Meditation exercise on "separate me"

[Federica]

Federica, you are completely right that freedom is not about perceiving glyphs, like a kid perceiving many kinds of candy and having the 'freedom' to choose. There's no question that freedom lies in the 'prism-quality'. Let me try to approach this once again, in a probably somewhat surprising way.

We can draw a parallel between what's going on here and what often happens in conversations with Eugene. Now please don't take it as a slap in the face that I attempt to draw such a comparison. I must declare that there are absolutely no personal emotions here. The goal is only to approach these questions from more sides.

What is the basic conundrum in all the talks with Eugene? It's the absolutization of the Divine essence within us into the way we experience it in our present human stage (even if enlightened). We secretly feel as one with the apex of the pyramid and only expect reality to fill the cone below it in the course of evolution. This has been contrasted many times with another picture, such as this one used in the Central Topic. You understand this very well. Actually the glyph tunnel is practically the same picture but presented from within. The unity of our inner life is the ego. It is the intuition that integrates all experiences into the holistic story of a metamorphosing being.

The reason talks with Eugene can't get to the needed depth is because the oneness is abused. We can speak of oneness only because we know the oneness of our soul life - the integration of everything we experience in relation to the one "I". This is the lower cone. This oneness seems like the final frontier. After all, what could be more one than one? Eugene was outraged when it was mentioned that we have to actually cure ourselves of this kind of oneness, which is really the last fetter before entering the spiritual world. Since this is not done, one remains wondering how can we advance in meditation. Then if one is presented with something about the spiritual world, it is immediately dismissed because it seems too fragmented, too lost in multiplicity.

Let's contemplate this well: when we meditate on oneness we feel to be at the upper boundary of reality because as said, what could we be more one than one? There's no such thing. So everything else must lie below, in multiplicity.

Now something analogous happens here but in a different way. Freedom has to do with drawing the impulses for our spiritual activity from our innermost core. If there are interfering factors, glyphs, temptations, candies and so on, these only point to multiplicity and karmic entanglement. But now the question arises: what happens with this process when it goes well into the future? What is the experience of a being that has become so free that almost everything it does springs from the individual source?

It may not be obvious but this bears some relation with the oneness scenario. Notice the commonality: in both cases there's a certain foundational idea and a question. We have often asked Eugene how he envisions future existence (which should unfold oneness even further). The answers are usually of the kind that things are too orthogonal to anything we can know on Earth. It's like saying "I don't know what it will be like but I know that much that it won’t be like you say because what you speak of obviously moves in the opposite direction of oneness."

It is similar here. It is not known what the future will be like but it is expected 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 as moving in the opposite direction, as fragmenting the individual source of freedom.

In both cases the hourglass shape is not properly taken into account. As soon as we cross the threshold, we find multiplicity again although in a very different way. That's why the abstract idea of oneness is the last fetter - as long as we cling to it, we would never allow ourselves to discover the multiplicity of the spiritual world. This multiplicity is of a radically different character compared to the multiplicity of glyphs or candies. It is multiplicity in the prism itself, in our innermost intuitive core. We find that our ego is really a constellation of spiritual beings.

Naturally, it is quite difficult to speak of these states because they belong to the stage of Intuition. We have to renounce Imagination and Inspiration and remain only with our pure intuitive spirit. Here we face the difficult part. If we expect that freedom consists in drawing more and more upon the unity of our sovereign individuality, we would never allow ourselves to know the true reality of our ego. We'll keep searching for what is more one than one, we’ll look to conduct our spiritual activity as if emerging from a singularity that is more and more independent of everything (thus ever freer).

So if this is the case why does Steiner mislead us in PoF to seek freedom by drawing upon our individual spiritual being? He doesn't mislead us but we have to remember that PoF leads us to the bottleneck of the hourglass. It is completely true that we have to free ourselves from the multiplicity of the lower cone in order to find freedom in the flow through the pinhole of the "I". But if we imagine that further evolution would only make this pinhole tighter and tighter, as if we draw more and more of our impulses from our individual agency, we simply preclude any possibility to know the intuitive reality of the "I". This we can only know when we experience our ego as the unity within multiplicity of spiritual beings (the Christ being of course serving as the central inspirer of the coherency).

The most difficult thing here is that we're used to conceive of beings only as something that impresses into our phenomenal world and we confront them with our "I". Then we can say that we're free if we don't allow ourselves to be dragged by the phenomena but instead draw our impulses from our innermost spiritual being. The spiritual beings in the Intuitive world however, don't impress in our inner world in this way. Instead, we find them when our "I" partitions and we understand the streams that constitute it as living spiritual beings. It's obvious that at this stage we can't go on to seek freedom in the exact same way, as seeking our impulses as emerging from the singular source of our "I". Instead, our impulses now stream as interplay of the spiritual beings that we balance consciously. Our “I” is centered at an infinitesimal point around which the Cosmic mandala of intuitive beings produce constructive interference. If we insist that we draw our impulses from that point, we find nothing there. We peel the layers of reality until there’s nothing. Our “I” has existence only as the constellation of beings. For this reason freedom is a matter of dynamic harmonization of these intuitive streams.

