The realm of the Demiurge

[Stranger]

I need to comment to clarify a common confusion about the traditional approach to nonduality. There are different stages on the path. Rupert Spira call them “I am something -> I am nothing -> I am everything”, and Ramana Maharshi called them (skipping the first one) “The world is an illusion, Brahman is the only reality -> The world is Brahman”

1. The first stage is a common dualistic state where we all start and where we identify with our separate self, be it a human being with a body, or a soul. The two basic premises are: “I am a self, a subject that experiences the outer world as an object” and “The outer world is a multitude of separate selves and objects”. This is “I am something” stage.

2. The second stage is where we realize that it is not our imagined separate self that is aware, that thinks and wills, and that our sense of self is just a thought-sense form that is being thought and experienced. We start distinguishing between the Self which is “doing” awareness/experiencing and the “content” that is being experienced as two different “layers” of reality, between the permanent and impermanent, and we tend to label the permanent Awareness-thinking-Self as “real” and its non-permanent content as “illusory”. This is an important step of the practice, but many people interpret it as the final stage of “enlightenment” and get stuck there. There is still dualism in such state (a separation and distinction between the “real” Self itself and “unreal” content of experience), and nihilism (as the content is disregarded as “unreal”). This is “I am nothing” stage.

3. The third stage is the final integration which happens with realization that the World is as real as the Self and not different from the Self (“I am everything”, “The World is Brahman”). In this state there is no longer a distinction or separation between permanent and impermanent, real and unreal, everything is simultaneously Oneness and multiplicity, permanent and impermanent, One and many, inseparable but diverse. Or more precisely, these old dualistic concepts simply no longer apply, they turn out to be abstractions no longer relevant to Reality. That does not mean that this state is non-explicable, it just means that it is directly and experientially known with new meanings. It is the same Thinking that knows Itself intimately and directly in all its forms beyond the outdated dualistic concepts. Unfortunately, these “nondual” meanings have no proper words in human language.

One may ask then why do we need the second stage? Can we skip it and go directly to #3? I think in principle it may be possible, but the transition from #1 to #3 is just too dramatic, it’s too far of a reach, and most people need to go more gradually through #2 but with the risk of misinterpreting it as the final stage and getting trapped there.

PS: The phrase "final integration" does not mean that it is a final destination point of the souls' evolution, on the opposite, it's only a beginning of a next level of the path free of the dualistic delusion. The word "final" only means that is the final stage of the transitional process between dualistic and nondual states of consciousness.

[AshvinP]

Now will we stick with this thinking core to 'test the spirits to see whether they are of God' or distance from that core towards a 'pure awareness' or 'experiencing' which replaces the cognitive force we use in all other aspects of life

We cannot separate the cognitive core of Thinking from Awareness because it is the same core. That which Thinks is also That which is Aware of every thought and of Thinking itself. In the actual inner experience we cannot separate them and say - "here is the Thinking core and here is the Awareness of it". I mean, we can do such separation, but only as an abstraction. If we look at our direct first-person experience, we see that every act of thinking is inseparably and immediately/simultaneously consciously experienced, that there is awareness/experiencing of every thought and of Thinking itself (if we pay attention to that experience). Thinking IS Awareness, they are inseparable, but they represent somewhat different aspects of the same ever Thinking-Experiencing Self. But I agree that there is a trap in some nondual teachings claiming that we need to sublimate the "pure awareness" and stop thinking in order to achieve "enlightenment". That's nonsense. It's a misinterpretation of some Zen practices where by "stopping thinking" they meant suspending the lower-order discursive and abstract thinking where the delusion of separation resides in order to divert the attention to the awareness of Thinking itself.

That's right, awareness-experience is inseperable from thinking. What does this imply? It means there is a lawful gradient through which we always experience or become aware of our intuitive becoming.

Let's say we are thinking through a detective story we are reading. We have the holistic intuition that this story fits together, that all the parts of the story exist in a certain relation which makes it into a coherent narrative. Yet we are confronted with fragmented storylines, characters, scenes, clues, hints, timelines, etc. Perhaps the author keeps switching between an account of present events and flashbacks to the past. (this is somewhat how our actual lives unfold, as we alternate between past-present-future states of being through the cycle of sleeping and waking, disincarnate and incarnate). Now at a certain point of the story, we have a qualitative jump which gives us inspiration - the 'aha' or 'Eureka!' moment where everything we have so far confronted coheres into a musical whole, and we begin to ancticipate the intersection and resolution of the various storylines. Most people would feel such an inspiration simply pops up out of nowhere, directly from the Source of 'pure experiencing' or whatever they call it.

