The realm of the Demiurge

[AshvinP]

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.

Thank 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:

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."

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.

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.

[Stranger]

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. It's continued survival becomes more and more dependent on freely adopting such responsibility. 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.

Nope, this is a completely distorted interpretation of nondualism. Anyone realizing their nondual identity with the Source cannot be free from responsibilities for their fellow creatures simply because they realize that all creatures are fundamentally the same Source as they are the same Source. The only thing the nondualists are escaping form is the delusion of separation from the Source. In nondual-realized soul there are no personal hedonistic desires left simply because they don't see anything of their own, everything is shared and connected because everything everywhere in every creature is the same Source. Compassion, service and sacrifice to others become natural expression of such nondual realization. There is no more place for ego with its hedonistic desires because ego can only exist and grow under the delusion of separation.

For example, this is how the advanced stage of nondual realization is described in the Zen tradition:

"Entering the Marketplace with Helping Hands" represents the stage of the path where you’re ready to share your wisdom and serve others. This is enlightenment proper, when you return to the world and bring the gifts of awakening with you. Whatever you do, it’ll be infused with the truth of your deeper nature. You’ll live with compassion for all and offer yourself in service to others and alleviate suffering wherever you find it.

[AshvinP]

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. It's continued survival becomes more and more dependent on freely adopting such responsibility. 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.

Nope, this is a completely distorted interpretation of nondualism. Anyone realizing their nondual identity with the Source cannot be free from responsibilities for their fellow creatures simply because they realize that all creatures are fundamentally the same Source as they are the same Source. The only thing the nondualists are escaping form is the delusion of separation from the Source. In nondual-realized soul there are no personal hedonistic desires left simply because they don't see anything of their own, everything is shared and connected because everything everywhere in every creature is the same Source. Compassion, service and sacrifice to others become natural expression of such nondual realization. There is no more place for ego with its hedonistic desires because ego can only exist and grow under the delusion of separation.

For example, this is how the advanced stage of nondual realization is described in the Zen tradition:

"Entering the Marketplace with Helping Hands" represents the stage of the path where you’re ready to share your wisdom and serve others. This is enlightenment proper, when you return to the world and bring the gifts of awakening with you. Whatever you do, it’ll be infused with the truth of your deeper nature. You’ll live with compassion for all and offer yourself in service to others and alleviate suffering wherever you find it.

All that is abstraction. The question is whether those abstractions also penetrate our whole organism through the discplined force of living thinking, i.e. Self-knowledge attained in the most fleshed out way, with devotion and gratitude. Only then do we gradually begin to find the impulses for true compassion for and service to our fellow beings, the path of genuine nondual, self-sacrifcial mysticism.

Anyone who with the help of physical science makes a purely external study of the marvelous structure of the human heart or brain, or of each single part of the human skeleton, will be able to feel how infinitely wise and perfect is the arrangement and organisation of the physical body. By taking one single bone, for example the hip bone, which combines the utmost carrying capacity with the least expenditure of effort, or by contemplating the marvelous structure of the heart or brain, it is possible to have an inkling of what would be experienced if one were to behold the wisdom by which this structure was produced and were then to compare with this what man is as a being of soul in respect of passions or desires! All through his life he is engaged in ruining this wonderful physical organism by yielding to his desires, urges, passions and various forms of enjoyment. Activity destructive to the wonderful structure of the physical heart or brain can be observed everywhere in life.
...
The mystic prepares himself by concentrating on the following thoughts: “When I behold what I am and compare it with what the wise guidance of the universe has made of me, the shame I feel is like a consuming fire.” This feeling gives rise outwardly to the flush of shame. This feeling would intensify to such an extent as to become a scorching fire in the soul if the mystic has not the strength to say to himself: “Yes, I feel utterly paltry in comparison with what I may become, but I shall try to develop the strength that will make me capable of understanding what the wisdom of the universe has built into my bodily nature and to make myself spiritually worthy of it.” The mystic is made to realise by his spiritual teacher that he must have boundless humility. It may be said to him: Look at a plant. A plant is rooted in the soil. The soil makes available to the plant a kingdom lower than itself but without which it cannot exist. The plant can bow to the mineral kingdom, saying: I owe my existence to this lower kingdom out of which I have grown. The animal too owes its existence to the plant kingdom and if it were conscious of its place in the world would in humility acknowledge its indebtedness to the lower kingdom. And man, having reached a certain height, should say: I could not have attained this stage had not everything below me evolved correspondingly.