I hope the basic message is clear. Just like focusing on oneness leads us to a dead end, so does imagining that the inner experience of freedom is like drawing ever more our impulses from our individual agency. When we shatter the last fetter, our innermost intuitive self is found to be weaved of living intuitive beings. Pictorially speaking, one stream comes from Libra, another from Aries and so on. The grand difficulty is that the reality of this can’t be exhausted through Imagination or even Inspiration. In Imagination we still live in the metamorphosing glyphs in which Intuition is reflected. In Inspiration we hear the meaning of Intuition as World Thoughts. Only in Intuition itself we live in the reality of the “I”, where we find the beings not as something with which we interacts and emancipate from (in order to be more free) but as the intuitive streams which constitute our “I”-reality and that of the World. Freedom is now a matter of understanding how our intuitive point of balance is weaved of the streams of the Cosmic constellation and how we regulate that balance.

I first thought I would refrain from going into a detailed answer, but I have changed my mind.

freedom is not about perceiving glyphs, like a kid perceiving many kinds of candy and having the 'freedom' to choose.

If so, how can freedom be about the following:

we may find out that the water level in the room is rising and soon will reach the ceiling. Then we have to utilize our freedom to find the creative solutions to the situation. Just like any engineering task, there might not be one best solution. For example, if we have to build a bridge, there are various possible designs.

What is the difference between choices of candies and choices of bridge engineering?

Now something analogous happens here but in a different way. Freedom has to do with drawing the impulses for our spiritual activity from our innermost core. If there are interfering factors, glyphs, temptations, candies and so on, these only point to multiplicity and karmic entanglement. But now the question arises: what happens with this process when it goes well into the future? What is the experience of a being that has become so free that almost everything it does springs from the individual source?

First, it's evident, but worth recalling (because it seems ignored here): since I criticized the cannabis example of freedom, my focus has remained on characterizing what freedom is now for us. Because there appeared to be big discrepancies in that understanding, I remained on that question, leaving aside my original question about future man on Jupiter and freedom. Present freedom is where we stayed even since, with few side remarks (pushed by Ashvin) on what freedom might be for future man.

That said, I don’t see glyphs as “interfering factors'' at all. In a way, that’s my whole point: they don't interfere. So it strikes me that this expression is used to portrait my supposedly Eugene-like position. Just as importantly: I never implied that the glyphs point at karmic entanglement. The glyphs are the crystallization of the unfolded interplay of karmic entanglement and freedom. Again: the question of the future does not arise for now, at least not for me. Not until some clarity has been shed on the present meaning of freedom (although Ashvin tried to keep it up in parallel). In short: it appears that my viewpoint has not been accurately rendered here.

It is similar here. It is not known what the future will be like but it is expected 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 as moving in the opposite direction, as fragmenting the individual source of freedom.

I have never had any expectations about what future freedom would be like for future man, let alone expectations of sovereignty. If anything, when pushed, I rather express the opposite idea, saying that future man would probably have “super-responsibilities”. So the above is a mistreatment of what I have said. Moreover, it implicitly shifts the object of controversy - on which I have been objecting since the drugs example - from the present idea of freedom, to the freedom of future man (on which I never dared to open any controversy).
Again, saying that in my view alternative choices are fragmenting, is a distortion of what I said. As I said in many variations of vocabulary, alternative choices are simply not where freedom happens, are asynchronous with freedom.

If we expect that freedom consists in drawing more and more upon the unity of our sovereign individuality, we would never allow ourselves to know the true reality of our ego. We'll keep searching for what is more one than one, we’ll look to conduct our spiritual activity as if emerging from a singularity that is more and more independent of everything (thus ever freer).

I recall that I was, and am, speaking of present freedom. Here is another mis-representation. In the post above, I stated clearly what my current definition of freedom is. I said: "Freedom, or free will, is the outpouring of knowledge - truth of reality made true by love - flowing through the prism of individual agency, and so becoming timely enterprise."
Not at all our sovereign individuality, but the inflow of knowledge in us, coming to a coincidence with us, and we with it. This is the opposite of a “more and more independent singularity”. I'm glad I wrote extensively, in a very long post (in the Venus thread) about how I intend knowledge, knowing, in relation to being, and doing. For the one who has read that post, it is without doubt how I do not intend it as unity of sovereign individuality becoming ever more independent.

To sum up, I don't recognize this characterization of my viewpoint. I understand well the analogy drawn between Eugene's vision and the vision that is here portrayed as mine. It would work, if that was my vision. But it's not. Not my vision of knowing, as recorded in the threads. Regarding the last two paragraphs, I understand them, to the extent that they are understandable without being familiar with Intuitive cognition. What I still don't understand is how that leads to the drug example and the similar ones.

[AshvinP]

Again: the question of the future does not arise for now, at least not for me. Not until some clarity has been shed on the present meaning of freedom (although Ashvin tried to keep it up in parallel). In short: it appears that my viewpoint has not been accurately rendered here.

Just a brief comment here. We should keep in mind, higher cognition is simply the process of awakening to our own future evolution which is already taking place across the threshold. It is awakening to what we are doing now for our freedom within the states which are less aliased than our current perception. In the latter, what we think about our freedom in conceptual terms is misaligned with the experience of what we are actually doing to realize it across incarnations and epochs. We experience something of the Moon-Jupiter, Sun-Venus, Saturn-Vulcan states every period after we die and before we are reborn (and to a more limited extent during sleep as well). The closer alignment all depends on how livingly and fluidly we employ and understand the concepts available to us with waking consciousness.

