The Nature of the sensory world or do we really *know* the ultimate ground of reality?

[Cleric K]

All manifested reality of forms, feelings and ideas is Imaginative, because it is all imagined by Consciousness. It may be imagined by higher-order beings, in which case it will present itself as percepts for lower-order ones and feel like "real world". Or, it can be imagined by lower-level beings. But still, everything is Imagined, except for Consciousness itself, because Consciousness is THAT which Imagines everything else.

This does not mean that imagined forms are "unreal", they are absolutely real as imaginations. Imagine an apple or an idea of an apple, or experience a percept of an apple by "looking at an apple on the table" - it is absolutely real as idea-imagination or percept. But there is no some kind of "real apple" existing "objectively" apart from the idea, imagination or percept of an apple. However, 99.9999% of humans perceive the reality in exactly this way - they believe/imagine that there is a "real objectively existing apple out there" which they experience, and they also imagine themselves being the "experiencer" of that apple existing apart from the "apple". This is a totally erroneous way of perceiving reality, but this is where the subject-object duality resides and splits the reality into multiplicity of "objectively and independently existing" subjects and objects. When we perceive reality in such erroneous way, we live in a completely abstract layer of imagined reality where we imagine "things", objects and subjects existing in an "objective world out there" that actually nowhere exist in reality. It is a "fairy tale" that is entirely incoherent with how/what the World actually is. Humans are currently stuck in this incoherent perception of reality, and we cannot significantly progress in spiritual evolution until we resolve and transcend it.

OK, but how does calling an apple only idea/imagination/percept really help us get closer to reality? I believe you would agree that our percept of the apple can be what it is only because of the fact that we operate through the nervous system and the sensory organs. But then if we call the latter also 'only imaginations', we fall for the problem that is addressed in the first pages of PoF with the example of Schop's philosophy.

Clearly, a perception of an apple on the table is some kind of modification of our inner environment. If we simply say that only the perception of the apple exists and there's nothing else, we should be able to explain why this perception seems to come from the perception of an apple tree, why the latter appears to have grown from a perception of a seed and so on.

What in your are these processes and what drives them? Are they simply 'animated' by the Divine subjectivity in the way a cartoonist would draw them frame by frame?

[Stranger]

OK, but how does calling an apple only idea/imagination/percept really help us get closer to reality? I believe you would agree that our percept of the apple can be what it is only because of the fact that we operate through the nervous system and the sensory organs. But then if we call the latter also 'only imaginations', we fall for the problem that is addressed in the first pages of PoF with the example of Schop's philosophy.

Clearly, a perception of an apple on the table is some kind of modification of our inner environment. If we simply say that only the perception of the apple exists and there's nothing else, we should be able to explain why this perception seems to come from the perception of an apple tree, why the latter appears to have grown from a perception of a seed and so on.

What in your are these processes and what drives them? Are they simply 'animated' by the Divine subjectivity in the way a cartoonist would draw them frame by frame?

Well, if we are still in idealism, then all these processes are only conscious experiences, whether they happen within the stream of phenomena of our individual conscious activities, or those of higher-order beings, or at the level of the Divine subjectivity. The particularities of this process is the subject of SS as far as I understand it.

As I said before, when I exercise my own willing, intuitive and imaginative abilities, I can follow phenomenologically how the willing gestures and imaginations-intuitions precipitate into more concrete forms, ideas and percepts. But I have no direct access to the process of how the idea of an "apple" in the imagination-intuition of higher-order beings (which I can intuitively access as a shared idea) precipitate into percepts within my own field of conscious phenomena. If you have any knowledge of this mechanism, I would be very interested to know about it.

