A Polar Comparison of the Buddha and the Christ

[Federica]

Well, no This is a way to pull yourself out of the polarities, at least to the extent that you are able to reach and maintain the "non-dual state". Whilst in reality, the true, fully integral non-dual state can only be reached by learning to progressively work through, and not aside of, the polarities. Our communion with Oneness is to be pursued within and not without the polarities. Until the over-spiritualizing impulse is recognized and evolutionarily factored in (together with its opposite) there will remain that sense of incomplete understanding already referred to multiple times in the recent threads. Not that I have direct experience of this, of course. I am merely seeing from afar how it makes more and more sense with every further step. But yes, it's a progressive realization, it takes time and iterations, and we are all embarked on this journey!

That is what I said too, please read carefully:

These polarities drive the evolution of souls while they exist in the dualistic state up to the point when they become ready and mature to transcend it and realize themselves as the Cosmic "I".

In other words, until the gate of the realization of Oneness is passed, the polarities drive the "learning to progressively work through, and not aside of, the polarities". Once the realization happens, these polarities are no longer relevant, they are transcended. It means that these polarities are provisional and temporal and not absolute, they should noy be idolized, but it is still useful to study and know them to understand how they shape our evolutionary path.

I assure you I tried to read carefully, multiple times and with focus, but maybe I misunderstood you.
I thought you were drawing a line between dual (common everyday) state and non-dual realization (for example the state that you realize in meditation) saying that once in non-dual state, polarities are transcended. I read: "IMO Ahriman and Lucifer are two "faces" or "personifications" of the same force-being, the force of duality" and felt you were minimizing, or reducing, all evil (Ahriman + Lucifer) to one side, ultimately throwing both in one bag, under the label of duality, and up next to be overcome.
I read: "But notice that they both exist within the framework of the dualistic state of consciousness" and felt a somewhat half-hearted acknowledgement of the usefulness of the polarity, not really conveying the enthusiasm that comes with bringing the part of Lucifer and Ahriman in us more into awareness, with learning more about how they shape our becoming (rather than, as you say, "how they shape our evolutionary path" which to me sounds like 'the path of humanity, not necessarily my path').
Especially the word "framework" is suggesting to me that one is unsheathing the conceptual tool that creates a protection, a separation between us and 'the evil thing', literally a maneuvering space. But surely dealing with these two can't be done by creating a maneuvering space in order to analyze them, or study them, as you say. Instead we have to own them. It's a different feeling, and feelings are important in fostering understanding.

You see, I did my best to read you carefully. Now my lens could still be very wrong. Please let me know if this is the case.

[Federica]

"Your view of Lucifer seems to match a traditional Catholic view, in which evil temptation is presented to us from outside, hoping to make us sin and become guilty of surrendering to earthly pleasures."

It's not surrender to earthly pleasures but attachment to what is impermanent that causes pain.

It's a rather fundamental inner archetypal story. Jesus with Satan and Buddha with Mara. Sacrifice is surely a making sacred on lots of levels.

"As for our existence on Earth being a "valley of tears", why maintain such a sad definition, if the underlying fact is the ever cycling polarity of existence revolving into itself through the threshold of life-death?"

It's not a maintenance of the illusion but a compassionate recognition that duality carries both pleasure and pain appropriately processed through grieving. A processing is not a celebration or maintenance. It's the mechanism of getting through it.

Surrender to earthly pleasures and attachment to what is impermanent are not two enormously different things, I would say. In any case, these "inner archetypal stories" are seen just as you say, as "stories" that you can tell, stories of Satan, of Mara, or else, every occasion has its appropriate story to enjoy, that a storyteller can tell, out of his collection.
Regarding the "compassionate recognition that duality carries both pleasure and pain", and the appropriate process of grieving that gets us through them: you make it look like compassion and comfort in face of suffering is the one telos, what humanity is all about. But that's not how it is. We are worth and destined to more than that. And it seems to me that you manipulate art in a way that is consistent with your priorities: indulgence before knowledge. That's why I call your use of it - and not the artistic expressions in themselves - decadent.

