Whirlpool's core/first motion

[Lou Gold]

Even the ugliest passions and thoughts of humanity can be made 'golden' through this impulse. So we certainly need to rediscover the Divine Feminine, but not just any divine feminine. Not the divine feminine of ages past, which were appropriate for the development of those ages but not our own. Now we need the redeemed divine feminine, the Wisdom of Sophia which purifies the soul of its moral impurities through higher consciousness. These things will only grow gradually over time, of course, but it is well past time for human individuals to become conscious of them and begin taking them seriously - "to grow in Wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man".

Ashvin,

Speaking of "making things golden", you might appreciate the way the Divine Feminine is expressed in the recent "Unraveling" essay of Terry Tempest Williams.

[Federica]

As Jung keenly observed, "People don't have ideas, but Ideas have people." That is the stage of spritual evolution we are in - we are mostly vehicles for the ideations of higher living forces. This includes all of us, across most dimensions of our thinly conscious, rationalizing existence. What is the solution to this predicament? Only to become more conscious of these higher living forces within us. What does it mean to become more conscious? Nothing less than growing into the inner perspective of those spirits traditionally known as 'gods', in which our current ideational existence is embedded and entirely dependent on. Clearly this is not a matter of years, but epochs and aeons which we have all already gone through and are yet to go through (clearly linear time must be abandoned).

Yes, ideas have people... in a sense (I know, a different one from Jung's) the suit I was talking about is similar, we come to adopt a "full sets of ideas" and we come to believe it is entirely our creation, even we believe it is the most authentic thing there is at the core of our identity...
Other than that, I can say in these few lines there are enough hints to keep me curious for the rest of my life

Why even bother, if that's the case? Well, if the materialist is correct, and something along the lines of random mutations and 'natural selection' are responsible for evolution, and significant changes in human consciousness only happen over massive timeframes, mostly outside of our conscious control, then there is no point. Is that not a core issue at the heart of our philosophies and outlooks? What is actually possible for human consciousness to attain, to experience and know in living way, in any given lifetime through conscious effort? If spiritual transformation of an enormous degree is not possible in this manner, then I view all of what we are doing here as egoic speculation and venting, and we are much more productive for society investing time and resources into politics.

A materialist here would probably reply that a profound transformation (they wouldn’t call it spiritual though) a transformation of society or an evolution of thinking does not require per se a physiologically different brain, thus it can happen at any given stage of evolution, including the current one, would they argue.

My questions here are,

1. How do you speak of "bad" and all these negative influences of materialism without presupposing what is "good" i.e. moral orientation? Even if you don't fully know what is Good (none of us do), surely you have an intuitive sense of this general direction? That is nothing other than what we are calling moral.

2. What in materialistic thinking and inner orientation, if anything, do you also perceive in your own current thinking and inner orientation? Is there any significant overlap between your current state of being and "them"?

1. Ok, "bad" was a shortcut, a concession to the common use. Nothing morally charged there. Let me correct: Why materialism is bad does not allow harmonious behavior to manifest. Yes, what you mean by "morality" is still not very clear to me. I surely have an intuitive sense of? ...the general direction of Good? I am not sure... if we mean outside of what's imposed by society, ingrained judgmental habits, etc. I only have an intuitive sense (well, I am working on it, to be exact) of what is true, only. And my intuitive sense is that, when (if) this will be understood, then there will be no need whatsoever for "morality".

2. Yes there is, unfortunately. I can imagine many of us have been going to the school of materialism. Its conditioning is hardwired. I certainly can't cast the first stone and pretend that I have nothing to do with this mindset - and what matters most, its consequences - anymore. As said, I am working on it. I more or less always knew there was something profoundly arrogant, blunt and wrong with materialism, by means of early exposure to non conventional ideas let's say, but this has remained a vague peripheral, unaddressed question for very long. It is only recently that for some reason, I started to feel urgently compelled to tackle this question. But I still catch myself, for example, having emotionally charged expectations, or judging other people, or becoming a little too attached to views and opinions, or emotionally resisting what is (which is the most stupid and wasteful use of energy I can think of) or getting hooked in old thinking patterns, and so on and so forth. So yes, all these inner orientations are still there. Decreasing, but still there. They encapsulate the worse a human being can express, potentially. I don't think they are different in nature from what makes for the most dysfunctional behaviors we can think of.

There is a presupposition here that we are speaking of moral laws imposed externally, by state or religion or other norms of conduct. That is not the case in terms of Karma. I will quote a passage from Steiner's Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, also known as Philosophy of Freedom. The key consideration is how, phenomenologically, and especially in any monist idealist metaphysics, attaining thinking degrees of freedom, through natural 'bottom-up' effort and evolution of cognition, harmonizes with our shared moral imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions which precipitate from 'top-down'. We need not forsake one at the expense of the other, and neither Steiner nor we are giving you these natural-moral laws, since they cannot be given to anyone in either genuine understanding or freedom, but only pointing to the very first steps on a path from which they can be unveiled by each individual from within. I myself am only taking these first of first steps now, but clearly even these are profoundly transformative enough to inspire my participation here.