When a man cultivates such feelings in his soul, the realisation comes to him that he has reason not only to look upwards but to look downwards with thankfulness to the kingdoms below him. The soul is then filled with this feeling of humility and realises how infinitely long is the path that leads towards perfection. Such is the training for true humility.

[Stranger]

All that is abstraction. The question is whether those abstractions also penetrate our whole organism through the discplined force of living thinking, i.e. Self-knowledge attained in the most fleshed out way, with devotion and gratitude. Only then do we gradually begin to find the impulses for true compassion for and service to our fellow beings, the path of genuine nondual, self-sacrifcial mysticism.

Absolutely not an abstraction, it's a full reality in people who fully realized their Self-knowledge, not only as intellectual understanding (although that is needed too), but as a direct experience, with devotion, gratitude, compassion and service to all creation flowing out as a natural outcome of such realization.

Thich Nhat Hanh is one example of such realized person. He was a monk with no possessions and no hedonistic desires who dedicated his whole life to the service to others.
"Emptiness means emptiness of separate existence. ... To be means to inter-be with everything else, existence means co-existence." Thich Nhat Hanh

[AshvinP]

All that is abstraction. The question is whether those abstractions also penetrate our whole organism through the discplined force of living thinking, i.e. Self-knowledge attained in the most fleshed out way, with devotion and gratitude. Only then do we gradually begin to find the impulses for true compassion for and service to our fellow beings, the path of genuine nondual, self-sacrifcial mysticism.

Absolutely not an abstraction, it's a full reality in people who fully realized their Self-knowledge, not only as intellectual understanding (although that is needed too), but as a direct experience, with devotion, gratitude, compassion and service to all creation flowing out as a natural outcome of such realization.

Thich Nhat Hanh is one example of such realized person.
"Emptiness means emptiness of separate existence. ... To be means to inter-be with everything else, existence means co-existence." Thich Nhat Hanh

I want to ask you something, Eugene. I think you agree that we are already within the higher planes of consciousness. Everything you write about realization of our direct connection with the Source would indicate that you do. But how does that square with the idea that we are held prisoner on the physical plane by a Demiurge? If I grow my consciousness so that I concretely know-perceive the physical world around me as the Great Temple of the Spirit, with phenomena that I myself have participated in manifesting through my creative spiritual activity, why should I one-sidedly seek to minimize or eliminate my reincarnations within it?

[Stranger]

I want to ask you something, Eugene. I think you agree that we are already within the higher planes of consciousness. Everything you write about realization of our direct connection with the Source would indicate that you do. But how does that square with the idea that we are held prisoner on the physical plane by a Demiurge? If I grow my consciousness so that I concretely know-perceive the physical world around me as the Great Temple of the Spirit, with phenomena that I myself have participated in manifesting through my creative spiritual activity, why should I one-sidedly seek to minimize or eliminate my reincarnations within it?

I think I already answered this question here .

Imagine you signed up to live in Casino and by the contract terms you cannot leave it until your term ends. Sure, the Casino is also a result of the manifestation of the Divine creative spiritual activity, but only on a very low developmental level. Your spiritual growth would be very impeded during this term because all conditions there will only catalyze your hedonistic desires and impede any development of higher cognition, so it would be very difficult to do any spiritual practice in such conditions. It does not mean that such growth would be impossible, it just means it would be greatly impeded. So, if you understand this and if you are not in the egoic state of mind anymore and not attracted or addicted to the pleasures of Casino, why would you choose to live there?

Another analogy is a dictatorship country like North Korea or USSR where people are brainwashed with state propaganda and devoid of the access to information resources and spiritual traditions. When I grew up in USSR, it was impossible to get the Bible or any other spiritual or religious literature, most people were completely ignorant of any spiritual traditions or teachings. If you are on the path of spiritual evolution, why would you chose to live in in such country?

