a random musing of mine

[idlecuriosity]

I have been lurking here for a while since my past posts and attempting to wrap my head around things, as well as expunge myself of some exorbitant mental issues I was dealing with in my personal life at the time since that probably wouldn't have made my posts go over well if I wanted to say more

I'll just be pointed about this; if we're atomized fragments of a greater consciousness, does this mean there are middle stages betwixt the one we're at and the one we're derived from? If the goal is higher consciousness (unification) would the apparent juxtaposition of materials around us be representative of maximum atomization and therefore something close to 'hell' and the unification of us be closer to heaven?

And if this is at all worth deigning to consider, would this means our vessels are part prison cells and part way for the universe to examine itself so as to harness information for some higher cause we cannot yet gleam?

I am on two hours of sleep and maybe this sounds like nonsense, but it was a harrowing intuitive hunch, as someone who has several long standing alters within his 'mandala.'

Don't mind the linguistics, 'if we're' doesn't presuppose the strawman anyone said this, I just wanted to be brief

Does this mean we'll become fragments of a middle being between our current insular forms and something like 'god' as we ascend? With each representing and being lead to from a distinct type of thread that a person unravels and travels to coalescence of M@L through, with our free will and choices and thoughts determining what thread we achieve

My reasons are that our 'walls' aren't always sealed entirely, as some of BK's gleamings concerning psychic visions have portended, yet they're sealed enough. Earth = prison?

[idlecuriosity]

This could well just sound grotesquely incoherent as I'm an amateur but these are things I just came to in my considerations of things written here and they seemed to fit (in jungian functions, I have extroverted intuition apparently, and whatever faults I have, I've grown ill reticent to defy my instincts)

[AshvinP]

I have been lurking here for a while since my past posts and attempting to wrap my head around things, as well as expunge myself of some exorbitant mental issues I was dealing with in my personal life at the time since that probably wouldn't have made my posts go over well if I wanted to say more

I'll just be pointed about this; if we're atomized fragments of a greater consciousness, does this mean there are middle stages betwixt the one we're at and the one we're derived from? If the goal is higher consciousness (unification) would the apparent juxtaposition of materials around us be representative of maximum atomization and therefore something close to 'hell' and the unification of us be closer to heaven?

And if this is at all worth deigning to consider, would this means our vessels are part prison cells and part way for the universe to examine itself so as to harness information for some higher cause we cannot yet gleam?

I am on two hours of sleep and maybe this sounds like nonsense, but it was a harrowing intuitive hunch, as someone who has several long standing alters within his 'mandala.'

Don't mind the linguistics, 'if we're' doesn't presuppose the strawman anyone said this, I just wanted to be brief

Does this mean we'll become fragments of a middle being between our current insular forms and something like 'god' as we ascend? With each representing and being lead to from a distinct type of thread that a person unravels and travels to coalescence of M@L through, with our free will and choices and thoughts determining what thread we achieve

My reasons are that our 'walls' aren't always sealed entirely, as some of BK's gleamings concerning psychic visions have portended, yet they're sealed enough. Earth = prison?

Hello IC,

The perspective we often question here is that of the 3rd-person spectator of Cosmic happenings. Many of our questions simply embed this view from nowhere in them and never stop to question it, because for the most part we moderns are simply unaware it is an issue to begin with. In a recent exchange elsewhere, I brought this up and the response was, "but why didn't God create a 3rd-person perspective from which we can view, so we aren't stuck with our own first-person perspective?" So this problem runs so deep that we are more likely to blame Reality itself and give up than simply work effortfully with the only perspective we currently have.

We can call our current corporeality a "prison cell", and this could be a useful metaphor, but only IF we don't mistake the metaphor for a universal "truth" which applies equally to all people at all times, or to all people in our current time. The same goes for "hell", "heaven", "unification", "higher cause", "middle stages", etc. Let's be honest - it is simply more work to abandon the 3rd person uniformitarianism and become relational and precise with all our terms, every time we use them. But, Reality never promised us that we can reach essential truths, the deepest Cosmic secrets, with maximum convenience and minimal effort. Ascending to higher consciousness than our own, or even discussing it with our own, is a steep climb and we are much better off preparing a pack and putting on hiking boots. Anything less is simply reckless.