I mentioned examples of how the 'expanded palette', or whatever we want to call it at this point, is applicable between the rhythm of our current incarnation and our next incarnation, which is what I would say fits in the category of 'freedom for us now'. We could also point to examples within the course of our current incarnation. As I mentioned before, the 'ice cream flavors', or 'candies', 'superpowers', etc. that people seek outwardly these days, as caricatures of spiritual reality, are realized in their deeper spiritual essence on the esoteric path. Let's say we begin perceiving the auras of fellow beings in their interactions with us - then we have concrete feedback on how our soul-life interferes with theirs in ways which are simply unavailable to ordinary cognition. All of that is part and parcel of our ability to realize freedom within the context of the communal spiritual world which interferes to constellate our stream of becoming - how could it not be?

[Federica]

Again: the question of the future does not arise for now, at least not for me. Not until some clarity has been shed on the present meaning of freedom (although Ashvin tried to keep it up in parallel). In short: it appears that my viewpoint has not been accurately rendered here.

Just a brief comment here. We should keep in mind, higher cognition is simply the process of awakening to our own future evolution which is already taking place across the threshold. It is awakening to what we are doing now for our freedom within the states which are less aliased than our current perception. In the latter, what we think about our freedom in conceptual terms is misaligned with the experience of what we are actually doing to realize it across incarnations and epochs. We experience something of the Moon-Jupiter, Sun-Venus, Saturn-Vulcan states every period after we die and before we are reborn (and to a more limited extent during sleep as well). The closer alignment all depends on how livingly and fluidly we employ and understand the concepts available to us with waking consciousness.

I mentioned examples of how the 'expanded palette', or whatever we want to call it at this point, is applicable between the rhythm of our current incarnation and our next incarnation, which is what I would say fits in the category of 'freedom for us now'. We could also point to examples within the course of our current incarnation. As I mentioned before, the 'ice cream flavors', or 'candies', 'superpowers', etc. that people seek outwardly these days, as caricatures of spiritual reality, are realized in their deeper spiritual essence on the esoteric path. Let's say we begin perceiving the auras of fellow beings in their interactions with us - then we have concrete feedback on how our soul-life interferes with theirs in ways which are simply unavailable to ordinary cognition. All of that is part and parcel of our ability to realize freedom within the context of the communal spiritual world which interferes to constellate our stream of becoming - how could it not be?

I realize that clearly, as I also did while I was writing the post above. I am all the more aware that walking the Anthroposophical path today (if we are still allowed to use words such as "today" according to you?) is the activity of a small but growing group, that prefigures what future humanity will eventually become, through an encompassing evolutionary impulse, and that the transmuting of consciousness into free action along the path is precisely what expands the time-consciousness wave. I am all the more aware of that, as I'm reading the lectures given by von Halle, in which she describes the (spiritual but also) physical experience of stigmatization. So I'm having it laid out, strikingly before my eyes, the realization of how the greater palette expressed through her also-physical body is a window, not only for her on physical perceptions unbound to space-time (and on other "super-powers", and super-suffering, and super-responsibilities) but also a window for us witnesses of this prefiguration, on how real the Resurrection body is, shining through from the future, all the way down to physical reality, here and now.


That clarified, there still exist a pregnant sense in which one can say, as I am saying, that one is now focused on tackling the question of freedom from the edge of our - or let's say mine - present-day experience of freedom, grounded in PoF insights on moral intuition, rather than trying to stretch imagination and throw it to a future Jupiter, unphysical, future organ-man, wondering what freedom will be in that unphysical existence. This claim I am making is especially acceptable, when I am led there - to the present-day concrete experience of freedom - by your (Clerics in this case) real-life examples, such as the one of drugs. And please don't reply that we can already now bring that organ-quality within awareness. I realize that.


In summary, one cannot address my initial question about future man with present-day "relatable" examples, and then complain if I engage with those examples, and if I inquire about the very concrete freedom-meaning they point to. Which is exactly why I previously referred to the question of "greater palette" as "marginal". Not that it's marginal in general (how could it be) but only that, at that point in the conversation, it was an undue jump out of the logical thread. You were twisting my arm, as I said, ignoring my very concrete and precise objections (that remain unanswered to this point) trying to micromanage my attention, because I have to realize how to spiral polarities your way. Notice, with all that, I still accepted to follow your time zig-zag. For the records, that led to the diluted exchange we had above, ending in judgments about how lacking I am in understanding Love, reminders to circle back to things, and insights on the evolution and nature of Lucifer. So, I am willing to follow your logic, as I have demonstrated, including when it implies a full dismissal of my thoughts, or a slap in the face. But please don’t tag me with short-sightedness in this way, if I want to follow the track and logic of my own thoughts as well.

[Cleric K]

freedom is not about perceiving glyphs, like a kid perceiving many kinds of candy and having the 'freedom' to choose.

If so, how can freedom be about the following:

we may find out that the water level in the room is rising and soon will reach the ceiling. Then we have to utilize our freedom to find the creative solutions to the situation. Just like any engineering task, there might not be one best solution. For example, if we have to build a bridge, there are various possible designs.

What is the difference between choices of candies and choices of bridge engineering?

If we're choosing the bridge design from a catalog, maybe there's not much difference. But it is somewhat different if we have to gain knowledge of the laws of physics and invent a solution.

