Insight into the full nature of reality

[AshvinP]

Yes, you are right, it's a distant goal of a long path of spiritual practice for most of us, and it won't happen overnight. I'm not someone who can claim such attainment and who is authorized to teach it or give any practical advice here. But it is important to always keep the goal in mind when we practice in order to keep the path straight in the right direction. So, highlighting this goal was the purpose of starting this topic.

Ok, I was thinking that perhaps you were starting this topic as a reflection on duality and oneness, as per yesterday's conversation. And I was not aware of Ashvin's reply when I posted the above, otherwise I would probably not have posted it.

For my part, I see the goal slightly differently. A description of my disposition would be that I am not really keeping in mind a goal of realizing oneness, rather, I am eager to discover the truth, whatever this is. I don't want to set expectations for the color of oneness.

This is a very healthy attitude. A part of the difficulty is that we are always forgetting just how much Maya we are immersed in. Many spiritualists have no problem declaring the outer perceptual world Maya, which does not at all resemble the inner reality, but when it comes to the inner life of concepts, it is forgotten that the concept-forms are Maya in the same way. That is why, when we come across people speaking of states or realizations of 'oneness', we can be confident that they are only speaking of their concept of oneness. There is certainly a real profound experience underlying it, but the problem is when an entire spiritual path is built around this experience of oneness which is only mediated by planar concepts. Unless higher-order cognitive activity has been learned as new thinking skills, there is no other choice but to use such mediation. We should never underestimate how deeply the idolatrous tendency runs within the human soul.

In contrast, our healthy phenomenological reasoning, which refuses to settle for spiritual ontologies or to give undue substantiality to our concepts, can discern that attaining a genuine state of 'oneness' would be nothing less than awakening to how every single molecule, planet, solar system, life form, soul experience, etc. has been fashioned through processes of soul and spirit, in its precise and living details. Our reasoning tells us that any experience of 'oneness' short of this is simply a balancing of a scale which sits at the base of many higher-order scales, i.e. we are still modulated by many higher-order polar forces which operate as experiential dualities when we are not fully conscious of them. In other words, our consciousness is still within the conditioning flow of Be-ings and their spiritual activity, some of whom are more interested in their own goals which come at the expense of Earthly spiritual evolution.

Once this depth gradient is discerned, it will only seem natural that these states could become extremely deceptive depending how we approach them. A radical inner humility is necessary here. Many of things we are accustomed to thinking will be inverted. For ex., we may normally feel it is arrogant and presumptuous to speak of the Earth's and humanity's evolution over millions of years in 'excruciating' detail, while it is humble and unassuming to let it remain 'open' to all manner of possibilities. But that feeling is born of over-confidence in the substantiality of one's normal concepts. It is precisely the excruciating details (also metaphors, analogies, illustrations, etc.) which become necessary when it is realized how inadequate our normal concepts are to reflect the intuitive meaning which is seeking to be conveyed through us. In my experience, it is very unlikely a Master who has made conscious these lofty spheres of intuitive meaning would ever want to convey it with any terms of 'mystical oneness' without going into much more detail.

[Lou Gold]

Agree. I would think that Oneness is one of the early wins, after which the way to Truth is still very long.

Yes, as I said, it's one of the key gates, but not the final destination.

Eugene,

I'm curious. Do you feel there's a final destination?

[Stranger]

Eugene,

I'm curious. Do you feel there's a final destination?

I don't know, but I don't think there is

[Lou Gold]

Eugene,

I'm curious. Do you feel there's a final destination?

I don't know, but I don't think there is

I feel the same. Don't think that living ever ends.

[Cleric K]

Speaking of general truths and finer details (in the sense of Ashvin's post above) I'm reminded of this video:



This is not criticism of Arvin Ash, I enjoy his videos and he's one of the youtubers that tries to instill some heartfelt warmth in the scientific ideas. The point is that the abstract concept of oneness is so general that even materialists and spiritualists turn out to be on the same page! But aside the agreement that this feeling of oneness is beautiful, all have different visions for what the place of the human being is within this differentiated oneness. So in the end this oneness acts as nothing but a wildcard - everyone can use it to justify anything - from the highest food to the worst crime. And this only comes to show how disconnected this general intuition of oneness stands from practical existence.

