Why Man Creates Art: Kanye West as an Archetypal Artist

[GrantHenderson]

Well, it may depend on what we are calling "wisdom". Certainly you are correct that a more intuitive feeling and moral (willing) life can come to expression when the intellect is not prioritized, and this is reflected by the 'everyday folk'. On the other hand, it may not be clear to many such people how exactly to direct their will and feeling and when it is possibly leading them astray, into comfortable spiritual beliefs but not genuine knowledge. In no cases can a person become more spiritually free, pursuing the Good, Beautiful, and True out of only their inmost individuality - without also working on their life of higher thinking. And then the question becomes, how long can an unfree individual, even with the best intentions and wholesome yet naive spirituality, resist the subconscious tendencies which work to subvert higher spiritual knowledge? I would say most indications in modern society and the way it is trending answer, 'not very long'.

I agree. The life of higher thinking is necessary to give persistent direction to our spiritual beliefs so we can access the true knowledge sheathed underneath, which is often lacking in most people. But I do suspect that this can be developed in the “average individual” with practice. As in, they do not necessarily need an innately strong higher thinking capacity. They just need to practice integrating these faculties with their spiritual sense.

Christ says that, if the grain of wheat fallen to the ground does not die, it will remain alone in this world. What really is loneliness? Loneliness is the greatest suffering that one can experience on earth. To be multiplied is the purpose of life. All suffering in the world comes from the fact that people want to live for themselves alone.

Evil is always born out of our wish to remain alone and become the centre of the world. For we should be like the sun: when the sun rises in the morning, it rises for everybody because it loves all; it is considerate to all beings from the lowest to the highest; that is why all turn their eyes to it. But does the sun say that we must enter it? It tells us to make use of the benefits it gives us; and just as it illuminates the world, so should we shed light and
enlighten those around us.

I think there is a really beautiful living dynamic between the sun and the planets. I wonder if you have come across similar ideas.

The sun is in a continual state of “dying”. It gives itself completely to the planets that surround it. The heat and light which the sun gives out is the life force upon which the planets can contain, and also peer beyond themselves and into the realm of ideas. However, the planet can only do this once it has developed competent mental and sense perceptual faculties. How well the planets can use the sun's energy to develop these faculties depends on their proximity to the sun (and mass, but I won’t touch on that). Too far away and they don’t receive enough light and heat for liquid water to originate on its surface. Too close and they receive too much light and heat, and liquid water will not persist. Us humans can relate entirely to this problem. Our body and mind generates heat along with the generation of ideas, and cools down when we engage in rote or externally demanding thought tasks without much introspection. We will often find that if we generate ideas “too prematurely” the idea breaks apart in our awareness. In a very real sense, our physical and mental being can only withstand a limited soul connection before it overheats, and breaks apart. On the other hand, ideas that are formed without much involvement of our soul do not give off much heat or have much potential for inner-growth. However, an idea thrives when it comes in contact with us at our ego — not too “far” or too “close” to our soul. At the “boundary” separating our inner and outer perspectives. Our ego must be involved with the process of idea creation in order for it to gain stability in our awareness. Just as the ego makes sure the different faculties of our soul are functioning competently and in unison, so does it moderate heat levels throughout the body, to make sure that our physical organs operate properly and in unison.

Likewise, Just as an idea thrives where we come in contact with it not too far or too close from our soul. Planets thrive when they are not too far or too close from the sun — at the “Goldilocks zone”. These planets receive the proper amount of light and heat for them to develop their mental and sense-perceptual faculties. Plants and trees on earth are especially prominent examples. Plants and trees are the earth's primary sense organs. They take in light from the sun, create nutrients and spread them below the earth's surface for the earth's inner-enrichment.

There are two implications of this process. Firstly, the sun can now peer through the earth's sense organs and into the earth itself, so it can “live through” the earth. Secondly, the earth generates enough resources from the sun's energy such that it has more agency to live self contained, without as much direct support from the sun (ie, winter or night time).

Just as we have an ego at the “centre” of our being, and the sun generates an ego for itself in the earth (along the habitable zone of the solar system), so does our planet have an ego at its core (centre), where the earth sends and returns nutrients from near the earth's surface via convection processes. Just as our ego moderates our physical and mental temperature, the molten iron in the earth's core generates a magnetic field to moderate the amount of heat that it allows to enter into its atmosphere from the sun.

[Federica]

(...)
Rather, I hold the (probably controversial) opinion that Kanye West's ego is often extremely healthy, but when it is unhealthy, it is very unhealthy. Like I mentioned in my last comment, When our connection to the divine is blocked for whatever reason, we often become reliant on our own pride for inspiration. So if someone has a very large ego, and that connection to the divine is blocked, then that pride will quickly turn to arrogance. Thus, we can reason how arrogance (or alike behaviour) correlates with artistic talent — at least, in the current state of human evolution.

In the light of the connection to the divine as you have elsewhere described, it becomes easier to understand how you see artistic inspiration, and the role of ego as a sort of coordinating feature. But how can connection to the divine come and go, as implied above? This remains unclear to me. Because it's grounded in love and gratitude, and it only can thrive when moral character is developed, what are those reasons that can suddenly block the connection, and make the artist reliant on pride and arrogance, until the divine connection is re-established and backed by a healthy ego again?

[AshvinP]

Thanks for this illustration of your vision. I have found value in trying to understand how it stands in relation to spiritual science. Not sure if this is interesting to anyone other than myself, but I'll write it down in case it is. It took me a while to go from words to meaning, especially because you connect the will both with love and ethical character, and you relate feeling to gratitude, rather than to love. But I hope I understand your view now. If I had to explain it to a third person I would say as follows.


