This forum

[Federica]

I don't respond in this forum consistently because I don't read the posts . . . actually I can't read them, they are in a language I do not understand and I have no dictionary\translator.
IOW, I am no further along in understanding Cleric or Ashwin then I was when this forum began. For example phrases such as 'meaning', 'world content', 'thinking' . . . I suspect they are using these terms outside of the conventional, but I have no idea how they are using these phrases. I'm not sure if I want to invest 2-3 months in trying to figure out what they are saying.
It would be 'nice' if they could express their main thoughts in 100-200 plain English words - but they seem unable to do so.

OK, I understand that. The question that comes to mind then is this: imagining for a second that the time investment to figure out what they are saying is not 2-3 months, but a much shorter time that you would consider reasonable to invest, what would be your motivation to make that investment in that case?
In other words, is there anything that you are looking for and are not finding in your current philosophical references?

[Ratatoskr]

I'm glad you are still following along, Anthony!

Does anyone notice a trend here? The people gaining insights with the intuitive thinking path (Federica and Anthony), slowly or quickly as the case may be, but always through their own active efforts, increasingly locate the obstacles to further progress within themselves. The people who don't externalize the blame onto everyone and everything else. Perhaps that externalizing tendency is a major reason why the insights aren't gained and everything seems like a confusing mish-mash. These people openly admit they don't read any of the posts, yet simultaneously claim the posts are impossible to understand

This is in keeping with the fact that the externalizing people have all but forgotten they have an inner life of activity! The only world which exists for them is that of external sensory perceptions and dim concepts at the surface of waking consciousness. It's easy to see why this leads them to locate the cause for all their difficulties of comprehension in external forces which have nothing to do with them. They can hardly sense their own inner activity exists anymore. And it's always scary to confront something which seems so unfamiliar and unknown. That is, until one actually endeavors to confront it with the Light of thinking consciousness.

Whether this is only tangentially related to the whole array of projective, tribalizing, disharmonious, violent tendencies across the world today, anyone can reason out for themselves.

Ashvin, you can get caitanya in every chakra that you manage to activate. The problem is that after The Fall consciousness is privy only to what Mercury (Vishuddhi) brings to it and only to your left hemisphere because Cain killed Abel. You have three minds - stomach, heart and head and two halves - right and left. You are also divided into bird and dragon mind that reconciliate in the heart and Vohu Manah (good intent) and Angra Mainyu (bad intent) to complete the picture. Only after you pierced Rudra granthi, your third eye can see the heavens and hells, your throat chakra can hear them and your heart chakra can feel them, in every other instance you are locked behind the mirror of ego and intuitions bubble up instead of being a conscious exchange between two aspects of nature.

I don't need your definition of thinking.

[Federica]

Occasionally newcomers pop in just as I did, with a BK question, then they get quickly scared off by the Steinerian vibes, and never recover. Sometimes oldies throw in a reflection, either randomly, or in the spirit of ‘while we’re at it, why not post it on that forum too’. They also usually become quickly exhausted.

Here is your answer.

For sure, but then why don't the other non Steinerian members come in and engage with the newcomers' questions too? Well I saw Lorenzo doing it, but he seems to be the only one. Why don't any of the other members come and help the newcomers? Only the Steinerians + Lorenzo seem to have this generosity.

[AshvinP]

I'm glad you are still following along, Anthony!

Does anyone notice a trend here? The people gaining insights with the intuitive thinking path (Federica and Anthony), slowly or quickly as the case may be, but always through their own active efforts, increasingly locate the obstacles to further progress within themselves. The people who don't externalize the blame onto everyone and everything else. Perhaps that externalizing tendency is a major reason why the insights aren't gained and everything seems like a confusing mish-mash. These people openly admit they don't read any of the posts, yet simultaneously claim the posts are impossible to understand

This is in keeping with the fact that the externalizing people have all but forgotten they have an inner life of activity! The only world which exists for them is that of external sensory perceptions and dim concepts at the surface of waking consciousness. It's easy to see why this leads them to locate the cause for all their difficulties of comprehension in external forces which have nothing to do with them. They can hardly sense their own inner activity exists anymore. And it's always scary to confront something which seems so unfamiliar and unknown. That is, until one actually endeavors to confront it with the Light of thinking consciousness.

Whether this is only tangentially related to the whole array of projective, tribalizing, disharmonious, violent tendencies across the world today, anyone can reason out for themselves.