[Federica]

I want to also share something I came across recently as well, which speaks to how we can practically orient ourselves towards balancing these influences on a modern path of spiritual development. Much of it is already found in Steiner's HTKHW, but I found the following very well written/explained and it never hurts to refresh ourselves.

Thanks Ashvin, great read!
As you say, I noticed that many of the guidelines correspond to similar ones in Steiner's How to Know the Higher Worlds. In Heindel they are expressed in a squared way that makes them both more and less approachable, I would say. In my case, I'm happy I read HTKHW first, but maybe for some this more straightforward expression is more beneficial, to start with.


There is one thing I had not previously understood or realized in its practical implications, which reminds me that I still have to read Theosophy, and better understand man's four sheaths:

It is of the highest importance to our development that we observe the sights and scenes around us ACCURATELY, otherwise the pictures in our conscious memory do not coincide with the automatic subconscious records. The rhythm and harmony of the dense body is disturbed in proportion to the inaccuracy of our observation during the day.

later rephrased as:

The vital body is like a mirror or, rather, like the film of a moving picture; it pictures alike the world without according to our faculty of OBSERVATION, and the ideas of the indwelling spirit from within according to the clarity and training of the mind. DEVOTION and DISCRIMINATION, otherwise emotion and intellect, decide our attitude toward these pictures, and their balanced action leads to a well rounded development.

So "the automatic subconscious records" are the percepts, and "the pictures in our conscious memory" are the result, or product, of the process of cognition. Naturally it's key to appropriately match the flow of the former with concepts, so as to realize the flow of thought-pictures in a way that minimizes byproducts, or imperfect matching, but I had never thought about what the efficiency of this process means in terms of exhaustion of the physical body. Also I find it difficult to imagine that visual scenes should be encompassed and accurately 'scanned' in their entirety, as if there were no valuable trade-off between extensive and focused scope of observation.


Also, I found this synthesis insightful, and new from the perspective of an incomplete understanding of the soul/desire body:

The philosophy of the attainment of spiritual sight and insight is to compel the desire body to perform the same work INSIDE the dense body WHILE WE ARE FULLY AWAKE, POSITIVE, and conscious as it does OUTSIDE in sleep and in the post-mortem state.

What I consider most challenging to me personally is certainly the criticism. I do have thoughts of criticism, though I believe I am making some slow progress in this respect.

[Lou Gold]

"Your view of Lucifer seems to match a traditional Catholic view, in which evil temptation is presented to us from outside, hoping to make us sin and become guilty of surrendering to earthly pleasures."

It's not surrender to earthly pleasures but attachment to what is impermanent that causes pain.

It's a rather fundamental inner archetypal story. Jesus with Satan and Buddha with Mara. Sacrifice is surely a making sacred on lots of levels.

"As for our existence on Earth being a "valley of tears", why maintain such a sad definition, if the underlying fact is the ever cycling polarity of existence revolving into itself through the threshold of life-death?"

It's not a maintenance of the illusion but a compassionate recognition that duality carries both pleasure and pain appropriately processed through grieving. A processing is not a celebration or maintenance. It's the mechanism of getting through it.

Surrender to earthly pleasures and attachment to what is impermanent are not two enormously different things, I would say. In any case, these "inner archetypal stories" are seen just as you say, as "stories" that you can tell, stories of Satan, of Mara, or else, every occasion has its appropriate story to enjoy, that a storyteller can tell, out of his collection.
Regarding the "compassionate recognition that duality carries both pleasure and pain", and the appropriate process of grieving that gets us through them: you make it look like compassion and comfort in face of suffering is the one telos, what humanity is all about. But that's not how it is. We are worth and destined to more than that. And it seems to me that you manipulate art in a way that is consistent with your priorities: indulgence before knowledge. That's why I call your use of it - and not the artistic expressions in themselves - decadent.