Similarly, the realm of Demiurge is constructed to fit to the hedonistic desires of the less evolved souls who are caught in the delusion of separation and the egoic state of mind. In the Buddhist tradition the Demiurge's realm (the realm of Brahma's creation, see the Buddhist Cosmology) is called exactly like that - Kama-dhatu = "the realm of desires/passions". By the way, the Demiurge does not force anyone to incarnate, the souls are attracted to his realm by their egoic desires and the Demiurge simply takes advantage of that. There are many features of his ream that greatly impede the spiritual growth, such as the memory wipe at rebirth (how are we supposed to learn from incarnation to incarnation if we forget all our accumulated knowledge and experience every time we reincarnate?), the insane amount of distorted views and philosophies that confuse people's minds, the propaganda from political and commercial powers, the cultures that promote hedonistic and materialistic way of life, the religions that promote worship to the Demiurge and his hierarchy and brainwash people with distorted worldviews, and so on. Not to mention the insane amount of suffering in this realm, but it is not only about simply escaping from suffering. So again, this does not mean the spiritual growth is impossible in this realm, but it is greatly impeded. Surely, there is still some access to the knowledge of higher realms that is brought by higher-developed beings incarnating on Earth to help humans, but that knowledge often gets distorted by institutions and become hard to find and distinguish from innumerable distorted variants of it. But at some point in their evolution such souls grow enough to slowly start to realize their Self-identity with the Source and unity and connectedness with the universe, and then usually leave the realm of the Demiurge because they are not attracted to it anymore and because they realize that any further incarnations there would not facilitate their further evolution. That does not mean they will stop incarnating in other realms.

Another case is when more evolved and already realized beings, or even direct individuations of the Divine aspects, such as Christ as the individuation of the Logos (the creative power aspect) of the Divine, come to incarnate into the realm of the Demiurge in order to help other deluded and less evolved souls to open their minds to the knowledge of higher spiritual planes and their identity with the Source. That is a real sacrifice on their part. Such were Jesus and many Western saints, Krishna and other Hindu avatars, and many bodhisattvas in the Buddhist tradition.

[AshvinP]

I want to ask you something, Eugene. I think you agree that we are already within the higher planes of consciousness. Everything you write about realization of our direct connection with the Source would indicate that you do. But how does that square with the idea that we are held prisoner on the physical plane by a Demiurge? If I grow my consciousness so that I concretely know-perceive the physical world around me as the Great Temple of the Spirit, with phenomena that I myself have participated in manifesting through my creative spiritual activity, why should I one-sidedly seek to minimize or eliminate my reincarnations within it?

I think I already answered this question here .

Imagine you signed up to live in Casino and by the contract terms you cannot leave it until your term ends. Sure, the Casino is also a result of the manifestation of the Divine creative spiritual activity, but only on a very low developmental level. Your spiritual growth would be very impeded during this term because all conditions there will only catalyze your hedonistic desires and impede any development of higher cognition, so it would be very difficult to do any spiritual practice in such conditions. It does not mean that such growth would be impossible, it just means it would be greatly impeded. So, if you understand this and if you are not in the egoic state of mind anymore and not attracted or addicted to the pleasures of Casino, why would you choose to live there?

Another analogy is a dictatorship country like North Korea or USSR where people are brainwashed with propaganda and devoid of the access to information resources and spiritual traditions. When I grew up in USSR, it was impossible to get the Bible or any other spiritual or religious literature, most people were completely ignorant of any spiritual traditions or teachings. If you are on the path of spiritual evolution, why would you chose to live in in such country?

Similarly, the realm of Demiurge is constructed to fit to the hedonistic desires of the less evolved souls who are caught in the delusion of separation and the egoic state of mind. In the Buddhist tradition the Demiurge's realm (the realm of Brahma's creation, see the Buddhist Cosmology) is called exactly like that - Kama-dhatu = "the realm of desires/passions". By the way, the Demiurge does not force anyone to incarnate, the souls are attracted to his realm by their egoic desires and the Demiurge simply takes advantage of that. There are many features of his ream that greatly impede the spiritual growth, such as the memory wipe at rebirth (how are we supposed to learn from incarnation to incarnation if we forget all our accumulated knowledge and experience every time we reincarnate?), the insane amount of distorted views and philosophies that confuse people's minds, the propaganda from political and commercial powers, the cultures that promote hedonistic and materialistic way of life, the religions that promote worship to the Demiurge and his hierarchy and brainwash people with distorted worldviews, and so on. Not to mention the insane amount of suffering in this realm, but it is not only about simply escaping from suffering. So again, this does not mean the spiritual growth is impossible in this realm, but it is greatly impeded. Surely, there is still some access to the knowledge of higher realms that is brought by higher-developed beings incarnating on Earth to help humans, but that knowledge often gets distorted by institutions and become hard to find and distinguish from innumerable distorted variants of it. But at some point in their evolution such souls grow enough to slowly start to realize their Self-identity with the Source and unity and connectedness with the universe, and then usually leave the realm of the Demiurge because they are not attracted to it anymore and because they realize that any further incarnations there would not facilitate their further evolution. That does not mean they will stop incarnating in other realms.