Ashvin, you can get caitanya in every chakra that you manage to activate. The problem is that after The Fall consciousness is privy only to what Mercury (Vishuddhi) brings to it and only to your left hemisphere because Cain killed Abel. You have three minds - stomach, heart and head and two halves - right and left. You are also divided into bird and dragon mind that reconciliate in the heart. Only after you pierced Rudra granthi, your third eye can see the heavens and hells, your throat chakra can hear them and your heart chakra can feel them, in every other instance you are locked behind the mirror of ego and intuitions bubble up instead of being a conscious exchange between two aspects of nature.

I don't need your definition of thinking.

You don't need a definition of thinking, but to discover the living perspective from which your own thinking - the thinking which connects all the concepts above into a holistic idea - is weaving its activity. To discover what you are doing with your concept-forming activity when you are doing it, thereby centering yourself within the perspective from which all this ancient Wisdom was attained.

We have learned to conquer some of the phases of Mars and the Moon, we may have also learned to conquer some of the lower phases of Mercury and Venus; the more we have overcome these the better we shall be able to respond to the highest vibratory forces emanating from these planets; yes, if we strive earnestly we shall someday be able to overcome even the highest stage of the Venus love, that always attaches itself to an object which is owned by us. We love our children because they are ours; we love our husbands and wives because they belong to us; we take pride, Venusian pride, in their moral characteristics or Mercurial pride in their accomplishments; but Christ set a higher standard: “Unless a man leave his father and mother he cannot be my disciple.” The idea that we should neglect our fathers and mothers or that we must hate them in order to follow Him was far from His mind, of course, but father and mother are only bodies; the soul that inhabits this body of the father and mother is to be loved, not the mere physical garment.

Our love should be the same whether the person is old or young, ugly or beautiful. We should look for the beauty of the soul, for the universal relationship of all souls and not mind so much the relationship of the bodies. “Who are my mother and my brothers,” said the Christ, and pointed to his disciples, those who were at one with Him in His great work. They were closer to Him than any brother could be on account of mere physical relationship. This attitude constitutes an upward step from the Venus love which places the emphasis on the physical garments of the loved ones and leaves out of consideration the soul that is within. The Jupiterian love on the other hand takes cognizance only of the soul, regardless of the body it wears. The Mercurial or reasoning phase of mentality is also changed by response to the altruistic Jupiter. Cold calculation is out of the question. One who feels the expansive ray of Jupiter is big-hearted, first, last and all the time, and in every respect; big-hearted where his emotions are concerned, his love; big-hearted where all things of the world are concerned. “A jovial fellow,” is an apt expression. He is welcomed and loved by everyone he meets because he radiates not the common selfishness, but a desire to benefit others that breeds in us a feeling of trust, diametrically opposed to the sense of distrust we instinctively feel when we come in contact with a Saturn-Mercury man.

Heindel, Max. The Message Of Stars

There are many profound experiences and discussions which can open up for us on the intuitive thinking path (not definition, but path), such as those which have opened up for Frederica and leave her wondering why so many people on this forum, oriented towards Idealism (a.k.a. Thinking), voluntarily choose to avoid the openings and instead travel around in tiny conceptual circles about 'alters', 'dissociation', 'MAL' and such. Even when they sense there is no more meaning to be mined from the latter - which is evident from the fact that no effort is put by anyone into discussing such things on other sections of the forum - they refuse to move into the meaningful spaces of knowledge which have opened up. Why people want to view the ideal forces of the stars, the planets, the chakras, from the side, as externalized things, reducing them into mineralized thought-marbles and play around with them, instead of setting out to evolve those forces within themselves. A person who endeavors towards the latter is not left locked behind any mirrors with only a few short sentences, filled with pessimism and cynicism, to share with others. They do not come to forums only to accumulate intellectual models which make them feel superior to their brothers and sisters, giving something to wield over others. Instead they come with meekness and generosity of Spirit, seeking to reach shared understanding and help raise each other up to new spiritual heights, even, or especially, when it requires effort and sacrifice on their part.

[Ratatoskr]

You don't seem to understand that "you" are not doing the thinking. "I" is the solar dragon that lives in the Manipura chakra and becomes adorned with fantasies of Mercury and crowns himself a king (and is a rather well known archetype along with his angry associates). Look at your Anahata chakra - participatory consciousness, witness and sufferer. That consciousness is far more apt for the current times and an Aeon to be attained.

I don't conceptualize anymore, I have sacrificed my twisted reflections for the participatory consciousness which reveals the Cosmos by knowing.

