Federica wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:45 pmAshvinP wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 2:44 pm Federica,
I agree, unwinding the personality rooted in the lower ego is the key task - the sacrificial death which is needed - and also what I mean by 'morally perfecting the character'. The million little things are exactly the way to do that, along with strenuous meditative effort which seeks higher guiding impulses from the spirit worlds. Remember, the little things are only 'little' from the aliased physical perspective - when they are rhythmically placed as seed-offerings to the spirit worlds during meditation, sleep, between incarnations, they are then becoming something much more than we can imagine. They are elaborated by all the higher hierarchies working on our behalf, before being incarnated again within our soul-life.
Another thing is that the efforts to unwind the personality should, correspondingly, be understood as something we are engaging as a human collective for Cosmic aims. You mentioned before that you feel the 'we' and 'our' is too impersonal in these discussions, but that is exactly the point - it is not 'my' problems, 'my' issues, etc., but the shared archetypal tendencies which have flowed down through many incarnations since the Fall, prior to which we were all in fact a unified soul-spiritual organism. That is why it perfectly proper for us to feel, for ex., that we have crucified Christ and it is part of our karma. I was planning on sharing the following passage somewhere, so may as well do it here. I encourage anyone interesting in pursuing it further to order the book, which is probably worth it for this chapter alone.
But I also want to point out, I think whatever you are doing in your own personal practice is perfectly fine and it is clearly working, even if the results aren't clear yet or we feel to have bumped up against various barriers. I often feel the same way in my own practice. These comments are not about pointing to any given person and saying they should be doing more of this or more of that - it is simply about providing the constant stream of communal support that we will all surely need as we work further into the dark depths of our existence.
If our souls are filled with these questions as we approach the Lord’s Prayer, we will be deeply struck by something in the text of these seven petitions; they never mention the individual human “I.” There is no talk of my Father, my trespasses, and so on, a mode of expression that would be a basic condition of mystic absorption and religious fervor in prayer. The petitions always use “we,” “our Father,” “our trespasses,” and so on. This points to the first, preliminary way we must approach the Lord’s Prayer. It shows us that the Lord’s Prayer is not at all intended for personal use; consciousness concerned with personal, individual matters cannot use the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is not intended for the fulfillment of individual wishes, for the rapturous absorption of lonely mystics, or for personal development. The mere fact that it is addressed to God the Father shows that it is not intended for these purposes. The Father God has to do with the hierarchy of humanity, not its groups and individuals. Separate beings have conscious relationship with the Father only insofar as they represent their hierarchy in its capacity as a community in cosmic destiny. And no one is qualified to represent the fourth hierarchy without having made the concerns of its destiny one’s own. When reciting, in the name of humanity, the seven petitions related to the seven needs of human destiny, one’s consciousness must be occupied with the questions that concern human destiny. Then one’s voice becomes the voice of humanity; the unconscious voices of all humankind form a chorus that joins the voice consciously expressing the seven needs of humanity. The hierarchical choirs alone penetrate as high as to the Father God; the sounds of single voices die away on closer thresholds. This is why poets imagine choirs of angelic hosts (though we need not determine here whether those spiritual hierarchies sing “Gloria” and “Hosanna” to the Father God). The fourth hierarchy is no exception; if words are to ascend to God the Father, they must rise morally and spiritually in chorus. What the chorus of humanity has to say to God the Father is contained in the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, as spoken by Jesus Christ as the representative of humanity. The Lord’s Prayer is the spiritual and moral expression of the chorus of the fourth hierarchy; it contains every cry humankind sends up—even to the threshold of the Father sphere—in all the toil of labor, all the pain of sickness, all the distress and fear of death, and also in every endeavor after goodness, truth, and beauty. This is why the Lord’s Prayer offers the best training in selflessness and the surest and most comprehensive source from which the recognition of the true need of humanity can be drawn.
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Now, the very idea of balance is connected to right and left—the horizontal. And this idea is completely appropriate when applied to the karmic relationship between earlier earthly lives and the current one, because it involves an ongoing act of balancing. This idea alone, however, is not enough for understanding the Lord’s Prayer, which does not deal with the fulfillment of karma from the past, but with determining future karma now. The seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer represent an active determination of karma, not merely petition for karma to occur; there is no need to be anxious about that. Because the Lord’s Prayer deals with the predetermination of karma in the present, the balance that forms the basis of the Lord’s Prayer and gives the petitions karmic justification must be imagined not as horizontal, but as vertical. We must picture one end of the scale in heaven and the other on Earth. The higher scale is in the realm of the Father’s mercy; the lower in the sphere of human initiative. Between the two and determining the balance is the Son, through whom, alone, human beings can approach the Father. The fact that this karmic balance weighs vertically rather than horizontally is a consequence of the Son becoming the lord of karma. The rule of Christian karma is: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7). This differs from the law of the elders, or karma of the old covenant, in that following the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the weighing was no longer just horizontal, but also vertical. In other words, along with the law whose principle is “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", the new law, whose principle is preeminently expressed in the Lord’s Prayer, becomes increasingly important. In the following meditations, we will discuss the moral and spiritual meaning of the vertical position of the karmic balance, as well as the nature of the “new law,” whose lord is Christ. The task here is to clarify, through the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, the nature of the new relationship between humanity and God the Father—that is, the nature of the new covenant as Christian karma, in which the weighing is done vertically.