Another case is when more evolved and already realized beings, or even direct individuations of the Divine aspects, such as Christ as the Logos (the aspect of the creative power) of the Divine, come to incarnate into the realm of the Demiurge in order to help other deluded and less evolved souls to open their minds to the knowledge of higher spiritual planes and their identity with the Source. That is a real sacrifice on their part. Such were Jesus and many Western saints, Krishna and other Hindu avatars, and many bodhisattvas in the Buddhist tradition.

Since you mentioned the Christ-being and his incarnation in Jesus, let's look at a few of his teachings.

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one."

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

He was speaking to his discples who know the Father principle as Yahweh or Jehovah of the OT tradition (the Law and the Prophets), the Creator of the sphere of Nature (physical plane), who you are calling the 'Demiurge'. It is unique to the Christian scripture that a duality is not put in place between the Old and the New, between the spheres of Nature-Necessity and Spirit-Freedom. Instead it is envisioned that one is always necessary for the development and fulfillment of the other. That is the polarity which is ignored by modern intellectual spirituality. We only need to approach these things with sober and sound reasoning.

If we were to never have any discontinuities of consciousness within the sphere of Nature, any 'memory wipes', how could we have evolved an individuality capable of an inner thought-life which expands freely into the archetypal domains? Can a student learn if all the accessible knowledge in the world is simply placed on his desk as a stack of books, and if he is spoon-fed wisdom by his elders? Similarly, one cannot develop an inner strength of will if there are never any hardships to endure. These hardships become our greatest boon when we can penetrate the world with living knowledge and discern how exactly they come into manifestation in our lives. Then we learn to truly accept them as they are, rather than to hopelessly rebel against them with resentment in our hearts.

Then, secondly, the would-be mystic must develop another feeling which makes him capable of enduring whatever obstacles may lie in his path as he strives towards perfection. He must develop a feeling of resignation in respect of whatever ordeals he will have to endure in order to reach a certain stage of development. Only by proving himself victorious over pain and suffering for a long, long time can he develop the strong powers needed by his soul to overcome the inevitable sense of inferiority in face of what a wise World-Order has incorporated in the etheric and physical bodies. The soul must say to itself over and over again: ‘Whatever pain and suffering still await me, I will not waver; for if I were willing to experience only what brings joy, I should never develop the strength of which my soul is actually capable.’ Strength is developed only by overcoming obstacles, not by simply submitting to conditions as they are. Forces of soul can be steeled only when a man is ready to bear pain and suffering with resignation. This strength must be developed in the soul of the mystic if he is to become fit to descend into his inner being.

Again, the question is whether we are willing to locate the source of our hedonistic attachments and egoistic tendencies within ourselves, within our own level of holistic cognitive development, or instead whether we project it out onto some external force which we label 'laws of nature', 'God of the OT', the 'New World Order', Satan, Demiurge, etc.? The fact is that the true mystic who has expanded his cognitive consciousness can freely transduce between the physical plane and the higher astral and devachanic planes, and commune with the good spiritual beings, during his incarnation on Earth. Then he doesn't see the physical plane as some remote prison, casino, dictatorship, etc. which was set up by external forces - a mindset which necessarily implies duality - but as the decohered perception of the higher planes; as the spiritual activity of very lofty Beings which is always weaving through it and is only veiled by our own passion-driven, egoistic soul-life at any given time. Everything physical is then gradually revealed in its infinite spiritual wisdom.

[Stranger]

Since you mentioned the Christ-being and his incarnationi in Jesus, let's look at a few of his teachings.