[Federica]

I was thinking that this forum has come to look like a strange thing, hasn't it? I am really afraid to shake the ground this way, because I am getting enormous value from this forum. Still, someone has to say it, eller hur? (=or how? in Swedish - so much more powerful than “isn’t it?”)
Out of xxx, we are basically four active members, Ashvin, me, Lou, and Cleric. Soul_of_Shu has disappeared. Other members I see appearing regularly in older threads have also disappeared. Contributions from members other than the four afore-mentioned are quite sporadic - at least since I’ve been here, it’s been 3 months now - for example there’s this guy called Anthony, who seems to be very much into biblical reflections, or this other guy Lorenzo, whom I have a real hard time grasping what type of mind space he’s sending in his writings from. That’s about it... Strangely, it looks like a men-dominated field, as it seems. One could wonder why. Well, this is more of a curiosity, not so relevant.
Occasionally newcomers pop in just as I did, with a BK question, then they get quickly scared off by the Steinerian vibes, and never recover. Sometimes oldies throw in a reflection, either randomly, or in the spirit of ‘while we’re at it, why not post it on that forum too’. They also usually become quickly exhausted.
And what about the view count? That’s another puzzle. It seems to show that someone is reading from time to time. But then it remains a passive endeavor for some reason, and I have come to suspect that it’s mainly Lou clicking n-times on posts, hoping to get some more contemplative yield out of all his both/and playing cards. Does it all make any sense to anyone? You who are silent, be it as it may that you are reading this, am I misinterpreting you? And you who are active… alltså Ashivin, Cleric, Lou, are you not getting the same awkward sense that I am getting? Again, I don’t have any problem whatsoever with that, but I am curious. Is anyone having any thoughts? And if yes, why are you not saying anything.

This guy called Anthony is always lurking in the background!

I have been trying very hard to understand this "Steinerian" stuff for some time. I certainly have had insights from time to time but I still feel unable to fully engage as you have done, beyond asking 101 type questions. I continue to find it very challenging but have grasped enough to continue to understand more. In other forums, one can be a casual participant and easily understand what is being said. But many of the posts here require one to clear mental space and engage fully in order to grasp. In a busy life, this can sometimes be challenging.

I certainly have an interest in reconciling the various religious traditions but not in the almost puerile way common to some perennialists. Anthroposophy seems to offer this. As an ex evangelical Christian I'm really interested in this aspect but also the marriage with non-dual philosophies is also a focus.

Glad that you are also interested in grasping the ‘incomprehensible’ Steinerian stuff, Anthony! I am definitely with you in that the endeavor does require our effortful mind+heart move to go chase, kill, and resurrect the meaning every time, as opposed to having it falling into place right in our mind lap, as pre-chopped pre-packaged plain English words to give our brainy taste buds an indulgent treat.

I think the 101 type questions are the best! We are probably wondering about similar things, as I also recognize the sense you speak of, when you have “grasped enough to continue to understand more”. As beginners as we might consider ourselves on this path, we are also, in some sense, on the other side of some threshold where we know for sure that more effort will grant us access to more insights and progress.

I also understand and to some extent share the interest in the reconciliation of the religious traditions of the world and, yes, including non duality as Advaita Vedanta. My rough understanding at this point is that reconciliation is maybe not possible as such, because non duality had a sense and a function 5000 years ago (or so), but today what can and has to be understood and achieved is different, as our human organization is also very different from what it was in those older times. But the main reason why this reconciliation is not a priorital focus for me is ignorance of the various traditions. For the time being I am more interested in progressing my understanding of how the Christian tradition in particular and the Christ impulse are woven in the evolution of humanity, the evolution of cognition in particular, and the concentric nature of consciousness. Hope there will be chances to exchange! For now, thanks for showing up!

[Federica]