This quote remains misty, I will have to read it again, and maybe understand it in the larger context of the whole book, which I haven't read yet.
And happy to read that I am misunderstanding the way you intend morality and Karma. Looking forward to grasping more of that soon. Thank you (By the way I seize the chance here to thank Soul_of_Shu and Cleric for the links to PoF)

[AshvinP]

Yes, ideas have people... in a sense (I know, a different one from Jung's) the suit I was talking about is similar, we come to adopt a "full sets of ideas" and we come to believe it is entirely our creation, even we believe it is the most authentic thing there is at the core of our identity...
Other than that, I can say in these few lines there are enough hints to keep me curious for the rest of my life
...

1. Ok, "bad" was a shortcut, a concession to the common use. Nothing morally charged there. Let me correct: Why materialism is bad does not allow harmonious behavior to manifest. Yes, what you mean by "morality" is still not very clear to me. I surely have an intuitive sense of? ...the general direction of Good? I am not sure... if we mean outside of what's imposed by society, ingrained judgmental habits, etc. I only have an intuitive sense (well, I am working on it, to be exact) of what is true, only. And my intuitive sense is that, when (if) this will be understood, then there will be no need whatsoever for "morality".

2. Yes there is, unfortunately. I can imagine many of us have been going to the school of materialism. Its conditioning is hardwired. I certainly can't cast the first stone and pretend that I have nothing to do with this mindset - and what matters most, its consequences - anymore. As said, I am working on it. I more or less always knew there was something profoundly arrogant, blunt and wrong with materialism, by means of early exposure to non conventional ideas let's say, but this has remained a vague peripheral, unaddressed question for very long. It is only recently that for some reason, I started to feel urgently compelled to tackle this question. But I still catch myself, for example, having emotionally charged expectations, or judging other people, or becoming a little too attached to views and opinions, or emotionally resisting what is (which is the most stupid and wasteful use of energy I can think of) or getting hooked in old thinking patterns, and so on and so forth. So yes, all these inner orientations are still there. Decreasing, but still there. They encapsulate the worse a human being can express, potentially. I don't think they are different in nature from what makes for the most dysfunctional behaviors we can think of.

I see an inherent tension here. If we take the limits of the rational intellect very seriously, that Ideas have people and not the other way around, then we also need to question our firm intellectual convictions about various world outlooks and what is the "worst a human being can express". In a sense, your moral and ethical values, or whatever we want to label them, i.e. what is to be strived for as an ideal and what is to be avoided as dysfunctional, are much more fixed and certain than mine. You seem certain that there is nothing fruitful to be gained from our modern descent into material thinking and science. In my view, we should understand all of these evolved world conceptions as tools for us to gain insight, wisdom, knowledge and use those to further our own inner development towards spiritual freedom and intuitive moral conscience. These things won't happen overnight. The rational intellect is a very low form of thinking in relation to higher Cosmic ideational processes, one of the lowest actually. It is steered around by individual passions, sympathies, soul temperaments, familial relations, national character, habits, epochal cultures, etc. These have developed over aeons and are buried deep within the subconscious.

The first step to a more consciously imaginative and intuitive morality is heeding Socrates' counsel, "the only true Wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." If we feel to be at a high vantage point, surveying the various philosophies, religions, and outlooks, and assessing their flaws and merits fairly based on relatively complete knowledge, then we are overestimating the capacity of rational intellect. Essentially, this is at the base of our critique here - it's not that analytic idealism, or materialism for that matter, is "wrong" or "bad", but that its current expression and thinking habits are permeated with pride - they are radically incomplete but don't realize it - and lacking genuine epistemic humility. Not the "humility" of declaring our current thinking the highest possible mode of Thinking as such, or our knowledge the very apex of human Knowledge as such, but humility which is also motivating and creative in so far as it recognizes what is higher than the intellect and what gives the human spirit so much more room to grow. It is that gradual growth in living knowledge which makes possible spiritual-ideal freedom and that freedom which makes possible a genuinely moral existence.