Love and gratitude are the rich soil that precedes spiritual connection to (and understanding of) the world/nature/the divine. Our will and feeling are the means, the functions we have at our disposal to partake in these forces of love and gratitude we are grounded in, and to grow through them our servitude to the world, by transforming the one into the other, sharing them to the world in a circular movement. Like a plant serves its environment and gives back to it by transforming soil, water, light, and air, in a circular movement or activity, so we do with love and gratitude. Like a plant, we can be more or less rife and flourishing in this process. Our ethical will - the cultivation of virtues/virtuous traits - is the reliable way to become more robust and prolific in this circular process that nurtures our spiritual connectedness. By cultivating these virtues, we strengthen our connection to the world/the divine, so that we can better understand it and serve it, by fully circulating love and gratitude back into it. That’s how ethical character precedes, and reinforces, spiritual understanding/connectedness.


If this is approximately correct, after relating your vision to the little I have integrated of the path Cleric and Ashvin speak of, I would think you have a lot in common with it. The only main difference between your view and theirs is that in yours, the spiritual connection to the world is inner. The spiritual is kept separate from the outer connection to the physical world. From this separation emerges the urge to fight egoic desires and thoughtless personal satisfactions first, hence opening the way to virtues. Once this transformation is well on its way, one becomes ready to feel a deeper spiritual connection to the divine. In the anthroposophic, or spiritual scientific view, inner and outer are one. This is meant in a very direct and literal sense. There is one spiritual reality only. The rest is perception, apparently separate, but truly orchestrated by the spiritual again (i.e. thinking). Hence, there cannot be two steps where inner spiritual connection is formed only once outwardly expressed virtues are developed. And most significantly, there cannot be opposition between love and virtue on one side and the opposing physical and mental (thinking) spiritual forces on the other. Of course, I am 'speaking' under the control of the subject matter experts here, whom I trust will not fail to correct any misinterpretations.

In short, it seems to me that in your perspective, the unifying spiritual force is love, while thinking can fall prey to egoic desires. In the spiritual scientific view, thinking cannot be under-ordained as the receiver of the workings of either virtue, or thoughtless personal satisfactions. Instead, it is recognized as the unifying principle that closes the circle, because love, virtue, and gratitude could not in any sense exist, not for us, and not even for the world, without the creating/mediating principle of thinking, and its workings in us (as us) as well as in every other spiritual beings and reality (as every other beings and reality). Thinking in this view is bigger than us and our mental growth and decay. How much bigger? As much as a unifying principle, constituting all reality, can be.

From here, the question that comes to mind is: how to work on developing virtues in a way that is pre-ordained of the physical and the mental (thinking) forces?

I think this is accurate. There is no principle reason why love needs to come at the expense of thinking in a higher sense. At its core, Thinking is Love. Prior to the modern age, thinking was understood more as a Divine gift and therefore a Divine responsibility. Philosophy and science was carried out with great devotion to sensory phenomena and inner concepts. The scholastics spent many hours in isolated, devoted contemplation of all things Natural and Divine, without any strict separation between the two . Only after that time do we get intellectualized abstract thinking, divorced from the spiritual, which becomes more and more a means of attaining purely personal and selfish aims. It gets so abstract and divorced from life that it becomes an end in itself, which unfortunately we see often on these metaphysical forums, where some are more interested in endless questions and opinionating than Truth-seeking.

So, from where we are now in our evolutionary development, thinking certainly needs to be reintroduced to Love and Gratitude to reach its higher potential. Imaginative cognition is actively willed, feeling imbued, thinking. We make the most growth into higher worlds with such meditations if we can engage them without any expectation of short-term personal gain. Why are we doing meditations and why do we want to grow into the higher worlds? If our honest answer to these questions is something of a purely personal nature, then we simply won't make it much further. Love and Gratitude are central pillars of our Will and Feeling when striving for higher Thinking. The latter genuinely requires self-sacrifice, especially of the highly personalized, consumptive intellectual ego. 

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Federica is also correct that we should guard against seeking a vague, nebulous "love" at the expense of logically reasoned knowledge. Love in the higher sense presupposes living, intimate knowledge. There is no principle reason why knowing the reasons why we love should diminish our love, but rather should enrich it. Love is simultaneously the beginning of our development, as it streams to us from the Divine, the means of us taking our own evolution in hand through redeemed/purified thinking, and the end or final fruit of our evolution in connection with perfect Freedom and Truth, as we become the loving Divine to new waves of beings. Our Love must begin from a perspective of distinct ego, as it seeks connection with the Divine and others despite the apparent boundaries of separation, but it can only grow to its fullness through living knowledge of our relations with the Divine Cosmos. The sort of radical interest needed in the soul-life of others cannot come through only superficial outer observations and cultural connections.