I was thinking that this forum has come to look like a strange thing, hasn't it? I am really afraid to shake the ground this way, because I am getting enormous value from this forum. Still, someone has to say it, eller hur? (=or how? in Swedish - so much more powerful than “isn’t it?”)
Out of xxx, we are basically four active members, Ashvin, me, Lou, and Cleric. Soul_of_Shu has disappeared. Other members I see appearing regularly in older threads have also disappeared. Contributions from members other than the four afore-mentioned are quite sporadic - at least since I’ve been here, it’s been 3 months now - for example there’s this guy called Anthony, who seems to be very much into biblical reflections, or this other guy Lorenzo, whom I have a real hard time grasping what type of mind space he’s sending in his writings from. That’s about it... Strangely, it looks like a men-dominated field, as it seems. One could wonder why. Well, this is more of a curiosity, not so relevant.
Occasionally newcomers pop in just as I did, with a BK question, then they get quickly scared off by the Steinerian vibes, and never recover. Sometimes oldies throw in a reflection, either randomly, or in the spirit of ‘while we’re at it, why not post it on that forum too’. They also usually become quickly exhausted.
And what about the view count? That’s another puzzle. It seems to show that someone is reading from time to time. But then it remains a passive endeavor for some reason, and I have come to suspect that it’s mainly Lou clicking n-times on posts, hoping to get some more contemplative yield out of all his both/and playing cards. Does it all make any sense to anyone? You who are silent, be it as it may that you are reading this, am I misinterpreting you? And you who are active… alltså Ashivin, Cleric, Lou, are you not getting the same awkward sense that I am getting? Again, I don’t have any problem whatsoever with that, but I am curious. Is anyone having any thoughts? And if yes, why are you not saying anything.

When I used to play poker, there were two main games which people would play. The first was Texas Hold Em', where every player gets two cards face down, five cards are successively placed in the middle for the community, three after the first betting round (flop), one after the next betting round (turn), and the next after the last betting round (river). The player with the best five-card hand at the end, or whoever gets everyone else to fold their hands during the betting, wins the pot in the middle.

Every new game which starts up first begins with THE. It's easiest for average players to learn and for people to casually play, not needing to pay too much attention to what's going on or take the whole thing too seriously. Although there is technically "no limit", meaning there is no cap on what can be bet on any given betting round, the pots remain small because no one wants to bet their entire stack if it's 100x the size of the pot. People keep the bets small and someone who bets bigger will only get action when another player has a great hand. There is only one winner per hand, so things are kept simple. Eventually some of the more serious poker players turn to a new game called Omaha High-Low, which is 'pot limit'.

Each player gets four cards dealt face down this time, five community cards, and the max bet on each round is the current size of the pot. It's much harder to bluff people out of hands because the bets are small on the initial rounds, but if there are a couple active players with good hands, each round can get exponentially larger. Now players can win by either having the best five-card hand or the worst five-card hand. If one person has the best hand and one the worst hand, they will split the pot 50/50. If two players have the same best hand and one the worst hand, the former gets 25% each and the latter 50%. You can imagine how the strategic dynamics change because of all this. If you don't want to lose a lot of money quickly, you need to be paying close attention to every hand and also be decent at calculating odds on each round. People who are just there to casually play around will get wiped out.

Whenever Omaha is added to a game, the Texas game quickly dies out. All the interesting action is in Omaha. The stakes are higher and the actual strategy of the game is much more interesting. People have very little interest in the plain old Texas game anymore. Yet the Omaha game narrows down to a set of regular players who take it very seriously. Other people who are not so serious about playing occasionally jump into the action, but they go broke quickly and have no money left to buy in. Other players are just scared of buying into such a serious game and watch from the sidelines or lose interest in playing in the poker game altogether. They go searching for more THE games where they get back to the old two-card, high-hand routine. So I think this is a decent analogy to what has happened here.

THE is abstract metaphysical and religious speculation. You don't need to be paying too much attention to the world of living experience and ideas to buy in and play. You don't need to be too logically rigorous - after a minimal amount of reasoning through the world content, you can just jump to whatever preferred conclusion you like and say, "who knows, maybe this is the truth! no one can say otherwise". You can have a smoke, drink a beer, chat it up with your friends, have a good time, and that's the real purpose of joining the poker game in the first place. Once the stakes get higher and the game gets interesting, then one needs to pay much more attention and refine one's thinking skills. Then the original purpose gets sacrificed to that of seeking the objective truth of the matter, with precise, scientific, mathematical reasoning. If a person has no interest in making such an investment, and/or squanders all their thinking funds on various intellectual pursuits, they simply won't buy in and play. Little do they realize that one's interest in the Omaha game and meaning mined from the four-card, high-low dynamic will greatly increase after they gain a firm conviction to keep an open mind and make the sacrifices necessary in pursuit of the Truth.