The water room is obviously a metaphor for our present age. The ceiling is the threshold of the spiritual world, which is no other that the threshold of death. The peculiarity of our age is that everything is done to keep life engaged only within what spans below that threshold. And this is not limited to materialism only but also all religious life which conceives the worlds as separate. The rising water level is the fact that whether we know it or not, the inner conditions of our Cosmic context are continually changing.

Anyway. Maybe we can have greater success if we start with very small steps from your position: "Freedom, or free will, is the outpouring of knowledge - truth of reality made true by love - flowing through the prism of individual agency, and so becoming timely enterprise." But what is the practical significance of this outpouring of knowledge? Can you point at something from your experience that can be seen as such outpouring of knowledge. I'm not speaking of some grand revelations. It can be something quite ordinary like ditching meat, reducing alcohol, giving thanks instead of cursing. All of those things proceed because of certain inner reflection, thinking about things of which we have probably never thought before. Some new knowledge has outpoured in our soul. Maybe these are all trivial things when simply stated but they have certainly flown through the prism of our individual agency. This knowledge has become intrinsic part of our being and can give new directions to our will.

Why would you call this freedom in your view? In what way you become freer through such outpours of knowledge?

[Federica]

freedom is not about perceiving glyphs, like a kid perceiving many kinds of candy and having the 'freedom' to choose.

If so, how can freedom be about the following:

we may find out that the water level in the room is rising and soon will reach the ceiling. Then we have to utilize our freedom to find the creative solutions to the situation. Just like any engineering task, there might not be one best solution. For example, if we have to build a bridge, there are various possible designs.

What is the difference between choices of candies and choices of bridge engineering?

If we're choosing the bridge design from a catalog, maybe there's not much difference. But it is somewhat different if we have to gain knowledge of the laws of physics and invent a solution.

The water room is obviously a metaphor for our present age. The ceiling is the threshold of the spiritual world, which is no other that the threshold of death. The peculiarity of our age is that everything is done to keep life engaged only within what spans below that threshold. And this is not limited to materialism only but also all religious life which conceives the worlds as separate. The rising water level is the fact that whether we know it or not, the inner conditions of our Cosmic context are continually changing.

Anyway. Maybe we can have greater success if we start with very small steps from your position: "Freedom, or free will, is the outpouring of knowledge - truth of reality made true by love - flowing through the prism of individual agency, and so becoming timely enterprise." But what is the practical significance of this outpouring of knowledge? Can you point at something from your experience that can be seen as such outpouring of knowledge. I'm not speaking of some grand revelations. It can be something quite ordinary like ditching meat, reducing alcohol, giving thanks instead of cursing. All of those things proceed because of certain inner reflection, thinking about things of which we have probably never thought before. Some new knowledge has outpoured in our soul. Maybe these are all trivial things when simply stated but they have certainly flown through the prism of our individual agency. This knowledge has become intrinsic part of our being and can give new directions to our will.

Why would you call this freedom in your view? In what way you become freer through such outpours of knowledge?

Cleric,
I was not asking what is materially different between choosing candies at the candy shop and inventing a bridge design. Everyone sees how these are very different activities, engaging different intents and skills in very disproportionate ways.
The question was: if you agree, as I understand you do, that the kid’s freedom, while it chooses the candies, is not a function of the many kinds of candies available at the shop, why should the freedom expressed in the activity of inventing a bridge design - no matter how complex, how challenging, how stimulating for ground-breaking skill-building it may turn out to be - depend on the level of variety, complexity, and interconnectedness of a hypothetical whole volume of potential, creative sub-tasks involved in the engineering of the invention?
There are always virtually infinite ‘ways’ to engage in activity in every moment, within the framework of a certain project or intent. The volume of potential in every moment is an abstraction. So how much, or how little constrained one particular dimension of activity is, in any given moment, cannot have any significance in terms of the level of freedom that I express in every moment through my activity. The lawfulness of the flow of becoming materializes constraints, but I can’t delegate to the instant shape of that space of constraints/space of possibilities the responsibility to define my freedom, the direction of my freely chosen course of action.
How to arbitrarily single out from the flow one supposedly crucial moment, that I call ‘choice’, and say that I am free, because there are more than one way to make that choice? In every instant, there are virtually infinite ways. Nothing can be used of that instant space of constraints/possibilities, to infer the extent of my freedom. Only my gained access to, and incorporation of, truth can express freedom, because it’s the only way to start steering the flow of becoming, and start giving it direction and purpose, in alignment with moral goals.

The practical consequence of the outpouring of knowledge is that the more I am receptive to it, the more I can be the intention through which the connection between truth, higher ideals, love, reality…. and their means of realization, through activity, is operated. For example, the decision to avoid alcohol, is a free decision connected to a certain level of knowing, and to the intention to enliven it through activity, in view of realizing knowledge progressively, along the direction of truth. There lies my freedom, in my intent to be the junction between an understanding and its realization. That there is more than one way to stay away from alcohol, is indeed an abstract statement. To paraphrase Leyf, it describes a phenomenological abyss, that has no role whatsoever in what is actually happening, or not happening, with my drink intake, and how free or unfree I am, in front of this question.

As it seems to me, the very fact that there are infinite things that I can decide not to do in every moment, should by itself be enough to show that the space of infinite alternative tunnels of glyphs that I could initiate in that moment, cannot by any means be a basis for an understanding of freedom.

