A Phenomenology of Cognition (Max Leyf)

[AshvinP]

Federica,

It should be mentioned that, in the context from which this exercise was lifted, the discussion was specifically about using the word "I" and how it shouldn't be used, according to Eugene (and somewhat Lou), because it refers to a 'separate self'. As we saw recently, when Eugene responded to one of my posts, he still automatically links the word "I" with the concept of 'separate self', rather than the direct experience of the willful force that animates thought-perceptions. Lorenzo also has difficulty with this direct experience. I have also come across several other people in the analytic idealist context who simply feel an 'intentional doer' is nowhere to be found in 'experience'. So that was the primary purpose of sharing this exercise, which is also helpful for the rest of us to cultivate the intimate "I" experience.

(this part is not directed at you per se, but simply to add some reasoning to why the exercise is helpful) An oft-used metaphor is that the "I" can't perceive itself, just as the physical eye can't perceive itself. In our age, the habit is that we only consider 'real' that which can be perceived (thought about) in some way. Yet the "I" cannot be perceived, rather it is the invisible force that makes possible thinking and perception in the first place. In the process of divesting its energy into thinking-perception, the "I" merges into the 'background' of experience. So it can only be intimately experienced by consistently focusing its power in short bursts, so to speak. In normal life, this power is distributed across a wide spectrum of experiences that unfold over long stretches of time. For ex. we may learn to play an instrument - this will require the active will force of the "I", but it will happen over such a long stretch of time, where the main focus is learning a new musical skill, that we hardly have an opportunity to pay attention to the willed thinking experience itself.

With concentration exercises such as the fireball, the intent is precisely to experience the willing force in our thinking by condensing its normally distributed intensity into unitary thought-perceptions. Such exercises bring us much closer to the experiential reality of the "I" as an essential will force and how it is distinct from the normal thinking personality (the idea of "me"), the latter being a conglomeration of patterned perceptual experiences (including desires, emotions, etc.) that have been identified with over time. This personality is the 'separate me' that many people refer to, but we can easily distinguish this from the experience of "I" through concentration exercises. The experience of "I", which can be condensed into the conceptual testimony of "I", is exactly what brings the separate self back into a concrete relationship with its Universal life.

Ashvin,

But the experience of I that an adept of the separate self or Federica could make through these exercises, to follow your advice, would be quite merged with the "idea on me", isn't it? The higher-self can only be intuited after sustained practice of concentration I believe? I think these exercises would primarily debunk the separate self statement, by creating a very distinct and contrasted experience of the will, within the normal personality.

In any case it's hard to imagine how a non dualist could somehow be convinced to seriously try any of these exercises. One may hear that sometimes an atheist becomes a religious person, or a materialist an idealist. But has a non dualist ever doubted non dualism? Is it even imaginable?

Yes, certainly a sustained practice of concentration (including phenomenological study-meditate) is necessary to delaminate the depth layers of inner life. Yet we should also be clear that the distinct and contrasted experience of the thinking-will is the higher self, extending its Life into the normal personality. As Cleric pointed out in the essays, the normal flow of life experience through etched sensory and emotional pathways simply provides no incentives or opportunities to give this higher self a kernel into which it can incarnate. Even the least amount of effort in this direction will already do a lot to dismantle normal passive thinking habits and reorient our intuition toward the creative Cosmic life.

I'm not sure if a bonafide 'non dualist' would ever engage in a sustained practice of concentration exercises either. It runs counter to everything they have come to value in spiritual life - to dissociate from all sense of intentionality. This will be one of the greatest challenges and tests for humanity in the near future, it seems. Everywhere people are starting to seek the spiritual by merging with lower impulses in one direction or another, by forsaking or inflating the ego, and it takes a real act of courage, imagination, and reverence for what is beyond our limited sphere of interests to find the spiritual in an altogether different and unsuspected direction, by purifying the ego and harmonizing its activity with Cosmic intents.