Spiritual science, or phenomenology of Thinking, is all about unveiling the lawful gradient through which our current stream of becoming, which is kept 'in focus' for us through our ordinary conceptual reasoning, coheres from the intuitions, inspirations, and imaginations which are the spiritual activity of higher-order beings. The imaginative domain is like the permeable membrane through which that higher activity flows into and out of our states of being kept in focus by the ordinary reasoning. If this process is understood concretely rather than abstracted out, then it becomes clear why the 'lawful mechanisms/structures' of Thinking must become increasingly One with the essence of nondual cognition, through our lawful evolution. The very act of experientially bringing the 'how' and the 'what/why' of spiritual evolution, the means and the ends, into closer union is the genuine nondual realization. Without this closer union established through the imaginative membrane, there will always remain a duality, a 'hard problem' which splits the consciousness of our intuitive becoming down the middle, so to speak.

You may say you already agree with the above, in which case we will just have to agree to disagree that you actually agree I am just hoping it serves as a very crude introduction of whatever Cleric is writing.

[Stranger]

That's right, awareness-experience is inseperable from thinking. What does this imply? It means there is a lawful gradient through which we always experience or become aware of our intuitive becoming.

Let's say we are thinking through a detective story we are reading. We have the holistic intuition that this story fits together, that all the parts of the story exist in a certain relation which makes it into a coherent narrative. Yet we are confronted with fragmented storylines, characters, scenes, clues, hints, timelines, etc. Perhaps the author keeps switching between an account of present events and flashbacks to the past. (this is somewhat how our actual lives unfold, as we alternate between past-present-future states of being through the cycle of sleeping and waking, disincarnate and incarnate). Now at a certain point of the story, we have a qualitative jump which gives us inspiration - the 'aha' or 'Eureka!' moment where everything we have so far confronted coheres into a musical whole, and we begin to ancticipate the intersection and resolution of the various storylines. Most people would feel such an inspiration simply pops up out of nowhere, directly from the Source of 'pure experiencing' or whatever they call it.

Spiritual science, or phenomenology of Thinking, is all about unveiling the lawful gradient through which our current stream of becoming, which is kept 'in focus' for us through our ordinary conceptual reasoning, coheres from the intuitions, inspirations, and imaginations which are the spiritual activity of higher-order beings. The imaginative domain is like the permeable membrane through which that higher activity flows into and out of our states of being kept in focus by the ordinary reasoning. If this process is understood concretely rather than abstracted out, then it becomes clear why the 'lawful mechanisms/structures' of Thinking must become increasingly One with the essence of nondual cognition, through our lawful evolution. The very act of experientially bringing the 'how' and the 'what/why' of spiritual evolution, the means and the ends, into closer union is the genuine nondual realization. Without this closer union established through the imaginative membrane, there will always remain a duality, a 'hard problem' which splits the consciousness of our intuitive becoming down the middle, so to speak.

You may say you already agree with the above, in which case we will just have to agree to disagree that you actually agree I am just hoping it serves as a very crude introduction of whatever Cleric is writing.

That's right, you call it "lawful gradient" and I call it for myself a "natural process of integration", but essentially "natural process" and "lawful gradient" point to the same reality of the Self-directed flow of evolution but just with different names. Or, in the paradigm of self-causation (see this topic) it means that the Thinking-Consciousness creates for itself lawful processes/gradients that ensure the positive outcome of its own evolution and even its own existence.

[AshvinP]

That's right, awareness-experience is inseperable from thinking. What does this imply? It means there is a lawful gradient through which we always experience or become aware of our intuitive becoming.