But in order that an individual being find in truth—in all-unity—its justification and affirmation, a consciousness of truth alone on its part is insufficient. This being must exist in truth; but an individual man, just as an animal, does not exist in truth originally and spontaneously: he finds himself as an isolated element of the universal whole and he affirms this, his fragmentary existence, in egoism as the whole for himself; and he wants to be the “all” himself and to exist completely separate from everything—outside truth. As the actual practical and fundamental principle of individual life, egoism directs and permeates its entirety, determines in it everything concretely; and therefore, in a theoretical consciousness of truth alone, it can in no way outweigh and abolish it. Until the living force of egoism in man meets another living force opposed to it, consciousness of truth is only a superficial illumination, the flash of an alien light
...
Truth, as a living force that takes possession of the inner essence of man and effectively leads him out of false self-affirmation, is called love. Love, as the effective abolition of egoism, is a valid justification and redemption of individuality. Love is more than rational consciousness, but without it love would not be able to act as an intrinsic redemptive force, ennobling, and not abolishing, individuality. Man can differentiate his own self (that is, his true individuality) from his egoism thanks only to rational consciousness (or consciousness of truth). And therefore, in sacrificing this egoism and giving himself over to love, he finds in it not only a living, but a vivifying force as well; and he does not lose together with his egoism his individual essence, but to the contrary, immortalizes it. Owing to the absence of a proper rational consciousness in the world of animals, the truth that is realized in love, but does not find in animals an intrinsic point of rest for its activity, can act only bluntly as an extrinsic and portentous force, controlling them as blind instruments for universal ends alien to them. Here, love appears as a unilateral triumph of the general, the generic over the individual, inasmuch as, in animals, their individuality coincides with egoism in the spontaneity of fragmentary existence, and therefore perishes together with it as well. 

In general, the meaning of human love is the justification and redemption of individuality through the sacrifice of egoism.

Solovyov, Vladimir Sergeyevich. Heart of Reality (p. 95). University of Notre Dame Press. Kindle Edition. 

[AshvinP]

I agree. The life of higher thinking is necessary to give persistent direction to our spiritual beliefs so we can access the true knowledge sheathed underneath, which is often lacking in most people. But I do suspect that this can be developed in the “average individual” with practice. As in, they do not necessarily need an innately strong higher thinking capacity. They just need to practice integrating these faculties with their spiritual sense.

I think there is a really beautiful living dynamic between the sun and the planets. I wonder if you have come across similar ideas.

The sun is in a continual state of “dying”. It gives itself completely to the planets that surround it. The heat and light which the sun gives out is the life force upon which the planets can contain, and also peer beyond themselves and into the realm of ideas. However, the planet can only do this once it has developed competent mental and sense perceptual faculties. How well the planets can use the sun's energy to develop these faculties depends on their proximity to the sun (and mass, but I won’t touch on that). Too far away and they don’t receive enough light and heat for liquid water to originate on its surface. Too close and they receive too much light and heat, and liquid water will not persist. Us humans can relate entirely to this problem. Our body and mind generates heat along with the generation of ideas, and cools down when we engage in rote or externally demanding thought tasks without much introspection. We will often find that if we generate ideas “too prematurely” the idea breaks apart in our awareness. In a very real sense, our physical and mental being can only withstand a limited soul connection before it overheats, and breaks apart. On the other hand, ideas that are formed without much involvement of our soul do not give off much heat or have much potential for inner-growth. However, an idea thrives when it comes in contact with us at our ego — not too “far” or too “close” to our soul. At the “boundary” separating our inner and outer perspectives. Our ego must be involved with the process of idea creation in order for it to gain stability in our awareness. Just as the ego makes sure the different faculties of our soul are functioning competently and in unison, so does it moderate heat levels throughout the body, to make sure that our physical organs operate properly and in unison.

Likewise, Just as an idea thrives where we come in contact with it not too far or too close from our soul. Planets thrive when they are not too far or too close from the sun — at the “Goldilocks zone”. These planets receive the proper amount of light and heat for them to develop their mental and sense-perceptual faculties. Plants and trees on earth are especially prominent examples. Plants and trees are the earth's primary sense organs. They take in light from the sun, create nutrients and spread them below the earth's surface for the earth's inner-enrichment.

There are two implications of this process. Firstly, the sun can now peer through the earth's sense organs and into the earth itself, so it can “live through” the earth. Secondly, the earth generates enough resources from the sun's energy such that it has more agency to live self contained, without as much direct support from the sun (ie, winter or night time).

Just as we have an ego at the “centre” of our being, and the sun generates an ego for itself in the earth (along the habitable zone of the solar system), so does our planet have an ego at its core (centre), where the earth sends and returns nutrients from near the earth's surface via convection processes. Just as our ego moderates our physical and mental temperature, the molten iron in the earth's core generates a magnetic field to moderate the amount of heat that it allows to enter into its atmosphere from the sun.

Once again your intuitive ideas are quite remarkable here. I would indeed say the Sun is the regulator, the Spirit-Ego, of the planetary life in our solar system. The latter are different arenas of evolutionary development which send their Cosmic influences to Earth through the mediating Sun (or the Moon which reflects the Sun's light). Of course we are speaking of the spiritual Sun and planets here - the physical bodies, for normal consciousness, are the outer manifestations of past spiritual forces, and there is clearly a lawful, symbolic connection between the inner and the outer. We should always guard against mistaking the physical processes for the spiritual activity manifesting them. Although there is a lawful connection, the latter is as different from the former as our own inner activity is from the material processes we observe on the surface.

In connection with your insightful remarks on the plant kingdom, you should consider the following.

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

For that part of the earth where it is summer, there is something similar to what goes on in the human being in the condition of sleep. The earth gives itself to everything that comes down from the sun and forms itself as it should form itself under the influence of the sun activity. In that part of the earth where it is winter, it closes itself off from the influence of the sun, lives within itself. There it is the same as when the human being has drawn together into the small, inner world, living in himself, while for the part of the earth where it is summer it is the same as when the human being is surrendered to the whole outer world.

There is a law in the spiritual world: if we direct our attention to spiritual entities far removed from one another — such as, for example, the human being here on one side and the earth organism on the other — the states of consciousness must be pictured as reversed in a certain sense. With the human being, stepping out into the great world is the sleep condition. For the earth, the summer (which one would be inclined to consider a waking condition) is something that can only be compared with the human being falling asleep. The human being steps out into the great world when he falls asleep; in summer the earth with all its forces enters the realm of sun activity, only we must be able to think of the earth and the sun as spirit-filled organisms.