Clear, fine metaphor, Ashvin, thank you! It really brings forth the idea that ‘casual’ is the least fitting word to describe the intuitive thinking path. I only hope the poker metaphor is not fitting to the point that being a bad card player means being disfavored on the path, because if that’s the case, I am clearly in trouble : ) The best game metaphor to capture my way would be one where it’s not required to be very strategic with thinking funds, more like a roulette game where I just put all the funds in bulk on one number! : ) If chance can be forced this way, that’s freedom : )

[Federica]

I don't respond in this forum consistently because I don't read the posts . . . actually I can't read them, they are in a language I do not understand and I have no dictionary\translator.
IOW, I am no further along in understanding Cleric or Ashwin then I was when this forum began. For example phrases such as 'meaning', 'world content', 'thinking' . . . I suspect they are using these terms outside of the conventional, but I have no idea how they are using these phrases. I'm not sure if I want to invest 2-3 months in trying to figure out what they are saying.
It would be 'nice' if they could express their main thoughts in 100-200 plain English words - but they seem unable to do so.

(...)
Perhaps our numerous posts on reinhabiting the first-person perspective have not been adequate. The very format of presentation and the spatiotemporal language we must use generally works to reinforce the dissociated 3rd-person view from nowhere. That's why we keep presenting it again and again from different angles. (...) Here is yet another angle on this from Steiner with regards to our core spiritual activity of Willing-Feeling-Thinking. I ask you that read it and really try to follow it from the first-person perspective, engaging in the various examples he gives. See if that perhaps stirs an unsuspected shift in perspective.


https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/DimSpa_index.html

The things I shall have to explain to-day may be apparently a little far removed from our more concrete studies of Anthroposophy. They are however a necessary foundation for many other perceptions which we need — a foundation on which we shall afterwards have to build in our more intimate considerations.

There is a certain inherent difficulty for our human power of knowledge and understanding when we speak of the physical bodily nature of man on the one hand, and the soul-and-spirit on the other. Man can gain ideas about the physical and bodily with comparative ease, for it is given to him through the senses. It comes out to meet him, as it were, from his environment on all sides, without his having to do very much for it himself — at any rate so far as his consciousness is concerned. But it is very different when we come to speak of the soul-and-spirit. True, if he is open-minded enough, man is distinctly aware of the fact that such a thing exists. Men have always received into their language designations, words and phrases referring to the soul-and-spirit. The very existence of such words and phrases shews after all, for an open-minded consciousness, that something does exist to draw man's attention to the reality of soul-and-spirit.

But the difficulties begin at once when man endeavours to relate the world of things physical and bodily with the world of soul and spirit. Indeed for those who try to grapple with such questions philosophically, shall we say, the search for this relationship gives rise to the greatest imaginable difficulties. They know that the physical and bodily is extended in space. They can even represent it spatially. Man forms his ideas of it comparatively easily. He can use all that space with its three dimensions gives to him, in forming his ideas about things physical and bodily. But the spiritual as such is nowhere to be found in space.

Some people, who imagine they are not materialistically minded — though in reality they are all the more so — try to conceive the things of the soul and spirit in the world of space. Thus they are led to the well-known spiritualistic aberrations. These aberrations are in reality materialistic, for they are an effort to bring the soul and spirit perforce into space.

But quite apart from all that, the fact is that man is conscious of his own soul-and-spirit. He is well aware of how it works, for he is aware that when he resolves to move about in space his thought is translated into movement through his will. The movement is in space, but of the thought no open-minded, unbiased thinking person can assert that it is in space. In this way the greatest difficulties have arisen, especially for philosophic thinking.

[continued at link]

If not Lorenzo, I have found this lecture quite helpful, as I have been battling with the first part of PoF Chapter 9, The idea of freedom. In both the lecture and the chapter, the experience of willing-feeling-thinking is considered in relation to the human organization, and I am struggling to gain an overall vision and a sense of the relation of the three with each other. Here comes the lecture to help with the geometrical parallel, where willing is seen as tridimensional, feeling as bidimensional, thinking as unidimensional, and the ego as a spaceless point.

Not that I am really understanding the illustration of, for example, feeling as projections on a bidimensional plane, that only can be experienced by virtue of the symmetry of the body. Still, I realize this way of putting it is more favorable to intuition. It’s as if the meaning is made more mobile through such an illustration, and/or the latter is more conducive to meaning compared to the train of thoughts as exposed in PoF. The meaning is gently pushing, so to speak, to get integrated, and while I am still unable to experience it, I do realize the presence of a more immediate explanatory power in the lecture, compared to PoF. More generally, I percieve in later lectures a slightly more benevolent, compassionate, seeking out voice, compared to the younger, more summary voice of PoF.