This makes it explainable to us how people can have such different concepts, such different views of reality, in spite of the fact that reality can, after all, only be one. The difference lies in the difference between our intellectual worlds. This sheds light for us upon the development of the different scientific standpoints. We understand where the many philosophical standpoints originate, and do not need to bestow the palm of truth exclusively upon one of them. We also know which standpoint we ourselves have to take with respect to the multiplicity of human views. We will not ask exclusively: What is true, what is false? We will always investigate how the intellectual world of a thinker goes forth from the world harmony; we will seek to understand and not to judge negatively and regard at once as error that which does not correspond with our own view. Another source of differentiation between our scientific standpoints is added to this one through the fact that every individual person has a different field of experience. Each person is indeed confronted, as it were, by one section of the whole of reality. His intellect works upon this and is his mediator on the way to the idea. But even though we all do therefore perceive the same idea, still we always do this from different places. Therefore, only the end result to which we come can be the same; our paths, however, can be different. It absolutely does not matter at all whether the individual judgments and concepts of which our knowing consists correspond to each other or not; the only thing that matters is that they ultimately lead us to the point that we are swimming in the main channel of the idea. And all human beings must ultimately meet each other in this channel if energetic thinking leads them out of and beyond their own particular standpoints. It can indeed be possible that a limited experience or an unproductive spirit leads us to a one-sided, incomplete view; but even the smallest amount of what we experience must ultimately lead us to the idea; for we do not lift ourselves to the idea through a lesser or greater experience, but rather through our abilities as a human personality alone. A limited experience can only result in the fact that we express the idea in a one-sided way, that we have limited means at our command for bringing to expression the light that shines in us; a limited experience, however, cannot hinder us altogether from allowing that light to shine within us. 

[Cleric K]

Bad materialism. Let’s look at it. What I think is missing in your account of the havoc of materialism is the most important reason why materialism is bad. No worries I am not about to resort back to those philosophical mannerisms longing for axiomatic elegance and parsimony. No need. The worst outcome of materialism is clearly the made up attachment to a personal identity. This is what creates the escalation of shortsightedness, egotism, narcissism, and generalized violence we all witness, at a (hopefully) lesser scale in our own thinking patterns and behaviors ,and at full scale out there, all around us!


Materialism gives our ego, or intellect, both the aspiration and the green light to build for itself this beautiful, dignified, authentic, proud identity that grounds so nicely the narrative of why we do what we do in our life. It does it so beautifully that we cannot but fall in such a pure, deep love and connection with the story. The reason why we grow so attached to this edifying narrative that tells us our reason to exist, is because it allows our little materialistic body-brain to feel grand again, despite its materialistic self belief. And we are so relieved when the hard work of putting together this persona starts to take shape, at least in provisional version…. We are crafting the narrative that will now be able to spare us the overwhelming sense of inadequacy that our little body-brain would otherwise succumb to.


The narrative so tells us under which flag we should rally, what side we should support, and what are the matching opinions that we can proudly brandish. It’s full options and we become so identified with it, so attached to this meaningful, heartwarming, face-saving narrative, that before we know it, we also find ourselves ready to think and do whatever it takes, ready to go to the most extreme lengths, for the only real sake of keeping us integral. We have to stay true to it, honor it, live up to it. What is more vital than having an inspiring purpose for our life that comes in so handy to answer with some gravity any questions about what our life is all about?


Materialism doesn't limit us to ‘animalistic life plus intellect embellishments from art and philosophy’. In fact, the ‘embellishments’ are way more pernicious than that. Futile intellect gives our material little self permission to go to whatever lengths of manipulation and violence, provided that it is for the sake of the ‘higher ideals’ we have sealed in the narrative. Which more often than not is just a suit we picked up and jumped in, either because it was given to us and we had no better initiative, or because we did go shopping and found it was looking quite good on us. In both cases we have now come to think the suit fits us perfectly. We now love the suit, we are one with the suit, and by this same token, ready to judge, demean, ridicule, insult and of course also invade, attack and eliminate whatever or whomever does not cooperate with our narrative. Of course desires are an additional problem with materialism, but this attachment to identity is worse.

Hi Federica, I don't have enough time now to go through all the points but I just want to point attention to the identity issue. We humans are notorious for jumping from one extreme to the other. The popular trend of calling everything an illusion is one of the examples. Now I fully agree that becoming painfully identified with our dream character, chains the spirit to the transient forms, moods, likes, dislikes, beliefs, ideologies. It is of utmost importance to recognize that deep beneath all these layers there's a thinking core which can always find itself to be above gender, nationality, race, religion, species. Yet there's great difference between recognizing the transitory work in progress and trying to completely detach from it. I'm not saying that you advocate the latter but at the same time the way you express makes it difficult for me to understand where you place the point of balance.

In the way you have expressed above it sounds a little as if any attempt to see our character as part of a greater narrative is only fueling the illusion and ultimately leads to inflated ego drunk on self-importance and finally we begin to attack and eliminate those who don't align with our understandings. This has certainly been the case in countless cases through the ages but does this mean that there's no narrative at all?

I understand very well the appeal of this philosophy. It makes it feel like we've extricated ourselves from the provisionality of manifested existence. We've place ourselves above any evolutionary storyline. But is it really so? Certainly not while we're still on Earth. We still live day by day and every morning we continue where we left yesterday. If I robbed a bank yesterday, my character will be prosecuted today, no matter if I identify with it or not. And if my character gets thrown in prison it is my spiritual core that will have to witness the inner side of the bars.