[AshvinP]

OK, so isn't the critical part of this harmonized approach the investigation of how the Intuitive, Inspired, and Imaginative nature of reality becomes objectively manifested reality? I'm not speaking of an abstract model of various beings creating genetic structures which create dualistic perception and what not, but something much more akin to Cleric's various posts on the rhythmic cycles of manifestation which we can locate throughout our individual and collective experience of becoming. Shouldn't we move on from the broad realizations about the 'imaginative nature of any manifested reality' to this living phenomenology of the imaginative process by which specified realities, both 'past' and 'future', are manifested within our present stream of becoming?
So do you agree that these investigative efforts are critical to the harmonized approach and, if so, are you interested in making them? Let's also be clear that much of these living details we are speaking of now are not familiar to you. It is simply inconceivable that you already knew them and they are completely familiar, akin to some other details of the normal sensory-conceptual spectrum. That needs to be established if any progress is to be made. Most of the living details are also unfamiliar to me as well, and that's only natural, but we can't make any progress if we assume they are already known or akin to that which we already know. If we don't feel like we are being prompted towards profound insights and revelations when approaching these details, then something is off. Most likely we are abstracting and reducing them into familiar conceptual templates.

I absolutely agree that these investigative details are critical, and I am interested in making them. I do not claim that I already know them, I am a beginner on this path and I'm following Clerics writings, but as a beginner I do not have much to elaborate or add. I am indeed very interested in phenomenological understanding of how the Intuitive, Inspired, and Imaginative aspects of reality become objectively (or more precisely, inter-subjective) manifested reality.

Right, but then the next step will be most resisted. It is a sacrificial step. First, it is a recognition that when we keep two parallel paths of practices - as you just indicated to Federica (nondual practice and 'other practices' of SS) - it is akin to the following. We set a goal of moving the couch from room A to room B. In the morning, we push in direction of room B. In the evening, we get on the other side of the couch and push back in the direction of room A. We thereby nullify all progress towards the goal of getting the couch into room B. After a while, we notice that there is no progress and, further, that pushing from the other side - from room B towards room A - is actually more enjoyable, pleasurable, conducive to experiencing the Oneness, etc. We lose more and more motivation for pushing towards room B with every passing day, since this feels more like a grind, more intellectual, more dualistic (since we are remaining connected to the manifested details of the Idea), more exhausting, with little if any results to show for it. Indeed it is well known in esoteric science that the reason we go to sleep and that we die is because eventually this work exhausts the very life processes which sustain our incarnational existence.

I think this progression is clearly reflected in your comments, such as the second to last response to Cleric's post. Eventually our meditations and our study needs to become a rhythmic exercise in bringing about tigher and tigher connection between Idea and its manifestations, in real-time and simultaneously. This is not simply witnessing a panaroma of inexplicable manifestations, but inwardly explicating the lawful connections. Certain sacrifices must be made to endure that exercise, especially if we are already very familiar and comfortable with exploring only the Oneness of Idea. As long as we are unwilling to make that sacrifice, we will keep negating any little progress we make in unveiling the gradient of living manifestations of the Idea. This unveiling of the gradient is precisely what continually rebalances the life processes with the exhaustive processes of self-conscious thinking, so that we don't need to sacrifice the former for the latter, and we no longer experience it as the dualistic grind. Until then, our experience of it as a dualistic grind and therefore something to be pursued secondarily or not at all, is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy, born of our inner contradictory efforts with parallel practices.

[Federica]

I already gave an analogy of a child crawling and then learning to walk. We need to re-learn to perceive the reality in a coherent nondual way the same way a child re-learns their movements when they learn to walk and "leave behind" their crawling way to move. This re-learning is a living practice, not an "abstract stepping aside" (I don't even know what it means, how do you "step aside" from yourself ). Also, that is not first approach, but something that needs to be practiced along with other practices of SS.

Exactly, nobody knows how to step aside from oneself in practice, but this doesn't stop you from saying that our perception of reality is "erroneous", and that things "actually nowhere exist in reality":

When we perceive reality in such erroneous way, we live in a completely abstract layer of imagined reality where we imagine "things", objects and subjects existing in an "objective world out there" that actually nowhere exist in reality.

You negate the sensory spectrum as illusory, you call it an "incoherent perception". So you are saying NO to it (if you prefer this summary rather than "stepping aside"). This NO becomes your starting point of choice.
What is illusory is the naive-realistic vision of a monolithic reality dissociated from concepts and ideas. But you don't stop there. You go on and throw the baby out with the bathwater, and reject "dualistic reality". It's an ideological step that builds on the rejection of naive realism, but then extends well beyond that rejection, without foundation. All reality is of ideal nature, but at our human incarnated level we can't call ourselves out. The patient work is not to progressively extract us from the illusion of the senses. It is to progressively see what we are doing at our level in the sense world, remaining anchored within it and appreciating it. When we progressively see it, there will be no question why NASA does not find life forms on Mars.