Tomberg, Valentin; Bruce, R.H.. Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse (p. 231). steinerbooks. Kindle Edition.
Ashvin,
Thank you for the quote. Indeed I have a weak understanding of the Lord's Prayer. These notes are not fully clear, but useful, and I will absolutely order the book, as soon as I'm back home from some travel to come. I appreciate your comments on the small, but significant steps, and that they are an expression of the entire humanity through us. I understand that, but I need to inhabit such a collective perspective more concretely, when acting, thinking, feeling. I think the main issue is that I have not yet understood in real terms what it means to inhabit the collective perspective, while preserving an individual perspective at the same time. This is a question I asked Cleric months ago, and in the moment I felt very satisfied with the explanations. But in fact, I have to regularly go back and read them again. In the moment, I believe I understand, only to forget again what the individual perspective really consists of, and how it will be preserved going forward. So it clearly means I haven't really understood it.
Rest assured, Federica, that this happened to me very often and still does to some extent. It gets better over time. We can even get quite precise with the rhythms which govern how that which is understood by the ego (or consciousness soul) descends into the lower soul-body members so it is more naturally retained, although it will certainy vary by our individual karmic context and our efforts to penetrate the insights with feeling as well. Steiner discussed these rhythms in various places. But even still I have many days where some insight which struck me deeply the day before seems like a hazy memory the next day, and I can't really figure out why I thought it was so insightful or how it fits into a more holistic tapesty. Then it comes back to me later in some other context. I think a big part of overcoming this forgetfulness is actually becoming willing to forget - letting go of our need to recall and grasp all that we have learned and simply trusting our angel will bring it back to us when the time is right.
We should also remember that the work is not the process of grasping and retaining the insights, but of exercising our will-thinking to strenuously work through unfamiliar spiritual ideas, with reverential feeling which renounces the merely personal aspects of our striving. That is how it becomes more intimate to our first person stream of becoming over time. Like you said before, it's the method that counts. The content will fall into place eventually, but whether that's tomorrow or a year from now hardly matters. As long we are willing to confront our flaws and mistakes honestly, to learn and grow from them, it will be made sure that we do.
Federica wrote:With all this said, I still have to push back your remark on pronouns, and the use of impersonal expression.
It's one thing to say "we have crucified Christ and this is our karma". I am fully onboard here, likewise when speaking of weaknesses or tendencies that can apply to us, even if only hypothetically. No problem with that, I think it's a healthy habit. My comment about strange impersonal turns of phrases referred to a very different use. Namely, it's when something very particular I have said is commented on, and every effort is made to find a turn of the sentence, that avoids the use of 'you', no matter how artificial the final result may sound. For example, when Cleric compared me to Eugene:
Cleric wrote:It is similar here (real meaning=with you). It is not known (=you don't know) what the future will be like but it is expected (=you expect) that the sovereignty of the individual agency should become more and more pronounced. On these grounds, anything that speaks of palettes, choices, etc. is seen (=you see it) as moving in the opposite direction, as fragmenting the individual source of freedom.
This style should supposedly help me not take things too personally, which is my well known tendency
This is what I was criticizing, not when we say "we" to intend "us humans", as an expression of solidarity and humility.
I personally find it an odd thing to criticize. Even if I got that sense from the use of "it" instead of "you", which I don't (but I understand what you are saying), I don't see what good comes from the criticism. I think everyone knows what overall meaning is intended.
Moreover, those are exactly the archetypal tendencies we all share in our current stage of the personalized consciousness soul - reductionism, dualism, polarization, one-sidedness, prejudicial expectations with respect to spiritual reality, etc. There is no doubt that at least one other person reading the comment besides you is thinking through it in the same way.
Federica wrote:I am sorry I'll have to sound controversial here again. Although I definitely recognize the spirit of your statement, and that you definitely live up to it, I still believe it's impossible to equate that spirit to an absence of personalized comments. I think personalized comments are inevitable. I remember for example a very specific series of comments you addressed to Dana, asking what concrete actions she/he was taking to progress spiritually. I think they were legitimate questions at that moment. They were also certainly personal ones. Put it on the back of my lack of understanding if you want, but I think a certain level of personalization is inherent to the choice of forum format.Ashvin wrote:These comments are not about pointing to any given person and saying they should be doing more of this or more of that
Perhaps that is helpful in a very specific context, where someone keeps telling you they 'agree' with or understand your position and line of reasoning, but you know they don't, and the only conceivable way to show it to them is to point towards the personal sphere of activity. Or if the question is about spiritual practice and the person specifically asks for feedback on what they are doing. We don't need any bright line rules which exclude all personal comments, I agree. But the emphasis should be that our soul-life and thinking consciousness is not, in fact, only personal to us, because our default conditioning is always suggesting that it is.