Is it just me who is going through a lot of existential angst about idealism?

[mikekatz]

Hi Ashvin
Thanks for the response.

However, when you write the bold, I think you have implicitly slipped in a dualism which divides thinking from perception. You ascribed the duality-status to the thought-forms instead of to your own mode of perceiving them.

I don't understand what you are saying. I'm saying that there is an apparent duality of the One World, to use your phrase, and that apparent duality is precisely the division between experience and what experience perceives. Most of the time we live in that duality. The minute you have perception of anything, you have duality: the perceiver and the perceived. Dead thoughts, living thoughts, whatever the difference is to you, are still thoughts perceived by a perceiver, and therefore dualism is there. Horizontal, vertical, are still perceptions perceived by a perceiver, and so dualism is there.

You say:

That being said, the only reason I still write essays and what not is because I can sense concretely the shift in my thinking when I reason deeply through the outer and inner forms.

Why is your "sensing concretely the shift in my thinking when I reason deeply through the outer and inner forms" also not slipping into dualism? You are saying that there is a You sensing something outside you, namely "thinking...deeply through the outer and inner forms".

We can only talk by being dual, you and I alike. The only way to not be dual is not to talk. Instead, we have to find our way, so to speak, back to pure consciousness (One World), in which everything has its being, and in which there is neither subject, object, space, or time.

Mike,

It gets confusing when we say "there is duality". In fact, I think we both agree there is no duality, only One World. I would go further to say, there is polarity of Spirit-Matter which expresses itself in changing ways throughout humanity's evolution. Our modern age is beset by the hard dualism, the complete breaking of the polar essence in two. It hasn't always been this way. Would you agree, for ex, that our ancestors 3500 years ago still experienced a more living connection between outer and inner experience, as reflected in their mythology?

If so, then I think it becomes evident we are dealing with localized limitations, not absolute properties of human cognition. In fact, is through our cognition the duality begins to manifest, imaged across cultures in the Fall. This makes clear there is an immanent connection between what manifests the duality and what can overcome it. When we lose our way down a trail in the forest, we don't teleport back to the Origin, but gradually trace our way back through the steps we have already taken. A similar principle applies here, except we are tracing back in full consciousness, whereas we initially treaded the path in a mostly instinctive manner. We are not circling back to exact same spot but ascending.

Hi Ashvin

No, there is duality. If there was no duality, you and I could not be having this conversation. It's true, from the "point of view" of One World, there is no duality. But then, from the "point of view" of One World, there is also no Ashvin and Mike either, or even space and time.

I also don't agree that you can "trace back" to One World. Once again, we live in duality. Duality means, at base level, consciousness and the world, awareness and perceptions, subject and object. One World is non-dual, it's a different order of existence, it's the vertical as opposed to the horizontal that you and Cleric speak about. No matter how much you do on the horizontal, you will never get to the vertical. You absolutely do teleport back to the Origin, it's the only way to get there! Except, there's nowhere to teleport to. You just stop being dual.

If I may say in a friendly manner, I think it may be you, and not me, who is subtly descending into dualism here. Tracing and retracing steps in a forest is precisely dualism. Who is doing the tracing? What is the forest that is being traced? How can any action in the dual realm get to One World?

[AshvinP]

Hi Ashvin

No, there is duality. If there was no duality, you and I could not be having this conversation. It's true, from the "point of view" of One World, there is no duality. But then, from the "point of view" of One World, there is also no Ashvin and Mike either, or even space and time.

I also don't agree that you can "trace back" to One World. Once again, we live in duality. Duality means, at base level, consciousness and the world, awareness and perceptions, subject and object. One World is non-dual, it's a different order of existence, it's the vertical as opposed to the horizontal that you and Cleric speak about. No matter how much you do on the horizontal, you will never get to the vertical. You absolutely do teleport back to the Origin, it's the only way to get there! Except, there's nowhere to teleport to. You just stop being dual.

If I may say in a friendly manner, I think it may be you, and not me, who is subtly descending into dualism here. Tracing and retracing steps in a forest is precisely dualism. Who is doing the tracing? What is the forest that is being traced? How can any action in the dual realm get to One World?