So at every step, practical existence show us that we live in the accumulations of what we think, feel and will. Our spirit is an artist and our dream character (not only the physical aspect but the temperament, likes, dislikes, ideas, beliefs) is the ever metamorphosing art form. The spirit has no form in itself, it is neither materialist, nor spiritualist, neither emotional, nor intellectual. It is the ever evolving mandala (including the whole spectrum of being) through which the spirit knows itself. The mandala is not what we are in our essence but is the symbol of the compressed history of everything that we have done while interacting with the wider context - the Cosmic Mandala within which our little one is embedded.

When we see things in this way, not only that we shouldn't be too quick to push away our mandala but actually we should develop very keen interest in it. It is the only means we have through which we receive constant feedback which we can use to change the way we employ our spiritual activity. This we don't do for ourselves only. The more we understand how our spiritual activity leaves its sediments as our mandala and how it is currently being formatted by its not yet conscious strata, the more we understand how the same process is happening for other beings. The interest into our mandala should necessarily expand into interest into the lives of all beings. When this begins to happen we unmistakably begin to recognize that our spiritual activity doesn't operate in completely arbitrary ways but we're going through certain rhythmic processes. Tree rings form because the growth of wood is different in different seasons. Even without knowing it our spirit passes through certain 'seasons' which accumulate layers with different qualities within our mandala. We accumulate certain things through our childhood, others through puberty, others in the university and so on. When we deepen our understanding of these temporal processes we find out that humanity itself goes through such rhythmic processes, which are whole evolutionary epochs. Each of them develops certain qualities, capabilities of our living mandala, through which our spirit discovers ever greater degrees of freedom. In this way we come to know intimately a narrative which is as objective as the developmental periods of the individual life.

These things are quite clear. No one would deny that this is how life is experienced while we are on Earth. Why would then people imagine that it is enough to deidentify with their mandala and any narrative? Because they have been led to believe that after death they will be free from all this. They believe that the whole evolutionary development of our Solar system and its inhabitants is something quite irrelevant and only confuses the mind into seeking false narratives. It is imagined that one graduates the Earthly stage when one simply loses all interest in it, on the pretext that it is all a thin dream image that will simply vanish after death.

So what is your opinion on this? Do you conceive as a possibility that, even though we shouldn't conflate the spirit artist at our core with its ever evolving art work, we still need to take that work as great responsibility and that it is up to us to make from our personal mandala a jewel that will fit the crown of creation? Or you think that any such ideas are simply part of the false identification?

[Federica]

If we take the limits of the rational intellect very seriously, that Ideas have people and not the other way around, then we also need to question our firm intellectual convictions about various world outlooks and what is the "worst a human being can express".

Absolutely.

In a sense, your moral and ethical values, or whatever we want to label them, i.e. what is to be strived for as an ideal and what is to be avoided as dysfunctional, are much more fixed and certain than mine. You seem certain that there is nothing fruitful to be gained from our modern descent into material thinking and science.

No no, I haven't been clear then. At a micro level I do think science is fruitful and relevant, and there's clearly plenty already gained and still to be gained from it. Science is not materialism. Although many scientists call themselves materialists (many do it by default), science, at least in its essential gestures, is neutral and doesn't require a philosophical view to be practiced.
And even at a macro level, referring to materialism in general as dominant worldview, even here I agree with you that it must be part of some trajectory that must have some logic and meaning in some sense. Rather this, than claiming that we are victims of some cosmic mistake, that some of us have now cleverly discovered and will explain everyone else how to undo. Again: I don't resist reality. (written before reading the Steiner quote)

In my view, we should understand all of these evolved world conceptions as tools for us to gain insight, wisdom, knowledge and use those to further our own inner development towards spiritual freedom and intuitive moral conscience.

Absolutely.

These things won't happen overnight. The rational intellect is a very low form of thinking in relation to higher Cosmic ideational processes, one of the lowest actually. It is steered around by individual passions, sympathies, soul temperaments, familial relations, national character, habits, epochal cultures, etc. These have developed over aeons and are buried deep within the subconscious.

Right, however, as I was trying to say in myprevious post, by realizing and calling out the morbid attachment we have developed to these, we could elevate a little out intellect, or if you prefer let it play its role, instead of derailing its already limited and basic function with the fumes of epochal and national culture, habits, etc etc.

The first step to a more consciously imaginative and intuitive morality is heeding Socrates' counsel, "the only true Wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." If we feel to be at a high vantage point, surveying the various philosophies, religions, and outlooks, and assessing their flaws and merits fairly based on relatively complete knowledge, then we are overestimating the capacity of rational intellect.

Agreed.