[Stranger]

This is not criticism of Arvin Ash, I enjoy his videos and he's one of the youtubers that tries to instill some heartfelt warmth in the scientific ideas. The point is that the abstract concept of oneness is so general that even materialists and spiritualists turn out to be on the same page! But aside the agreement that this feeling of oneness is beautiful, all have different visions for what the place of the human being is within this differentiated oneness. So in the end this oneness acts as nothing but a wildcard - everyone can use it to justify anything - from the highest food to the worst crime. And this only comes to show how disconnected this general intuition of oneness stands from practical existence.

That's right, Cleric, this will always happen as long as people take "oneness" as an abstract idea that does not require one to step outside the bubble of their own little separate self. That's why Steiner didn't even use the term "oneness", but instead approached the "entering into all things" through becoming "selfless". And there is no abstraction shortcut around being "selfless", it has to be practically and experientially internalized and realized in every moment of one's life.

"Thus to enter into all things, one must first step outside oneself. One must become “selfless” in order to become blended with the “self,” the “ego” of another being.”
Rudolf Steiner

[AshvinP]

This is not criticism of Arvin Ash, I enjoy his videos and he's one of the youtubers that tries to instill some heartfelt warmth in the scientific ideas. The point is that the abstract concept of oneness is so general that even materialists and spiritualists turn out to be on the same page! But aside the agreement that this feeling of oneness is beautiful, all have different visions for what the place of the human being is within this differentiated oneness. So in the end this oneness acts as nothing but a wildcard - everyone can use it to justify anything - from the highest food to the worst crime. And this only comes to show how disconnected this general intuition of oneness stands from practical existence.

That's right, Cleric, this will always happen as long as people take "oneness" as an abstract idea that does not require one to step outside the bubble of their own little separate self. That's why Steiner didn't even use the term "oneness", but instead approached the "entering into all things" through becoming "selfless". And there is no abstraction shortcut around being "selfless", it has to be practically and experientially internalized and realized in every moment of one's life.

"Thus to enter into all things, one must first step outside oneself. One must become “selfless” in order to become blended with the “self,” the “ego” of another being.”
Rudolf Steiner

I am reminded of Norse mythology and Jung's quote here - "No tree it is said can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell."





This can be seen as an image of the 'depth gradient' of Consciousness within the human soul we often refer to. Through the process of our spiritual involution (which was a 'physical' evolution) over the course of many ages and lifetimes, our roots have reached right down into the depths of hell. When this whole progression is taken as a living reality, we cannot help but feel how tremendously difficult it is for us to be "selfless", how much inner transformation it will really take. Everything we think, feel, and desire is permeated with personalized self-interest; every act of attention and perception. So the first task of an esoteric pupil can only be to grow in self-consciousness, knowing that the work of inner purification of the will can only come through living knowledge of one's place in the Earthly evolutionary depth gradient, including repeated Earth lives which, in turn, are precipitations of repeated sojourns between death-rebirth. We only attain the 'Selfless' through the Self whose sphere of interest has expanded to encompass the soul-life of all Earthly beings, which is none other than its own soul-life when viewed through the evolutionary depth gradient, without sacrificing its individuality which alone allows it to participate in the creative responsibility of the Divinities.

[Stranger]

We only attain the 'Selfless' through the Self whose sphere of interest has expanded to encompass the soul-life of all Earthly beings

That's exactly right - through realizing the Self that permeates and contains the whole universe where our individual self is only one form among a vast variety of beings and not "the center of the universe" as we commonly feel it. Realizing this universal Self is exactly the "Insight into the full nature of reality" and attaining the "holistic view of things" that Steiner was talking about.

And yes, the "selfish" stage is an inevitable stage of our evolution, there is nothing wrong with it per se and we could not skip it. For humanoids it used to be a crucial survival mechanism, there was no way a humanoid would survive in the wild without a sense of separate self. It's just that the time for humanity came when the selfish state became one of the major impediments and major sources of humanity's problems on both individual and global scale. Every problem on the planet, be it in private or social life, can be traced to human selfishness in one way or another.