Mike,

I am really confused at this point. You are explicitly stating there is duality and we live in duality, and then claiming you are still within monism and I am descending into dualism. I really don't know how to make it more explicit for you than you are making it in what you are writing. The fact that most people experience an "I"-World distinction does make duality (division) an absolute property of Reality or an absolute boundary to human knowledge. Maybe consider this excerpt posted on the latest Steiner thread. The same thing is happening here with your comments.

To recapitulate Steiner’s argument from above: in the standard theories of cognition of his day, the fact that perceptions are objects of experience is never accounted for unless it is by relegating everything to mere representations, at which point the term loses its basis both from lack of evidential and conceptual ground. Nothing in direct perception suggests that it is a representation and so it is hard to understand where evidence for this notion could hail from except for the foregone affirmation of the very conclusion that is in question. If it be nonetheless affirmed, in the spirit of Kant and Schopenhauer, that “the world is my representation,” the term loses its meaning because a representation implies something of which it is a representation. Just like a simulation cannot but be of something that is not a simulation, so if the reality that cause such representations is totally unknown, on what basis do we believe in the theory that says everything we do know is a representation? After all, it was ostensibly formed in response to the very evidence which it now calls into question. On the other hand, if reality is in fact known, then the world is not just my representation so the theory is also moot.

[Hedge90]

Hi Ashvin

No, there is duality. If there was no duality, you and I could not be having this conversation. It's true, from the "point of view" of One World, there is no duality. But then, from the "point of view" of One World, there is also no Ashvin and Mike either, or even space and time.

I also don't agree that you can "trace back" to One World. Once again, we live in duality. Duality means, at base level, consciousness and the world, awareness and perceptions, subject and object. One World is non-dual, it's a different order of existence, it's the vertical as opposed to the horizontal that you and Cleric speak about. No matter how much you do on the horizontal, you will never get to the vertical. You absolutely do teleport back to the Origin, it's the only way to get there! Except, there's nowhere to teleport to. You just stop being dual.

If I may say in a friendly manner, I think it may be you, and not me, who is subtly descending into dualism here. Tracing and retracing steps in a forest is precisely dualism. Who is doing the tracing? What is the forest that is being traced? How can any action in the dual realm get to One World?

Mike,

I am really confused at this point. You are explicitly stating there is duality and we live in duality, and then claiming you are still within monism and I am descending into dualism. I really don't know how to make it more explicit for you than you are making it in what you are writing. The fact that most people experience an "I"-World distinction does make duality (division) an absolute property of Reality or an absolute boundary to human knowledge. Maybe consider this excerpt posted on the latest Steiner thread. The same thing is happening here with your comments.

To recapitulate Steiner’s argument from above: in the standard theories of cognition of his day, the fact that perceptions are objects of experience is never accounted for unless it is by relegating everything to mere representations, at which point the term loses its basis both from lack of evidential and conceptual ground. Nothing in direct perception suggests that it is a representation and so it is hard to understand where evidence for this notion could hail from except for the foregone affirmation of the very conclusion that is in question. If it be nonetheless affirmed, in the spirit of Kant and Schopenhauer, that “the world is my representation,” the term loses its meaning because a representation implies something of which it is a representation. Just like a simulation cannot but be of something that is not a simulation, so if the reality that cause such representations is totally unknown, on what basis do we believe in the theory that says everything we do know is a representation? After all, it was ostensibly formed in response to the very evidence which it now calls into question. On the other hand, if reality is in fact known, then the world is not just my representation so the theory is also moot.

Ashvin,

I think I get what Mike is saying here, and it's a fair point. You said there's no "teleporting back" to the origin. And this indeed sounds like a concept where we are somehow "outside" something we have to find our way back to. While in fact every doctrine about liberation (Buddhist or Hindu) I have read so far points out that liberation does NOT involve any kind of "change". It's simply a realisation, where you lose the conceptual framework of "I / not I". Nothing changes other than how you perceive Being. And it IS a kind of "teleporting", since it's said to be completely instant.
Of course I'm using others' experiences, not mine.

