In continuation to previous post:
Federica wrote: ↑Sat Oct 22, 2022 9:48 pm
(...)
Chapter III - Dormant strengths of thinking
The exercise of concentration enables the pupil to go back from object to concept. Such an exercise can be said to be complete the moment the concept itself is enabled to become the object of concentration. Concentration is made into thinking contemplation of the concept, reconstructed from the object. The thinking activity, that initially was thinking the object, becomes object itself, it takes the place of the object. In this way, thinking concentration - i.e. contemplation - can attain the intensity peculiar to sensory perception.
Essentially, sensory perception is an intense thinking synthesis that resonates in the soul from the external world, through the senses, the structure of which belongs to the sensible sphere, more than to the soul. The investigator of the supersensible attains the perception of the concept. The concept, assumed as object - perceived as such - requires an exceptionally autonomous thinking activity: the incarnation of an essence, which, from the perspective of ordinary thinking, is unconscious and transcendent, as the kernel of the Life-idea is, from the perspective of the perception of living things.
Man cannot directly affect things through thinking, because he does not perceive thinking. Instead, he can operate physically through physical objects, because he perceives them through the physical senses. But he does not perceive the thinking activity by which he can think of any objects. It suffices for him that thinking can fill itself with sensory content, and it is only when thinking is identified with such content that he knows thinking. He does not suspect that thinking can fill itself with its own content, and that, as such, it can itself be perceived. The discipline of concentration takes him to such a possibility.
The pupil starts concentrating on the object. At first, he necessarily has to do with series of representations, that is to say, with thinking still filled with the intellectualistic, sensory image of the object. By bringing concentration beyond that point, he reaches the concept, i.e. the thought-synthesis of the object. As his power of concentration strengthens with time, he reaches a level when he can assume as object the concept itself - the obtained synthesis: the objective content has disappeared, an essence is present in its place, which is not easy to contemplate at first, because of lacking acquaintance with non-sensible contents. But it is precisely the contemplation of this essence that leads the pupil to the perception of the supersensible in living things.
As he concentrates, the pupil executes a non-ordinary act, unrequested by nature, an act that is indeed instinctively countered by nature. He calls original thinking into action. Just as, in ordinary thinking, he can reconstruct the essential process of a man-made object - thus going from visible back to invisible, seeing the invisible become visible - so, by eliciting the dormant strengths of thinking from concentration - as it is moved from object to concept - he experiences a living element peculiar to the original nature of thinking. He perceives such a living element insofar as he overcomes the dialectic - or reflected - limitation of thinking. He can recognize such living element, identical to the Supersensible that manifests in the organic world as Life.
By intensifying concentration, the pupil makes the experience of thinking as pre-individual - hence pre-dialectical - Light. Thinking is revealed to him as a stream carrying the same original element that builds living Nature, and flows in him as vital body, or etheric body, also called “subtle body”. The Light of Life in thinking is not conscious, because consciousness normally arises where such Light is reflected, devoid of Life. For this reason, ordinary man only perceives inanimate things and, as a consequence, he only can objectively operate through inanimate things. In him, dialectical consciousness manifests at a level that is lower than the level at which it arises in the soul as non-dialectical, living consciousness.
Concentration is always concentration of thinking, regardless of the object, or theme. But simultaneously, it is an act of Will. There isn’t any exercise of concentration that is not at the same time as exercise of Will. It is indeed in the sphere of Will that the living element of concept is recognizable - that which constitutes the immanent-transcendent kernel of the concept, or the idea, turned onto the living element.
II. Meditation. The attunement between Thinking and Will is the foundation of the balance and strength of the soul. The balance and strength of the soul open the way to its supersensible power. This is the power in which the broadest and most freeing Feeling resurrects as Life.
III. Contemplative concentration. The pupil contemplates the concept of the object, devoid of sensible elements. He has it before him as something objective, as a sign, with or without form, as recognizable synthesis of thought thoughts.The synthesis has to be alive, intimately vitalized by the univocal flow of the thoughts that have formed it. The attention should become calmer and calmer, not requiring effort or will. The deepest will operates while he, without personal interest, contemplates the synthesis as something objective, independent of him.
The contemplation should last at least three minutes, without interferences of other thoughts, moods, or memories, so as to be absolute concentration. This exercise leads the pupil to the pre-dialectic perception of Thinking.
In fact, when he thinks of the sensible object according to the typical exercise of concentration, he uses ordinary, reflected thinking, that is to say the Light of thinking normally reflected by the cerebral organ. Such organ - as it almost always scarcely performs its physiological function - acts as a distorting mirror.
The Light of thinking is true and pure, but it is always reflected by a cerebral system that makes it scarcely true, and impure: that is the origin of the subjective viewpoint, which continually opposes individual to individual, and is difficulty to overcome, because that requires the reunion of reflected Light with original, pre-cerebral Light.
The typical exercise of concentration allows thinking to realize its nature independent of the cerebral screen. In essence, it is an act of will, under the sign of the
I. In so doing, the
I temporarily reestablishes its order. As a rule, such order is opposed by everyday life, which does stimulate the
I-forces, but subjugates and corrupts them at the same time, originating the internal battle that causes all human evil. Therefore, the typical exercise of concentration, in its simplicity, can alone lead to the supersensible experience, and to the inner balance that is necessary for existence to unfold according to its spiritual Principle.
In the exercise, the investigator gathers the reflected light, which is the series of representations necessary to reconstruct the object. He performs an inner activity that stimulates the
I and its identity with the original Light. He does not accomplish such activity directly though - he could not. He does it by using the object as backing. If he - at the level he has so far attained - addressed the Light directly, he couldn’t but reject it, because his current state of consciousness is essentially an instinctive rejection of the Light. He can only start at the level of the reflected Light, but at the same time he can operate in harmony with the original Light.