With that said, things actually become simpler once we reach the higher vantage points to view them from. If all is relational and from first-person perspective, then whether the Earth and physical existence is a "prison cell" truly depends on what we make of it. Since Reality is actually ideal in its essence, how conscious we are of its ideal structure is what makes the difference between imprisonment and freedom. Two people can be looking at the exact same phenomenon, like the Sun, and one can feel it is a big mindless ball of gas making us needlessly sweat and sending harmful UV rays, while the other discerns its a selfless Being radiating Warmth and Light, Love and Wisdom, to all solar inhabitants while it also anchors the path of many other beings around it and allows for our conscious evolution.

We will find the same is valid with absolutely every phenomenon of Nature (the physical-perceptual creation) and its Wisdom. Things truly are what we make of them in our own consciousness. They evolve from the lower instincts and drives to higher virtues and ideals as our own consciousness evolves through them. One man's prison cell is another man's Ark to weather the Flood. These aren't simply poetic (and 'corny') ways of putting it, but it is really the case from that only first-person perspective there is. The Universe is filled with spiritual energy of Warmth, Sound, Light, and Love, right down to the grossest forms of Nature, and it's our spiritual alchemy (or lack of it) which keeps that energy in the form of a caterpillar, a merely Earth creature, or transfigures it into a butterfly, a Sun-being.

But this isn't an intellectual proposition. We don't simply assent to the words above as dogma and then escape from the prison we ourselves have built up over aeons. Neither can we dissolve into mystical bliss and expect all things to be made Whole. The higher worlds of consciousness are "higher" because we only exist by virtue of their activity. All our current feelings, concepts, and imaginations precipitate from them as condensed sediment from a liquid solution. We must therefore actually ascend the gradient of Consicousness before we can experience, in thinking, the potential paths to our freedom. Physically, nearly anyone can do this, and mentally, it only takes a shift in perspective. Psychically, however, we must be willing to confront the depths of our own soul life which stand in the way.

Pride, fear, weak will, apathy, complacency, comfort, convenience, desire for strictly material pleasures - these things and many more need be addressed with persistence and vigilance. But the first steps are actually the hardest. We won't be left in the lurch without any support from the higher worlds if we approach them with humility and good faith. But if we are thinking, for example, "man these are long posts, I liked the good ol days when we all typed one or two sentences max and continued speculating and opinionating that way until the end of time", we really shouldn't be surprised when the Earth and our body feels like a prison planet, a cruel experiment gone wrong. These things have simply become self-fulfilling prophecies from the first-person experience. Reality never promised any living organism it can evolve this way, and modern humans are not special in that respect. I'm not suggesting any of the above applies to you specifically, but only that I sense this undercurrent of habitual thinking in these forums more generally, as I have also sensed it in my own thinking, and we always need to remain honest with ourselves.

[idlecuriosity]

ty ashyp.

I'll read this and get back to you on it, although it might be worth mulling over in isolation even more so. I appreciate that reply a lot

[idlecuriosity]

The reason I see it as a problem is that it feels like there's no basis of presupposition to assume that, even though cause and effect is a narrow and lower mode of conscious existence, the cause and effect can still be used for some purpose on part of a potential higher entity as a test for those of us ensnared by the traps of materialistic philosophy. (materialistic science isn't bad for technology and things like this, but the spiritual component of it is corrosive) The more I see how social media (not boards like this, but the ones with upvote metrics) and the way profit maximization is going, it feels like society's goal is to simulate and lure people into a false sense of self actualization (something I liberally conflate with higher consciousness when it really isn't that but hear me out) which never truly satiates them by it's nature and thus keeps them looped in this cycle. It's almost 'demonic.'

I do not know if this is more than a metaphor but as my mind has traversed through frames of 'motion' and overcome systematic emotional hangups and personality faults (some of which I was in the thrall of whilst coming here the first time, prompting my abstinence), as well as succumbed to horrific negatives that subsequently would put me back where I was - I grow to feel both of these as alters that are distinct, but feel like they are separate spots on a road that had a definite beginning I can trace back to it's roots to some extent with missteps, yet that ultimately leaves the choice on how and who I progress into to me.