In wintertime, when the earth rests within itself, we must be able to think of its condition as corresponding to the waking condition of the human being, although it may be tempting to consider winter as the earth's sleep. When we consider entities as different from one another as the human being and the earth, however, the states of consciousness appear re versed in a certain way. Now, what does the earth accomplish when it is under the influence of surrender to the sun being, to the sun spirit? To have an easier comparison, we would do well to turn the concepts around now. The earth's surrender to the sun being is simply something that may be compared spiritually with the condition of the human being when he awakens in the morning and emerges out of the dark womb of existence, out of the night, into his joys and sorrows. When the earth enters the realm of sun activity — although this could be compared with the sleep condition of the human being — all the forces that sprout forth from the earth allow the resting winter condition of the earth to pass over into the active, the living, summer condition.

What, then, are the plants in this whole web of existence? We could say that when spring approaches, the earth organism begins to think and to feel, because the sun with its being lures out the thoughts and feelings. The plants are nothing but a kind of sense organ for the earth organism, awakening anew every spring, so that the earth organism with its thinking and feeling can be in the realm of the sun activity. Just as in the human organism light creates the eye for itself in order to be able to manifest through the eye as ‘light,’ so every spring the sun organism creates for itself the plant covering in order to look at itself, to feel, to sense, to think by means of this plant covering. The plants cannot directly be considered the thoughts of the earth, but they are the organs through which the awakening organization of the earth in spring, together with the sun, develops its thoughts and feelings. Just as we can see our nerves emanating from the brain, developing our feeling and conceptual life through the eyes and ears together with the nerves, so the spiritual investigator sees in what transpires between earth and sun with the help of the plants the marvelous weaving of a cosmic world of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. The spiritual investigator finds that the earth is surrounded not merely by the mineral air of the earth, by the purely physical earth atmosphere, but by an aura of thoughts and feelings. For spiritual research the earth is a spiritual being whose thoughts and feelings awaken every spring, and throughout the summer they pass through the soul of our entire earth.

The plant world, however, which is a part of our entire earth organism, provides the organs through which our earth can think and feel. Woven into the spirit of the earth are the plants, just as our eyes and ears are woven into the activities of our spirit.

In spring a living, spirit-filled organism awakens, and in the plants we can see something that is pushed out of the countenance of our earth in some realm where it wants to begin to feel and think. Just as everything in the human being tends toward a self-conscious ego, so it is also in the realm of plants. The whole plant world belongs to the earth. I have already said that a person would be close to insanity if he did not think of how all feelings, sensations, and mental images are directed toward our ego. Similarly, everything the plants mediate during summertime is directed toward the earth's center, which is the earth ego. This should not be said merely symbolically! As the human being has his ego, so the earth has its self-conscious ego. That is why all plants strive toward the earth's center. That is why we may not consider plants by themselves but rather must consider them in interaction with the self-conscious ego of the earth....When regarded in this way, the plants can be compared with our eyes and ears. What our senses are for us, the plants are for the earth organism. But what perceives, what achieves consciousness, is the spiritual world streaming down from the sun to the earth. This spiritual world would not be able to achieve consciousness if it did not have its sense organs in the plants, mediating a self-consciousness just as our eyes and ears and nerves mediate our self-consciousness. This makes us aware that we speak correctly only if we say that those beings who stream from the sun down to the earth, unfolding their spiritual activity, encounter from spring through summertime the being that belongs to the earth itself. In this exchange the organs are formed through which the earth perceives those beings, for the plants do not perceive. It is a superstition, shared also by natural science, when it is said that the plant perceives. The spiritual entities that belong to the earth activity and the sun activity perceive through the plant organs, and these entities direct toward the center of the earth all organs they need in order to unite them with the center of the earth. Thus what we have to see behind the plant covering are the spiritual entities that weave around the earth and have their organs in the plants.

[GrantHenderson]

I agree. The life of higher thinking is necessary to give persistent direction to our spiritual beliefs so we can access the true knowledge sheathed underneath, which is often lacking in most people. But I do suspect that this can be developed in the “average individual” with practice. As in, they do not necessarily need an innately strong higher thinking capacity. They just need to practice integrating these faculties with their spiritual sense.

I think there is a really beautiful living dynamic between the sun and the planets. I wonder if you have come across similar ideas.

The sun is in a continual state of “dying”. It gives itself completely to the planets that surround it. The heat and light which the sun gives out is the life force upon which the planets can contain, and also peer beyond themselves and into the realm of ideas. However, the planet can only do this once it has developed competent mental and sense perceptual faculties. How well the planets can use the sun's energy to develop these faculties depends on their proximity to the sun (and mass, but I won’t touch on that). Too far away and they don’t receive enough light and heat for liquid water to originate on its surface. Too close and they receive too much light and heat, and liquid water will not persist. Us humans can relate entirely to this problem. Our body and mind generates heat along with the generation of ideas, and cools down when we engage in rote or externally demanding thought tasks without much introspection. We will often find that if we generate ideas “too prematurely” the idea breaks apart in our awareness. In a very real sense, our physical and mental being can only withstand a limited soul connection before it overheats, and breaks apart. On the other hand, ideas that are formed without much involvement of our soul do not give off much heat or have much potential for inner-growth. However, an idea thrives when it comes in contact with us at our ego — not too “far” or too “close” to our soul. At the “boundary” separating our inner and outer perspectives. Our ego must be involved with the process of idea creation in order for it to gain stability in our awareness. Just as the ego makes sure the different faculties of our soul are functioning competently and in unison, so does it moderate heat levels throughout the body, to make sure that our physical organs operate properly and in unison.