[Stranger]

Right, but then the next step will be most resisted. It is a sacrificial step. First, it is a recognition that when we keep two parallel paths of practices - as you just indicated to Federica (nondual practice and 'other practices' of SS) - it is akin to the following. We set a goal of moving the couch from room A to room B. In the morning, we push in direction of room B. In the evening, we get on the other side of the couch and push back in the direction of room A. We thereby nullify all progress towards the goal of getting the couch into room B. After a while, we notice that there is no progress and, further, that pushing from the other side - from room B towards room A - is actually more enjoyable, pleasurable, conducive to experiencing the Oneness, etc. We lose more and more motivation for pushing towards room B with every passing day, since this feels more like a grind, more intellectual, more dualistic (since we are remaining connected to the manifested details of the Idea), more exhausting, with little if any results to show for it. Indeed it is well known in esoteric science that the reason we go to sleep and that we die is because eventually this work exhausts the very life processes which sustain our incarnational existence.

I think this progression is clearly reflected in your comments, such as the second to last response to Cleric's post. Eventually our meditations and our study needs to become a rhythmic exercise in bringing about tigher and tigher connection between Idea and its manifestations, in real-time and simultaneously. This is not simply witnessing a panaroma of inexplicable manifestations, but inwardly explicating the lawful connections. Certain sacrifices must be made to endure that exercise, especially if we are already very familiar and comfortable with exploring only the Oneness of Idea. As long as we are unwilling to make that sacrifice, we will keep negating any little progress we make in unveiling the gradient of living manifestations of the Idea. This unveiling of the gradient is precisely what continually rebalances the life processes with the exhaustive processes of self-conscious thinking, so that we don't need to sacrifice the former for the latter, and we no longer experience it as the dualistic grind. Until then, our experience of it as a dualistic grind and therefore something to be pursued secondarily or not at all, is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy, born of our inner contradictory efforts with parallel practices.

I am aware of the sacrifice and do not resist it. I am also saying that the nondual practice requires a similar type of sacrifice (see my responces to Federica).

But if we perceive these two aspects of the practice (living thinking and nondual) as two separate movements in opposite directions (to room A and room B), then we misunderstand it, because actually both move us in the same direction of complete integration with reality, they both are inseparable parts of the wholistic path, and if we omit one or the other, the result will aways be incomplete. The "nondual reductionists" indeed omit/disregard the living thinking aspect of the path, there is no question about it, however, that is not the right argument to justify our reluctance to integrate the nondual practice into the wholistic path.

[Cleric K]

Well, if we are still in idealism, then all these processes are only conscious experiences, whether they happen within the stream of phenomena of our individual conscious activities, or those of higher-order beings, or at the level of the Divine subjectivity. The particularities of this process is the subject of SS as far as I understand it.

As I said before, when I exercise my own willing, intuitive and imaginative abilities, I can follow phenomenologically how the willing gestures and imaginations-intuitions precipitate into more concrete forms, ideas and percepts. But I have no direct access to the process of how the idea of an "apple" in the imagination-intuition of higher-order beings (which I can intuitively access as a shared idea) precipitate into percepts within my own field of conscious phenomena. If you have any knowledge of this mechanism, I would be very interested to know about it.

We can, of course, enter into the details right away but as usual it's better to cover the groundwork first. This is what those conversations always revolve around anyway.

The first step would be not to arbitrarily expand the form of consciousness as we know it today, to everything. Let me explain.

If we look closely, we can discover that our human imagination develops together with the development of memory. On one hand we have the immediate perceptions which are present in the now - present sense perceptions, feelings, thoughts. Memory manifests as the possibility to experience memory images of past states, as if superimposed with our present immediate state. For most people these images are of much more fleeting nature, hardly having the intensity of immediate perceptions. Imagination (in the ordinary sense) develops as our ability to move, recombine and metamorphose memory images through our spiritual activity. In this way, our imagination grows from our past experiential states and our ability to summon their memory images.