It definitely feels like the rope that comprises this journey might not be something that is entirely expunged when we die so there will be a trace of our unique journeys and these many threads embodying them, coalescing into a single greater being (which one would depend on each of us), may be what hold these conceptual existences up. That might be why there's the paradox; we grow into greater individuals as those entities would still be atomized, but are greater individuals comprised of more individuation than we can muster on our own, and then it is up to the comfort and enlightenment of those beings in turn to eventually become one with M@L and confer upon it... Whatever it does, I suppose

It's just a crackpot thought but intuitively seemed to resonate with me enough I felt inclined to propose it. I'll gleam what I can of your own sophisticated musings here.

edit: if you reply to this I might not be able to reply again, I'm busy with your post because it says a lot. And yeah, I'm fine with that reply being complicated.

[AshvinP]

The reason I see it as a problem is that it feels like there's no basis of presupposition to assume that, even though cause and effect is a narrow and lower mode of conscious existence, the cause and effect can still be used for some purpose on part of a potential higher entity as a test for those of us ensnared by the traps of materialistic philosophy. (materialistic science isn't bad for technology and things like this, but the spiritual component of it is corrosive) The more I see how social media (not boards like this, but the ones with upvote metrics) and the way profit maximization is going, it feels like society's goal is to simulate and lure people into a false sense of self actualization (something I liberally conflate with higher consciousness when it really isn't that but hear me out) which never truly satiates them by it's nature and thus keeps them looped in this cycle. It's almost 'demonic.'

I do not know if this is more than a metaphor but as my mind has traversed through frames of 'motion' and overcome systematic emotional hangups and personality faults (some of which I was in the thrall of whilst coming here the first time, prompting my abstinence), as well as succumbed to horrific negatives that subsequently would put me back where I was - I grow to feel both of these as alters that are distinct, but feel like they are separate spots on a road that had a definite beginning I can trace back to it's roots to some extent with missteps, yet that ultimately leaves the choice on how and who I progress into to me.

It definitely feels like the rope that comprises this journey might not be something that is entirely expunged when we die so there will be a trace of our unique journeys and these many threads embodying them, coalescing into a single greater being (which one would depend on each of us), may be what hold these conceptual existences up. That might be why there's the paradox; we grow into greater individuals as those entities would still be atomized, but are greater individuals comprised of more individuation than we can muster on our own, and then it is up to the comfort and enlightenment of those beings in turn to eventually become one with M@L and confer upon it... Whatever it does, I suppose

It's just a crackpot thought but intuitively seemed to resonate with me enough I felt inclined to propose it. I'll gleam what I can of your own sophisticated musings here.

edit: if you reply to this I might not be able to reply again, I'm busy with your post because it says a lot. And yeah, I'm fine with that reply being complicated.

IC,

It's not crackpot at all, but very observant. There is a stream of spiritual evolution we are all bound up with, whether we are aware of it or not. It is a stream in which the Spirit - higher imaginations - becomes more manifest within the perceptual world, the latter including our conceptual systems. Many thinkers have outlined these developments with substantial evidence in the 20th century - Steiner, Barfield, Gebser, Jung, Heidegger, Spengler, Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo, and others. It's safe to say, any astute thinker of the last century or so who has actually looked at these things with genuine interest and without prejudice has reached the same conclusion. There is an invisible or supersensible world of meaningful ideations - a 'collective unconscious' - which gives birth to and structures all that we perceive and think in the visible world.

This also manifests within each individual as one begins to sense their dual (or polar) nature - that they aren't simply an atomized corporeality on the physical plane, but their higher Self lives, mostly subconsciously, within the Cosmic expanses with other beings of soul and spirit. Actually, this higher Self is the Cosmic expanse. We visit these expanses every night, where the ideas and states of being for the next day are seeded. But we only have scattered and dreamy memories of this which quickly fades after awakening. Most don't have the strength of consciousness to allow for greater continuity between these polar states of being. In our waking life, we think but have very little control over our will (including what we perceive), and in our sleeping life, we will and perceive with less restraint but have very little capacity to reflectively think. Higher cognition is the process of spiraling these poles of spiritual activity into closer union.