Likewise, Just as an idea thrives where we come in contact with it not too far or too close from our soul. Planets thrive when they are not too far or too close from the sun — at the “Goldilocks zone”. These planets receive the proper amount of light and heat for them to develop their mental and sense-perceptual faculties. Plants and trees on earth are especially prominent examples. Plants and trees are the earth's primary sense organs. They take in light from the sun, create nutrients and spread them below the earth's surface for the earth's inner-enrichment.

There are two implications of this process. Firstly, the sun can now peer through the earth's sense organs and into the earth itself, so it can “live through” the earth. Secondly, the earth generates enough resources from the sun's energy such that it has more agency to live self contained, without as much direct support from the sun (ie, winter or night time).

Just as we have an ego at the “centre” of our being, and the sun generates an ego for itself in the earth (along the habitable zone of the solar system), so does our planet have an ego at its core (centre), where the earth sends and returns nutrients from near the earth's surface via convection processes. Just as our ego moderates our physical and mental temperature, the molten iron in the earth's core generates a magnetic field to moderate the amount of heat that it allows to enter into its atmosphere from the sun.

Once again your intuitive ideas are quite remarkable here. I would indeed say the Sun is the regulator, the Spirit-Ego, of the planetary life in our solar system. The latter are different arenas of evolutionary development which send their Cosmic influences to Earth through the mediating Sun (or the Moon which reflects the Sun's light). Of course we are speaking of the spiritual Sun and planets here - the physical bodies, for normal consciousness, are the outer manifestations of past spiritual forces, and there is clearly a lawful, symbolic connection between the inner and the outer. We should always guard against mistaking the physical processes for the spiritual activity manifesting them. Although there is a lawful connection, the latter is as different from the former as our own inner activity is from the material processes we observe on the surface.

In connection with your insightful remarks on the plant kingdom, you should consider the following.

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

For that part of the earth where it is summer, there is something similar to what goes on in the human being in the condition of sleep. The earth gives itself to everything that comes down from the sun and forms itself as it should form itself under the influence of the sun activity. In that part of the earth where it is winter, it closes itself off from the influence of the sun, lives within itself. There it is the same as when the human being has drawn together into the small, inner world, living in himself, while for the part of the earth where it is summer it is the same as when the human being is surrendered to the whole outer world.

There is a law in the spiritual world: if we direct our attention to spiritual entities far removed from one another — such as, for example, the human being here on one side and the earth organism on the other — the states of consciousness must be pictured as reversed in a certain sense. With the human being, stepping out into the great world is the sleep condition. For the earth, the summer (which one would be inclined to consider a waking condition) is something that can only be compared with the human being falling asleep. The human being steps out into the great world when he falls asleep; in summer the earth with all its forces enters the realm of sun activity, only we must be able to think of the earth and the sun as spirit-filled organisms.

In wintertime, when the earth rests within itself, we must be able to think of its condition as corresponding to the waking condition of the human being, although it may be tempting to consider winter as the earth's sleep. When we consider entities as different from one another as the human being and the earth, however, the states of consciousness appear re versed in a certain way. Now, what does the earth accomplish when it is under the influence of surrender to the sun being, to the sun spirit? To have an easier comparison, we would do well to turn the concepts around now. The earth's surrender to the sun being is simply something that may be compared spiritually with the condition of the human being when he awakens in the morning and emerges out of the dark womb of existence, out of the night, into his joys and sorrows. When the earth enters the realm of sun activity — although this could be compared with the sleep condition of the human being — all the forces that sprout forth from the earth allow the resting winter condition of the earth to pass over into the active, the living, summer condition.

What, then, are the plants in this whole web of existence? We could say that when spring approaches, the earth organism begins to think and to feel, because the sun with its being lures out the thoughts and feelings. The plants are nothing but a kind of sense organ for the earth organism, awakening anew every spring, so that the earth organism with its thinking and feeling can be in the realm of the sun activity. Just as in the human organism light creates the eye for itself in order to be able to manifest through the eye as ‘light,’ so every spring the sun organism creates for itself the plant covering in order to look at itself, to feel, to sense, to think by means of this plant covering. The plants cannot directly be considered the thoughts of the earth, but they are the organs through which the awakening organization of the earth in spring, together with the sun, develops its thoughts and feelings. Just as we can see our nerves emanating from the brain, developing our feeling and conceptual life through the eyes and ears together with the nerves, so the spiritual investigator sees in what transpires between earth and sun with the help of the plants the marvelous weaving of a cosmic world of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. The spiritual investigator finds that the earth is surrounded not merely by the mineral air of the earth, by the purely physical earth atmosphere, but by an aura of thoughts and feelings. For spiritual research the earth is a spiritual being whose thoughts and feelings awaken every spring, and throughout the summer they pass through the soul of our entire earth.

The plant world, however, which is a part of our entire earth organism, provides the organs through which our earth can think and feel. Woven into the spirit of the earth are the plants, just as our eyes and ears are woven into the activities of our spirit.