Let's say we are thinking through a detective story we are reading. We have the holistic intuition that this story fits together, that all the parts of the story exist in a certain relation which makes it into a coherent narrative. Yet we are confronted with fragmented storylines, characters, scenes, clues, hints, timelines, etc. Perhaps the author keeps switching between an account of present events and flashbacks to the past. (this is somewhat how our actual lives unfold, as we alternate between past-present-future states of being through the cycle of sleeping and waking, disincarnate and incarnate). Now at a certain point of the story, we have a qualitative jump which gives us inspiration - the 'aha' or 'Eureka!' moment where everything we have so far confronted coheres into a musical whole, and we begin to ancticipate the intersection and resolution of the various storylines. Most people would feel such an inspiration simply pops up out of nowhere, directly from the Source of 'pure experiencing' or whatever they call it.

Spiritual science, or phenomenology of Thinking, is all about unveiling the lawful gradient through which our current stream of becoming, which is kept 'in focus' for us through our ordinary conceptual reasoning, coheres from the intuitions, inspirations, and imaginations which are the spiritual activity of higher-order beings. The imaginative domain is like the permeable membrane through which that higher activity flows into and out of our states of being kept in focus by the ordinary reasoning. If this process is understood concretely rather than abstracted out, then it becomes clear why the 'lawful mechanisms/structures' of Thinking must become increasingly One with the essence of nondual cognition, through our lawful evolution. The very act of experientially bringing the 'how' and the 'what/why' of spiritual evolution, the means and the ends, into closer union is the genuine nondual realization. Without this closer union established through the imaginative membrane, there will always remain a duality, a 'hard problem' which splits the consciousness of our intuitive becoming down the middle, so to speak.

You may say you already agree with the above, in which case we will just have to agree to disagree that you actually agree I am just hoping it serves as a very crude introduction of whatever Cleric is writing.

That's right, you call it "lawful gradient" and I call it for myself a "natural process of integration", but essentially "natural process" and "lawful gradient" point to the same reality of the Self-directed flow of evolution but just with different names. Or, in the paradigm of self-causation (see this topic) it means that the Thinking-Consciousness creates for itself lawful processes/gradients that ensure the positive outcome of its own evolution and even its own existence.

I want to briefly add another consideration. Earlier you asked Cleric how these things relate to the OP and why another topic isn't started. So there is a discontinuity in the understanding of the lawful gradient of imagination, inspiration, intuition, which I think should be made more clear. Esoteric Christianity would understand it as ascending through the Holy Spirit, who was sent after Christ as a 'comforter' until he returns (into the etheric sphere from within), to inwardly unite with the Christ-being, and thereby ascend to the Father - "no one comes to the Father except through me." Although I say 'inwardly', these are not to be understood as simply isolated psycho-spiritual developments - they will find their concrete manifestations in the whole course of outer development of humanity as well. The inner always becomes outer in nature and culture, just as the inner cells of our physical body are always pushed out towards the skin until they are shed. Further, the Holy Spirit is understood as none other than Jehovah of the OT, or we could say Jehovah redeemed-fulfilled through Christ - "I have not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them."

The Christian esoteric stream understands very well the seeming discontinuity which appears between the Old and New testaments, between the Elohim-Jehovah and Christ revealed in Jesus. It is similar to the seeming discontinuity between the Moon and the Sun - one rules the night and the other rules the day. In the Hebrew mysteries, the connection to the spiritual worlds was established 'under cover of night' when Jehovah was active in our will-force. So there is already a dark, shadowy element to the Jehovah-Moon deity, which is fertile ground for Demiurge-ification if the Moon is put into mutually exclusive opposition to the Sun. Yet we know the Light is always the same - the Moon simply reflects the Light of the Sun. What has happened is that the lawful spiritual forces which worked from without, under a certain force of natural and racial-tribal compulsion, were progressively inwardized and incarnated in our thinking ego-consciousness - the Law has been 'written on our hearts', so that all souls - the Jews and the 'Gentiles' - can be morally united in free individuality and culture, independent of any rigid Earthly identifications. What goes into a man's mouth no longer defiles him, but only what comes out of it.