Now there are also forces which sense this evolutionary stream is happening and seek to derail it by whatever means necessary. These aren't external forces to us, but they live within the heart of every individual. Most of our current identity is actually woven together by these forces. They manifest as those inner soul qualities I mentioned above, as well as our abstract, reductionistic, materialistic, passive, etc. habits of thinking. No one can stop spiritual evolution as such, but these forces can dull our awareness of that evolution to the extent that we remain with the same precarious continuity of consciousness with our higher Self, or that continuity degenerates even further. Then we feel even less creative thinking involvement in the world around us, even more atomized, and even more helpless in the face of all manner of 'oppressive' forces which are confronting us. 

Our greatest hope resides in the fact that we can become aware of these things. That our intuition can lead to these resonant ideas, as it is doing for you. We can ask, what must the Cosmic landscape actually be for that to be possible? How must our own cognitive faculties be interwoven with those of higher worlds for us to even become aware of these things? Very few people pause to ask this question, but instead resign themselves to perpetual victim status which also alleviates all responsibility for knowing higher worlds, conveniently enough. Yet the rest of us can take these intuitively resonant ideas much further. We can seek out the inner perspectives of our higher Self.

The fact is that there is something we, in our current atomized and selfish state, look like to the higher worlds. What we feel dimly as our dark inner soul qualities are worn outwardly in these worlds, for all beings to see. Let's imagine we are speaking of something very concrete here - like we perceive the physical forms of people around us, the higher worlds perceive the form of our inner soul qualities. How would life change if we are given the opportunity to view ourselves in this same way and perceive concretely how our life of desires, impulses, feelings, and thoughts moulds our being? It would be a fantastic opportunity, because it would be the greatest motivation to take an active interest in transfiguring our soul life of dark instincts and passions into luminous virtues and ideals.

Just as we would be motivated to do something if we saw cancerous growths on or within our physical organism, so too we would be if we concretely see such things within our soul organism, so that there is no doubt it is there. These are the stakes involved for human individuals today - will we seek out the higher vantages from which genuine work can be done on our dirtied and stained inner life, or will we find endless excuses to avoid that seeking because we are subconsciously terrified of how we will appear? Unfortunately most choose the latter and it's no wonder why. But they simply don't realize that it is precisely by seeking that higher vantage and beholding ourselves in a calm and objective way, that we avoid confronting our shadow in a haphazard, chaotic, projective, and overall terrifying way.

We will enter into the spiritual worlds more and more, without question. The threads of our inner soul's existence will carry on past death, as you say, and weave our remaining journeys through the Cosmic dreams and sleep. The spiritual pole is a seed for the physical pole and the physical, in its own turn, is a seed for the spiritual. All that we desire, feel, and think in the spiritual world matters as much as what we perceive and do, and who we love or hate, in the physical world. The only question is whether we will consciously bridge the discontinuity between these poles of existence, to increasingly unite and cooperate with our higher Self, or continue to flow along passively at their mercy and thereby become more atomized and fragmented with Nature, with other living beings, and within ourselves.

[idlecuriosity]

The reason I see it as a problem is that it feels like there's no basis of presupposition to assume that, even though cause and effect is a narrow and lower mode of conscious existence, the cause and effect can still be used for some purpose on part of a potential higher entity as a test for those of us ensnared by the traps of materialistic philosophy. (materialistic science isn't bad for technology and things like this, but the spiritual component of it is corrosive) The more I see how social media (not boards like this, but the ones with upvote metrics) and the way profit maximization is going, it feels like society's goal is to simulate and lure people into a false sense of self actualization (something I liberally conflate with higher consciousness when it really isn't that but hear me out) which never truly satiates them by it's nature and thus keeps them looped in this cycle. It's almost 'demonic.'

I do not know if this is more than a metaphor but as my mind has traversed through frames of 'motion' and overcome systematic emotional hangups and personality faults (some of which I was in the thrall of whilst coming here the first time, prompting my abstinence), as well as succumbed to horrific negatives that subsequently would put me back where I was - I grow to feel both of these as alters that are distinct, but feel like they are separate spots on a road that had a definite beginning I can trace back to it's roots to some extent with missteps, yet that ultimately leaves the choice on how and who I progress into to me.