"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one."

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”


He was speaking to his discples who know the Father principle as Yahweh or Jehovah of the OT tradition (the Law and the Prophets), who you are calling the 'Demiurge'. It is unique to the Christian scripture that a duality is not put in place between the Old and the New, between the spheres of Nature-Necessity and Spirit-Freedom. Instead it is envisioned that one is always necessary for the development of the other. That is the polarity which is ignored by modern intellectual spirituality. We only need to approach these things with sober and sound reasoning.

This is a very controversial topic, but I hope you are aware that Gnostics viewed Christ and his mission in a way completely different from the official Church. Based on that I do not consider the interpretation of the institutional Christian Church as a reliable source of the spiritual knowledge, and that includes the canonical Gospels and the teaching that the mission of Christ was a continuation of the Old Testament. If you read the Gnostic Gospels, you will see a very different understanding of the Christ's mission. Yet, I greatly respect many Chistian saints (such as Meister Eckhart or pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite) who, notwithstanding such significant distortions of the Christ message, were still able to reach to the true knowledge (and by the way, both were considered as heretics by the institutional Church).

If we were to never have any discontinuities of consciousness within the sphere of Nature, any 'memory wipes', how could we have evolved an individuality capable of an inner thought-life which expands freely into the archetypal domains? Can a student learn if all the accessible knowledge in the world is simply placed on his desk as a stack of books, and if he is spoon-fed wisdom by his elders? Similarly, one cannot develop an inner strength of will if there are never any hardships to endure. These hardships become our greatest boon when we can penetrate the world with living knowledge and discern how exactly they come into manifestation in our lives. Then we learn to truly accept them as they are, rather than to hopelessly rebel against them with resentment in our hearts.

If you are a student presented with a stack of the books, you sort them in a sequence of increasing levels of advancement, start with introductory and then slowly move to more advanced, while retaining the memory of everything you learnt from the previous books. However, if you lose most of your memories after reading each book, your progress will be greatly impeded and you will have to read the same elementary level books many times before you can advance. In such case it will take you decades to graduate from college instead of just a few years.

I agree about the benefits of hardships, but there is also a sufficient amount of hardship and challenges in the learning process on the higher realms too. Life in higher spiritual realms is not a continuous bliss as many people think, beings continue to learn and grow there which always involve challenging tasks. So, the question is whether the hardship facilitates of impedes the growth.

Again, the question is whether we are willing to locate the source of our hedonistic attachments and egoistic tendencies within ourselves, within our own level of holistic cognitive development, or instead whether we project it out onto some external force which we label 'laws of nature', 'God of the OT', the 'New World Order', Satan, Demiurge, etc.? The fact is that the true mystic who has expanded his cognitive consciousness can freely transduce between the physical plane and the higher astral and devachanic planes, and commune with the good spiritual beings, during his incarnation on Earth. Then he doesn't see the physical plane as some remote prison which was set up by external forces, which necessarily implies duality, but as the decohered perception of the higher planes; as the spiritual activity of very lofty Beings which is always weaving through it and is only veiled by our passion-driven, egoistic soul-life. Everything physical is revealed in its infinite spiritual wisdom.

Of course it is crucial to locate the source of hedonistic desires within ourselves. But it has nothing to do with the choice of the dwelling planes that beings choose along their spiritual development path. For example, I think you would not deny the existence of hell realms. But spiritually advanced beings do not incarnate in hells (other than for bodhisattva saving missions) simply because it would be pointless and would impede their further spiritual growth, even though the infinite spiritual wisdom is revealed even in the hell realms. Going back to your argument about hardship, the hardships and suffering in hells impede and do not facilitate the spiritual growth for advanced beings. Similarly, at a certain level of spiritual evolution, souls stop incarnating on the physical plane because its adverse conditions impede and do not facilitate their further spiritual evolution anymore.

[AshvinP]

Since you mentioned the Christ-being and his incarnationi in Jesus, let's look at a few of his teachings.


"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one."

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”


He was speaking to his discples who know the Father principle as Yahweh or Jehovah of the OT tradition (the Law and the Prophets), who you are calling the 'Demiurge'. It is unique to the Christian scripture that a duality is not put in place between the Old and the New, between the spheres of Nature-Necessity and Spirit-Freedom. Instead it is envisioned that one is always necessary for the development of the other. That is the polarity which is ignored by modern intellectual spirituality. We only need to approach these things with sober and sound reasoning.

