The 'nuts and bolts' of spiritual practice

[lorenzop]

There are a lot of ways we could go here. One is that we can mention, if archetypal ideas are emergent in some way, then we end up in either materialism or mystical reductionism (to some instinctive awareness), which both have all the baggage of philosophical hard problems that we are familiar with. I'm sure Eugene would agree as well. Most people came to this forum because their reasoning was very uncomfortable living with such hard problems.

I did (above) grant there could be archetypal ideas as artifacts of the human experience, but I stand by my claim that they are not baked into reality, but are the result of body\mind activity of conscious agents.
I would also tend to believe these archetypal ideas are reflections of human pathologies, failings and unanswered inquiries. IOW, these archetypal ideas don't apply to everyone, and not everyone needs or is interested in them.

[lorenzop]

Reality has two inseparable aspects: Beng and its thinking activity. We actually cannot know Being without thinking activity, because it is only intuitive thinking that allows Being to know itself as Being. But usually in our mundane state we are fully immersed in the discursive thinking and have no clue about the Being. So, a typical nondual practice starts from disengaging from discursive thinking and turns our attention around towards the Being that we can experientially discover "in between" the fleeting discursive thoughts when we quiet the mind. At this stage it is indeed important to have intellectual distinction between thinking and Being, but also important to realize that it is still high-level intuitive thinking that allows us to know the Being. Once we pass that stage, we realize that thinking is actually an organic activity of Being and it only becomes incoherent with Being when Being is ignored and unknown. At this point we may discover that the archetypes actually have deeper meanings on the intuitive level when realized from the integrated Being-thinking perspective. The archetypes precipitate on the human activity level as group cultural artefacts or belief systems, but deeper on the intuitive level they are forces that originated from outside of the human cultures and were intended to guide humans toward the realization of the oneness of Being-Thinking. I understand that you may not share such view, and that is ok, just letting you know FYI.

My understanding of the Perennial Philosophy is different of what you present -> Being is not an object and therefore can not be known through thinking activity, whether that thinking is intuitive, inductive or deductive, etc.
What you refer to as "high-level intuitive thinking" is a suitable tool for high level abstract topics such as Geometry and Special Theory of Relativity and etc. - but "high-level intuitive thinking" falls short of unboundedness of Being.
This is why you think that spiritual growth is difficult . . . you feel you have to find a 'thinking' that can get you there.
But thinking can not find being, it's closer to: being is the one who thinks, you don't use the eye to find the one who sees.

[Cleric K]

I did (above) grant there could be archetypal ideas as artifacts of the human experience, but I stand by my claim that they are not baked into reality, but are the result of body\mind activity of conscious agents.
I would also tend to believe these archetypal ideas are reflections of human pathologies, failings and unanswered inquiries. IOW, these archetypal ideas don't apply to everyone, and not everyone needs or is interested in them.

Regarding the bold - would you say that the gravity of the Sun results only from body\mind activity of conscious agents? I'm not speaking about our intellectual concept of gravity but the fact that we seem to share a common Cosmic context that is more powerful than individual whims and concepts. We experience years, seasons and so on, and can do very little to wish that away. Can we say that these things don't apply to everyone or they apply only if we have interest in them?

Of course, in general we perceive and reason about all this indirectly, through discovering certain lawfulness within our bodily perceptions. It's agreeable that such conceptual understanding requires the support of the individual brain. But what in your view is the true essence of the Cosmic context? Is it only a synchronized, consensual hallucination shared between fully independent conscious agents (like Adur's philosophy)? Something like a multiplayer game where all calculations happen on the individual computer but we only exchange network packets to keep the separate game states on each PC synchronized to one another? Or there's truly something greater than individual minds which serves as the context for our streams of being?

If you opt for the latter, then the question would be whether this living context is of spiritual nature, whether according to the principle of Oneness, human consciousness can expand and know from experiential perspective something of this Macrocosmic context within which our body-bound consciousness is embedded?