“This knowledge has become an intrinsic part of our being and can give new directions to our will”, and the reason why I call it freedom is because certain obstacles have to be removed, in order to make possible a certain inner alignment through which knowledge can shine, and I make myself the place, or instrument, of that alignment. Every particular occurrence of alignment that I realize, only I can realize, and is not granted. It has to be maintained, “in the continually changing inner conditions of our cosmic context”. So freedom, paradoxically, finds ever higher expressions the more it converges, the more we let it grow by its own force, as a stabilizing force, able to find consistent direction in steering the riverbed, spiraling with karma. This is why I said freedom can only be a freedom to (create alignment) and not freedom from (the infinity of alternatives in the phenomenological abyss).

[AshvinP]

In summary, one cannot address my initial question about future man with present-day "relatable" examples, and then complain if I engage with those examples, and if I inquire about the very concrete freedom-meaning they point to. Which is exactly why I previously referred to the question of "greater palette" as "marginal". Not that it's marginal in general (how could it be) but only that, at that point in the conversation, it was an undue jump out of the logical thread. You were twisting my arm, as I said, ignoring my very concrete and precise objections (that remain unanswered to this point) trying to micromanage my attention, because I have to realize how to spiral polarities your way. Notice, with all that, I still accepted to follow your time zig-zag. For the records, that led to the diluted exchange we had above, ending in judgments about how lacking I am in understanding Love, reminders to circle back to things, and insights on the evolution and nature of Lucifer. So, I am willing to follow your logic, as I have demonstrated, including when it implies a full dismissal of my thoughts, or a slap in the face. But please don’t tag me with short-sightedness in this way, if I want to follow the track and logic of my own thoughts as well.

Federica,

I am not too interested in going back into the history of the comments, but rather starting from where we have clearly arrived now. Suffice to say, from my view, our comments have not been dismissing your thoughts and concerns in the least, but rather exploring them from angles which you didn't expect. Then you felt they were completely tangential jumps out of the logical threads. Your latest comment to Cleric further re-establishes my confidence that this is the case.

What you are calling 'hypothetical volume of potential, creative sub-tasks involved in the engineering of invention' is what I say is a pole of reality which is essential to understanding our free-ing stream of becoming. One problem I see is that you are trying to understand the physical metaphors as 1:1 applications to spiritual reality, whereas the spiritual reality is the mirror image of the physical spectrum (or vice versa). That is why I quoted the Witzenmann excerpt before on modern meditation. The spiritual reality is not something pre-made, waiting for us to discover, like it appears to be with phenomena of the sensory spectrum. It is something we discover in the process of inventing it. If this feels paradoxical and taxing to our intellect, then we are on the right track. And then we need to be very open to exploring pathways of understanding this aspect of spiritual freedom in our stream of becoming which will not be presented exactly how we currently expect them to be. That is the reason for focusing to some extent on our future evolution into the spiritual Cosmos, where we are more consciously active from the pole of the current liminal spaces, but it is nevertheless integral to our practical understanding the course of our freedom here and now.

Do not imagine though, that all this is being said to encourage a world conception that will bring man back into this kind of rhythm again. Man had to get away from the old rhythm; his progress depends on this: When certain prophets go around today preaching ‘Back to Nature’, they want to bring life into reverse instead of helping it forward. All this chatter about returning to nature contains no understanding of real evolution. When a movement today recommends people to eat certain foods only at certain times of the year because nature herself indicates this by making foods grow only at certain times, this is the abstract talk of the amateur. The essential thing about evolution is that man grows more and more independent of outer rhythm. But we must not lose the ground from under our feet. It is not the best thing for man's progress and salvation to return to the old rhythm and ask himself how he should live in harmony with the four quarters of the moon. For it was essential in olden times for man to be like an impress of the cosmos. But it is important too that man should not believe he can live without rhythm. Just as his inner life was formed from outside inwards he must now create rhythm from inside outwards. That is the essential thing. His inner life must become rhythmic. Just as rhythm created the cosmos, man has to permeate himself with a new rhythm if he wants to share in the creating of a new cosmos. It is characteristic of our age that it has lost the old, external rhythm and has not yet attained a new inner one. Man has outgrown nature — if we call the outer expression of spirit ‘nature’ — but has not yet grown into the spirit. He is still floundering today between nature and spirit. This is just what is characteristic of our time.

Anyway, I just wanted to briefly remark on the above and I'm sure Cleric will provide a more extensive response.

[Federica]

In summary, one cannot address my initial question about future man with present-day "relatable" examples, and then complain if I engage with those examples, and if I inquire about the very concrete freedom-meaning they point to. Which is exactly why I previously referred to the question of "greater palette" as "marginal". Not that it's marginal in general (how could it be) but only that, at that point in the conversation, it was an undue jump out of the logical thread. You were twisting my arm, as I said, ignoring my very concrete and precise objections (that remain unanswered to this point) trying to micromanage my attention, because I have to realize how to spiral polarities your way. Notice, with all that, I still accepted to follow your time zig-zag. For the records, that led to the diluted exchange we had above, ending in judgments about how lacking I am in understanding Love, reminders to circle back to things, and insights on the evolution and nature of Lucifer. So, I am willing to follow your logic, as I have demonstrated, including when it implies a full dismissal of my thoughts, or a slap in the face. But please don’t tag me with short-sightedness in this way, if I want to follow the track and logic of my own thoughts as well.