[AshvinP]

Hi Ashvin

No, there is duality. If there was no duality, you and I could not be having this conversation. It's true, from the "point of view" of One World, there is no duality. But then, from the "point of view" of One World, there is also no Ashvin and Mike either, or even space and time.

I also don't agree that you can "trace back" to One World. Once again, we live in duality. Duality means, at base level, consciousness and the world, awareness and perceptions, subject and object. One World is non-dual, it's a different order of existence, it's the vertical as opposed to the horizontal that you and Cleric speak about. No matter how much you do on the horizontal, you will never get to the vertical. You absolutely do teleport back to the Origin, it's the only way to get there! Except, there's nowhere to teleport to. You just stop being dual.

If I may say in a friendly manner, I think it may be you, and not me, who is subtly descending into dualism here. Tracing and retracing steps in a forest is precisely dualism. Who is doing the tracing? What is the forest that is being traced? How can any action in the dual realm get to One World?

Mike,

I am really confused at this point. You are explicitly stating there is duality and we live in duality, and then claiming you are still within monism and I am descending into dualism. I really don't know how to make it more explicit for you than you are making it in what you are writing. The fact that most people experience an "I"-World distinction does make duality (division) an absolute property of Reality or an absolute boundary to human knowledge. Maybe consider this excerpt posted on the latest Steiner thread. The same thing is happening here with your comments.

To recapitulate Steiner’s argument from above: in the standard theories of cognition of his day, the fact that perceptions are objects of experience is never accounted for unless it is by relegating everything to mere representations, at which point the term loses its basis both from lack of evidential and conceptual ground. Nothing in direct perception suggests that it is a representation and so it is hard to understand where evidence for this notion could hail from except for the foregone affirmation of the very conclusion that is in question. If it be nonetheless affirmed, in the spirit of Kant and Schopenhauer, that “the world is my representation,” the term loses its meaning because a representation implies something of which it is a representation. Just like a simulation cannot but be of something that is not a simulation, so if the reality that cause such representations is totally unknown, on what basis do we believe in the theory that says everything we do know is a representation? After all, it was ostensibly formed in response to the very evidence which it now calls into question. On the other hand, if reality is in fact known, then the world is not just my representation so the theory is also moot.

Ashvin,

I think I get what Mike is saying here, and it's a fair point. You said there's no "teleporting back" to the origin. And this indeed sounds like a concept where we are somehow "outside" something we have to find our way back to. While in fact every doctrine about liberation (Buddhist or Hindu) I have read so far points out that liberation does NOT involve any kind of "change". It's simply a realisation, where you lose the conceptual framework of "I / not I". Nothing changes other than how you perceive Being. And it IS a kind of "teleporting", since it's said to be completely instant.
Of course I'm using others' experiences, not mine.

Right. That whole conception comes from treating the world we perceive as fundamentally divided from the world "as it is". It says there is a world of logical structure which unfolds according to 'laws' (physical), and then there is a world without any logical structure (spiritual). That is dualism. A complete discontinuity is inserted between the physical and spiritual. It is undeniable that our Willing-Feeling-Thinking activity is rhythmically structured and lawfully unfolding in our experience, right? So why are we inserting a complete discontinuity when we speak of the "spirtual" or "nondual" world? This is the dualism of nondualism that Cleric was speaking of in his post. There is one "dual world" and another "nondual world", i.e. dualism. It all comes from the modern mental habit of abstraction and idolizing of abstractions which practically takes place before we notice it.

As discussed in latest essay, dualism is a dividing of polar essence, i.e. taking what is fundamentally unified and tearing it asunder. The fact that most of us don't want to admit is that the intellect cannot understand polarity. Aristotelean logic cannot capture it. Abstraction is at the basis of all modern dualism, which shows up in materialism, explicit dualism (religious fundamentalism), and idealism. The outer labels don't really matter. People can find a way to fit their dualistic view into any label they want. Abstract concepts are infinite in number and so isolated from the broader meaningful context that they can be configured in any way we please to conform with the outer labels. It is in the very nature of intellect to artificially separate poles into dualities for more precise observation and analysis. Yet, polarity is the very structure of the Cosmic seed and radiates through all of its manifestations within the unified Spirit-Matter realm.

