritual practices or paths which may have their own validity, even though they may be incommensurable with each other.

Justin,

Related to what Cleric said above, I would also suggest looking at the posts on the Matrix thread related to harmony of the facts. It is that harmony which acts as a concrete constraint on the limitless perspectives and language used to approach any given phenomena. Not all observations and language meanings employed by the spiritual thinker will contribute to that harmony. This is how the post-modern conundrum of "infinite interpretations" is solved. As usual, it is by bringing Thinking, which discerns harmonies of facts, out of the blind spot and into active and conscious gestures through the world content. Here I do not mean higher cognition, but living Reason which serves as a bridge. Here is an interesting and relevant quote to consider from Steiner.

The soul is usually not conscious of this connection because it is accustomed to developing the thought faculty only by employing it in the sense world. It therefore regards communications from the super-sensible world as something incomprehensible. These communications, however, are not only comprehensible to a mode of thinking taught through spiritual training, but for every sort of thinking that is fully conscious of its own power and that wishes to employ it. — By making what spiritual research offers increasingly one's own, one accustoms oneself to a mode of thinking that does not derive its content from sense-observations. We learn to recognize how, in the inner reaches of the soul, thought weaves into thought, how thought seeks thought, although the thought associations are not effected by the power of sense-observation. The essential in this is the fact that one becomes aware of how the thought world has an inner life, of how one, by really thinking, finds oneself already in the region of a living supersensible world. One says to oneself, “There is something in me that fashions a thought organism; I am, nevertheless, at one with this something.” By surrendering oneself to sense-free thinking one becomes conscious of the existence of something essential flowing into our inner life, just as the characteristics of sense objects flow into us through the medium of our physical organs when we observe by means of our senses. The observer of the sense world says to himself, “Outside in space there is a rose; it is not strange to me, for it makes itself known to me through its color and fragrance.” One needs now only to be sufficiently unprejudiced in order to say to oneself when sense-free thinking acts in one, “Something real proclaims its presence in me that binds thought to thought, fashioning a thought organism.” But the sensations experienced by observing the objects of the outer sense world are different from the sensations experienced when spiritual reality manifests itself in sense-free thinking. The observer of sense objects experiences the rose as something external to himself. The observer who has surrendered himself to sense-free thought feels the spiritual reality announcing itself as though it existed within him, he feels himself one with it.

[JustinG]

- I don't think the possibility of such higher cognition that is not theory-dependent (ie not mediated by other organizing ideas, perceptions and cognitions) can be denied. However, using language to describe such cognitions would be theory-dependent.
- As the ways language can be used is limitless, in the case of unmediated, non theory-dependent higher cognition (if it exists), the ways such cognitions could be described or explained in language is also limitless.
- Further, as the ways of seeing or cognizing aspects of the one reality are potentially limitless, it follows from this that there are also a potentially limitless number of spiritual practices or paths which may have their own validity, even though they may be incommensurable with each other.

What exactly does the bold part imply? There are indeed infinite ways to cognize, just as there are infinite angles from which we can see a tree. There can also be infinite words we can coin for 'tree'. But does this mean that some can see an elephant instead of tree and that should be considered just as valid?

I would say the seeing the elephant is valid for the one who sees it, in terms of that is how reality reveals itself to them through their psychophysical constitution and life history (i.e. the 'theory' on which their observation depends). But seeing the elephant may not be as useful, harmony-inducing or survival-enhancing as seeing the tree.

[Cleric K]

I would say the seeing the elephant is valid for the one who sees it, in terms of that is how reality reveals itself to them through their psychophysical constitution and life history (i.e. the 'theory' on which their observation depends). But seeing the elephant may not be as useful, harmony-inducing or survival-enhancing as seeing the tree.

That's well said. It is indeed the fact that every state of being is a perfectly valid state. Relating to what you said in the beginning:

To give a concrete example of how the above way of characterising things could be applied to the paranormal - both the hallucinations of a mentally ill person and the vision of a burning bush by a religious prophet or mystic differ from the collective representations which constitute consensus reality. Whilst the mystic may be more spiritually developed than the others, neither the visions of the mystic, consensus reality or the hallucinations of someone who is unwell are more ‘true’ in terms of corresponding with some objectively existing, observer-independent reality. Rather, each perspective reveals a different aspect of the one reality, dependent on the constitution of the perspective from which the seeing occurs (which is not to say that all perspectives are equally useful or beneficial). Another equally developed mystic might see an angel rather than a burning bush.