It definitely feels like the rope that comprises this journey might not be something that is entirely expunged when we die so there will be a trace of our unique journeys and these many threads embodying them, coalescing into a single greater being (which one would depend on each of us), may be what hold these conceptual existences up. That might be why there's the paradox; we grow into greater individuals as those entities would still be atomized, but are greater individuals comprised of more individuation than we can muster on our own, and then it is up to the comfort and enlightenment of those beings in turn to eventually become one with M@L and confer upon it... Whatever it does, I suppose

It's just a crackpot thought but intuitively seemed to resonate with me enough I felt inclined to propose it. I'll gleam what I can of your own sophisticated musings here.

edit: if you reply to this I might not be able to reply again, I'm busy with your post because it says a lot. And yeah, I'm fine with that reply being complicated.

IC,

It's not crackpot at all, but very observant. There is a stream of spiritual evolution we are all bound up with, whether we are aware of it or not. It is a stream in which the Spirit - higher imaginations - becomes more manifest within the perceptual world, the latter including our conceptual systems. Many thinkers have outlined these developments with substantial evidence in the 20th century - Steiner, Barfield, Gebser, Jung, Heidegger, Spengler, Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo, and others. It's safe to say, any astute thinker of the last century or so who has actually looked at these things with genuine interest and without prejudice has reached the same conclusion.

This also manifests within each individual as one begins to sense their dual (or polar) nature - that they aren't simply an atomized corporeality on the physical plane, but their higher Self lives, mostly subconsciously, within the Cosmic expanses with other beings of soul and spirit. We visit these expanses every night, where the ideas and states of being for the next day are seeded. But we only have scattered dreamy memories of this which quickly fades. Most don't have the strength of consciousness to allow for greater continuity between these polar states of being. In our waking life, we think but have very little control over our will (including what we perceive), and in our sleeping life, we will and choose more what to perceive but have very little capacity to reflectively think. Higher cognition is the process of spiraling these poles of spiritual activity into closer union.

Now there are also forces which sense this evolutionary stream is happening and seek to derail it by whatever means necessary. These aren't external forces to us, but they live within the heart of every individual. Most of our current identity is actually woven together by these forces. They manifest as those inner soul qualities I mentioned above, as well as our abstract, reductionistic, materialistic, passive, etc. habits of thinking. No one can stop spiritual evolution as such, but these forces can dull our awareness of that evolution to the extent that we remain with the same precarious continuity of consciousness with our higher Self, or that continuity degenerates even further. Then we feel even less creative thinking involvement in the world around us, even more atomized, and even more helpless in the face of all manner of 'oppressive' forces which are confronting us. 

Our greatest hope resides in the fact that we can become aware of these things. That our intuition can lead to these resonant ideas, as it is doing for you. We can ask, what must the Cosmic landscape actually be for that to be possible? How must our own cognitive faculties be interwoven with those of higher worlds for us to even become aware of these things? Very few people pause to ask this question, but instead resign themselves to perpetual victim status which also alleviates all responsibility for knowing higher worlds, conveniently enough. Yet the rest of us can take these intuitively resonant ideas much further. We can seek out the inner perspectives of our higher Self.

The fact is that there is something we, in our current atomized and selfish state, look like to the higher worlds. What we feel dimly as our dark inner soul qualities are worn outwardly in these worlds, for all beings to see. Let's imagine we are speaking of something very concrete here - like we perceive the physical forms of people around us, the higher worlds perceive the form of our inner soul qualities. How would life change if we are given the opportunity to view ourselves in this same way and perceive concretely how our life of desires, impulses, feelings, and thoughts moulds our being? It would be a fantastic opportunity, because it would be the greatest motivation to take an active interest in transfiguring our soul life of dark instincts and passions into luminous virtues and ideals.

Just as we would be motivated to do something if we saw cancerous growths on or within our physical organism, so too we would be if we concretely see such things within our soul organism, so that there is no doubt it is there. These are the stakes involved for human individuals today - will we seek out the higher vantages from which genuine work can be done on our dirtied and stained inner life, or will we find endless excuses to avoid that seeking because we are subconsciously terrified of how we will appear? Unfortunately most choose the latter and it's no wonder why. But they simply don't realize that it is precisely by seeking that higher vantage and beholding ourselves in a calm and objective way, that we avoid confronting our shadow in a haphazard, chaotic, projective, and overall terrifying way.