So when the fundamental Polarity of Thinking-Willing is divided by the intellect, this echoes through all other polar relations, including "I"-World, Subject-Object, Meaning-Perception, Ideal-Real, Mind-Matter, Consciousness-Unconsciousness, Future-Past, East-West, North-South, and practically any other similar relation we can think of. They are all fundamentally expressions of the same Primoridal Polarity. The intellect cannot understand this Polarity, but the reason it cannot be understood can be understood. One pole of the polarity, from any given limited perspective, is not an object. When we say we understand X, X must be an object. Hence we should not expect that the act of understanding, which is Thinking, can understand itself, much as "seeing" cannot see itself. But we can, so to speak, get used to polar relation by doing what we are doing now. Eventually, we can expand our sphere of perception-cognition so that what was previously considered non-objective can be made an object of perception. Then even higher layers of meaning become the formless non-objective activity in-forming our perceptions.

The solution to apparent dualities in our thinking-experience can only be further evolution of that experience. The person who mystically obscures the I-World distinction in the 'teleporting' state has not overcome dualistic thinking. That is evident in the fact that it reasserts itself whenever they come back and start thinking through their experience again. What we keep saying here is that we don't have to settle for that temporary mystical obscurity. There are tried and true methods of evolving cognition so that it no longer perceives-thinks the world dualistically.

[Cleric K]

Hi Ashvin

No, there is duality. If there was no duality, you and I could not be having this conversation. It's true, from the "point of view" of One World, there is no duality. But then, from the "point of view" of One World, there is also no Ashvin and Mike either, or even space and time.

I also don't agree that you can "trace back" to One World. Once again, we live in duality. Duality means, at base level, consciousness and the world, awareness and perceptions, subject and object. One World is non-dual, it's a different order of existence, it's the vertical as opposed to the horizontal that you and Cleric speak about. No matter how much you do on the horizontal, you will never get to the vertical. You absolutely do teleport back to the Origin, it's the only way to get there! Except, there's nowhere to teleport to. You just stop being dual.

If I may say in a friendly manner, I think it may be you, and not me, who is subtly descending into dualism here. Tracing and retracing steps in a forest is precisely dualism. Who is doing the tracing? What is the forest that is being traced? How can any action in the dual realm get to One World?

These conversations about trying to get to the absolute apex of existence (thus trying to show that the other person is still lost in the horizontal) always spiral in the same way. We had a great example recently with the Zen practitioner James. After few iterations it was possible to point out to him what's missing from the picture and to this he ultimately replied:

As for your metaphysical questions, It seems unlikely that anyone will ever understand the mysterious mechanisms or currents deep in the seas of reality that cause things to be as we experience them. We have much more pressing concerns, I think. It’s important that we imagine them, though. I appreciate BK’s efforts to paint an understandable picture of Idealism, not so much for the sake of establishing “the truth”, as for reforming and enriching modern culture.

So once again, the opposition to the evolving human spirit is forced to forsake any possibility for growing into the depths of reality - which Ashvin calls tracing our steps back and which everyone assumes to be nothing else but endless intellectual philosophizing about reality.

And the reason for this is once again glaringly simple. The logic goes as follows: the non-dual practitioner focuses all his efforts on the folding of duality, where there's no longer "I", there's no longer this or that. Here I use 'folding' metaphorically. If we imagine the prime state as singular sheet, duality is like opening (unfolding) that sheet in the way we open a book. Folding it back is the highly esteemed samadhi. And let's be clear - this folding is no other but the folding of the mind, of thinking. This is no secret. That's why in most modern non-dual teachings we hear the word 'mind' most often (which is usually used interchangeably with 'ego'). So when there's no longer "I", this or that, it is the intellect which has been folded and in a way it was muted.

This is really the standpoint from which James, Mike and others address things. Then when I asked James - "OK, I'm fine with that, and I can confirm this folding myself. The question is: if this folding of the mind really teleports us in the zero point, in the fountainhead of existence, how come we don't perceive anything of the creation of the Cosmos along this gradient?"