In spring a living, spirit-filled organism awakens, and in the plants we can see something that is pushed out of the countenance of our earth in some realm where it wants to begin to feel and think. Just as everything in the human being tends toward a self-conscious ego, so it is also in the realm of plants. The whole plant world belongs to the earth. I have already said that a person would be close to insanity if he did not think of how all feelings, sensations, and mental images are directed toward our ego. Similarly, everything the plants mediate during summertime is directed toward the earth's center, which is the earth ego. This should not be said merely symbolically! As the human being has his ego, so the earth has its self-conscious ego. That is why all plants strive toward the earth's center. That is why we may not consider plants by themselves but rather must consider them in interaction with the self-conscious ego of the earth....When regarded in this way, the plants can be compared with our eyes and ears. What our senses are for us, the plants are for the earth organism. But what perceives, what achieves consciousness, is the spiritual world streaming down from the sun to the earth. This spiritual world would not be able to achieve consciousness if it did not have its sense organs in the plants, mediating a self-consciousness just as our eyes and ears and nerves mediate our self-consciousness. This makes us aware that we speak correctly only if we say that those beings who stream from the sun down to the earth, unfolding their spiritual activity, encounter from spring through summertime the being that belongs to the earth itself. In this exchange the organs are formed through which the earth perceives those beings, for the plants do not perceive. It is a superstition, shared also by natural science, when it is said that the plant perceives. The spiritual entities that belong to the earth activity and the sun activity perceive through the plant organs, and these entities direct toward the center of the earth all organs they need in order to unite them with the center of the earth. Thus what we have to see behind the plant covering are the spiritual entities that weave around the earth and have their organs in the plants.

Thanks. I should be more careful with my descriptions so as to not refer to the conscious activity of the earth as belonging to the physical earth, but the “earth entity(ies)”. I suspect the physical features of a conscious entity are constructed by its own spiritual forces, rather than being a “reflection” of these spiritual forces. Spiritual forces cannot be “reflected” in the same way the physical properties can be, because spiritual forces have no physical properties to reflect. Rather, our spiritual forces attempt to replicate themselves through the physical body in relation to certain environmental and evolutionary demands. The context upon which it does this is largely a mystery for me, at the moment.

Thanks for another Steiner quote. He is fascinating.

[GrantHenderson]

(...)
Rather, I hold the (probably controversial) opinion that Kanye West's ego is often extremely healthy, but when it is unhealthy, it is very unhealthy. Like I mentioned in my last comment, When our connection to the divine is blocked for whatever reason, we often become reliant on our own pride for inspiration. So if someone has a very large ego, and that connection to the divine is blocked, then that pride will quickly turn to arrogance. Thus, we can reason how arrogance (or alike behaviour) correlates with artistic talent — at least, in the current state of human evolution.

In the light of the connection to the divine as you have elsewhere described, it becomes easier to understand how you see artistic inspiration, and the role of ego as a sort of coordinating feature. But how can connection to the divine come and go, as implied above? This remains unclear to me. Because it's grounded in love and gratitude, and it only can thrive when moral character is developed, what are those reasons that can suddenly block the connection, and make the artist reliant on pride and arrogance, until the divine connection is re-established and backed by a healthy ego again?

Have you ever noticed your levels of inspiration to produce ideas fluctuate? It could either be environmental factors outside of our control or the way we consciously respond to them. Our connection to the divine could fluctuate depending on what we're doing, what we ate recently, what scared us yesterday, etc. We must consistently make a conscious effort to maintain our moral and loving character in order to maintain our connection to the divine, but sometimes the factors outside of our control make this more difficult. These obstacles test our moral and loving character so we can improve upon them and strive to overcome such obstacles.

[AshvinP]

Thanks. I should be more careful with my descriptions so as to not refer to the conscious activity of the earth as belonging to the physical earth, but the “earth entity(ies)”. I suspect the physical features of a conscious entity are constructed by its own spiritual forces, rather than being a “reflection” of these spiritual forces. Spiritual forces cannot be “reflected” in the same way the physical properties can be, because spiritual forces have no physical properties to reflect. Rather, our spiritual forces attempt to replicate themselves through the physical body in relation to certain environmental and evolutionary demands. The context upon which it does this is largely a mystery for me, at the moment.

Thanks for another Steiner quote. He is fascinating.

Grant,

True, reflection is simply one of many concepts we can use to speak of the relation between spiritual and physical-perceptual. Sometimes we speak of the physical as a shadow of those forces (like in Plato's allegory), or as negative images, or as a Maya dream state. I like the way you characterize it as well, which is more scientifically accurate - the physical is indeed constructed through the spiritual forces and therefore an outward image of those forces. Clearly a human being's outer physiognomy - facial expressions, gestures, gait, speech, mannerisms, and such - are expressions of the inner life, the individuated ego. The animal physiognomy is much more representative of its entire species, which then points us towards a group-ego responsible for that species. Once we get to the plants and minerals, though, the outer physiognomy tells us much less about the inner life responsible for it. 

So that is where it can be more helpful to speak of shadows, reflections, etc. When we are speaking of the physical plane as we experience it with normal waking consciousness, reflection is a useful concept because what we perceive outwardly is an inversion of how our inner forces unfold. We are not speaking of spatial properties here so much as temporal dynamics. We referenced one before with the hypnagogic state and communing with the dead - on the physical plane we feel that we are producing thoughts, while in the spiritual we experience it as beings thinking into us, i.e. we are being thought. Many more similar inversions can be discerned. We normally experience our life flowing from the present into the future (towards ideals), but in higher worlds living ideals incarnate from the future into the past (towards perceptual states). 

Normally we feel our thoughts to be insubstantial, at the opposite pole of concrete perceptions and actions. From the spiritual pole, thoughts and words are deeds. In fact, physical processes and events can be understood as the inspired speech of higher beings impressing into the perceptual world. So there is a real insight laying beneath the Hermetic maxim, "as above, so below, and as below, so above." For modern man with the capacity to analogize from the physical to spiritual, reflective substances and surfaces, shadows, etc. exist on the physical plane as symbols pointing us back to the higher worlds and their higher-order laws. It's very useful to deepen our thinking if we can look at a reflective pool of water and contemplate the primordial past in which what we now know as "water" incarnated through a higher-order spiritual Wisdom. "And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate the waters from the waters. So God made the expanse and separated the waters beneath it from the waters above."

