Re: New topic split from 'concise criticism of analytic idealism' thread.
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2022 12:27 pm
Lou Gold wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 7:44 am Yes, attachment (cliging) to reward ("uplifting feeling" or whatever) becomes a trap, a snare. Each step yields a new horizon. It's a process. I'm reminded of a Tibetan saying I read long ago about the spiritual path" "If begun, better to finish" or, don't stop on any step. But this, for me at least, is not a one size fits every person in every moment precept. As Jesus says, "The sign of the Father in you is movement and repose." We do need to rest. Each person has his/her karma and time to release.
What if the current understanding of "movement and repose", which generally only relates to our own personal life, isn't the full extent of its meaning? This is what is meant by "don't stop on any step" on the thinking spiritual path. If there is still transpersonal meaning to be mined, it is about making the sacrifice to delve in and mine it, regardless of how uncomfortable or unfamiliar it may be - shedding the additional layers of skin and penetrating further into the core Being.
Cleric offered you the Magic Eye metaphor here for how we need new thinking skills and less presumptions about the person or the path pointing to them, which I don't think you directly responded to. Instead, you responded as follows:
Lou wrote:I have a personal path that allows me to consciously explore and learn from intuitive, imaginative and inspirative awareness that I've practiced for 25 years with continued satisfaction that consistently leads me deeper into the heart of the matter.
I'm really not trying to attack you here, but we all need more self-honesty when it comes to these matters. What is written above is not humble or gracious in its understanding - it could not possibly be the final step. It shows you are simply substituting your own conception of higher cognition and then claiming you have reached your own conception to your own satisfaction. Similarly, we come upon the Thomas Gospel verse of 'movement and repose' and figure, "great, that's what I am already doing in my life!". This is what I imagine Federica is also pointing to with the shedding skin layers - the temptation is always to confuse our current layer of skin for the deepest layers, or more accurately the shed skin itself (our reflective concepts of spiritual truths).
The 'movement and repose' dynamic has been illustrated here in terms of the Perceiving-Thinking hysteresis. It is an actual scientific, or perhaps supra-scientific, principle of our inner activity. It also associates with the Nature-Culture polarity we (or I) have been discussing, and all other polarities. We experience it every day with the sleep-wake cycle and throughout the day as well. Now we could make these various associations and stop there. We could say, I am going to live my life in the rhythm of movement and repose. That's all well and good. But let's be perfectly clear to ourselves that we are stopping and resting comfortably on a spiritual step in this situation. There are most certainly more steps which can be taken, and which can be taken mostly regardless of where we are in life.
Have we considered how this rhythm relates to our incarnation, death, and reincarnation cycle? How does it relate to that of our cultural ages, or the Earth's incarnations and reincarnations, the manvantara and pralaya? Have we engaged the focused imaginative exercises which actually spiral together the poles of this rhythm from within us? Have we wondered what it means that this rhythm should be given as a revelation through the Divine Word itself and then be discovered anew in our own inner life of activity in the 20th century - that the sign of the Father is actually in us? There is an entire gradient of meaning between the 'now' and the eternal in that simple verse and it is obvious we haven't even begun to uncover its deeper layers. Or at least it will be obvious when we reach the inversion horizon.
Then instead of saying, "I have 25 years with higher cognitive awareness", we may say, "I have zero years exploring my inner activity consciously and precisely but I'm ready to start on day one and year one". Or if we want to remain on our own path, wherever we are, let's be clear we aren't pursuing higher cognitive awareness of the deeper layers, even though it's a viable option and one that has been outlined in great detail here. Let's not assume we are already on that path with our mere conceptions of "higher cognition", "imagination", etc. One cannot say they are simply allowing their Karma to unfold if they are in error about these things, about the very nature of the options they are failing to explore.