Essentially, this is at the base of our critique here - it's not that analytic idealism, or materialism for that matter, is "wrong" or "bad", but that its current expression and thinking habits are permeated with pride - they are radically incomplete but don't realize it - and lacking genuine epistemic humility. Not the "humility" of declaring our current thinking the highest possible mode of Thinking as such, or our knowledge the very apex of human Knowledge as such, but humility which is also motivating and creative in so far as it recognizes what is higher than the intellect and what gives the human spirit so much more room to grow. It is that gradual growth in living knowledge which makes possible spiritual-ideal freedom and that freedom which makes possible a genuinely moral existence.

Yes, I start recognizing the takes here and, as said, I am open to exploring this direction. Ok it's not a direction, but I am open to try to switch gears in line with these pointings.

This makes it explainable to us how people can have such different concepts, such different views of reality, in spite of the fact that reality can, after all, only be one. The difference lies in the difference between our intellectual worlds. This sheds light for us upon the development of the different scientific standpoints. We understand where the many philosophical standpoints originate, and do not need to bestow the palm of truth exclusively upon one of them. We also know which standpoint we ourselves have to take with respect to the multiplicity of human views. We will not ask exclusively: What is true, what is false? We will always investigate how the intellectual world of a thinker goes forth from the world harmony; we will seek to understand and not to judge negatively and regard at once as error that which does not correspond with our own view. Another source of differentiation between our scientific standpoints is added to this one through the fact that every individual person has a different field of experience. Each person is indeed confronted, as it were, by one section of the whole of reality. His intellect works upon this and is his mediator on the way to the idea. But even though we all do therefore perceive the same idea, still we always do this from different places. Therefore, only the end result to which we come can be the same; our paths, however, can be different. It absolutely does not matter at all whether the individual judgments and concepts of which our knowing consists correspond to each other or not; the only thing that matters is that they ultimately lead us to the point that we are swimming in the main channel of the idea. And all human beings must ultimately meet each other in this channel if energetic thinking leads them out of and beyond their own particular standpoints. It can indeed be possible that a limited experience or an unproductive spirit leads us to a one-sided, incomplete view; but even the smallest amount of what we experience must ultimately lead us to the idea; for we do not lift ourselves to the idea through a lesser or greater experience, but rather through our abilities as a human personality alone. A limited experience can only result in the fact that we express the idea in a one-sided way, that we have limited means at our command for bringing to expression the light that shines in us; a limited experience, however, cannot hinder us altogether from allowing that light to shine within us. 

[AshvinP]

No no, I haven't been clear then. At a micro level I do think science is fruitful and relevant, and there's clearly plenty already gained and still to be gained from it. Science is not materialism. Although many scientists call themselves materialists (many do it by default), science, at least in its essential gestures, is neutral and doesn't require a philosophical view to be practiced.
And even at a macro level, referring to materialism in general as dominant worldview, even here I agree with you that it must be part of some trajectory that must have some logic and meaning in some sense. Rather this, than claiming that we are victims of some cosmic mistake, that some of us have now cleverly discovered and will explain everyone else how to undo. Again: I don't resist reality. (written before reading the Steiner quote)
...
Right, however, as I was trying to say in myprevious post, by realizing and calling out the morbid attachment we have developed to these, we could elevate a little out intellect, or if you prefer let it play its role, instead of derailing its already limited and basic function with the fumes of epochal and national culture, habits, etc etc.

I'm glad we agree that the modern descent isn't a Cosmic fluke and should be considered as one stage within a more holistic, logical and meaningful progression. That being said, it is an age of great concern and potential disaster (more than already experienced in the last 100 or so years), not because of any particular world-conception, materialism, idealism, scientism, etc., but because of the increasingly abstract mode of thinking which is common to practically all world-conceptions at this late stage. This gives me a chance to add some thoughts to the polar relation between natural tendencies/laws and moral consequences.

The critique of abstract thinking across the board can be understood as a caution that it inevitably inverts the significance of all that is under its consideration, like clockwork. When we abstract away from our living Thinking (spiritual activity) as the World Process, we increasingly separate our being as experienced in perception-will, feeling, and thought from Being as such. Naturally, this makes what is outwardly professed by the intellect, inwardly rejected, and vice versa. It leads to what psychology calls 'projection' and "compensation'. The fact that these things can be made into laws of the psyche (soul), at least for the modern age of human evolution, tells us just how regularly this occurs. We should keep in mind, though, that limiting ourselves to only those abstract psychological conceptions of living soul dynamics will itself lead to their manifestation if clinged to for too long (and, really, now is already too long).

When the human organism is conceived as an atomized 'dissociated' unit in abstract ontology, inwardly the effect is that the intellectual ego feels it encompasses the entire Cosmic depth structure with its thoughts. Outwardly this is denied - the ego says "the Cosmos is a great mystery and we are prideful to think we can reason our way through it". But what stance does the ego have to take inwardly to make such an assertion? Implicit in that assertion is that the ego has surveyed the entire boundaries of reasoning and logic, across all individuals and all epochs of time, and determined they are finite and limited and there is no point even considering the possibility otherwise. So the ego is inwardly inflating itself to outwardly make this assertion. This isn't really about what the ego claims about human reason, but about practically whether it tests the limits of that reason or simply continues with endless speculation, which is then implicitly assuming the precise reasoning can go no further. It's as if we are given a math problem and we simply voice our opinions endlessly about what the solution could be, rather than get to work trying to solve it.