Please, follow your own ideas rightly. If the folding of the mind into the non dual state leads one to the source of all that is, it should be perfectly possible, when we enter and leave that state, together with that to have at least some glimpses of the way the Cosmos comes into being. To put that into a physicalist metaphor, we can say that the non-dual state is the singularity of the Big Bang, where all pairs of matter and anti-matter are folded together, all fundamental forces are folded together. The promise of non-dualism is that by experiencing samadhi we reach that folded singularity (void, nothingness, plenum, bliss, nirvana, whatever). Anyone who speaks of anything else, is by definition part of the manifested world of particles and anti-particles. Yet the mystic can't trace how the Solar system and the human being have formed from that singularity. When I asked James these things, he gave the response above.

Now the spiritual evolution of mankind has led us to a point where we're indeed capable to have higher consciousness of the processes along the gradient from Cosmic singularity to the deeply decohered condition in which we find ourselves. The difficulty here is that we shouldn't imagine that matter, stars, planets, decohere from the singularity but our inner conscious state. Ashvin speaks about this and says, that our intellectual thoughts are indeed the outermost decohered fragments of deeper processes but by tracing the forces of our spiritual activity towards the singularity, we can really become conscious of whole realms, where our deeper layers of being can be experienced in full consciousness.

To this the non dualist replies "No, no, there's nothing behind the folded intellect. If you speak about layers of being, this means that you're still lost in mire of duality."

This is the same pattern repeating over and over again here. It's perfectly clear that the folding of the mind doesn't say anything about the world around us. Look at a coral reef. What an incredibly rich ecosystem of the most varied forms of life! How did all this come to be? To the non-dualists there's no point to ask such questions. It just exists - full stop. For no reason at all, as Anna Brown would add. And why the nondualist speaks like that? Very simple - because between thinking in the mind and the folding of the mind, within this gradient, there's absolutely nothing of the outer world processes and their coming into being. The only thing we know is how our mind folds. Then, on top of what the non-dualist claims that he reaches the fountainhead of creation in this way and that anyone speaking about spiritual depth must necessarily be lost somewhere in the unfolded mind layers below?

This attitude results from the fact that the human intellect is inpatient to get over with this troublesome existence. Why not consider the most logical thing - that the folding of the intellect is only an octave within a hierarchy of higher order spiritual spectrum? And that after the intellect has been folded, we begin to work consciously with the spiritual forces which are normally hidden behind our ordinary thinking process? Isn't this kind of self-evident? Even the most realized non-dual masters are still on Earth after their folding enlightenment. If this folding gradient was the full reality, then by folding into the mystical state the whole Cosmos would have to fold. Why wait for death? One could just fold the Cosmos away and get over it. It's quite clear that what we fold is only a fractal octave within the full spectrum of reality. We fold the mind into a singularity and it is the most out-of-this-world experience. Yet it is only a self-similar process to the several higher order folds, out of which the Cosmos has unfolded from the Divine Singularity.

Here the non-dualist will say "That's impossible! I've been in the folded mind state and there's nothing else". But what if there's nothing there because you dare not move? Those who dare to move - move not intellectual fragments but the spiritual force which secretly steers the fragments of our ordinary cognition - will find a whole world existing behind the folded intellect - a whole higher order octave within which the mind-fractal is embedded.

[Cleric K]

PS: I know that there are some who don't hold such a strong view about the mystical state and don't claim that it reaches the Heart of the Cosmos, thus for them it's natural that no details about the world creation are perceived in the mystical state. But this only makes matters worse because it simply admits the dualism of non-dualism. Basically this position says "Yes, the Earthly state is indeed an octave within a higher world, but the folded intellect is the absolute maximum anyone can achieve within that octave. Samadhi is the absolute upper boundary of that octave. Anything more we can expect only after death. For this reason, anyone speaking about direct experience of the higher octaves, must be by definition confusing the dual world for higher consciousness."

And this is the dualism of non-dualism. Even though logically the world should be one, the boundary of death is taken to be some absolute threshold that splits the otherwise non-dual Cosmos in hardly divided Earthly and yonder realm.

The only reason for supporting this dualism is because the folded intellect doesn't want to encounter within this life, anything of higher nature, which is active behind it. It doesn't rule out the possibility for higher forces but they are conveniently placed on the other side and expected only after death.