According to my dictionary, to be decadent means either 1) to be in the process of physical decay (like dying) or 2) in moral decay like indulging in extreme luxuries or unwholesome pleasures. I confess that I'm in an advanced stage of the former and nowhere capable of the latter. I consider showing up and going my best joyously (yup - dying joyously) to be more fun than I expected. The way I make art and meaning, which obviously does not cut it for you, is to participate in reducing the suffering and repairing the damage. For me, this is redemptive. My mission now is to be a happy person. I don't know about ultimate purpose of being human other than to evolve according to our natures as best as we can. Meaning/purpose requires some story about truth. An aspiration, of course, can be to get beyond story but, along the way, try to express it without the context of story.

[Federica]

"Your view of Lucifer seems to match a traditional Catholic view, in which evil temptation is presented to us from outside, hoping to make us sin and become guilty of surrendering to earthly pleasures."

It's not surrender to earthly pleasures but attachment to what is impermanent that causes pain.

It's a rather fundamental inner archetypal story. Jesus with Satan and Buddha with Mara. Sacrifice is surely a making sacred on lots of levels.

"As for our existence on Earth being a "valley of tears", why maintain such a sad definition, if the underlying fact is the ever cycling polarity of existence revolving into itself through the threshold of life-death?"

It's not a maintenance of the illusion but a compassionate recognition that duality carries both pleasure and pain appropriately processed through grieving. A processing is not a celebration or maintenance. It's the mechanism of getting through it.

Surrender to earthly pleasures and attachment to what is impermanent are not two enormously different things, I would say. In any case, these "inner archetypal stories" are seen just as you say, as "stories" that you can tell, stories of Satan, of Mara, or else, every occasion has its appropriate story to enjoy, that a storyteller can tell, out of his collection.
Regarding the "compassionate recognition that duality carries both pleasure and pain", and the appropriate process of grieving that gets us through them: you make it look like compassion and comfort in face of suffering is the one telos, what humanity is all about. But that's not how it is. We are worth and destined to more than that. And it seems to me that you manipulate art in a way that is consistent with your priorities: indulgence before knowledge. That's why I call your use of it - and not the artistic expressions in themselves - decadent.

According to my dictionary, to be decadent means either 1) to be in the process of physical decay (like dying) or 2) in moral decay like indulging in extreme luxuries or unwholesome pleasures. I confess that I'm in an advanced stage of the former and nowhere capable of the latter. I consider showing up and going my best joyously (yup - dying joyously) to be more fun than I expected. The way I make art and meaning, which obviously does not cut it for you, is to participate in reducing the suffering and repairing the damage. For me, this is redemptive. My mission now is to be a happy person. I don't know about ultimate purpose of being human other than to evolve according to our natures as best as we can. Meaning/purpose requires some story about truth. An aspiration, of course, can be to get beyond story but, along the way, try to express it without the context of story.

Lou,
I didn't think it would be necessary to specify that - I mean decadent in the sense illustrated by Poplawski in the previously quoted introduction (which is why I shared the specific passage at the same time) and naturally not in any sense related to "physical decay or to luxuries or unwholesome pleasures". This seems to me all too clear in what I wrote above.
Besides, I feel I am not wise enough to appropriately comment further in this context about happiness, purpose, and realization beyond the stories of realization. I sincerely wish you the best evolution, according to your nature.

[Federica]

Federica,

Everything you say above is pretty much valid, but I think there is a hint of taking the relation too linearly or rigidly. There are many polar rhythms nested within polar rhythms. We can easily become too rigid with these things and try to make everything fit neatly into one box or another, but that is why I say in the OP that our approach to polar relations should descend more into the life of Feeling, so it remains more fluid. We can see in some other comments how people are rejecting 'polarity' because it doesn't seem to fit neatly into pre-formatted intellectual boxes about these spiritual relations - and that's right, it doesn't. As Cleric said, it becomes misleading when we take in a static sense, rather than placing it in an evolutionary process spiraling upwards. We should simply make peace with the fact that it won't make crystal clear sense to our intellect, even though we can intuitively feel how it orients us in the proper direction and we can flesh out that intuition with a living exploration of the details.