You may also be interested in my essay on the 'liminal spaces of perception', which goes more into the nature of physical perceptions as negative images of inner spiritual forces (at a very basic level). 

[Federica]

(...)
Rather, I hold the (probably controversial) opinion that Kanye West's ego is often extremely healthy, but when it is unhealthy, it is very unhealthy. Like I mentioned in my last comment, When our connection to the divine is blocked for whatever reason, we often become reliant on our own pride for inspiration. So if someone has a very large ego, and that connection to the divine is blocked, then that pride will quickly turn to arrogance. Thus, we can reason how arrogance (or alike behaviour) correlates with artistic talent — at least, in the current state of human evolution.

In the light of the connection to the divine as you have elsewhere described, it becomes easier to understand how you see artistic inspiration, and the role of ego as a sort of coordinating feature. But how can connection to the divine come and go, as implied above? This remains unclear to me. Because it's grounded in love and gratitude, and it only can thrive when moral character is developed, what are those reasons that can suddenly block the connection, and make the artist reliant on pride and arrogance, until the divine connection is re-established and backed by a healthy ego again?

Have you ever noticed your levels of inspiration to produce ideas fluctuate? It could either be environmental factors outside of our control or the way we consciously respond to them. Our connection to the divine could fluctuate depending on what we're doing, what we ate recently, what scared us yesterday, etc. We must consistently make a conscious effort to maintain our moral and loving character in order to maintain our connection to the divine, but sometimes the factors outside of our control make this more difficult. These obstacles test our moral and loving character so we can improve upon them and strive to overcome such obstacles.

Yes, clearly there are fluctations. Is the process of establishing connection to the divine a building up, a work of adding loving and moral charchater to the ego, constantly renewing it, or is it a subtracting, removing what clouds and tampers that innate character?

[GrantHenderson]

Thanks. I should be more careful with my descriptions so as to not refer to the conscious activity of the earth as belonging to the physical earth, but the “earth entity(ies)”. I suspect the physical features of a conscious entity are constructed by its own spiritual forces, rather than being a “reflection” of these spiritual forces. Spiritual forces cannot be “reflected” in the same way the physical properties can be, because spiritual forces have no physical properties to reflect. Rather, our spiritual forces attempt to replicate themselves through the physical body in relation to certain environmental and evolutionary demands. The context upon which it does this is largely a mystery for me, at the moment.

Thanks for another Steiner quote. He is fascinating.

Grant,

True, reflection is simply one of many concepts we can use to speak of the relation between spiritual and physical-perceptual. Sometimes we speak of the physical as a shadow of those forces (like in Plato's allegory), or as negative images, or as a Maya dream state. I like the way you characterize it as well, which is more scientifically accurate - the physical is indeed constructed through the spiritual forces and therefore an outward image of those forces. Clearly a human being's outer physiognomy - facial expressions, gestures, gait, speech, mannerisms, and such - are expressions of the inner life, the individuated ego. The animal physiognomy is much more representative of its entire species, which then points us towards a group-ego responsible for that species. Once we get to the plants and minerals, though, the outer physiognomy tells us much less about the inner life responsible for it. 

So that is where it can be more helpful to speak of shadows, reflections, etc. When we are speaking of the physical plane as we experience it with normal waking consciousness, reflection is a useful concept because what we perceive outwardly is an inversion of how our inner forces unfold. We are not speaking of spatial properties here so much as temporal dynamics. We referenced one before with the hypnagogic state and communing with the dead - on the physical plane we feel that we are producing thoughts, while in the spiritual we experience it as beings thinking into us, i.e. we are being thought. Many more similar inversions can be discerned. We normally experience our life flowing from the present into the future (towards ideals), but in higher worlds living ideals incarnate from the future into the past (towards perceptual states). 

Normally we feel our thoughts to be insubstantial, at the opposite pole of concrete perceptions and actions. From the spiritual pole, thoughts and words are deeds. In fact, physical processes and events can be understood as the inspired speech of higher beings impressing into the perceptual world. So there is a real insight laying beneath the Hermetic maxim, "as above, so below, and as below, so above." For modern man with the capacity to analogize from the physical to spiritual, reflective substances and surfaces, shadows, etc. exist on the physical plane as symbols pointing us back to the higher worlds and their higher-order laws. It's very useful to deepen our thinking if we can look at a reflective pool of water and contemplate the primordial past in which what we now know as "water" incarnated through a higher-order spiritual Wisdom. "And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate the waters from the waters. So God made the expanse and separated the waters beneath it from the waters above."

You may also be interested in my essay on the 'liminal spaces of perception', which goes more into the nature of physical perceptions as negative images of inner spiritual forces (at a very basic level). 

Hi Ashvin and Frederica, I apologize for abandoning our previous conversation. I have been busy with work and pursuing other interests. I must admit that I do not believe it is currently my purpose to persistently seek the philosophical understandings that are taught and discussed here. I believe that I am in a position in my life where my purpose in life is more clear than it has been previously, so intensive thinking on clarifying my purpose in life is not as desirable or fruitful to me. Right now I feel the impulse to apply my spiritual knowledge in other practices, even though that spiritual knowledge is still incomplete. While I don't foresee myself being active here in the near future, there will surely be a time in my life where I need this forum again. When I experience a mental/spiritual/emotional crises, my self correcting thought impulses lead me to these types of discussions.