Every conscious perspective experiences some angle of reality, specific constellation of forces. In this sense, the hallucinations are perfectly valid experience. It is what the psycho-physical environment reflects to the spirit. If the lenses, mirrors, prisms of the environment are dimmed, cracked, missing, then it's only natural that we'll experience a kaleidoscopic sea of chaos. Spiritual development corresponds to the gradual attunement of the system, similarly to the way the musicians attune their instruments.

Let's look at the bolded statements above. We need to be clear with what exactly 'more true' means. It is indeed important to realize that the images that we experience are only symbols. But when we speak of the "objectively existing, observer-independent reality", even without wanting to, we're making an image (idol) exactly of what we say can't be known. Consider this:



This is the general understanding today. It really doesn't matter too much if we're speaking of materialism or idealism. In all cases we imagine that we're units of consciousness which experience the interior of the bubble/vortex/brain. Then we imagine the inter-bubble medium (matter, MAL, etc.). According to our own understanding it follows that the whole picture of the inter-bubble medium can exist only within the interior of our bubble.



So the idea of inter-bubble space exists only within our bubble. As such we can never know the reality outside our bubble. This is the Flat MAL model. In contrast we can conceive something like this:



This is another way of symbolizing the Deep MAL idea. There is no 'correct' way to present these things. We can only try to point attention to inner realities. In the above case the consciousness of individuals has more and more common structure, the more we move towards the periphery. Ultimately, at the periphery at infinity, all perspectives coincide. The more we move towards the various centers of being, the more differentiated the perspectives become. Our being exists along the whole gradient. It is because our cognition is currently looping within the physico-intellectual layers within which the spirit recognizes itself as a unity, that we're tightly following a specific unfoldment of a destiny. Higher cognition is achieved by attuning our instruments and building the cognitive gradient towards the periphery.

When we see things in this way, we can still say that every perspective presents an unique view within the Whole but we also see that there's no longer need to speak of unknowable inter-bubble medium. There's no need to say that we'll never know true reality, simply because this duality of inner and outer world exists only within our intellect. When we grow in consciousness along the gradient we find more and more of the unity of the world from the first-person perspective. Seen in this way, there's great difference if we're witnessing hallucinations in the vicinity of our physical complex (completely resulting from distorted organization) or we're conscious of layers which are more and more unified for all beings.

With this I wanted to point attention to a different way to speak of 'more true'. There's no need to speak of 'true' in the sense of our pictures being faithful reflections of some inter-bubble reality which we by definition can't know if it exists. The practical aspect of 'true' leads us to deeper consciousness where the pictures express more and more common spiritual dynamics, even though these dynamics may differentiate differently down the gradient towards the individual centers.

[JustinG]

I think I agree with most of that. When I referred to "some objectively existing, observer-independent reality" I meant it in the sense of "an objectively existing, observer-independent reality, as if we know there is such a thing", whereas in fact we don't know this.

However, I'm not convinced that things will always get more unified towards the periphery. Maybe they can also get more variegated and differentiated, with multitudes of different tunings.

Of course, these sort of issues can only really be resolved through first-hand experience, and I accept that visionaries, mystics and clairvoyants can communicate insights into deeper tunings, as well as prefigurations or anticipations of the future evolution of consciousness. But I think such widely applicable insights can also potentially be mixed up with factors that derive from the personal history of those venturing into these realms. Disentangling what insights relate to personal life history from those which are of broader significance is an important issue, but not something I have a particular interest in. In my view, what happens at the level of contemporary consensus reality is also important, and life is short, so to chiefly work and abide at that level is enough for me.

[AshvinP]

I think I agree with most of that. When I referred to "some objectively existing, observer-independent reality" I meant it in the sense of "an objectively existing, observer-independent reality, as if we know there is such a thing", whereas in fact we don't know this.

However, I'm not convinced that things will always get more unified towards the periphery. Maybe they can also get more variegated and differentiated, with multitudes of different tunings.