I remind that the essential nature of every Initiation in the mystery schools through the ages has always been that the disciple goes through death but without the loss of the physical body. In this way he becomes citizen of both worlds so to speak.

In the course of evolution this event becomes less dramatic because the developing "I"-consciousness integrates the life between death and new birth with the life within a body. Today Initiation is no longer about going through a mystery ritual and lying for three days in pitch-black coffin. Even without knowing it, many people today live in both worlds but spiritual activity is glued to the sensory spectrum, so to speak. Initiation today is much more about the gradual development of our inner life, such that we become clearly conscious of the way the spirit works across the spectrum of worlds.

But the fact remains that contemporary materialistically thinking man (even if disguised as idealistically thinking) must solve the problem of death while still in the body. Not by having firm belief about some form of after life but by actually awakening to the forms of spiritual activity which are characteristic to the disembodied state. Without this bridge, non-dualism is bound to remain dual, since it simply folds the intellect and sleeps at the threshold of death.

[Anthony66]

1. There is only One World (not one "dream world" existing 'next to' another "real world").

I'm not sure what you are getting at with the parenthetical statement. My understanding is that the world "out there" is a result of the mentation of structured conscious perspectives or beings that could be conceptualized as a dream world. We perceive this and then represent it through our thinking activity. The typical representation is a "flattened" panorama of shapes and sounds and colors. Through the development of our thinking, this representation comprises ever richer depths of meaning. How far off the mark is that?

Anthony,

It is off the mark because of the subtle distinction that is missed, and, if I have learned anything recently, our intellect is always missing this distinction when thinking of the world and its own role in it. You are implying in bold that the One World out there already exists prior to our thinking activity, and then we come along to represent it with that activity after perceiving it. The reality is that the thinking activity comes first and then precipitates meaning into the currently flattened perceptions. Perceiving can be thought of as the outwardly projective aspect of inner Thinking. Our clarity of perception has come at the expense of our consciousness and correct understanding of this inseperable relationship.

With our current cognition, it appears if many things simply exist prior to our thinking in that way, because we are not conscious of the 'path' that our thinking-flow travels before arriving as perceptions which seem to exist independently of it. This was actually necessary for human beings to become self-aware with inner thought-life. The thinking "I" must be set apart from the perceptual world, which is actually a reflection of its own activity, to behold itself. The process of restoring the actual relationship, without sacrificing the self-awareness, is becoming more conscious of the flow from which the perceptual world precipitates; consciously tracing it back to its Origin, so to speak. We use the inner and outer perceptual reflective world as the tool it was always meant to be for our own Self-awakening. Eventually, obviously with much effort, this translates into a 'sense-free' living thinking, i.e. thinking which is not reliant on perceptual reflections for its own Self-awareness. This thinking consciously moves and 'touches' the countours of imperceptible meaning directly.

When we realize this reversal of the meaning-perception relationship applies not only to objects we perceive around us, but also the forms we perceive within us - thoughts, feelings, desires - and the cultural/temporal forms of human institutions, worldviews, epochs, etc, it is easier to also understand how confused modern man has become in philosophy and science (systematic thinking in general, of the sort we are all engaging right now on the forum). The intellectual ego has been inflated to feel it is reponsible for all of these things (over-materialized), but clearly our rich spectrum of inner experience and entire epochs of time are not structured by intellectual thinking activity. Alternatively, it is inflated to feel it has understood its own absolute limitations (over-spiritualized), walling it off from any further Self-knowledge, and then practically goes about thinking through the world content just like the over-materialized ego. This latter one is analytic idealism, in a nutshell. As Cleric said, the "I"-World dualism is maintained under the intellectual concept of 'non-dualism'.

Tell me what you think of this diagram which is trying to depict the difference between Bernardo's idealism and the one that you and Cleric seem to be describing.

On the left is Bernardo's model of perception. The large light grey oval represents MAL with the grey triangles representing its ideations - shadowy, indistinct and unrepresented. The small dark grey ovals represent dissociations who receive a flow of information corresponding to the "triangle precursor" thoughts in MAL and represent or decohere the object, in this case a green triangle.