This seeming discontinuity really cannot be rationalized away with intellectual apologetic arguments - just like all other polarities of consciousness, and like this entire discussion, it will only be bridged through an orientation towards imaginative consciousness. These things need to be understood very concretely - they need to be released by the rigid grasp of the intellect so they also enter into our fluid life of feeling. All the talk of this lawful gradient through which we steer our intuitive becoming is very much related to the OP and to the deepest Cosmic mysteries spoken of by ancient spiritual traditions. I am not putting this forth as a hypothesis to debate. We don't need to consult isolated scriptures or the opinions of theologians. Again, I simply want to make more clear that the connection to the OP actually exists, when it is viewed from the Christian esoteric perspective. But we won't really understand the significance of this connection when we remain looking at the texts only from the outside-in, with intellectual cognition. Christ descended onto the Earthly plane precisely to raise our consciousness so that we begin to perceive the World Process from the inside-out (the Heliocentric perspective), through imaginative cognition.

[Cleric K]

3. The third stage is the final integration which happens with realization that the World is as real as the Self and not different from the Self (“I am everything”, “The World is Brahman”). In this state there is no longer a distinction or separation between permanent and impermanent, real and unreal, everything is simultaneously Oneness and multiplicity, permanent and impermanent, One and many, inseparable but diverse. Or more precisely, these old dualistic concepts simply no longer apply, they turn out to be abstractions no longer relevant to Reality. That does not mean that this state is non-explicable, it just means that it is directly and experientially known with new meanings. It is the same Thinking that knows Itself intimately and directly in all its forms beyond the outdated dualistic concepts. Unfortunately, these “nondual” meanings have no proper words in human language.

I wrote some stuff but then saw the above which may give a more direct approach to the issue.

In the previous post you say:

Cleric, I think I know what you are saying, because I saw that in the nondual community, and I felt the attraction of this "black hole" state myself. Some people tend to "bliss-out" and stagnate in this "nobody here, noting to do" "I am THAT" pitfall, and some even interpret the "liberated state" as a state of nothingness, absence of any activity or even any perception of any forms. This is actually one of the known pitfalls on the nondual path. In Buddhism it is considered a spiritual trap, it is called "the realms of arupa-loka" (formless states). I always argued against it. This knowledge "ourselves as the changeless being that is Aware, that Thinks and so on" is actually supposed to do the opposite - to release the capacity of the Source's knowing, thinking willing and creative activity in each of its individuated thinking stream from the handicapping delusion of separation that chains its activity to very limited egoic and dualistic thinking patterns. It's like a person in psychotic delusion that is so obsessed with its grandiose or paranoic ideas that she/he becomes dysfunctional. Likewise, we in our dualistic delusion usually become so obsessed with our self-centered egoic interests spanning from the illusion of separate self that we literally become dysfunctional in our capacities of spiritual and creative activities.

If we look at the bold part we logically conclude that at our present state, even though we intuitively know that we’re of the same essence as Source, it is still the case that our human state (even if realized) is only a very limited form of the Divine.

Here we arrive at the most important problem that nondualism has to solve. Even though we’re One with the Source, it’s still true that infinitely much of the Source is outside our consciousness (even in deep meditation).

Here we have to clearly distinguish two positions.

In one case we focus on what we already experience as our purified sense of being and basically say “Within this intuition I’m already the Source. Thus everything that I don’t grasp from the Divine will come as a kind of ‘filling the gaps’ of my sense of being.” (here I'm using this Oneness with the Source in the purest way possible, free from all the pitfalls that you have mentioned)

In the other case we’re also fully aware that we’re of the same essential nature as Source yet we reach the insight that our very sense of being (the sense of the pure being that is Aware, that Thinks and Wills) is in itself a transient form of intuition. Thus no matter how much we meditate and try to purify that sense of being, we find there only as much of the Divine as is already revealed within ourselves. That which is not yet unveiled we can never find within ourselves. Many metaphors are available for this. One of the most popular is that the fish is unaware of the water. Similarly, by trying to purify the intuition of that which is Aware and Thinks, we’re still exploring intuition within certain spiritual ‘geometry’. To find the Divine that lives outside that geometry, we need a quite different approach. We can’t extract it from what we already have (and what we consider to be One with the Divine) but we have to die into the consciousness of the Divine, we have to sacrifice the intuition of our present sense of being, such that something that we can’t even conceive of, can take its place. This is not a one shot event but continuous transformation (recently addressed in another post as the continuous incarnation of the higher being).