As an aside, I think you are obviously doing that exploration here and elsewhere, so I don't mean this post as a corrective to your approach. It's a never-ending process of development - all our missteps along the way will be redeemed through this process if we remain devoted and persistent. It is especially powerful when we can recognize these polar tendencies within ourselves, within the progression of our lives, our years, our seasons, and our daily desires, feelings, and thoughts, which you indicated as well.

We should really appreciate how practically everything in spiritual evolution is a polar relation. We can speak of directly opposite or mutually exclusive things when we speak of isolated facts, like 1+1=2 and 1+1=3, but nowhere in our living, processual natural or cultural experience do such isolated facts present themselves. Instead, in the sphere of culture, we have historical events, streams, living personalities and teachings, etc. which are always flowing into and out of one another. These always stand in lawful polar relation. We could speak of it as Hegel's thesis and anthesis, which then integrate into a higher synthesis, and that synthesis then becomes the thesis in regards to its own antithesis, resolving into an even higher synthesis, and so forth.

Now the Christ-being and his incarnate impulse is the unique archetypal mediator, the Cosmic "I" which balances all poles of Earthly evolution, as indicated in the OP. But, most importantly, none of the familiar manifestations, such as various teachings, available to our ordinary cognition should be confused for this Ideal archetype, which flows through all forms but is identical to none of them. Another interesting example is that of Plato and Aristotle, which modern philosophers generally treat as directly opposite in various ways. The former focused mostly on how the particular Earthly details should be resolved into their archetypal Ideal forms, while the latter focused on how the Ideal forms should be sought in their concrete Earthly manifestations. Of course such a simple summary cannot possibly do their massive corpuses of work justice, but I think it is a useful comparison. This polar relation is famously depicted in Raphael's School of Athens. Viewing this dynamic in artistic forms can help it penetrate our life of feeling. (Plato points upwards and Aristotle downwards, Plato in red and Aristotle in blue)





So, in a sense, the Christ events inaugurated a series of cultural developments which allowed Platonic philosophy to spiral into Aristotelian philosophy, bearing their fruit in the spiritual evolutionary tasks of that epoch and continuing into our own modern epoch. We have arrived at a point of excess in the direction of the 'Aristotle impulse', but this point of excess can itself provide the foundation from which a higher synthesis will blossom IF we start becoming conscious of how we have been participating in the evolutionary process (as we try to do here). But, again, we certainly shouldn't imagine these early developments exhaust the significance of the Christ events and the deed on Golgotha - not even close. The latter is like an Idealized image of the entire Earthly evolution at the scales of the individual, culture, and nature. It is both the means of Earthly evolution and its end (telos). It is an ideal attractor Force from which all imperfect natural, cultural, and individual forms have emanated and towards which they are all striving, either unconsciously, semi-consciously, or consciously (on the modern path of initiation).

Thank you, Ashvin. I am sure I tend to take things too linearly and rigidly, as you say. It's not only an educated guess - I often concretely feel a need to correct my trajectory away from linear attempts, so your reminder and examples are very appropriate. I appreciate the concrete example of Greek philosophy, and the reference to the School of Athen, which we discussed extensively in a previous thread, but this time in connection with the Christ events. I have been largely feeling like I'm navigating in the dark in relation to these events, although they seem to slowly take shape now, thanks to illustrations like this one.