Similarly, when the ego abstractly conceives that hierarchical ideational structure kills creativity and novelty for the individual, inwardly we stop thinking creatively. For how long have academic philosophers across the board been asking the same exact questions about fundamental essences, substances, processes, ideas, will, matter, energy, consciousness, etc., without ever advancing concrete and practical understanding? How long have physicalists speculated about how mindless material things can be combined into continuity of consciousness, and idealists speculated how unified consciousness can be decombined into material things we perceive? Then they wax philosophical about the "subject combination or decombination problem" like it's a real meaningful probe into Cosmic secrets, when it's actually the intellect's own abstract creation and has nothing to instruct us about our living experience. 

Or when the ego abstractly refuses to acknowledge a moral order because it "kills freedom", it becomes a slave to its own unconscious desires, impulses, sympathies and antipathies, and habits. The moral task of growing in conscious awareness of one's innermost being has been declared "tyrannical" from the outset and discarded. Inwardly, the ego is wholly enslaved while outwardly it continues to profess its freedom. We could go on with many more examples. It says the world is "Maya" but the ideas we experience inwardly are "just thoughts" and outer perceptions are more reliable. Can we call this projective inversion of the abstract intellect - this demonizing of that which it fears to confront livingly within itself and therefore casts outwards onto others and onto Reality itself - anything other than "immoral"? Many of the deepest problems riddling humanity today, especially the conflicts between various factions of ideologies, are a direct result of this abstracting and projective tendency. 

There is certainly an asymmetry between our knowledge of 'good' and 'evil'. We cannot exactly know what is Good with our radically incomplete knowledge, not yet, but we can easily discern what is evil when it confronts us in this manner. The lack of completing our living knowledge, to even attempt at such completion, is itself the root of evil. It ensures we will only throw abstract words, concepts, theories, and models at the world's problems while never knowing enough to actually address them in a way that mitigates their destructive potential over time. And every day which passes with more of the same abstraction widens the gap between the ego’s ignorance and the knowledge of its higher Self, and therefore digs its hole deeper, not only for its own current incarnation, but for future generations to come. It is an entirely self-imposed problem born of the ego's pride of what it knows abstractly and its fear of what still remains unknown within the depths of the human soul.

[Federica]

Now I fully agree that becoming painfully identified with our dream character, chains the spirit to the transient forms, moods, likes, dislikes, beliefs, ideologies. It is of utmost importance to recognize that deep beneath all these layers there's a thinking core which can always find itself to be above gender, nationality, race, religion, species. Yet there's great difference between recognizing the transitory work in progress and trying to completely detach from it. I'm not saying that you advocate the latter but at the same time the way you express makes it difficult for me to understand where you place the point of balance.
...
So what is your opinion on this? Do you conceive as a possibility that, even though we shouldn't conflate the spirit artist at our core with its ever evolving art work, we still need to take that work as great responsibility and that it is up to us to make from our personal mandala a jewel that will fit the crown of creation? Or you think that any such ideas are simply part of the false identification?

I tried to express where I see the point of balance:

What if the experiential intuition of one consciousness is brought further into an understanding of reality that enables us to disconnect our happiness from desires, so as to cut the pull of addiction and exploitation? Then we could enjoy the same exact experiences we were used to chasing as we are presented with them, but this time in a free, disinterested way.
And what if we could disconnect our sense of self from visceral attachment to opinions, factions, parties, flags, sides, so as to cut the pull of aggression and violence? Then we could engage in healthy interactions, and discuss the same exact topics we were used to strenuously identifying with, but this time without feeling that our honor, our pride and our whole identity is at stake.

In other words, I think we should divest ourselves from narratives up to the point where we stop utilizing them as placeholders for our identity. Ashvin wrote that the major cause of conflicts and war today is the habit of abstract thinking. It maybe is, and I would like to understand more of how the connection between the two unfolds. In the meantime, the one connection I see, very clearly, as being a major cause of conflicts, war and destruction is our habit of trying to ‘be someone’ by holding strong beliefs and strong opinions, and then defend them at whatever cost. What we are really defending when we do that is not this or that belief or stance in itself, but our legitimacy to exist. Because we don’t feel that we are enough by the simple fact of being here, of being, we sign ourselves up to beliefs or opinions in some form. Then, defending them at all cost becomes a matter of ego survival.