This is a very controversial topic, but I hope you are aware that Gnostics viewed Christ and his mission in a way completely different from the official Church. Based on that I do not consider the interpretation of the institutional Christian Church as a reliable source of the spiritual knowledge, and that includes the canonical Gospels and the teaching that the mission of Christ was a continuation of the Old Testament. If you read the Gnostic Gospels, you will see a very different understanding of the Christ's mission. Yet, I greatly respect many Chistian saints (such as Meister Eckhart or pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite) who, notwithstanding such significant distortions of the Christ message, were still able to reach to the true knowledge (and by the way, both were considered as heretics by the institutional Church).

I didn't mention any interpretations of institutional churches, but only quoted several verses of the Gospels. If we are able to pentetrate beyond the mere outer forms, the surface appearances, with our living thinking, then we will discern a great harmony between the canonical Gospels and the Gnostic texts, as well as all other major spiritual texts from ancient India to the medieval period. The archetypal structure of spiritual evolution is reflected in all of them from various angles and with various emphases which were necessary for the evolutionary task of that time, to develop certain experiences and spiritual forces which are now embedded within each individual from our previous incarnations. It should be remembered that we are the ones who have been living through all of the epochs, all of the natural and cultural developments from glory to glory.

'Pseudo'-Dionysius was the first to openly teach the nested higher hierarchies in which man is embedded. I know previously you referened some modern author who believes otherwise, but the meaning of the available writings is very clear. Aquinas, who was of course much closer in time than we are, also references him and the teaching:

Therefore there must needs be a distinction between the human and the angelic hierarchy. In the same manner we distinguish three angelic hierarchies. For it was shown above (Q. 55, A. 3), in treating of the angelic knowledge, that the superior angels have a more universal knowledge of the truth than the inferior angels. This universal knowledge has three grades among the angels. For the types of things, concerning which the angels are enlightened, can be considered in a threefold manner. First as preceding from God as the first universal principle, which mode of knowledge belongs to the first hierarchy, connected immediately with God, and, "as it were, placed in the vestibule of God," as Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. vii). Secondly, forasmuch as these types depend on the universal created causes which in some way are already multiplied; which mode belongs to the second hierarchy. Thirdly, forasmuch as these types are applied to particular things as depending on their causes; which mode belongs to the lowest hierarchy. All this will appear more clearly when we treat of each of the orders (A. 6). In this way are the hierarchies distinguished on the part of the multitude of subjects.

If we were to never have any discontinuities of consciousness within the sphere of Nature, any 'memory wipes', how could we have evolved an individuality capable of an inner thought-life which expands freely into the archetypal domains? Can a student learn if all the accessible knowledge in the world is simply placed on his desk as a stack of books, and if he is spoon-fed wisdom by his elders? Similarly, one cannot develop an inner strength of will if there are never any hardships to endure. These hardships become our greatest boon when we can penetrate the world with living knowledge and discern how exactly they come into manifestation in our lives. Then we learn to truly accept them as they are, rather than to hopelessly rebel against them with resentment in our hearts.

If you are a student presented with a stack of the books, you sort them in a sequence of increasing levels of advancement, start with introductory and then slowly move to more advanced, while retaining the memory of everything you learnt from the previous books. However, if you lose most of your memories after reading each book, your progress will be greatly impeded and you will have to read the same elementary level books many times before you can advance. In such case it will take you decades to graduate from college instead of just a few years.

I agree about the benefits of hardships, but there is also a sufficient amount of hardship and challenges in the learning process on the higher realms too. Life in higher spiritual realms is not a continuous bliss as many people think, beings continue to learn and grow there which always involve challenging tasks. So, the question is whether the hardship facilitates of impedes the growth.

First, only materialistic thinking would conclude we are "losing" memories in any absolute sense when we can't recall them immediately, since it ignores monism and spiritual evolution and reincarnation. But even for that thinking, within a single incarnation, it is accepted that what experiences lie inaccessible in the subconscious strata of the psyche can be brought back into waking consciousness through inner effort. There is no reason to think this principle doesn't also apply to our past incarnations. How else could any of the mystics know of their past incarnations, as concrete realities (not just abstract theories), if these could not be brought back into waking consciousness through their inner effort?