Keeping this at least somewhat relevant to our previous discussion, I have been pursuing the arts lately. I recently learned how to compose and record music. I am still learning, so the productions are a bit amateurish, my voice is a bit rough and the songs are incomplete. But if you want to listen, I am interested in hearing your thoughts.

These lyrics are incomplete. I just contracted Covid 19, so I couldn’t quite finish this one yet:
https://soundcloud.com/ghg12/between-waves-of-fear

This one is an instrumental. It is difficult to mix due to the abundance of horns and a crappy plugins. But it sounds good enough for now:
https://soundcloud.com/ghg12/remain

I have a propensity towards melancholy with my music (a bit like Radiohead), but interestingly, it is this type of music that also makes me happy. When we strongly express an emotion we also express its polar opposing emotion. For example, when we express loss, we also express hope, because the feeling of loss for something can only be experienced with respect to our hope to gain it, and vice versa. This is part of why I think art possesses a remarkable healing power. It bridges a perceived negative emotion with the outcome of its remediation.

Anyways, I hope you guys are doing well,

Grant

[AshvinP]

Hi Ashvin and Frederica, I apologize for abandoning our previous conversation. I have been busy with work and pursuing other interests. I must admit that I do not believe it is currently my purpose to persistently seek the philosophical understandings that are taught and discussed here. I believe that I am in a position in my life where my purpose in life is more clear than it has been previously, so intensive thinking on clarifying my purpose in life is not as desirable or fruitful to me. Right now I feel the impulse to apply my spiritual knowledge in other practices, even though that spiritual knowledge is still incomplete. While I don't foresee myself being active here in the near future, there will surely be a time in my life where I need this forum again. When I experience a mental/spiritual/emotional crises, my self correcting thought impulses lead me to these types of discussions.

Keeping this at least somewhat relevant to our previous discussion, I have been pursuing the arts lately. I recently learned how to compose and record music. I am still learning, so the productions are a bit amateurish, my voice is a bit rough and the songs are incomplete. But if you want to listen, I am interested in hearing your thoughts.

These lyrics are incomplete. I just contracted Covid 19, so I couldn’t quite finish this one yet:
https://soundcloud.com/ghg12/between-waves-of-fear

This one is an instrumental. It is difficult to mix due to the abundance of horns and a crappy plugins. But it sounds good enough for now:
https://soundcloud.com/ghg12/remain

I have a propensity towards melancholy with my music (a bit like Radiohead), but interestingly, it is this type of music that also makes me happy. When we strongly express an emotion we also express its polar opposing emotion. For example, when we express loss, we also express hope, because the feeling of loss for something can only be experienced with respect to our hope to gain it, and vice versa. This is part of why I think art possesses a remarkable healing power. It bridges a perceived negative emotion with the outcome of its remediation.

Anyways, I hope you guys are doing well,

Grant

Hey Grant,

Thanks for the songs. I really enjoyed them, especially the instrumental! I'm glad you are doing well.

It's interesting because the philosophical understanding we pursue here is only a stepping stone to a more experiential path in which we discover more and more leeway in, and therefore take greater and greater control of, our intuitive stream of becoming in the world, moving towards our high ideals in life. The first place we can find this leeway is in our cognitive life, which is why it's best to carefully examine our opinions, assumptions, theories, habits of thinking, preferences, interests, etc. Philosophy is simply a tool for doing that. By loosening the cognitive constraints, we then optimize the tool through which we can navigate the deeper pathways of our soul-life and perhaps even our physical-life processes. After all, the latter are the outer physiognomy of the former. For ex., by working on our soul-life through deeper imaginative thinking, we may be able to release a lot of physiological tension which is built up from dry intellectual thinking, which could even begin to change our facial structure. That is just one tiny example which comes to mind. One major aspect of this work is spiraling together the natural oscillations between the poles of our willing-feeling-thinking experience.

Through this work of living thinking, I began to notice how often I also waited for times of acute anxiety, frustration, sadness, mental exhaustion, etc. before re-dedicating myself to spiritual practice and study. We begin to feel like it's almost a law of nature that the pole of descent into arduous Earthly existence must exhaust itself before we can propel our ascent back into the realm of Cosmic archetypes, where we find sweet relief. But it's easy to discern that there is no law of nature here, but only our own habit of thinking-being. When things are going good, when our understanding of our lives and the world around us seems clear, and we are generally reaping the fruits of what we have sown, then we let the guard down, become comfortable, complacent, etc. and thereby begin our descent. If, instead, we were to allow feelings of devotion and gratitude to inspire even further commitment to spiritual practice and study at these bountiful times, then the slopes of these oscillations would smooth out enormously. They would begin spiraling together and the Cosmic archetypal experience would begin inflowing our otherwise arduous Earthly existence as well, expanding our cognitive-emotional understanding of the latter into previously unsuspected spheres. Then something like our artisitic creation takes on much more enriched and inspiring meaning for us.

I'm not writing this to draw you into some philosophical-spiritual discussion which you are not interested in pursuing right now. It's just something worth contemplating more in your free time. And it's worth also noting that something impelled you to come back on the forum and post. Often we rationalize such an action to ourselves - saying we wanted to do X or Y, like share our songs, and made a series of rational calculations to best accomplish that goal - but the reality is that these seemingly mundane actions are just as driven by deep spiritual (sub-conscious or supra-conscious) impulses as the more ambitious things we do in life. These impulses are often much more informed and wise than our normal thinking, steering us through corridors we would have no hope of navigating with only our rational calculations. I genuinely enjoyed the songs, but maybe your impulse to create and share the music is also serving a higher purpose in the deepening of your spiritual life? It's another thing to think about.