If you lean towards the view that there might be such a spiritual context but it is consciously unknowable, then we arrive at Schop's position. On the other hand, if you conceive of the possibility that because of Oneness, there's no principle obstacle that human-level consciousness can find its nested relations within Cosmic Consciousness, then you may conceive that what is here called archetypes, are precisely these Macrocosmic ideal forces that constitute our Cosmic context. We should clearly distinguish between our conceptual symbols for these archetypal forces, which indeed are dependent on our individual brain structures - both physical and more subtle - and the actual Macrocosmically experienced spiritual forces.

So the whole question is whether you conceive as a possibility that the Cosmos is spiritual in nature, whether there are Macrocosmic spiritual perspectives which constitute the inner reality of the Sun, the planets, the kingdoms of Nature and so on, or you lean towards a more agnostic view, where lucid consciousness can emerge only in something like the highly complicated human system, while the inner reality of the Cosmos can be innerly known only asymptotically because the more we expand towards its vastness, the more we discover only the cognitively dark instinctive Will that permeates and moves all, yet can know itself consciously only in human heads.

[Stranger]

My understanding of the Perennial Philosophy is different of what you present -> Being is not an object and therefore can not be known through thinking activity, whether that thinking is intuitive, inductive or deductive, etc.
What you refer to as "high-level intuitive thinking" is a suitable tool for high level abstract topics such as Geometry and Special Theory of Relativity and etc. - but "high-level intuitive thinking" falls short of unboundedness of Being.
This is why you think that spiritual growth is difficult . . . you feel you have to find a 'thinking' that can get you there.
But thinking can not find being, it's closer to: being is the one who thinks, you don't use the eye to find the one who sees.

Sure, Being is not an object, yet it can know itself directly without subject-object split. Subject-object-split cognition only happens on the dualistic level of cognition, but it does not have to be that way, there is a nondual level of cognition as well.

So, when you know the Being, or rather when Being knows itself, then how do you think that happens? How is that Being can know itself without using any kind of cognition? Also, if Being knowing itself would be possible without cognition, then such knowledge would be timeless and always present in your consciousness. Then how would it be possible that initially you did not have that knowledge and then you acquired it? Obviously, something happened in time in your cosnciousness. But what can happen in time other than a state of consciousness? And what in a state of consciousness can change other than a state of thinking/cognizing? We are not talking here about discursive or logical thinking, we are talking here about knowing on a very high level of cognition (intuitive nondual knowing called Gnosis, or Jnana in Advaitic terms).

Anyway, your views, that can be called "secular nonduality", are very popular nowadays. People sense the truth in nonduality and even become open to idealism, yet still adhere to their older materialistic thinking pattern of denying the existence of any forms of consciousness other than in forms of human or animal minds. You might change your views if you would look at the overwhelming amount of NDE accounts pointing to the existence of consciousness beyond human forms, as well as Dr. Stevenson and his successors studies on the past life memories in children. There are thousands of NDE accounts on the inet and youtube telling similar stories, it would be a very dumb conspiracy theory to assume that it is some sort of organized scam, why would so many people do that and who would pay them for doing that?

[lorenzop]

Regarding the bold - would you say that the gravity of the Sun results only from body\mind activity of conscious agents? I'm not speaking about our intellectual concept of gravity but the fact that we seem to share a common Cosmic context that is more powerful than individual whims and concepts. We experience years, seasons and so on, and can do very little to wish that away. Can we say that these things don't apply to everyone or they apply only if we have interest in them?

Of course, in general we perceive and reason about all this indirectly, through discovering certain lawfulness within our bodily perceptions. It's agreeable that such conceptual understanding requires the support of the individual brain. But what in your view is the true essence of the Cosmic context? Is it only a synchronized, consensual hallucination shared between fully independent conscious agents (like Adur's philosophy)? Something like a multiplayer game where all calculations happen on the individual computer but we only exchange network packets to keep the separate game states on each PC synchronized to one another? Or there's truly something greater than individual minds which serves as the context for our streams of being?

If you opt for the latter, then the question would be whether this living context is of spiritual nature, whether according to the principle of Oneness, human consciousness can expand and know from experiential perspective something of this Macrocosmic context within which our body-bound consciousness is embedded?