Second, the kid who we want to teach mathematical thinking does not learn from memorizing books on math, multiplication tables, geometrical shapes, and so forth. Those are only tools to develop the inner forces needed to think mathematically. In fact, the memorized material must be discarded if the forces are to develop properly. Then the student can come to rely on his own intuitive mathematical thinking to solve problems rather than the past memory of multiplication tables, etc. This same principle applies to all the spiritual forces which were intended for humanity to develop through its many Earthly lives, so that we may gradually become free thinking agencies capable of moral imagination and novel creations. There is great Wisdom in the discontinuities of consciousness which veil the content of past lives so that we may freely work them over into inner forces.

Again, the question is whether we are willing to locate the source of our hedonistic attachments and egoistic tendencies within ourselves, within our own level of holistic cognitive development, or instead whether we project it out onto some external force which we label 'laws of nature', 'God of the OT', the 'New World Order', Satan, Demiurge, etc.? The fact is that the true mystic who has expanded his cognitive consciousness can freely transduce between the physical plane and the higher astral and devachanic planes, and commune with the good spiritual beings, during his incarnation on Earth. Then he doesn't see the physical plane as some remote prison which was set up by external forces, which necessarily implies duality, but as the decohered perception of the higher planes; as the spiritual activity of very lofty Beings which is always weaving through it and is only veiled by our passion-driven, egoistic soul-life. Everything physical is revealed in its infinite spiritual wisdom.

Of course it is crucial to locate the source of hedonistic desires within ourselves. But it has nothing to do with the choice of the dwelling planes that beings choose along their spiritual development path. For example, I think you would not deny the existence of hell realms. But spiritually advanced beings do not incarnate in hells (other than for bodhisattva saving missions) simply because it would be pointless and would impede their further spiritual growth, even though the infinite spiritual wisdom is revealed even in the hell realms. Going back to your argument about hardship, the hardships and suffering in hells impede and do not facilitate the spiritual growth for advanced beings. Similarly, at a certain level of spiritual evolution, souls stop incarnating on the physical plane because its adverse conditions impede and do not facilitate their further spiritual evolution anymore.

How do we know, from our current Earthly perspective, that we are too 'spiritually advanced' to continue the reincarnation cycle on the physical plane? After all, the fact that we are here means our Self within the higher spiritual planes, acting from living knowledge of those planes, already decided that it would be most reasonable and optimal to incarnate again for its further development and/or that of the Cosmic organism as a whole. The only way around this reality is for our Earthly self to blame that decision which its higher Self made on some other force, some other being, who ensared it in hedonistic desires. It is only here, on the physical plane, where the dualistic projection is occurring. Our higher Self would never conceive to blame its own decision to continue incarnating on some being apart from itself, because that perspective on reality simply doesn't exist for it. Why do we engage in this projective tendency? Because we want to convince ourselves that we are perfect moral beings already, capable of full conscious participation in the spirit worlds without any further development. But if we were more livingly aware of all our dark soul-tendencies at our current stage, as our higher Self is, it would be immediately clear to us why we must proceed through more discontinuities of consciousness to attain our ideals.

[Stranger]

'Pseudo'-Dionysius was the first to openly teach the nested higher hierarchies in which man is embedded. I know previously you referened some modern author who believes otherwise, but the meaning of the available writings is very clear. Aquinas, who was of course much closer in time than we are, also references him and the teaching:

Therefore there must needs be a distinction between the human and the angelic hierarchy. In the same manner we distinguish three angelic hierarchies. For it was shown above (Q. 55, A. 3), in treating of the angelic knowledge, that the superior angels have a more universal knowledge of the truth than the inferior angels. This universal knowledge has three grades among the angels. For the types of things, concerning which the angels are enlightened, can be considered in a threefold manner. First as preceding from God as the first universal principle, which mode of knowledge belongs to the first hierarchy, connected immediately with God, and, "as it were, placed in the vestibule of God," as Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. vii). Secondly, forasmuch as these types depend on the universal created causes which in some way are already multiplied; which mode belongs to the second hierarchy. Thirdly, forasmuch as these types are applied to particular things as depending on their causes; which mode belongs to the lowest hierarchy. All this will appear more clearly when we treat of each of the orders (A. 6). In this way are the hierarchies distinguished on the part of the multitude of subjects.