Hopefully we have pinpointed something very important – how should we innerly relate to that part of the Divine which is not yet manifested within our perspective?
1/ Do we expect that manifestation as a kind of thickening of our conscious state, since we already are the Source but we just miss some of the details?
2/ Do we realize that it’s not only about filling gaps but that the geometry of our own sense of being has to be continually sacrificed, such that something of the Divine can inflow into us, which presently can’t even fit the geometry of our intuition?

To make this even more explicit we can connect it with the question of prayer. We know very well that this is a controversial topic in nondualism because at stage 3 one feels that prayer is illogical – it’s like praying to oneself. But this looks so only if we feel like we already encompass the volume of the Divine and we simply miss some details here and there. In the other case we realize that most of the Divine passes through us without registering and there’s nothing that we can personally do within our sense of being that can manifest that missing part. We can only find our proper relation to that Being and continually sacrifice our sense of being such that it can be filled by the Divine.

Let’s look at this. Does it make sense to you to see prayer in this way – as continuous sacrifice of the geometry of our intuition of self, such that new levels of consciousness can manifest, which can’t presently be even conceived (by purifying our present forms of spiritual activity and intuition of self)?

[Stranger]

Christ descended onto the Earthly plane precisely to raise our consciousness so that we begin to perceive the World Process from the inside-out (the Heliocentric perspective), through imaginative cognition.

I agree with that, I always point to the key significance of approaching reality from experiential "inside-out" first-person perspective (where at a certain stage even any distinction between inside and outside disappears). I also think that the evolutionary "OT" stage of the dualistic state is necessary and unavoidable and follows the natural lawful curvatures of development, so describing it as "evil" or "wrong" is inappropriate. But likewise, the transition to the next stages, trough transition from dualistic to nondual states, are also natural/lawful. In spite of being natural, this transition needed facilitation from higher order beings like Christ and other messengers in other traditions. This transition is metamorphic in a sense that it goes through radical transformation of cognitive structures into different forms (similar to transformation from chrysalis to butterfly), and I guess it is still an open question how the human form and humanity as a whole will go through this process. Definitely the process is fueled by esoteric inward ascending through the Holy Spirit into the state of Oneness with the Father, but as you rightly said, it should be followed by an exoteric process of transforming the material human form to be feasible for the new state of consciousness. This has not happened yet and we do not know at this point how it is going to unfold, and for those few individuals that have been able to advance into the state of Oneness esoterically, the disconnect/dissonance between the esoteric state and exoteric human form currently still exists. According to the Christian tradition, this exoteric transition needs to be so radical that it will require another direct involvement and facilitation from higher order levels ("second coming of Christ"), but we will see how it is going to unfold.

[Güney27]

Hello everyone.
I'm staying out of the discussion at the moment because I'm under a lot of stress and I can't find the time to participate, even though I really want to.
Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to reading all of your posts.
I recently came up with a certain idea and would like to introduce it with a quote.

“Introduce what is practiced as meditation exercises in various anthroposophical seminars
supernatural knowledge of a body-free consciousness, or are they merely refined ones
sensory experiences? Are, for example, the inner impressions of movement and experiences that one takes part in
Observation of sprouting and wilting plants can get, psychic, or are they into that
Consciousness brought up and aesthetically refined impressions of the 'lower' senses, the tactile, life,
sense of movement and balance?”

Shouldn't rudolf steiner's body-free-thinking imply that no measurable correlating activity should be found in a brain examination. Because otherwise one could also use the same criticism that one has against non-dual experiences, that they are certain brain states, against Steiner's higher forms of knowledge.
Kind regards

[Federica]

Shouldn't rudolf steiner's body-free-thinking imply that no measurable correlating activity should be found in a brain examination. Because otherwise one could also use the same criticism that one has against non-dual experiences, that they are certain brain states, against Steiner's higher forms of knowledge.
Kind regards

Hej Güney,
Nice to see you back here

Actually the answer to the question you ask above is no, as you can see here in Steiner's own words:

Many make it difficult for themselves to become conscious because they keep on thinking that the spirit land is like a second physical world, only finer and more diffuse. (...) Such prejudices must be eliminated. One who still has them is like a man who goes up in a balloon and thinks that he can get out up there at any time and rest on a mountain top. But one who takes in esoteric explanations rightly can understand how the spiritual world is experienced when the soul awakens. To get to this point one has to ask oneself the question: What is thinking really? What thinks in me? A materialist who denies the existence of the spiritual world says: The body, the brain thinks. But one should ask him: Have you ever perceived thinking with your senses? Of course he hasn't. No one has ever heard or seen or felt thinking as warmth or the like. Therefore it's not corporeal. For what belongs to the body is sense perceptible. And so thinking is super-sensible. So the materialist would either have to accept the spiritual world or he should give up thinking because it's an absurdity — which might even be good. ( ) So we're always in the super-sensible world with our thinking, but in such a way that we don't experience it. With man's thinking it's as if someone went out to sea but didn't see himself and his boat. We don't experience it directly, for the thoughts we experience are reflections of thinking in the body. Just as someone facing a mirror sees his reflection, so a thinking soul sees the mirror image of its thinking. The brain is a mirror.

Through esoteric training a man is supposed to experience thinking and not just thoughts. Just as someone standing before a mirror sees the mirror's reflecting surface when he steps to one side, so the soul must learn to look upon the body as a reflecting apparatus.

You can find the whole lecture here:
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA266/En ... 31e01.html

So, thinking in itself is body-free, but its reflections (=the thoughts, the only 'part of' thinking people are normally aware of) are not. Thoughts are perceptual/percepts. Actually they can be seen as by-products of thinking, that reflect it in the physical sphere. This is from a human perspective. From a holistic perspective, before the human nature comes in to split reality in two, it's all one unitary reality of spiritual (thinking) nature.

[Cleric K]

Shouldn't rudolf steiner's body-free-thinking imply that no measurable correlating activity should be found in a brain examination. Because otherwise one could also use the same criticism that one has against non-dual experiences, that they are certain brain states, against Steiner's higher forms of knowledge.
Kind regards

Hi Güney27,

the translation that I have most commonly seen is "sense-free-thinking". This doesn't imply in the least some spiritual activity that exists in a parallel spiritual universe. It's about the inner experience of thinking and the fact that most of the ordinary human spiritual conduct unfolds in response to sensory impressions. For example, we think about the things we see, we feel things about the objects and persons that we interact with and so on. In other words, most of today's human life is a kind of reaction to the environment. Even the faculties of creativity and imagination are mainly used in response to the sensory world.

Sense-free thinking implies taking some time where we try to give a direction of our thought process that is not simply a reaction to sensory life. Through such experiments we gradually come to realize to what degree our daily life really flows in rigid channels. Of course, even this sense-free thinking is related with the brain but the whole thinking experience is different because we begin to ask questions: why I think of this and not of that? When was the first time I learned this concept? How do my sympathies and preferences steer the direction of my thoughts?

So in a nutshell, sense-free thinking is a first step towards coming to know spiritual activity that is not simply a reaction to the environment but examines its own ideal and feeling constraints. This leads to the opening of the leeway that we often speak about. Maybe in German there's also the expression "One is so engrossed in work that they can't lift their head up". Similarly, as long as our thinking, feeling and willing life are a kind of reaction to the environment, we don't lift our head. Even something as simple as pronouncing thought-words and experimenting with them, already lifts our head a little. This is not an activity that our modern civilization would suggest to us. We have to take our own free initiative and see that our spiritual activity can move in ways that otherwise will remain unsuspected.

[Stranger]

"With man's thinking it's as if someone went out to sea but didn't see himself and his boat. We don't experience it directly ... Through esoteric training a man is supposed to experience thinking and not just thoughts"

That's right, this is the key inward-turning point when thinking recognizes and directly knows itself. At this stage it's like thinking realizes "I am Thinking, I'm not the thoughts". But once this recognition happens, it is also important to integrate back the thoughts and perceive thoughts as innate forms of thinking inseparable from thinking itself, and not just some extrinsic byproduct of it. This is the "integration stage" where Thinking realizes that "I am everything", that the thoughts are not something extrinsic to thinking, but they are inseparable forms that thinking takes in its process of unfolding its unlimited potential. It's like the thinking is the ocean and thoughts are the waves/forms that the ocean takes, but the waves are never separate from the ocean and never anything other than the ocean.