If you lean towards the view that there might be such a spiritual context but it is consciously unknowable, then we arrive at Schop's position. On the other hand, if you conceive of the possibility that because of Oneness, there's no principle obstacle that human-level consciousness can find its nested relations within Cosmic Consciousness, then you may conceive that what is here called archetypes, are precisely these Macrocosmic ideal forces that constitute our Cosmic context. We should clearly distinguish between our conceptual symbols for these archetypal forces, which indeed are dependent on our individual brain structures - both physical and more subtle - and the actual Macrocosmically experienced spiritual forces.

So the whole question is whether you conceive as a possibility that the Cosmos is spiritual in nature, whether there are Macrocosmic spiritual perspectives which constitute the inner reality of the Sun, the planets, the kingdoms of Nature and so on, or you lean towards a more agnostic view, where lucid consciousness can emerge only in something like the highly complicated human system, while the inner reality of the Cosmos can be innerly known only asymptotically because the more we expand towards its vastness, the more we discover only the cognitively dark instinctive Will that permeates and moves all, yet can know itself consciously only in human heads.

If we use the expression 'gravity of the Sun', we are implying objects and their relations - in which case I would stick with the explanaition of Physics, gravity is an attractive force between objects with mass and energy. We don't need to add an layer of an Idea of Gravity to explain it.
Re the experience and appreciation of years and seasons; whether we regard these as cultural conditioning and programming passed on from generation to generation, or, if we regard them as cultural archetypes, as shared ideas between minds, minds with elastic and porous borders. Either explanation works without having to add a Season Idea or Year Idea to the world.
What about sentient creatures living in worlds without seasons and years - might they not have their own archetypes, or, their own conditioning or programming.
It seems to me to be the height of hubris to think: We like the passing of Fall into Winter so let's have this be an Idea structured directly into the Cosmos so that all creatures in all worlds must enjoy.
This World Content is human hubris at it's most extreme.
Isn't is possible the world is spiritual, without also claiming that the cosmos is saturated\composed of the mental artifacts of one species living on one planet for a brief period of time.

[lorenzop]

My understanding of the Perennial Philosophy is different of what you present -> Being is not an object and therefore can not be known through thinking activity, whether that thinking is intuitive, inductive or deductive, etc.
What you refer to as "high-level intuitive thinking" is a suitable tool for high level abstract topics such as Geometry and Special Theory of Relativity and etc. - but "high-level intuitive thinking" falls short of unboundedness of Being.
This is why you think that spiritual growth is difficult . . . you feel you have to find a 'thinking' that can get you there.
But thinking can not find being, it's closer to: being is the one who thinks, you don't use the eye to find the one who sees.

Sure, Being is not an object, yet it can know itself directly without subject-object split. Subject-object-split cognition only happens on the dualistic level of cognition, but it does not have to be that way, there is a nondual level of cognition as well.

So, when you know the Being, or rather when Being knows itself, then how do you think that happens? How is that Being can know itself without using any kind of cognition? Also, if Being knowing itself would be possible without cognition, then such knowledge would be timeless and always present in your consciousness. Then how would it be possible that initially you did not have that knowledge and then you acquired it? Obviously, something happened in time in your cosnciousness. But what can happen in time other than a state of consciousness? And what in a state of consciousness can change other than a state of thinking/cognizing? We are not talking here about discursive or logical thinking, we are talking here about knowing on a very high level of cognition (intuitive nondual knowing called Gnosis, or Jnana in Advaitic terms).

Anyway, your views, that can be called "secular nonduality", are very popular nowadays. People sense the truth in nonduality and even become open to idealism, yet still adhere to their older materialistic thinking pattern of denying the existence of any forms of consciousness other than in forms of human or animal minds. You might change your views if you would look at the overwhelming amount of NDE accounts pointing to the existence of consciousness beyond human forms, as well as Dr. Stevenson and his successors studies on the past life memories in children. There are thousands of NDE accounts on the inet and youtube telling similar stories, it would be a very dumb conspiracy theory to assume that it is some sort of organized scam, why would so many people do that and who would pay them for doing that?