In my opinion the point of balance is reached when we can hold and discuss an opinion, without feeling threatened and challenged in our legitimacy to be when said opinion is challenged. Unfortunately, this is where we are nowadays. Reading the news titles is enough to see this habit deepen at astonishing pace. Language is changing in ways that promote identification with narratives. Less and less factual and specific, it nudges us into equating a certain quality to a whole group of people. ‘Russia did this’ ‘China did that’... And when country A does this or that which we don’t like, obviously country A - whatever that concept might encompass - becomes The enemy.
Another relatively recent sign of the same is the social media trend of using national flags as an appropriate visual to (sigh) represent ourselves virtually. People hope it makes them look both hard-headed and generous, they hope they can borrow the flag statement and magically pass its iconic value on themselves for free, not realizing that if it wasn’t frightening it would be plain ridiculous (yes, BK does that too...)


Here I am not saying that we should aim at becoming a tabula rasa and hold no opinions whatsoever. What I'm saying is that we have now become so radicalized in such a habit of attachment to positions that we could advantageously and safely go a very very very long way in the direction of detachment before we incur the slightest risk of becoming borderline mystics.


Moreover, a healthy level of detachment would also loosen up the tyranny of desires. I do believe the addictiveness of desires (not the spontaneous ones but those mediated and expected by the mind) prevents us from experiencing the joy and happiness that we anticipate to gain, and that through detachment one can genuinely enjoy the same experiences one normally craves, but without the obsessive buildup of expectations and the destructive behaviors that are so triggered. The place of balance here would be reached as soon as we find ourselves freed from the obsessive thinking that triggers the exploitation of ourselves, others, and the world. That would definitely be enough detachment…


If you then asked me what concrete steps are to be taken in order to loosen up the slavery of attachment in society, I would admit it is an overwhelming question and I certainly don’t have any ready-made blueprint. To me there is more value in ‘being the change I want to see in the world’ in first person, rather than theorizing grand schemes for social change while not practicing what I preach.


I hope I have clarified how I think about detachment, and that I am not a death prepper trying to leave behind all worldly pursuits. I certainly agree that we should relate to the circumstances of our life from a place of great responsibility. Now, facing this responsibility, what I am trying to grasp is this: where do you position yourselves, in between these two viewpoints, on the one side: ‘This epoch of descent into materialism is necessary, it’s not a cosmic fluke, everything follows a meaningful trajectory’ and on the other side: ‘Right now there is an urgent need for people to wake up to their living thinking and away from the havoc of abstraction otherwise the potential for catastrophe will become a reality’?

Statements such as:

...our happiness, our reputation, our self-worth, our peace and satisfaction, our capacity to grow and evolve, etc. really has little to do with who understands and pursues these ideas further.

and:

Almost all my posts here have always been focused on one single topic. Those who are able to grasp these things will see that I've been talking about the same thing from many different angles. I don't do that because I pretend to be the first to know of such things but because I realize the urgency of the times and how time slips through our fingers while we serve centuries old mental habits.

make me wonder whether in your opinion it’s urgent and crucial that others grasp these ideas or not so much so. I realize this is a peripheral and even a personal question. Still, I can't but try to figure out why these ideas are shared the way they are on this forum. If it’s urgent and crucial, why present these ideas in the very restricted (restricted in terms of outreach only… in other senses it is absolutely not restricted) form offered by this forum? If it’s not urgent and crucial, how can you never tire of expressing these same ideas over and over again to new people who take a genuine interest?

[AshvinP]

I certainly agree that we should relate to the circumstances of our life from a place of great responsibility. Now, facing this responsibility, what I am trying to grasp is this: where do you position yourselves, in between these two viewpoints, on the one side: ‘This epoch of descent into materialism is necessary, it’s not a cosmic fluke, everything follows a meaningful trajectory’ and on the other side: ‘Right now there is an urgent need for people to wake up to their living thinking and away from the havoc of abstraction otherwise the potential for catastrophe will become a reality’?

Statements such as:

...our happiness, our reputation, our self-worth, our peace and satisfaction, our capacity to grow and evolve, etc. really has little to do with who understands and pursues these ideas further.

and:

Almost all my posts here have always been focused on one single topic. Those who are able to grasp these things will see that I've been talking about the same thing from many different angles. I don't do that because I pretend to be the first to know of such things but because I realize the urgency of the times and how time slips through our fingers while we serve centuries old mental habits.

make me wonder whether in your opinion it’s urgent and crucial that others grasp these ideas or not so much so. I realize this is a peripheral and even a personal question. Still, I can't but try to figure out why these ideas are shared the way they are on this forum. If it’s urgent and crucial, why present these ideas in the very restricted (restricted in terms of outreach only… in other senses it is absolutely not restricted) form offered by this forum? If it’s not urgent and crucial, how can you never tire of expressing these same ideas over and over again to new people who take a genuine interest?