Of course, these sort of issues can only really be resolved through first-hand experience, and I accept that visionaries, mystics and clairvoyants can communicate insights into deeper tunings, as well as prefigurations or anticipations of the future evolution of consciousness. But I think such widely applicable insights can also potentially be mixed up with factors that derive from the personal history of those venturing into these realms. Disentangling what insights relate to personal life history from those which are of broader significance is an important issue, but not something I have a particular interest in. In my view, what happens at the level of contemporary consensus reality is also important, and life is short, so to chiefly work and abide at that level is enough for me.

Justin,

What if the level of contemporary consensus reality is also only accessible by living thinking? The most immediate layers of shared meaning is accessible by nothing other than sound logical reasoning. No higher cognition necessary. But most people feel even that is venturing into an inter-bubble reality which cannot be known. This is reflected in your comment in bold. What would "convince" you of the integrating layers as we move from individual centers to the periphery? Do you require absolute certain "proof" that is the way it is all the way out into the deepest layers of reality? As discussed elsewhere, that is establishing rules of the game which do not reflect our given experience and practical goals in life, only in order to discredit to ourselves views we have natural antipathy towards. No practically useful inquiry in life demands such proof, not even the most rigorous hard science. And if contemporary problems hinge on the recognition of this essential integral role of our own Thinking, then we have cut ourselves off from addressing them usefully. Is it a coincidence that, in a time with so many such problems, Thinking is what is universally left in the blind spot, regardless of metaphysical or spirtual beliefs? This question deserves our most serious attention and continued reasoning. We should not arbitrarily stop reasoning when our logic leads into territory we are uncomfortable with, by demanding an impossible level of intellectual certainty.

[Cleric K]

However, I'm not convinced that things will always get more unified towards the periphery. Maybe they can also get more variegated and differentiated, with multitudes of different tunings.

Let me add some food for thought here. As said, in the above image I used the periphery as the symbol for unity but we can express it also with the center as that symbol (like in the Deep MAL picture). So speaking of going towards the periphery and wondering if there things becomes more unified or differentiated, turns the metaphor upside-down. It's like saying "Maybe the more we go towards unity, the more differentiated things become." It is true that within unity we encompass diversity but as something whole. As an analogy, the more we try to encompass the time of our life, we indeed grasp great variety of experiences but we also grasp the unity - which is the fact that all these experiences happened to the same being - us.

In a similar sense, spiritual development leads us to grasp the unity of humanity's evolution, in which our current life is only an event, just like reading this post is an event in the unity of our biography.

All this has interesting mirror image that we find in our physical sciences. The deeper we probe the world of the small, the more universal everything becomes. Our personal bodies are unique but we share the characteristics of our human species and many with the animal world. Our cells share structures with almost all living things. All living things share the same chemical elements. The latter share the same basic subatomic particles and so on. In a similar, although polar sense, we can trace this hierarchy in the Spirit, as levels of Being.

In my view, what happens at the level of contemporary consensus reality is also important, and life is short, so to chiefly work and abide at that level is enough for me.

It is indeed tremendously important. But we must remember that the spiritual depth is complementary to sensory life. Practically the spiritual depth explains how the physical world works. If we ignore that, it is like saying "I'm interested only in building the house. That's enough for me. I care not on what grounds I'm building." But these things can not be separated. Otherwise we continually build on sand and the house collapses. We then try to perfect the house. Instead of taking into account the grounds, we imagine that we can ignore the foundation altogether and focus all our energies on inventing a collapse-proof structure. Yet this can never give completely satisfactory results.

This is the situation today where through the materialistic spell, people imagine that they can solve the social question by rearranging the bricks in a more stable pattern. But this can never work. What we build with our right hand we demolish with our left. These debates may have been topical at the beginning of the industrial revolution, where there were still high hopes that if people's basic needs are more easily met, then evil will go away. Today, in an age where physical survival has never been easier, there shouldn't be any trace of doubt for anyone thinking seriously, that simply satisfying the animal needs of men does not at all make them good and happy. The evil that man do has spiritual origins and as long as we focus entirely on the physical dimension of life, we're simply ignoring our soul and spiritual organism, which is the foundation of our human life and physical house-body. Thus we're completely blind for the forces that govern our desires, interests, ideologies and so on. I highly recommend Ashvin's latest essay here, which addresses exactly this polarization of our existence. We try to separate the spectrum and pretend we can govern our affairs by only basing ourselves on one small bandwidth, instead of seeking the musical harmony of the full spectrum.