This is the first thing - to have clear phenomenological distinction between immediate perceptions and memory/imaginative images. As a side note, memory images are of similar nature as the images of our imagination, except that in the former case we seek certain lawfulness of the images (because we want to remember correctly), while in the latter we can completely loosen that lawfulness, as it is in the case of fantasy (there we don't really care if the images are lawfully connected). Thus when we remember we try to imagine something but we seek certain objective support, we seek something that goes beyond our free fantasizing activity. We can turn this into a very interesting exercise. We can try for example to remember what we had for breakfast. We imagine vividly the whole scene. Then replace in our imagination the food with something that we did not have. So in the first case we're remembering, in the second we're fantasizing. It's very interesting to observe what we're really doing in one case and another. What makes it different when we try to imagine the actual food that we had and what when we fantasize the food. It's not that important to have a clear cut intellectual explanation but to really feel the difference, how in the case of remembering we seek something additional to the image, some quality which is not of our own making but which helps us distinguish a memory image from fantasy (this doesn't imply that this quality is absolutely reliable).

If we don't make the distinction between immediate perceptions and images we can easily fall for the first trap where we superficially call everything 'consciousness' and 'conscious contents'. Yes, in the most general sense both immediate sense perceptions and memories/fantasies of sense perceptions are conscious contents but if we don't recognize also the difference, we'll be making our further progress practically impossible.

Why is that? Because we too hastily put everything in the same general bucket which leads us to believe that our human consciousness and imagination, in the way we know them today, are already representative of the Divine Mind. In other words, we imagine something like this. We can imagine an apple (which is really lifting a memory image of an apple that we have seen through the senses). We can surely feel how through our imaginative activity we're creatively responsible for the image. We can make the apple smaller, larger, green, red, rotten, etc. (it doesn't matter if we can imagine it only very dimly). Then we extrapolate this experience and say "So reality is of the nature of images in consciousness. For some strange reason my imagination is not powerful enough to create a sensory apple and eat it but for a more powerful imagination this is how reality must be coming into form. The Divine mind is surely powerful enough to imagine an apple and eat it, so to speak."

As said, we can't go too far if we don't analyze very well what we're doing in a case like the above. We indeed extrapolate our human imagination and expect that this is how the Divine operates, except that it is more powerful. But we don't have right to extrapolate in this way. Otherwise we unknowingly already declare how reality should operate. Not because we have investigated how it really works but only because we have decided that we're already share our conscious 'geometry' with the highest Divine and thus the difference lies only in the power of our imagination.

When we do that, we act like a painter. What does a painter do when she wants to draw a cat, for example? She starts with a rough sketch, then paints the main areas, then elaborates the fine details and shades. This however has nothing to do with the way the living cat comes into form. We can paint a cat even without knowing that it has internal organs, that it has grown from a single cell and so on. We can commit the same mistake when we try to understand reality as extension of our human imagination. We inevitably reach a point where we imagine that some higher being 'painted' the cat within the Divine subjectivity and we see it and become confused by thinking that there's a real cat out there, while it is only an imagined picture of a cat floating in Divine subjectivity.

There are so many things to be said here but at this time I just wanted to point this important distinction between immediate perceptions and memory/imagined images (this is somewhat related with Federica's question from some time ago about our conception of will and the experiential will). So before we can go any further, what in your view is the relation between images in memory/imagination and immediate sensory perception? What's the difference between looking at an apple with your eyes and summoning the image of an apple later in your meditations?

[AshvinP]

Right, but then the next step will be most resisted. It is a sacrificial step. First, it is a recognition that when we keep two parallel paths of practices - as you just indicated to Federica (nondual practice and 'other practices' of SS) - it is akin to the following. We set a goal of moving the couch from room A to room B. In the morning, we push in direction of room B. In the evening, we get on the other side of the couch and push back in the direction of room A. We thereby nullify all progress towards the goal of getting the couch into room B. After a while, we notice that there is no progress and, further, that pushing from the other side - from room B towards room A - is actually more enjoyable, pleasurable, conducive to experiencing the Oneness, etc. We lose more and more motivation for pushing towards room B with every passing day, since this feels more like a grind, more intellectual, more dualistic (since we are remaining connected to the manifested details of the Idea), more exhausting, with little if any results to show for it. Indeed it is well known in esoteric science that the reason we go to sleep and that we die is because eventually this work exhausts the very life processes which sustain our incarnational existence.