[Lou Gold]

Surrender to earthly pleasures and attachment to what is impermanent are not two enormously different things, I would say. In any case, these "inner archetypal stories" are seen just as you say, as "stories" that you can tell, stories of Satan, of Mara, or else, every occasion has its appropriate story to enjoy, that a storyteller can tell, out of his collection.
Regarding the "compassionate recognition that duality carries both pleasure and pain", and the appropriate process of grieving that gets us through them: you make it look like compassion and comfort in face of suffering is the one telos, what humanity is all about. But that's not how it is. We are worth and destined to more than that. And it seems to me that you manipulate art in a way that is consistent with your priorities: indulgence before knowledge. That's why I call your use of it - and not the artistic expressions in themselves - decadent.

According to my dictionary, to be decadent means either 1) to be in the process of physical decay (like dying) or 2) in moral decay like indulging in extreme luxuries or unwholesome pleasures. I confess that I'm in an advanced stage of the former and nowhere capable of the latter. I consider showing up and going my best joyously (yup - dying joyously) to be more fun than I expected. The way I make art and meaning, which obviously does not cut it for you, is to participate in reducing the suffering and repairing the damage. For me, this is redemptive. My mission now is to be a happy person. I don't know about ultimate purpose of being human other than to evolve according to our natures as best as we can. Meaning/purpose requires some story about truth. An aspiration, of course, can be to get beyond story but, along the way, try to express it without the context of story.

Lou,
I didn't think it would be necessary to specify that - I mean decadent in the sense illustrated by Poplawski in the previously quoted introduction (which is why I shared the specific passage at the same time) and naturally not in any sense related to "physical decay or to luxuries or unwholesome pleasures". This seems to me all too clear in what I wrote above.
Besides, I feel I am not wise enough to appropriately comment further in this context about happiness, purpose, and realization beyond the stories of realization. I sincerely wish you the best evolution, according to your nature.

Aloha Federica,

I'm aware that Poplawski offers another definition: "Lucifer, however, represents a force that paradoxically can combine beauty and if you will, beauty gone too far, to the extreme of decadence, hence to evil" and I don't mean to challenge it. Yes, I agree that one can fall into being blinded by the light as well as being lost in the dark and both can fit the word decadent. Being close to death is new to me. I did not expect it to be liminal and liberating but that's what I'm encountering experientially and, storyteller that I am, I want to tell the story hoping that it might be helpful to others as well. I'm a newbie in this regard. Your challenges help me polish and hopefully enhance both my play and performance. Thank you. I believe our good wishes for evolution according our natures is mutual. May we all be blessed with happy trails and trials.

[Lou Gold]

all in a day’s work

while philosophers pick things apart
and poets put them back together
we pick up bits and pieces
hoping to do the best we can

god knows we must pay attention
and thank god sometimes we do
the sun rising beyond my window
says rebirth is here now

praise and glory be

[Lou Gold]

According to my dictionary, to be decadent means either 1) to be in the process of physical decay (like dying) or 2) in moral decay like indulging in extreme luxuries or unwholesome pleasures. I confess that I'm in an advanced stage of the former and nowhere capable of the latter. I consider showing up and going my best joyously (yup - dying joyously) to be more fun than I expected. The way I make art and meaning, which obviously does not cut it for you, is to participate in reducing the suffering and repairing the damage. For me, this is redemptive. My mission now is to be a happy person. I don't know about ultimate purpose of being human other than to evolve according to our natures as best as we can. Meaning/purpose requires some story about truth. An aspiration, of course, can be to get beyond story but, along the way, try to express it without the context of story.

Lou,
I didn't think it would be necessary to specify that - I mean decadent in the sense illustrated by Poplawski in the previously quoted introduction (which is why I shared the specific passage at the same time) and naturally not in any sense related to "physical decay or to luxuries or unwholesome pleasures". This seems to me all too clear in what I wrote above.
Besides, I feel I am not wise enough to appropriately comment further in this context about happiness, purpose, and realization beyond the stories of realization. I sincerely wish you the best evolution, according to your nature.