We will enter into the spiritual worlds more and more, without question. The threads of our inner soul's existence will carry on past death, as you say, and weave our remaining journeys through the Cosmic dreams and sleep. The spiritual pole is a seed for the physical pole and the physical, in its own turn, is a seed for the spiritual. All that we desire, feel, and think in the spiritual world matters as much as what we perceive and do, and who we love or hate, in the physical world. The only question is whether we will consciously bridge the discontinuity between these poles of existence, to increasingly unite and cooperate with our higher Self, or continue to flow along passively at their mercy and thereby become more atomized and fragmented with Nature, with other living beings, and within ourselves.

You are going to have to give me time with that.

thanks again, fren

[idlecuriosity]

snip

I do want to clarify I've had intuitive or rather panicky and crazy urges to tell myself I will still be here, while feeling I will fade away for an instance or two, years before I knew any of this. Intuitively I think I've always been aware of who or what I am; It might be something tantamount to what is described as a Deva in buddhism. I am at least somewhat sure my coil might get another chance in another reincarnation and that the best hope for me this time is to serve my time, be happy and impart upon others the lessons my ability to orate and transpose wisdom on people seems keen to. I think in those schools that some lower manifestations are meant to become better people cycle by cycle and learning the value of guidance towards, consideration for, others in the face of their weaknesses IS important to that process.

It is a test to see if someone can overcome a curse and change themselves root and stem. Perhaps I am fighting this fight to help someone, on behalf of higher yearnings. It is a massive struggle and I can tell my soul has been crushed, but I am cognizant of the fruits in proceeding and succeeding my test despite the odds

It sounds absurd but I think it's just something I cannot really shake my mind from, and to my limited reckoning with myself (and extensive prying on part of shrinks) I am not aware of any schizophrenic tendencies I have.

Given that I think my soul is a troubled one, I do not know if it's a healthy thing for me to propose examining it inwardly and unraveling it's contents just yet. To my knowing, this is the basis of what you mean when you say 'it can go to the threshold but not over' regarding religion. It's to get you ready and prepared, the hiking gear so to speak, correct? I may not be ready in this life or if I am that's a good 20 years down the line, knowing my plight, but my intuition feels keenly attuned to this stuff

I didn't read or digested much of anything Cleric written in the intervening months and wrote a lot of it off before I browsed it again today. These gleamings just seem to have come from deep within me, lol. I was perplexed by it's similarity to his layers within the brain diagram he drew.

[idlecuriosity]

I think our vessels are meant to be brakes? At least, if you want to know a good use for materialism, I think it might be meant to ground people like me who're ill befitting of enlightenment and enable them a shield, to serve out their growth - or heal from some injury incurred in a previous life. That is, time moves 'faster' or rather becomes itself in the spiritual realms, so having a materialistic perspective can prevent a wayward or injured soul from spiraling out of control and enable it to pace itself

I know that in polarity truths are revealed. If you put two opposite extremes and juxtapose them, each one reveals a single truth. The price of a honed intuition for these things; I think my ceiling is correspondingly lower, the curse of confinement to the lower domains. At least for a while.

[AshvinP]

Given that I think my soul is a troubled one, I do not know if it's a healthy thing for me to propose examining it inwardly and unraveling it's contents just yet. To my knowing, this is the basis of what you mean when you say 'it can go to the threshold but not over' regarding religion. It's to get you ready and prepared, the hiking gear so to speak, correct? I may not be ready in this life or if I am that's a good 20 years down the line, knowing my plight, but my intuition feels keenly attuned to this stuff

...
I think our vessels are meant to be brakes? At least, if you want to know a good use for materialism, I think it might be meant to ground people like me who're ill befitting of enlightenment and enable them a shield, to serve out their growth - or heal from some injury incurred in a previous life. That is, time moves 'faster' or rather becomes itself in the spiritual realms, so having a materialistic perspective can prevent a wayward or injured soul from spiraling out of control and enable it to pace itself

I know that in polarity truths are revealed. If you put two opposite extremes and juxtapose them, each one reveals a single truth. The price of a honed intuition for these things; I think my ceiling is correspondingly lower, the curse of confinement to the lower domains. At least for a while.