Federica,

Let me see if I can clarify some so these viewpoints are seen as complementary. I think you already grasp that, if our core identity is seen as dependent on what other people think about us, or how they respond to what we think, i.e. how we are seen and understood by other people, then we will always feel our ego threatened because we are constantly measuring ourselves against something that cannot be attained. This is essentially the default mode of being in our materialistic, social media culture. The question then becomes, how do we orient our current identity so that it doesn't remain in precarious default mode, bound up with material possessions and the estimation of other people? Do we need to completely abandon the deep longings within to unite with something higher, more stable, more certain, more eternally True, Beautiful, and Good?

It is important to understand that all evil is untimely good. There was a time when developing the deeply individuated ego, via stronger inner thought-life, was absolutely necessary for humans to become spiritually free. It is necessary for the highest ideal of Love, which can only be developed through the free agency of spiritual (thinking) beings. But this inherently carries the risk of degenerating moral orientation, because the free individual agency can choose to reject knowledge of the spiritual worlds from which moral ideals precipitate as much as it can choose to freely pursue that knowledge. It can choose to abdicate responsibility for its own development rather than freely accepting it. That is the risk of increasingly abstract thinking which is self-satisfied with its own intellectual concepts and its own reduction of spiritual worlds into those concepts.

It simply can't be denied that the human soul longs for a higher completion of its identity from the spiritual - it is searching for something that its abstract thinking has been convinced it cannot find as living experience. The intellect begins to question its own deeper intuitions, of which its sense of Selfhood is the deepest. Instead of actively seeking the higher completion, by using its current identity as a perceptual symbol which beckons it to the higher worlds, the intellect decides to disengage from that identity, to dissociate and/or passively wait for death before it is reunited with the Spirit. This is simply a polarization to the other extreme of materialistic thinking that Cleric was speaking of - it is the mirror image. Both of these polarizations are a means of abdicating responsibility for seeking out the spiritual within, which carries the living potential of uniting all nationalities, ethnicities, blood ties, genders, by way of increasing abstraction and dissociation from living thinking.

If we were to start a marketing campaign for these ideas, aiming for sheer volume of people, soliciting as much attention as possible, we inevitably end up offering more of the same abstraction from spiritual reality. The fact is, only those who are genuinely interested in experiencing something much higher than the current atomized ego, by putting their own intellectual thinking in service of the higher worlds which Think that thinking into existence, will find the living experience that their souls deeply long for. It is hard to deny that, "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." How can we aid the Spirit's effort in making the few who find, less few? Not by trying to appeal to people who may not even have an interest in finding the spiritual within them, but focusing on individuals here and there who show such an active interest.

People inclined towards abandoning materialist, reductionist thinking and understanding reality as Idea and its manifestations are already primed towards a higher, living spiritual reality, or at least that has been the theory. It is, truth be told, an increasingly tenuous theory, given how closely analytic idealism has come to resemble materialism and reductionism these days, in terms of its mode of thinking. There is a clear trend in which abstract thinking digs itself deeper and deeper, regardless of ontology, because it's simply more convenient and comfortable and intellectually satisfying. But still, engagement such as yours gives hope. What I am always surprised by is how little curiosity people have for a living spiritual path - how people are ready to offer endless opinions on this path as if they have fully understood it, instead of asking questions to better understand it. You are asking questions and that is a great sign. I post elsewhere as well, but I would rather have a meaningful exchange with one or two people about this spiritual path instead of endless abstract speculation and opinionating on a forum with 100 people.

[Martin_]

...

make me wonder whether in your opinion it’s urgent and crucial that others grasp these ideas or not so much so. I realize this is a peripheral and even a personal question. Still, I can't but try to figure out why these ideas are shared the way they are on this forum. If it’s urgent and crucial, why present these ideas in the very restricted (restricted in terms of outreach only… in other senses it is absolutely not restricted) form offered by this forum? If it’s not urgent and crucial, how can you never tire of expressing these same ideas over and over again to new people who take a genuine interest?

Tangential observation: Those who need to hear it the most are the hardest to reach.

[Federica]

...

make me wonder whether in your opinion it’s urgent and crucial that others grasp these ideas or not so much so. I realize this is a peripheral and even a personal question. Still, I can't but try to figure out why these ideas are shared the way they are on this forum. If it’s urgent and crucial, why present these ideas in the very restricted (restricted in terms of outreach only… in other senses it is absolutely not restricted) form offered by this forum? If it’s not urgent and crucial, how can you never tire of expressing these same ideas over and over again to new people who take a genuine interest?

Tangential observation: Those who need to hear it the most are the hardest to reach.

Yes, this disappointing realization seems to be built into the nature of the question itself. Their not being open explains both their need to hear it and their staying out of reach. But hopefully by the fact that we ourselves are hearing it more and more clearly, and that other easy-to-reach ones are also hearing it, even the hardest to reach will find themselves closer and closer to it if, as it's been shown, morphic resonance is a real thing.