Federica,

I am not too interested in going back into the history of the comments, but rather starting from where we have clearly arrived now. Suffice to say, from my view, our comments have not been dismissing your thoughts and concerns in the least, but rather exploring them from angles which you didn't expect. Then you felt they were completely tangential jumps out of the logical threads. Your latest comment to Cleric further re-establishes my confidence that this is the case.

What you are calling 'hypothetical volume of potential, creative sub-tasks involved in the engineering of invention' is what I say is a pole of reality which is essential to understanding our free-ing stream of becoming. One problem I see is that you are trying to understand the physical metaphors as 1:1 applications to spiritual reality, whereas the spiritual reality is the mirror image of the physical spectrum (or vice versa). That is why I quoted the Witzenmann excerpt before on modern meditation. The spiritual reality is not something pre-made, waiting for us to discover, like it appears to be with phenomena of the sensory spectrum. It is something we discover in the process of inventing it. If this feels paradoxical and taxing to our intellect, then we are on the right track. And then we need to be very open to exploring pathways of understanding this aspect of spiritual freedom in our stream of becoming which will not be presented exactly how we currently expect them to be. That is the reason for focusing to some extent on our future evolution into the spiritual Cosmos, where we are more consciously active from the pole of the current liminal spaces, but it is nevertheless integral to our practical understanding the course of our freedom here and now.

Do not imagine though, that all this is being said to encourage a world conception that will bring man back into this kind of rhythm again. Man had to get away from the old rhythm; his progress depends on this: When certain prophets go around today preaching ‘Back to Nature’, they want to bring life into reverse instead of helping it forward. All this chatter about returning to nature contains no understanding of real evolution. When a movement today recommends people to eat certain foods only at certain times of the year because nature herself indicates this by making foods grow only at certain times, this is the abstract talk of the amateur. The essential thing about evolution is that man grows more and more independent of outer rhythm. But we must not lose the ground from under our feet. It is not the best thing for man's progress and salvation to return to the old rhythm and ask himself how he should live in harmony with the four quarters of the moon. For it was essential in olden times for man to be like an impress of the cosmos. But it is important too that man should not believe he can live without rhythm. Just as his inner life was formed from outside inwards he must now create rhythm from inside outwards. That is the essential thing. His inner life must become rhythmic. Just as rhythm created the cosmos, man has to permeate himself with a new rhythm if he wants to share in the creating of a new cosmos. It is characteristic of our age that it has lost the old, external rhythm and has not yet attained a new inner one. Man has outgrown nature — if we call the outer expression of spirit ‘nature’ — but has not yet grown into the spirit. He is still floundering today between nature and spirit. This is just what is characteristic of our time.

Anyway, I just wanted to briefly remark on the above and I'm sure Cleric will provide a more extensive response.

This is not received, Ashvin, I have no idea what this quote is talking about and why you quoted it, nor I get what you exactly mean by "you are trying to understand the physical metaphors as 1:1 applications to spiritual reality".
Regarding understanding by inventing the spiritual reality, I only understand that as the continuously changing cosmic context, as Cleric puts it, or as riverbed, to put it in another image. Other than that, I understand spiritual reality as objective, and that a certain exploration can be differently related by different persons only by slightly different ways to render it through language. Maybe you mean that such objective reality has to be created out of our own spiritual flesh, and in that case yes, I get it. This is nothing else than what's been referred to a million times here as "living experience", I guess. Being very open that things will unfold outside of our present schemes and expectations ya, I think I am constitutionally open to that, I have always been so, every moment of my life, because I am an explorer.

[AshvinP]

In summary, one cannot address my initial question about future man with present-day "relatable" examples, and then complain if I engage with those examples, and if I inquire about the very concrete freedom-meaning they point to. Which is exactly why I previously referred to the question of "greater palette" as "marginal". Not that it's marginal in general (how could it be) but only that, at that point in the conversation, it was an undue jump out of the logical thread. You were twisting my arm, as I said, ignoring my very concrete and precise objections (that remain unanswered to this point) trying to micromanage my attention, because I have to realize how to spiral polarities your way. Notice, with all that, I still accepted to follow your time zig-zag. For the records, that led to the diluted exchange we had above, ending in judgments about how lacking I am in understanding Love, reminders to circle back to things, and insights on the evolution and nature of Lucifer. So, I am willing to follow your logic, as I have demonstrated, including when it implies a full dismissal of my thoughts, or a slap in the face. But please don’t tag me with short-sightedness in this way, if I want to follow the track and logic of my own thoughts as well.

Federica,

I am not too interested in going back into the history of the comments, but rather starting from where we have clearly arrived now. Suffice to say, from my view, our comments have not been dismissing your thoughts and concerns in the least, but rather exploring them from angles which you didn't expect. Then you felt they were completely tangential jumps out of the logical threads. Your latest comment to Cleric further re-establishes my confidence that this is the case.