Indeed, we live with our spirit (thinking) in a realm of shared ideations - intuitions, inspirations, and imaginations - and we should therefore expect any sound reasoning from experience to lead us to shared understanding with others of deep Cosmic truths, even if they are clothed in different outer conceptual forms. We will be less and less surprised by the "synchronicities" which seem to happen so often as we become more conscious of this shared ideal existence with those participating in that reasoning with us. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst." It's interesting to consider the two most fundamental physical-perceptual symbols for Spirit and Matter - Fire and Water. Take a look at this clip of a 'reverse waterfall' and see what it reminds you of.





Does it not resemble a burning flame, sending its smoky incense into the atmosphere? When water falls, it tends to begin unified and disperse/differentiate. This is an image of the Cosmic womb from which all matter is born. We are speaking of a deeply moral act here - a Love which sacrifices its life in pure Spirit to birth the varied beautiful and wise forms of the world, including our own thought-forms. When fire burns, its flames reach upwards towards a unified goal - it is water in reverse, i.e. the pole of integration through the Thinking spirit. They are, as Coleridge put it, "two forces of the same Power, expanding life and confining form". When our physical form and experience is animated by the Fire within us, we send up our thoughts - the incense of our spirit - as a choice offering to the Divine.

We can pause to consider what it means that the physical images of these forces permeate our outer experience and yet also express some of the very deepest Cosmic truths of our own inner life and activity. This by itself renders so many modern philosophical musings about duality of subject/object, noumenon/phenomenon, will/thinking, body/mind, etc. superfluous. They are exposed as nothing more than, after too much abstract reflection, the intellect doubting its deepest intuitions as well as its own immanent and verifiable experience. We could go on finding more physical metaphors for spiritual truths endlessly, using Fire-Water or many other polar physical processes in our experience. We will stick with this one for now.

When Fire is exposed to too much Water, the former is extinguished. Matter gets the upper hand over our spirit, and we adopt materialist ideology. When Water is exposed to too much Fire, it evaporates into nothingness - modern spiritualism and mysticism get the upper hand. Materialism is polarized to studying outer forms of the world but leaving the soul-spirit who is doing the studying out of consideration. Modern mysticism speculates about the soul depths, or sometimes delves into depths of soul, but declares the outer world Maya, a mystical mirage which we can gain no spiritual insight from. These two need to be reconciled with each other - Fire needs to bring Water to a gradual boil so the latter's creaetive energy can be put to useful and living work.

This applies not only to ideologies, but every incarnation. What we call physical birth is when the the Water (Soul) we live within (think amniotic fluid) gives birth to corporeal form through the animating Fire, the latter becoming constrained by that form. What we call physical death is when the form born of the Water principle has been consumed by the spirit of Fire within us and the latter must continue its existence apart from the constraint of such corporeal form in the higher worlds. "It is the Spirit which gives life, the flesh profits nothing - my words to you are Spirit." This is the true relationship which all ideologies either miss completely or acknowledge in name only, regardless of ontology. When we move from analytic philosophy to science, the idealist is perfectly happy to adopt the inverted relationship for all practical purposes and intents. Evolutionary theory is a great example where materialists and idealists converge on ignoring the fiery ideal origin of watery physical forms.

But if we resist that tendency and simply follow our intuitions, making them more and more conscious, more fleshed out over time, we arrive at a genuinely spiritual science which is not an abstract theory of concepts and models, but can penetrate to the very depths of our own soul life. We can, with patience and effort, humility and good will, figure out what sort of brakes are being applied in our current incarnation and why. We don't need to remain with tenuous uncertainty about these things. Some deep Cosmic and individual secrets will only reveal themselves in future incarnations, sure, but we won't know the extent of what can be revealed in this lifetime until we actually test the waters of our soul with the fire of our spirit, in a rhythmic and harmonious way. And it's guaranteed that we will reveal much more than we currently fail to Imagine possible.