On the right is "Deep MAL". Flows of thought originate from the yellow source and flow through various conscious centers. There is no precursor triangle "out there". It is more "in here" although depicting that on a 2-D diagram is difficult. There is a sense though that the light grey conscious centers are interior to the dark grey centers. Finally the green triangle is formed in the mind and then projected out as an appearance of physicality.

[AshvinP]

Tell me what you think of this diagram which is trying to depict the difference between Bernardo's idealism and the one that you and Cleric seem to be describing.

On the left is Bernardo's model of perception. The large light grey oval represents MAL with the grey triangles representing its ideations - shadowy, indistinct and unrepresented. The small dark grey ovals represent dissociations who receive a flow of information corresponding to the "triangle precursor" thoughts in MAL and represent or decohere the object, in this case a green triangle.

On the right is "Deep MAL". Flows of thought originate from the yellow source and flow through various conscious centers. There is no precursor triangle "out there". It is more "in here" although depicting that on a 2-D diagram is difficult. There is a sense though that the light grey conscious centers are interior to the dark grey centers. Finally the green triangle is formed in the mind and then projected out as an appearance of physicality.

Anthony,

That is a great diagram, thank you. First, let's just appreciate the fact that thinking through these things in the way that you are, to the extent you are trying to visually represent it (in simple shapes, which is good), by itself means that you are coming to understand it more. It doesn't even matter too much if the diagram is off (obviously all images must be "off" if they are attempting to represent Reality), because the process of exercising your logical reason to diagram is building up your thinking-organism and will contribute to further refining your conceptual understanding of the living processes.

I am inspired to share a lecture quote from Steiner in that regard.

It's about the path one should follow in thought, the path which one will actually take when seeking access to the spiritual world. And we should not say that when someone experiences in thought - if he honestly and earnestly lives in his thoughts - what the person in process of initiation realizes in reality by entering the spiritual world, that the former does not actually participate in what is revealed to the human soul when entering the spiritual world, because it is only a reflected ideation.

One should not say: Let's leave gaining entrance into the spiritual world to those who are striving to be initiates and stand with their souls in the spiritual world as people stand in physical existence with their senses. Rather should one say: When even in thought one approaches the description of the path that leads to the spiritual world, and provided the thinking is not superficial, he will experience and feel fully what it means to leave the world of the senses behind, a world only the intellect can grasp, and enter the spiritual world.

That is what I will speak to you about today, my dear friends, and not merely for those who already seek the transformation which will lead them into the spiritual world, but also for those who, at first, only experience the transformation in their thoughts. And that includes all of you, else you wouldn't be sitting here.

re: the diagram - I think Cleric will be in a much better position to usefully comment on that. It's clear to me there is real progress in understanding, and the differentiation you have made between analytical approach and the metamorphic spiritual idealist approach is generally accurate (keeping in mind, it's not an intellectual theory/model but a path of seeking better and better understanding of the actual depth structure of Cosmic activity and our own spiritual role within it). The flow of ideations through archetypal beings and eventually through our own thinking into perceptual forms, projected outwards, is also generally accurate. Obviously the diagrams cannot be taken too rigidly, because we are not dealing with a spatial process here. Spatial dimension is itself spiritual activity projected outwards. Beyond that, I will need to think about it more. Maybe Cleric will comment in the meantime.

[Hedge90]

PS: I know that there are some who don't hold such a strong view about the mystical state and don't claim that it reaches the Heart of the Cosmos, thus for them it's natural that no details about the world creation are perceived in the mystical state. But this only makes matters worse because it simply admits the dualism of non-dualism. Basically this position says "Yes, the Earthly state is indeed an octave within a higher world, but the folded intellect is the absolute maximum anyone can achieve within that octave. Samadhi is the absolute upper boundary of that octave. Anything more we can expect only after death. For this reason, anyone speaking about direct experience of the higher octaves, must be by definition confusing the dual world for higher consciousness."

And this is the dualism of non-dualism. Even though logically the world should be one, the boundary of death is taken to be some absolute threshold that splits the otherwise non-dual Cosmos in hardly divided Earthly and yonder realm.