What you are calling 'hypothetical volume of potential, creative sub-tasks involved in the engineering of invention' is what I say is a pole of reality which is essential to understanding our free-ing stream of becoming. One problem I see is that you are trying to understand the physical metaphors as 1:1 applications to spiritual reality, whereas the spiritual reality is the mirror image of the physical spectrum (or vice versa). That is why I quoted the Witzenmann excerpt before on modern meditation. The spiritual reality is not something pre-made, waiting for us to discover, like it appears to be with phenomena of the sensory spectrum. It is something we discover in the process of inventing it. If this feels paradoxical and taxing to our intellect, then we are on the right track. And then we need to be very open to exploring pathways of understanding this aspect of spiritual freedom in our stream of becoming which will not be presented exactly how we currently expect them to be. That is the reason for focusing to some extent on our future evolution into the spiritual Cosmos, where we are more consciously active from the pole of the current liminal spaces, but it is nevertheless integral to our practical understanding the course of our freedom here and now.

Do not imagine though, that all this is being said to encourage a world conception that will bring man back into this kind of rhythm again. Man had to get away from the old rhythm; his progress depends on this: When certain prophets go around today preaching ‘Back to Nature’, they want to bring life into reverse instead of helping it forward. All this chatter about returning to nature contains no understanding of real evolution. When a movement today recommends people to eat certain foods only at certain times of the year because nature herself indicates this by making foods grow only at certain times, this is the abstract talk of the amateur. The essential thing about evolution is that man grows more and more independent of outer rhythm. But we must not lose the ground from under our feet. It is not the best thing for man's progress and salvation to return to the old rhythm and ask himself how he should live in harmony with the four quarters of the moon. For it was essential in olden times for man to be like an impress of the cosmos. But it is important too that man should not believe he can live without rhythm. Just as his inner life was formed from outside inwards he must now create rhythm from inside outwards. That is the essential thing. His inner life must become rhythmic. Just as rhythm created the cosmos, man has to permeate himself with a new rhythm if he wants to share in the creating of a new cosmos. It is characteristic of our age that it has lost the old, external rhythm and has not yet attained a new inner one. Man has outgrown nature — if we call the outer expression of spirit ‘nature’ — but has not yet grown into the spirit. He is still floundering today between nature and spirit. This is just what is characteristic of our time.

Anyway, I just wanted to briefly remark on the above and I'm sure Cleric will provide a more extensive response.

This is not received, Ashvin, I have no idea what this quote is talking about and why you quoted it, nor I get what you exactly mean by "you are trying to understand the physical metaphors as 1:1 applications to spiritual reality".
Regarding understanding by inventing the spiritual reality, I only understand that as the continuously changing cosmic context, as Cleric puts it, or as riverbed, to put it in another image. Other than that, I understand spiritual reality as objective, and that a certain exploration can be differently related by different persons only by slightly different ways to render it through language. Maybe you mean that such objective reality has to be created out of our own spiritual flesh, and in that case yes, I get it. This is nothing else than what's been referred to a million times here as "living experience", I guess.

Basically, a physical metaphor like bridge engineering is being used to point to a supra-intellectual spiritual process, but you are criticizing the metaphorical pointer within its physical/intellectual context. The near infinite ways to design a bridge are conceived as a platter of intellectual sub-options to choose from, while the idea of designing a bridge is something fixed and stable, as it is in our normal physical experience. I am saying it is more appropriate to think that the very idea of 'designing a bridge' (or the 'new rhythm') does not yet exist until we participate in establishing it within the Cosmic context. The expanding palette of pathways is not to be found in the varieties of bridge designs or the modes of implementation, using pre-existing materials and concepts, but the idea of bridge designing itself. Theoretically, the idea of 'bridge designing' at the spiritual level already exists - because ideas are objective and eternal - but it also needs to be invented, hence the paradoxical quality for the intellect which insists on theorizing.

Being very open that things will unfold outside of our present schemes and expectations ya, I think I am constitutionally open to that, I have always been so, every moment of my life, because I am an explorer.

Well this is a somewhat separate discussion, but nevertheless an important one. Maybe we pick it back up later. I think it's important for us to realize how little we know about our own constitution and how often we overestimate our good qualities while underestimating our negative ones, a tendency which may even intensify when we approach the Guardian (threshold of the spiritual world). We all have trouble overcoming expectations when attempting to cross the threshold, just as we all have 'confused notions of love'. It is simply a part of what it means to be human at our current stage.

[Federica]

Basically, a physical metaphor like bridge engineering is being used to point to a supra-intellectual spiritual process, but you are criticizing the metaphorical pointer within its physical/intellectual context.
Correct. I believe it's been agreed (so strange to imprison the verbs in the impersonal form, and turn pronouns to impersonal "we"... kind of your equivalent to the she/her habit. For you it's "we/it"...). So, I thought it had been agreed that we look at freedom for us now, in the physical world first, taking "very small steps" proportionate to my very small level of understanding. So I doubt it's been said that we start with very small steps, only to hide in the first one a pointer to a reality beyond the threshold...

The near infinite ways to design a bridge are conceived as a platter of intellectual sub-options to choose from,
Incorrect. As said, for me the infinite ways are an illusion, a kind of phenomenological abyss that can only be abstracted in every instant. Nothing we really can "choose from" in any reasonable and real sense.
while the idea of designing a bridge is something fixed and stable, as it is in our normal physical experience. I am saying it is more appropriate to think that the very idea of 'designing a bridge' (or the 'new rhythm') does not yet exist until we participate in establishing it within the Cosmic context.
Exactly! That's what I mean by phenomenological abyss! It's not only beyond the threshold, it's for every supposed decision point in time we wrongly and abstractly imagine as isolated, extra-significant moment in everyday life.
The expanding palette of pathways is not to be found in the varieties of bridge designs or the modes of implementation, using pre-existing materials and concepts, but the idea of bridge designing itself. Theoretically, the idea of 'bridge designing' at the spiritual level already exists - because ideas are objective and eternal - but it also needs to be invented, hence the paradoxical quality for the intellect which insists on theorizing. Why is this not seen in what I wrote? I can't say whether it is that my text isn't really being read, or that I am bad at expressing things...