In essence, the synthesis of the object is the restoration of the unitary Light, the undivided apparently divided, and analytical in its reflection, that is to say, in dialectic thinking. The concept is the sign of the one Light, but usually it is itself reflected. Every concept is at its origin an operation in keeping with the one Light, but not a conscious operation. In other words, it is accomplished through the pre-dialectic, dormant strengths of thinking, inaccessible to ordinary man.
Indeed, the Ascesis of modern man consists of the conquest of the dormant forces of the concept. Taking into account the fact that man essentially regulates himself by the concepts that he has of the objects, it can be understood how all his life is the consequence of his conceptual construction, and the importance of Ascesis through which he masters the formative forces of concept. Normally, he does not use the concepts in accordance with their synthesis of Light, but as reflected concepts, in accordance with his psychic necessity, that subjugates thinking - except the case of mathematical-physical thinking.
In the typical exercise of concentration, the investigator operates in keeping with the one Light, not by virtue of possessing it, but because his will operates in a reflection, over which he gains a direct control through exercise, tracing back from multiplicity to synthesis. By contemplating the concept, he uses such power directly. He is moving in the one Light, in pure thinking, reunited with pure feeling and pure will, in a single stream of Strength - the original Light. That he moves in such Strength. though, does not mean that he possesses it. He can move through it to the extent that he grasps its laws.
The conquest of the dormant, formative strengths of the concept through concentration is the pre-initiation undertaking of the modern pupil. To him, going from reflected thinking to its Light means to go from the ancient “lunar path” to the “solar path”, in other words, to transfer the center of inner activity from the astral body to the immanent
I. It is a decisive act, through which the Ascetic overcomes the original malfunction of the soul. A malfunction that formerly required a transcendent, or metaphysical path to the Divine, rather than an immanent one.
All spiritual paths that preceded the conscious experience of the concept are to be considered lunar, regardless of their traditional form, in the East or in the West, because they operate through the astral body and not through the
I, including when they refer to an inner Subject. When they speak of an
I, a
Purusha, or an
Atma-Purusha, in reality they refer to a transcendent
I requiring ecstatic elevation, not to an individual
I.
Since the beginning of his earthly evolution, man has operated on Earth under the guidance of Powers that affect his astral body, which is granted an authority that, in fact, belongs to the
I. These Powers will raise the deepest opposition to the I, when the latter will start to act as the center of the autonomous life of consciousness. Such autonomy they will not tolerate. From the beginning, they have given man everything: knowledge of the Mysteries, spiritual vision, rites,
yoga, social guidance, provided that the free
I does not arise in him. In modern time the free
I has arisen as individual I at the lowest level, with its transcending power initially oriented towards the sensible, from which a science of physical nature was born. In truth, this I is not to be considered a contingent
I, but recognized as the true
I, waiting to be made aware of itself and the value of its own autonomous consciousness.
For millennia, since the ancient malfunction occurred, the
I would feel uncomfortable within the soul, because it has been submitted to astral forces that are hierarchically inferior to it, and that enslave it to impulses of inferior nature. Man would nonetheless know that it is always possible to neutralize such submission, by observing the rites and rules that would maintain the spiritual tenor within him. Instincts and passions will devour him, should he not observe the rules that make the astral body compliant with Entities that dominate it, rather than with the
I. For this reason, the Ascetic would always look for the Spirit, the
Atma, the Supreme
I, outside himself, escaping earthly individuality, while, in truth, he can only accomplish his experience on Earth through such individuality. Revelation, ecstasis, samadhi, happen through the soul, not through the individual
I, that first arises in the soul through synthetic thinking activity, concept, and the enterprise of knowing the physical world. In concept, man starts to experiment Universality, which he formerly used to experience outside himself as transcendent, when identification with it would produce ecstasy. Instead, immanent identity starts in sensory perception, and the determination of concept.
In the present day, man still does not know the
I-forces through which he forms the concept. He uses the concept at the level of the astral body, hence he uses it devoid of its original force. The epoch of the I has come. Concept today is the tool of ordinary thinking, but man is still deceived by the ancient Adversary: he does use the concept, but reflected, de-realized, dialectic. He builds concepts as if with empty words.
Nonetheless, he cannot have concepts that do not characterize
I-presence in the astral body, power of identity. However, he eliminates every time, at the astral, reflected level, the
I-presence and the living thinking. In this way, he cultivates pain in the soul, neurosis, and inability to welcome the force from his own center. As he looks for the supersensible, he believes he has to come back to past levels of consciousness, giving up the actual content of the lucid consciousness, rather than moving forward, winning back these levels through lucid consciousness. He devotes himself to psychic methods,
yoga, ascetics that promise the strength, balance, and self-mastery that he only can attain from his own center, to the extent that he can perceive the force through which the concept becomes conscious content in the soul.
The current mistake of man is to subordinate the dawning forces of Spirit, independent of the astral body, to the dead impulses of the astral body. Such forces emerge in rational thinking, which become conscious, at the dialectical level, through the astral body. The nascent
I-forces are enslaved again to the astral, which always expresses the authority of the old dependence on dogmas. Today, the dogma is Matter. In reflected, dialectical thinking, man is continually cutting off of himself the pure Light-forces of thinking that always emerge in the original formulation of the concept. The task of concentration and meditation is to raise consciousness at the level of its own principle of Light.
based on: Scaligero, M. (1975).
Tecniche di concentrazione interiore. Edizioni Mediterranee, Roma
This is the goal towards which the sixth age of humanity will strive: the popularization of occult truth on a wide scale. That's the mission of this age and the society that unites spiritually has the task of bringing this occult truth to life everywhere and applying it directly. That's exactly what our age is missing.
