Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 4:21 am Yikes, Ashvin, this feels like so many dialogues you've had with others where they feel misrepresented. I posted Shedrake's article as something folks might find interesting and not as a devotee wanting to defend it. You try to engage me personally in debate. I'm not going there.
For clarification, my "bias" is the constellation or gestalt of my circumstance -- ancestral, cultural, current life history, etc -- beliefs quite subject to changes. On the other hand, my "faith" is that which survives beyond the ebb and flow of beliefs, it is my personal certainty resonating from a firm spiritual anchor within.
Your speculation feels intellectual to me. I do commune with non-corporeal beings. My signature quote was given to me by what you refer to as a "higher being." The image I offered above is a result of a recent communion. But, no, I don't proselytize. It's prohibited on my path. Are you judging me? If so I ask if your way gives you the direct experiences of communion or are you offering a critique of me based on what you have gleaned intellectually from the writings of others and projected onto me?
BTW, I do not reject Steiner, et al, as a valid spiritual path. In scanning across a variety of spiritual paths I find much to appreciate from diverse paths. The comparative critiques and debates I find less interesting.
What is being misrepresented, specifically? I asked you questions, you gave answers, and I quoted those exact words you wrote with my thoughts on them. Like I said, it's nothing personal to you - practically everyone in the modern world feels the exact same way about religious/spiritual convictions. They should only be held as private articles of belief and 'faith', not allowed into the domains of shared scientific understanding. The latter is seen as some sort of pride and affront, but I already explained why it's the opposite from the higher spiritual perspective. If there is to be any sustained evolution towards those interests and intentions and goals which are universal to humanity, then this precise living knowledge of the higher worlds must be sought. Again, I am not speaking of abstract intellectual theories about the "higher worlds", but living knowledge which carries the highest of stakes.
Hebrews 2 wrote:For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
Saying, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee."
I'm sorry, Lou, but if you were communing with the Sun-being within, then I can't imagine you would ever think it's a good idea to post this essay here without any critique of the "unconscious Sun-being" dogma accompanying it, which is little more than materialism in disguise. Or maybe you just didn't read the article that carefully, I don't know. My main point was to caution anyone reading the article about its materialist and reductionist standpoint. It's not about forcing any view on people, but trying to make sure they have complete information to make their own free decision about how to relate with the life-giving and sustaining Being. If you feel it is irrelevant whether we speak of the Sun-being as unconscious or fully conscious, lucid, intelligent, wise, etc., then it just means these matters carry no stakes for you.