[Ratatoskr]

You don't seem to understand that "you" are not doing the thinking. "I" is the solar dragon that lives in the Manipura chakra and becomes adorned with fantasies of Mercury and crowns himself a king (and is a rather well known archetype along with his angry associates). Look at your Anahata chakra - participatory consciousness, witness and sufferer. That consciousness is far more apt for the current times and an Aeon to be attained.

I don't conceptualize anymore, I have sacrificed my twisted reflections for the participatory consciousness which reveals the Cosmos by knowing.

Ashvin, contrary to what you might think, I do recognize that at the core of our beings we are exactly the same and I greet this unchanging principle within you through the riot of planets of the solar system colliding in some nebulous projection of multiplicity. I displayed my lack of enthusiasm for luciferian doctrine purely because, since you are on this forum, you must realise that what you see on planet Earth is in fact a mental pollution. Whence might it be coming from ?

[AshvinP]

Hi all ... Apologies for being conspicuous by my absence. As the only mod, I do have to check in now and then, just in case there are any new topic approvals-- which is rare. Beyond that, this being a generally well-behaved place, the moderation role is minimal.

In the case of this member, having been very actively involved (including this forum's predecessor) for 7 years, it's simply a matter of having transitioned into a new phase, one in which the creativity requires much silence, and so is no longer compatible with this kind of 'vocal', thinking-out-loud activity. It has been this way for this lifetime so far, having gone through a few other metamorphic phases/stages, as per Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, which one can't resist, no more than the caterpillar can resist spinning its chrysalis ... as will be the eventual destiny for others here as well, when the time for a phase-transition arrives. Nonetheless, I will continue to serve the role of mod here, as long as it remains minimal--unless someone feels inclined to take over, either as mod and/or proprietor of the IP/domain (if so send a PM, and I'll approach Simon about how that might happen).

Meanwhile, kind regards

Hello Dana,

Completely independent of whether you vocalize what you are thinking on this forum, I wonder if we can revisit why or why not you are engaging the active intuitive thinking, spiritual evolution path, on your own time.

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—

2A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

3A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.

4A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.

5A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.

6A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.

7A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.

8A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.

Indeed. Now what is our own active role, in the 21st century (some 2,500 years after those words were inspired), as thinking human agencies, in bringing these metamorphic 'times' to fruition?

It seems you feel the wise powers will place you in the chrysalis when it's time for the next phase. What if that's what they are actually doing here? What if this new forum, these posts over the last 2 years, this new thread by Federica which caught your mod attention, are the newly evolved ways in which the wise powers work to inspire us? It is their way of gradually handing the torch of spiritual evolution over to us. It is very 'unnatural' for modern man to think this way, for the exact reason discussed in PoF:

The reason why we generally overlook thinking in our consideration of things has already been given (see Chapter 3). It lies in the fact that our attention is concentrated only on the object we are thinking about, but not at the same time on the thinking itself. The naïve consciousness, therefore, treats thinking as something which has nothing to do with things, but stands altogether aloof from them and contemplates them. The picture which the thinker makes of the phenomena of the world is regarded not as something belonging to the things but as existing only in the human head. The world is complete in itself without this picture. It is finished and complete with all its substances and forces, and of this ready-made world man makes a picture. Whoever thinks thus need only be asked one question. What right have you to declare the world to be complete without thinking? Does not the world produce thinking in the heads of men with the same necessity as it produces the blossom on a plant? Plant a seed in the earth. It puts forth root and stem, it unfolds into leaves and blossoms. Set the plant before yourself. It connects itself, in your mind, with a definite concept. Why should this concept belong any less to the whole plant than leaf and blossom? You say the leaves and blossoms exist quite apart from a perceiving subject, but the concept appears only when a human being confronts the plant. Quite so. But leaves and blossoms also appear on the plant only if there is soil in which the seed can be planted, and light and air in which the leaves and blossoms can unfold. Just so the concept of a plant arises when a thinking consciousness approaches the plant.

We are waiting for something external to our own thinking consciousness to put us in the chrysalis because we have forgotten that our thinking consciousness is of the Divine Order. It is the blossom and fruit which has resulted from millions of years of spiritual evolution. It's imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions won't grow from the soil of our inner life unless we plant its seeds in the Earth and expose it spiritual Water, Air, and Fire. Otherwise it remains as dormant potential and, if we are fortunate, our next incarnation will bring us back to a forum like this one and give us the opportunity to nourish the seeds within us once again.