I think this progression is clearly reflected in your comments, such as the second to last response to Cleric's post. Eventually our meditations and our study needs to become a rhythmic exercise in bringing about tigher and tigher connection between Idea and its manifestations, in real-time and simultaneously. This is not simply witnessing a panaroma of inexplicable manifestations, but inwardly explicating the lawful connections. Certain sacrifices must be made to endure that exercise, especially if we are already very familiar and comfortable with exploring only the Oneness of Idea. As long as we are unwilling to make that sacrifice, we will keep negating any little progress we make in unveiling the gradient of living manifestations of the Idea. This unveiling of the gradient is precisely what continually rebalances the life processes with the exhaustive processes of self-conscious thinking, so that we don't need to sacrifice the former for the latter, and we no longer experience it as the dualistic grind. Until then, our experience of it as a dualistic grind and therefore something to be pursued secondarily or not at all, is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy, born of our inner contradictory efforts with parallel practices.

I am aware of the sacrifice and do not resist it. I am also saying that the nondual practice requires a similar type of sacrifice (see my responces to Federica).

But if we perceive these two aspects of the practice (living thinking and nondual) as two separate movements in opposite directions (to room A and room B), then we misunderstand it, because actually both move us in the same direction of complete integration with reality, they both are inseparable parts of the wholistic path, and if we omit one or the other, the result will aways be incomplete. The "nondual reductionists" indeed omit/disregard the living thinking aspect of the path, there is no question about it, however, that is not the right argument to justify our reluctance to integrate the nondual practice into the wholistic path.

Well I think the current discussion/questions with Cleric is bringing out exactly the distinction in the 'sacrifice' between these two approaches, so I will leave it there.

[Stranger]

So before we can go any further, what in your view is the relation between images in memory/imagination and immediate sensory perception? What's the difference between looking at an apple with your eyes and summoning the image of an apple later in your meditations?

Of course, I agree with such distinction between the image of imagination and a memory of some percept happened in the past. or a percept happening now. Similarly, I can have an imagination of a picture, draw it and show it to you, and for you it becomes a lawful visual percept and will be recorded in your memory. Or, I can communicate it to you telepathically with a similar result. Likewise, the images or ideas in the Divine or higher-order beings precipitate into our precepts, but I agree that it may involve some communication mechanisms unknown to us in our human form, so you are right, we cannot extrapolate our human cognition mechanisms to the Divine on the Cosmic scale.

But what we can extrapolate is the common "ground" of the reality that we all share: the Divine exists in the same way we exists (so there is only one Existence in the whole Cosmos), the Divine consciously experiences in the same way we consciously experience (so there is only one Awareness in the whole Cosmos), the Divine exercise intuitive and imaginative Willing and Thinking the same way we do, because it is the same Willing-Thinking acting everywhere in the whole Cosmos. And so, this same Existence-Awareness-Willing-Thinking produces ideations and imaginations in the same way everywhere in the whole Cosmos, and by communicating these ideations and imaginations across the Cosmos between its individuated spiritual activities the ideations/images on the "transmitting" side of communication precipitate as percepts on the "receiving" side. If we would not share the same common ground, if we would not be "made" of the reality of the same common nature, we would not be able to communicate. The very fact that we communicate means that we share the same common nature of reality "through" which we communicate that does not change in time or space or from one person to another. And because this nature is common, it is indivisible. This simple intuitive realization of the common ground is reflected in philosophical thinking as the idea of "ontological monism", but we do not need to refer to abstract philosophy to intuitively understand it. Anyway, sorry for "going nondual" again , but this is not to argue against what you said above. I'm listening to you and waiting for the next steps.

[Stranger]

Should we move this discussion that Cleric started in his two last posts to a new topic? It has deviated sufficiently from the topic of this thread and deserves a separate thread so that we keep the forum better structured and readable.

[Cleric K]

Should we move this discussion that Cleric started in his two last posts to a new topic? It has deviated sufficiently from the topic of this thread and deserves a separate thread so that we keep the forum better structured and readable.

The posts are moved to this new thread but I'll have time to respond only later today.