Being very open that things will unfold outside of our present schemes and expectations ya, I think I am constitutionally open to that, I have always been so, every moment of my life, because I am an explorer.

Well this is a somewhat separate discussion, but nevertheless an important one. Maybe we pick it back up later. I think it's important for us to realize how little we know about our own constitution and how often we overestimate our good qualities while underestimating our negative ones, a tendency which may even intensify when we approach the Guardian (threshold of the spiritual world). We all have trouble overcoming expectations when attempting to cross the threshold, just as we all have 'confused notions of love'. It is simply a part of what it means to be human at our current stage.
Alright... I'm glad I'm kinda resilient (unless I'm overestimating it). Basically you are saying that I have to stand here as a phantom

[AshvinP]

Basically, a physical metaphor like bridge engineering is being used to point to a supra-intellectual spiritual process, but you are criticizing the metaphorical pointer within its physical/intellectual context.

Correct. I believe it's been agreed (so strange to imprison the verbs in the impersonal form, and turn pronouns to impersonal "we"... kind of your equivalent to the she/her habit. For you it's "we/it"...). So, I thought it had been agreed that we look at freedom for us now, in the physical world first, taking "very small steps" proportionate to my very small level of understanding. So I doubt it's been said that we start with very small steps, only to hide in the first one a pointer to a reality beyond the threshold...

Do you agree that 'freedom for us now in the physical world' cannot be understood outside the context of spiritual reality? That is sort of rhetorical, because clearly you do. We could put that in the PoF terms as the context of our intuitive thinking activity. Or, if we want to get finer and more practical resolution (which should be sought by a living understanding of PoF), then we are speaking of the liminal spaces of the hysteresis rhythm. For the 'here and now', the nested rhythms of our thinking-perception, sleep-waking, and death-birth, are all necessary to explore. (I would also argue that the rhythm of planetary incarnations is also necessary if we want to further deepen our understanding, but we can leave that aside.) Remember, we are always asleep in our will and dreaming in our feeling, even while we are awake in our normal thinking during the day. There aren't three different worlds, physical, soul, and spiritual, stacked one over the other, but they are superimposed.

Another way to put it is that we simply need to explore the levels of higher cognition, which is the same exact thing. The intellectual perspective alone cannot tell us anything about the unfolding of our freedom (except the freedom from being ruled by animal passions that we have already won). By explore, I don't mean we need to delve into the complex details of spiritual science across the threshold, but simply account for these rhythms or higher cognitive layers in some way or another. We can't understand freedom here and now if we isolate ourselves to the physical spectrum, because our freedom comes precisely from the rhythmic interaction of our increasingly conscious spiritual activity with the soul, life, and physical spectrums.

(btw, I am trying to structure my comments so as not to distract from Cleric's endeavor of taking 'very small steps'. In other words, I am only pointing to the need for exploration, and why you have miscontrued previous attempts to explore, rather than trying to launch into a parallel exploration at this time)

The near infinite ways to design a bridge are conceived as a platter of intellectual sub-options to choose from,

Incorrect. As said, for me the infinite ways are an illusion, a kind of phenomenological abyss that can only be abstracted in every instant. Nothing we really can "choose from" in any reasonable and real sense.

I was saying that you are projecting that 'phenomenological abyss' into the intention of the metaphor, because the metaphor is being interpreted only within its physical context, whereas the metaphor never intended such a limited context. (it's odd, because I see where you quoted the bridge design comparison from Cleric, but can't find the original comment - if I remember correctly, it was mostly an off-hand remark in a post which was focusing on the phenomenology of the 'I' across the threshold, which is where our deeper spiritual activity unfolds).

while the idea of designing a bridge is something fixed and stable, as it is in our normal physical experience. I am saying it is more appropriate to think that the very idea of 'designing a bridge' (or the 'new rhythm') does not yet exist until we participate in establishing it within the Cosmic context.

Exactly! That's what I mean by phenomenological abyss! It's not only beyond the threshold, it's for every supposed decision point in time we wrongly and abstractly imagine as isolated, extra-significant moment in everyday life.

The expanding palette of pathways is not to be found in the varieties of bridge designs or the modes of implementation, using pre-existing materials and concepts, but the idea of bridge designing itself. Theoretically, the idea of 'bridge designing' at the spiritual level already exists - because ideas are objective and eternal - but it also needs to be invented, hence the paradoxical quality for the intellect which insists on theorizing.

Why is this not seen in what I wrote? I can't say whether it is that my text isn't really being read, or that I am bad at expressing things...

What I am pointing to here is that you are misunderstanding the bridge metaphor, and presumably whatever other metaphors have been employed in this current endeavor, because you are projecting the phenomenological abyss idea into it, and then using that as a basis to argue that Cleric must be only speaking of something similar to 'freedom to choose a variety of candies in the candy shop'. That this isn't the intention of the endeavor, is indicated here:

In both cases the hourglass shape is not properly taken into account. As soon as we cross the threshold, we find multiplicity again although in a very different way.