The only reason for supporting this dualism is because the folded intellect doesn't want to encounter within this life, anything of higher nature, which is active behind it. It doesn't rule out the possibility for higher forces but they are conveniently placed on the other side and expected only after death.

I remind that the essential nature of every Initiation in the mystery schools through the ages has always been that the disciple goes through death but without the loss of the physical body. In this way he becomes citizen of both worlds so to speak.

In the course of evolution this event becomes less dramatic because the developing "I"-consciousness integrates the life between death and new birth with the life within a body. Today Initiation is no longer about going through a mystery ritual and lying for three days in pitch-black coffin. Even without knowing it, many people today live in both worlds but spiritual activity is glued to the sensory spectrum, so to speak. Initiation today is much more about the gradual development of our inner life, such that we become clearly conscious of the way the spirit works across the spectrum of worlds.

But the fact remains that contemporary materialistically thinking man (even if disguised as idealistically thinking) must solve the problem of death while still in the body. Not by having firm belief about some form of after life but by actually awakening to the forms of spiritual activity which are characteristic to the disembodied state. Without this bridge, non-dualism is bound to remain dual, since it simply folds the intellect and sleeps at the threshold of death.

Actually Cleric this explanation got me. So far I - and forgive me but I must say - wasn't entirely sure that you really did understand what non-dual peak experiences mean. This is a clear-cut and logical explanation, and it's one that I myself thought about, albeit without the empirical basis to support it. My whole anxiety regarding non-dual teachings is that they claim to get back to the foundation of reality, yet they are UNABLE TO EXPLAIN IT. And as I said in the OP, most of my anxiety stems from the seeming impossibility to find a comprehensible basis based on which you can interpret reality.

[AshvinP]

Tell me what you think of this diagram which is trying to depict the difference between Bernardo's idealism and the one that you and Cleric seem to be describing.

On the left is Bernardo's model of perception. The large light grey oval represents MAL with the grey triangles representing its ideations - shadowy, indistinct and unrepresented. The small dark grey ovals represent dissociations who receive a flow of information corresponding to the "triangle precursor" thoughts in MAL and represent or decohere the object, in this case a green triangle.

On the right is "Deep MAL". Flows of thought originate from the yellow source and flow through various conscious centers. There is no precursor triangle "out there". It is more "in here" although depicting that on a 2-D diagram is difficult. There is a sense though that the light grey conscious centers are interior to the dark grey centers. Finally the green triangle is formed in the mind and then projected out as an appearance of physicality.

Following up on the diagram, as said, it is moving somewhat in right direction. The logical reasoning process is most important, i.e. trying to work through it for yourself. This will prove invaluable if you continue the efforts. A few considerations:

1) As mentioned, the dynamics are not spatial as we conceive spatial dimension now, so we should always be on watch if that is conditioning our understanding.

2) The "conscious centers" are problematic. We can see that the personal bubbles are still implicit. This is practically the thing which always ends up blocking understanding. Then we think concepts are still formed in the "alter" mind. We really need to stop conceiving ourselves as spatially limited bubbles with that sort of exterior and interior.

If you remember Cleric's Deep MAL image, that is closer to what is going on. Each individual perspective could be considered a cross-section of the entire depth structure of Deep MAL sphere. Right now the "I" lives consciously within astral body, which is deeply conditioned by physical organism, but this isn't inherent limit. The person next to you could be consciously living within etheric body. Practically this means they are realizing 'future' states of spiritual being. We are always fluctuating through different Time-realms with our "I" daily, but almost entirely subconsciously. But even when we penetrate consciously to more integrated ideas in waking state, let's say when listening to inspiring music, this is the case.

Intuitions, Inspirations, and Imaginations (symbolized by colored layers in deep MAL image) exist within shared, interwoven medium of spiritual realms and flow towards periphery, perceived by our mineralized intellectual cognition. Cognitive growth is the process of enlivening those cognitions so that we, and also others, can begin living consciously within higher realms of shared meaning. Of course there is much more nuance here, and the above is basically a list of abstract concepts which may not mean much, which is why the analogical reasoning is so important, but that's some broad considerations.