Stranger wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:30 amThank you for clarifying this key point of Anthroposophy which I entirely do not agree with. And I now better understand the real reason of Anthroposophist aversion to nondualist worldview. So, to the point, the second paper that I linked says:AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:02 am Either way, it's clear that the sources you shared fail to understand that the beings of the higher hierarchies, or whatever we want to call them, good, bad, and otherwise, live within us (our inner life is nested within their consciousness). We are not 'down here' while they are 'up there' keeping us imprisoned. We don't have any existence apart from the interference of all their activity, in which we are always intimately participating. Cleric has provided many illustrations on this forum which can help us grasp this fact, and it is vital to grasp it in a living way before casting judgments willy nilly, according to wherever our desiring intellect is being steered by unknown forces, about the higher worlds. If we want to carefully investigate the activity of the higher worlds, we need to first look at the forces at work in our own soul, instead of projecting the anthropormorphic "us vs. them" onto the archetypal realms and resentfully looking for someone to blame for all our hardships within Earthly life.
In simple words, we are NOT nested within higher order beings and they are NOT nested in us. We all are DIRECT and SOVEREIGN individuations of the same Source. The Source is our most inner core, most inner Self, and there is no nested hierarchy whatsoever between our soul structure and our core Self which is the Source. This is the core of all nonduality teachings. We do not need any intermediaries to connect to the Source, to realize our identity with the Source and to grow and evolve, even though we always benefit from help and advice from other more spiritually mature beings.The Prime Universal Law is very simple: All beings are Sovereign and have free will to express their creative urges in any way they choose, but no being has the right to violate and harm others. ... The demiurgic being's many layers of deception are predicated on the BIG LIE that we are separate from Infinite Source. .... The real truth is that we have NEVER been separate from Infinite Source, as that is a metaphysical impossibility. ... From that space of knowing that we are Sovereign Individuations of Source, we can exercise our Sovereign Rights, including righteous use of defensive force."
Another key point is to understand why Anthroposophy is so insistent on the nested hierarchy. That is because the last thing the Demiurge wants is for us to be able to reclaim our sovereignty and our direct connection to the Source, or more precisely, realization of us being directly the Source itself in its multiple individuations. This is simply because such realization would free our minds from the submission to the Demiurge's hierarchy. That is why all human religions and spiritual sects installed by the Demiurge are based on the requirement to submit to a hierarchy or authority in one way or another. We see it in all Abrahamic religions, and also see it in a different way in Anthroposophy. While in Abrahamic religions the submission was through external relations to hierarchy of deities, in Anthroposophy the submission is through a nested internal relations. This is an important innovation in Anthroposophy intended to attract spiritual seekers that are leaving the outdated structures of the Abrahamic organized religions, however, it is still intended to submit our souls to hierarchy even in more enslaving way. If a person believes that they submit to hierarchy externally, they know that they can always reclaim their freedom from the hierarchy. However, once they convince themselves that they are by nature nested in the hierarchy, then there is simply no way for them to break free for as long as they hold to such belief.
At this point we remain agreeing to disagree.
Eugene,
Your characterizations at this point could be coming from the fundamentalist Christians. It's the exact same "us vs. them", "God vs. Satan", "me vs. the Demiurge", mentality. They also believe Satan rules over this world and want to be freed from all Earthly responsibility by the rapture, the second coming, the millennial kingdom. They are also self-righteous and always believe they are on the side of the angels. There is nothing more dualistic than such a mentality. Furthermore you have forsaken dispassionate logical thinking as spiritual activity, as something important to spiritual investigation, so there is practically no way to bring your attention to the fact that a spirituality rooted in blind passions, desires, feelings is anything but a free spirituality. By inflating the current ego to "direct, sovereign, one true source, etc.", you can safely ignore that your soul-life is still flowing within the context of much higher forces which remain in the dark.
A living, nested hierarchy is simply a fact of existence in our Earthly lives, as is evident all around us, so people dream of another realm beyond where the rules are different, where they are "free", and postulate this current existence is ruled by some Devil. Free from what? Free from sacrifcial responsibility for their fellow creatures! That's the part of hierarchy which never gets mentioned - the higher up the 'food chain' a being gets, the more responsible it becomes for stewarding and shepherding those lower. Its continued evolution becomes more and more dependent on freely adopting such responsibility - that is why the Gods are Gods and humans are only at the first steps of becoming Gods. And that's what the dualistic 'non-dualists' want to escape from. That's why they look upon the sacrificial ideas, feelings, and deeds of the Christ-being with such disdain. This is not freedom but hedonism - a willing enslavement to personal pleasures, desires, and inclinations which must always result in tribal factions and perpetual violence.