[Stranger]

If the human being wants to prepare himself for Inspiration, he must so develop his inner nature that this selflessness is his very own, even when nothing outside compels it. He must learn to create inwardly, but in such a way that his “ego” does not in the least way play an arbitrary role in this creative activity. The difficulties to be considered in achieving such selflessness become the more apparent the more consideration is given to what soul powers are especially needed for Inspiration. — The three fundamental powers of soul life are differentiated: Representation (thinking), feeling, and willing.

Rudolf Steiner, THE STAGES OF HIGHER KNOWLEDGE, Chapter Three: Inspiration

(Note that here Steiner talks about the importance of selflessness even on the stage of developing Inspiration. )

[AshvinP]

We only attain the 'Selfless' through the Self whose sphere of interest has expanded to encompass the soul-life of all Earthly beings

That's exactly right - through realizing the Self that permeates and contains the whole universe where our individual self is only one form among a vast variety of beings and not "the center of the universe" as we commonly feel it. Realizing this universal Self is exactly the "Insight into the full nature of reality" and attaining the "holistic view of things" that Steiner was talking about.

And yes, the "selfish" stage is an inevitable stage of our evolution, there is nothing wrong with it per se and we could not skip it. For humanoids it used to be a crucial survival mechanism, there was no way a humanoid would survive in the wild without a sense of separate self. It's just that the time for humanity came when the selfish state became one of the major impediments and major sources of humanity's problems on both individual and global scale. Every problem on the planet, be it in private or social life, can be traced to human selfishness in one way or another.

We are lapsing back into a planar conception of "self" here, where it is 'one form among many'. It is better to conceive the individual self as a fractal image of the higher, macrocosmic Self. Our sense of individual creative thinking agency gives us the most direct intuition of this higher Self and its nature. All the forces of 'selfishness' we currently harbor are polar opposites which have 'distended' from sublime spiritual forces, i.e. hate/love, greed/charity, anxiety/peace, etc. This distention comes about precisely because the polar forces remain subconscious within us, deeply buried within the layers of our soul-strata, acting as impulses, instincts, passions, etc. without the Light of cognition to illuminate them. That is how the individual self has become so impure and therefore alienated from its true nature as an image of the Divine.

To ascend perpendicular with our thinking here, we should become very interested in the precise details of how we are images of the Divine, through the substances-processes of our anatomy, physiology, biology, psychology, etc. Every little detail of the inner-outer world should begin to speak to us of how it fits into the holistic evolutionary structure through the mediation of our thinking consciousness. Since Steiner has been quoted a lot, I think we should be more clear on what he is speaking of in terms of imaginative, inspired, and intuitive cognition. Here is a typical excerpt below. It should be noted that we are not dealing with any stages of consciousness which can be reached without much spiritual training and inner purification, although we can certainly begin brining a new life of depth to our thinking which makes clear that these higher stages are living realities in which our "I"-consciousness is always nested.

When a person has advanced to the stage of seeing into his inner self, he can sink his consciousness into other beings. For this he must have gained control of the point midway between the eyes and from there direct his consciousness downward into the heart. Then he can transfer his consciousness into other things; for example, he can then investigate what lives in an ant heap. Then he can also perceive the life in a beehive. Here however a phenomenon presents itself which is otherwise not to be experienced on earth. In the way a beehive functions one experiences something which is outside our earthly existence, something which is not found anywhere else on earth. What takes place on the other planets cannot be discovered merely by thinking. One cannot for example experience what is taking place on the Sun or Venus if one is unable to transfer one's consciousness into the life and functioning of a colony of bees. The bee has not gone through the whole course of evolution as we have. From the outset it has not been connected with the same evolutionary sequence as the other animals and man. The consciousness of the beehive, not of the single bee, is immensely lofty. The wisdom of this consciousness will only be attained by man in the Venus existence. Then he will have the consciousness which is necessary in order to build with a substance which he creates out of his own being. The ants build the ant heap out of all sorts of things, but as yet build no cells. The building of cells is on higher planes something absolutely different. Through transferring one's consciousness into the beehive, through taking on the Venus consciousness, one learns something entirely different from anything else on earth, the complete recession of the element of sex. With the bees what is sexual is vested only in the one queen. The kama-sexuality is almost entirely eliminated; the drones are killed. Here we have the prototype of something which will actually be accomplished in a future humanity, when work is the highest principle. It is only through the impulse of the spirit that one gains the faculty of transferring oneself into the community of the bees.