I do not see any mention here or in Pseudo'-Dionysius writings about nested hierarchies. Pseudo'-Dionysius mentioned that the higher-order beings usually "deliver" messages from the Divine to lower level ones, but that does not mean that the beings are "nested".

First, only materialistic thinking would conclude we are "losing" memories in any absolute sense when we can't recall them immediately, since it ignores monism and spiritual evolution and reincarnation. But even for that thinking, within a single incarnation, it is accepted that what experiences lie inaccessible in the subconscious strata of the psyche can be brought back into waking consciousness through inner effort. There is no reason to think this principle doesn't also apply to our past incarnations. How else could any of the mystics know of their past incarnations, as concrete realities (not just abstract theories), if these could not be brought back into waking consciousness through their inner effort?

Second, the kid who we want to teach mathematical thinking does not learn from memorizing books on math, multiplication tables, geometrical shapes, and so forth. Those are only tools to develop the inner forces needed to think mathematically. In fact, the memorized material must be discarded if the forces are to develop properly. Then the student can come to rely on his own intuitive mathematical thinking to solve problems rather than the past memory of multiplication tables, etc. This same principle applies to all the spiritual forces which were intended for humanity to develop through its many Earthly lives, so that we may gradually become free thinking agencies capable of moral imagination and novel creations. There is great Wisdom in the discontinuities of consciousness which veil the content of past lives so that we may freely work them over into inner forces.

sure, I never denied that there is some continuation and retention of the forces and abilities in the subconscious, otherwise any progress would be simply impossible. This is why the progress is still possible in human incarnations, but very slow compared to the progress when at least the key memories would be retained.

How do we know, from our current Earthly perspective, that we are too 'spiritually advanced' to continue the reincarnation cycle on the physical plane? After all, the fact that we are here means our Self within the higher spiritual planes, acting from living knowledge of those planes, already decided that it would be most reasonable and optimal to incarnate again for its further development and/or that of the Cosmic organism as a whole. The only way around this reality is for our Earthly self to blame that decision which its higher Self made on some other force, some other being, who ensared it in hedonistic desires. It is only here, on the physical plane, where the dualistic projection is occurring. Our higher Self would never conceive to blame its own decision to continue incarnating on some being apart from itself, because that perspective on reality simply doesn't exist for it. Why do we engage in this projective tendency? Because we want to convince ourselves that we are perfect moral beings already, capable of full conscious participation in the spirit worlds without any further development. But if we were more livingly aware of all our dark soul-tendencies at our current stage, as our higher Self is, it would be immediately clear to us why we must proceed through more discontinuities of consciousness to attain our ideals.

Right, there is noone to blame, that is why I said above "By the way, the Demiurge does not force anyone to incarnate, the souls are attracted to his realm by their egoic desires and the Demiurge simply takes advantage of that." The higher Self does not choose or dictate the soul what to do and where to incarnate, but it guides the soul very subtly and delicately providing it with the insights and spiritual revelations whenever the soul is ready. The soul chooses the realms to incarnate according to its inclinations, its worldview and mental patterns and its desires and interests (or, as the Buddhists say, according the "karma"). So, how do we know? Here is an example: imagine you were a gambling addict living and spending all your time in Casino and neglecting any spiritual interests and matters. Your addiction would make you to return to the Casino over and over again. Of course, it would be silly to blame the Casino managers for your addiction. But gradually you came to realize that it is an unhealthy addiction that hinders your growth, and therefore the Casino is an inappropriate place for you to spend your time there that impedes your healing and growth. You look around and realize that there are better places and activities other than Casino which would greatly help you to heal and develop. At that point you do not feel attracted to Casino anymore, at that point you know that the Casino is a wrong place for you to live. The managers of Casino will certainly try to convince you to stay (because you are the source of their income), but their arguments would not resonate with you anymore. Similarly, once we progress beyond the egoic state with its dualistic delusion and its addictions to bodily desires, we know that the human form with all its genetic and cultural programming into dualistic and egoic state of mind would be no longer an appropriate place for us to live.