I can't follow your response as you've conflated and jumbled up your ideas. On one hand you suggest "Being is not an object, yet it can know itself directly without subject-object split." and later "How is that Being can know itself without using any kind of cognition?"
This is probably a semantics thing . . . but I can't follow what you are saying.
Re the last paragragh - that's mostly a Strawman as I have not attended to any of those topics (like NDE's, theory of mind, etc.)

[Stranger]

I can't follow your response as you've conflated and jumbled up your ideas. On one hand you suggest "Being is not an object, yet it can know itself directly without subject-object split." and later "How is that Being can know itself without using any kind of cognition?"
This is probably a semantics thing . . . but I can't follow what you are saying.
Re the last paragragh - that's mostly a Strawman as I have not attended to any of those topics (like NDE's, theory of mind, etc.)

Let me try again
Being is a subject, not an object. This subject is conscious, it has ability to be aware, including the ability to be aware of itself. At least it is true in the idealistic paradigm. But it needs cognition to know/realize that it is aware of itself. So, such realization of self-awareness can only happen through cognition. This can be called "gnostic nondualism". This is the position of traditional Advaita and Buddhism, as well as Western flavors of idealism like Hegel, Steiner etc.

But if you are on the Kant's side and believe that the Being is a "thing in itself" not available for any knowledge or experience whatsoever, then you face an unbridgeable gap between consciousness with its experiencing and cognition ability, and the Being that is forever beyond the reach of consciousness. This is what we call "Kantian split". This position can be called "agnostic nondualism". Technically, it is not even idealism anymore, but rather belongs to the ontology of neutral monism. This is a less parsimonious ontology compared to idealism and requires an assumption of the existence of some reality that can never be cognized, experienced of proven, so, according to the Occam's razor principle of parsimony, should not be even assumed.

Re the last paragragh - that's mostly a Strawman as I have not attended to any of those topics (like NDE's, theory of mind, etc.)

Right, that's what many people do, they just ignore it. But I would think for any honest spiritual practitioner or a philosopher of consciousness this would be a subject of interest.

[lorenzop]

I still think we are in agreement: Being, Pure Consciousness is self-aware, self-referring, without a need for a second.
Re "gnostic nondualism", where gnostic refers to perception and appreciation of the Divine, or the finest relative; I would describe this as Being+Cognition, and as such more of an advanced achievement.
For example, Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras describes (at least) 3 types of advanced Samadhi, where Samyama is such an example.
From wikipedia - - Samyama is a tool to receive deeper knowledge of qualities of the object. It is a term summarizing the "catch-all" process of psychological absorption in the object of meditation. For Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras, Pratyahara is the preceding stage to practicing and developing Samyama.
For the beginner and aspiring, for man and woman of action with wordly responsibilities, it's suficient to suggest Being is self-aware and no special form or style of thinking or cognition is required.

[Stranger]

For the beginner and aspiring, for man and woman of action with wordly responsibilities, it's suficient to suggest Being is self-aware and no special form or style of thinking or cognition is required.

It may be sufficient to suggest that for a beginner practitioner. But if we want to be precise in the understanding the process of realization of Being, then the cognition on an intuitive level is also necessarily involved in this process. Being is always aware of itself, but it is only through intuitive cognition that we, as individuated streams of consciousness, acquire the knowledge and become aware of this self-awareness of Being.

From Wikipedia:

In Indian philosophy and religions, jñāna (Sanskrit: ज्ञान, [ˈdʑɲaːnɐ])[1][a] is "knowledge".
The idea of jñāna centers on a cognitive event which is recognized when experienced. It is knowledge inseparable from the total experience of reality, especially a total or divine reality (Brahman).
The root ज्ञा- jñā- is cognate to English know, as well as to the Greek γνώ- (as in γνῶσις gnosis) and Lithuanian žinoti. Its antonym is अज्ञान ajñāna "ignorance".

[lorenzop]

Yes, developing intellect and cognitive abilities if practicing Jnana yoga, but jnana yoga is a difficult path, appropriate for very few . . . why I clarified above.
Most practitioners will practice Karma or Bhakti yoga.


my post from above:
"For the beginner and aspiring, for man and woman of action with wordly responsibilities, it's suficient to suggest Being is self-aware and no special form or style of thinking or cognition is required."