Aloha Federica,

I'm aware that Poplawski offers another definition: "Lucifer, however, represents a force that paradoxically can combine beauty and if you will, beauty gone too far, to the extreme of decadence, hence to evil" and I don't mean to challenge it. Yes, I agree that one can fall into being blinded by the light as well as being lost in the dark and both can fit the word decadent. Being close to death is new to me. I did not expect it to be liminal and liberating but that's what I'm encountering experientially and, storyteller that I am, I want to tell the story hoping that it might be helpful to others as well. I'm a newbie in this regard. Your challenges help me polish and hopefully enhance both my play and performance. Thank you. I believe our good wishes for evolution according our natures is mutual. May we all be blessed with happy trails and trials.

"Katherine May:

This life I have made is too small. It doesn’t allow enough in: enough ideas, enough beliefs, enough encounters with the exuberant magic of existence. I have been so keen to deny it, to veer deliberately towards the rational, to cling solely to the experiences that are directly observable by others. Only now, when everything is taken away, can I see what a folly this is. I don’t want that life anymore. I want what [the] ancients had: to be able to talk to god. Not in a personal sense, to a distant figure who is unfathomably wise, but to have a direct encounter with the flow of things, a communication without words. I want to let something break in me, some dam that has been shoring up this shamefully atavistic sense of the magic behind all things, the tingle of intelligence that was always waiting for me when I came to tap in. I want to feel that raw, elemental awe that my ancestors felt, rather than my tame, explained modern version. I want to prise open the confines of my skull and let in a flood of light and air and mystery… I want to retain what the quiet reveals, the small voices whose whispers can be heard only when everything falls silent.

How to Grow Re-enchanted with the World is a super essay for those who might be interested in the possibility of conjuring a larger consciousness that transcends the cognitive limits of our own.

[Federica]

Lou,
I didn't think it would be necessary to specify that - I mean decadent in the sense illustrated by Poplawski in the previously quoted introduction (which is why I shared the specific passage at the same time) and naturally not in any sense related to "physical decay or to luxuries or unwholesome pleasures". This seems to me all too clear in what I wrote above.
Besides, I feel I am not wise enough to appropriately comment further in this context about happiness, purpose, and realization beyond the stories of realization. I sincerely wish you the best evolution, according to your nature.

Aloha Federica,

I'm aware that Poplawski offers another definition: "Lucifer, however, represents a force that paradoxically can combine beauty and if you will, beauty gone too far, to the extreme of decadence, hence to evil" and I don't mean to challenge it. Yes, I agree that one can fall into being blinded by the light as well as being lost in the dark and both can fit the word decadent. Being close to death is new to me. I did not expect it to be liminal and liberating but that's what I'm encountering experientially and, storyteller that I am, I want to tell the story hoping that it might be helpful to others as well. I'm a newbie in this regard. Your challenges help me polish and hopefully enhance both my play and performance. Thank you. I believe our good wishes for evolution according our natures is mutual. May we all be blessed with happy trails and trials.

"Katherine May:

This life I have made is too small. It doesn’t allow enough in: enough ideas, enough beliefs, enough encounters with the exuberant magic of existence. I have been so keen to deny it, to veer deliberately towards the rational, to cling solely to the experiences that are directly observable by others. Only now, when everything is taken away, can I see what a folly this is. I don’t want that life anymore. I want what [the] ancients had: to be able to talk to god. Not in a personal sense, to a distant figure who is unfathomably wise, but to have a direct encounter with the flow of things, a communication without words. I want to let something break in me, some dam that has been shoring up this shamefully atavistic sense of the magic behind all things, the tingle of intelligence that was always waiting for me when I came to tap in. I want to feel that raw, elemental awe that my ancestors felt, rather than my tame, explained modern version. I want to prise open the confines of my skull and let in a flood of light and air and mystery… I want to retain what the quiet reveals, the small voices whose whispers can be heard only when everything falls silent.

How to Grow Re-enchanted with the World

Thank you for your thoughts and wishes, Lou.