The 'nuts and bolts' of spiritual practice

[AshvinP]

Does that mean that you have no particular recommendations for how to conduct one’s life besides meditation, and that one would simply see Oneness make things fall into place in everyday life if meditation is done right?
What are some examples of those activities you refer to that would help/not help with the spiritual goals (besides monastic life which you said is optional)?

Yes, if you make continuous efforts to abide in Oneness, thigs will fall into place naturally, but I still need to make certain choices to steer my activities in the right direction. For me the activities that help are interacting with and helping people and animals in loving and compassionate ways while staying mindful and not slipping into mindless irrelevant chats, and also arts/music as a recreational activity. Not helping is any activity that draws my attention too much from abiding in mindfulness and clarity of Oneness. For example, spending time on youtube listening to news, I try to minimize it just to stay informed but it's usually quite toxic and distracting.

Eugene,

Somewhat related to Federica's question about recommendations, during a recent meditation, I thought of a question I wanted to ask you. It is not at all rhetorical or intended to lead you in a certain direction. Actually I am hoping the resulting answer/discussion will have direct application to my own spiritual practice. Perhaps it will also elucidate some of the differences in our approaches, or perhaps not. The question will take a little bit of introduction.

When we sit down to meditate, I think you agree it is critical to quiet the intellectual voice which is always thinking about things, either sense-based phenomena or abstract conceptual phenomena (including those related to higher spiritual reality). That isn't to say the sensory-conceptual thinking is altogether useless or unhelpful, which I'm sure you also agree, but in a sense the content of that thinking needs to be released over, or entrusted, to the higher worlds so that it may be transmuted and enriched within us through higher ideations. 

As an analogy, we could liken our normal thinking life to the instruments of physical therapy after a major injury, like a broken leg (the Fall). We have to endure many weeks or months of exercises for helping the bones to heal and join back together, to build up the surrounding muscle, to regain our orientation for walking, etc. It is a slow, grinding, arduous process with probably many setbacks, and therefore many temptations to simply give up and remain as a cripple. But if we can endure and overcome those temptations, the goal is to start walking again without reliance on the therapy instruments anymore (here analogized to our normal conceptual life). Here is a relevant quote to consider:

As long as you build up a scaffolding you remain in the thought customary to you in the physical world... this is related to the full reality not at all like the inner framework of a house to the complete building, but only like the outer scaffolding upon which the builders stand. This has to be taken down again when the building is completed. In the same way the scaffolding of thought has to be taken down again if one wishes to have the truth before one as it really is.

So in meditation, we try to anticipate this future evolutionary state of supra-conceptual thinking by voluntarily sacrificing the outer conceptual scaffolding. Needless to say, this is easier said than done for most people, including myself. And here is where the question comes in. For ex., when I meditate, I may start voicing thoughts like, 'now it's time to sacrifice the outer scaffolding...', and similar thoughts. So there is still an inner split - I am thinking about how I need to release the outer scaffolding to make progress, but in my thinking activity I am still holding on to that outer scaffolding, unwilling to sacrifice it. What I am actually doing with my thinking and what I am thinking about doing are still at cross-purposes. Of course this sort of cross-purpose thinking is always present in our normal waking experience, in one form or another, and meditation simply provides the opportunity to become more conscious of it. The question is, what is your strategy for dealing with this inner contradiction in meditation? I am sure that the releasing comes very natural to you at this stage, but if you can think back to when you had to struggle with it, what methods did you use to sacrifice the conceptual chatter?

[Stranger]

The question is, what is your strategy for dealing with this inner contradiction in meditation? I am sure that the releasing comes very natural to you at this stage, but if you can think back to when you had to struggle with it, what methods did you use to sacrifice the conceptual chatter?

Ashvin, it is great that we finally get to the "nuts and bolts" of the actual practice. And this question you asked is indeed a usual stumbling block and challenge. There is not one but many strategies to approach it, and we can use them as a toolbox, like we use different kinds of exercises in sports. Roughly they can be sorted in passive and active techniques.

The active ones are when we try to focus on certain spiritual activity, for example, developing higher-cognition faculties and doing proper meditative exercises for that, or performing prayer, and if we are focused then such activity usually suppresses the "outer scaffolding", but realistically the outer scaffolding still happens with certain periodicity, and this is where, if we remain in mindfulness and do not "fall asleep" into these outer scaffolding thoughts, we can catch and sacrifice/stop them at the beginning and return to the inner higher-cognition activity. So, this requires and further trains the state of mindfulness. Again, realistically, we still may once in a while get distracted into the outer scaffolding, but once we catch it, we just need to drop/let-go/sacrifice the scaffolding and patiently return back to the main activity. It takes time to train the mind to remain in mindfulness, and it depends on individual circumstances, it is usually harder to do for people with ADHD or very active minds. It takes time to stabilize the mind and train mindfulness and we need to be patient with ourselves.

The passive ones may seem to be more relaxed, but they are actually even harder, and I know that in the Anthroposophic practice they are not considered useful, but they still have their certain usefulness. There are two kinds of passive meditation: one is called shamatha when we try to suppress any cognitive activity while remaining in the state of quiet mindfulness, this is useful to train mindfulness and to become aware of the "clear and alive timeless spaciousness" between phenomena and thoughts, and also gives an opportunity to carefully watch and study with mindfulness how the thoughts arise and develop. The other technique is vipassana when we allow thoughts to freely flow without actively suppressing them but remain in mindfulness at a higher level of cognition and watch/study their development without getting involved. In this way the thoughts usually naturally subside without our active involvement while we have opportunity to study their origin, their impulse-feeling and meanings etc. In this way the scaffolding becomes not a hindrance but a subject of study and in this way we study the guts of our human psyche penetrating into subconscious layers from where these thoughts arise and cognizing the forces and patterns of our egoic layers that govern those thoughts. Or we can watch sense perceptions without being involved into discursive thoughts about them but intuitively perceiving the meanings-ideas behind the percepts (like the idea of flower behind the percept of a flower). In these methods the consciousness remains at a higher non-discursive intuitive level where it comprehends everything going on without trying to control it. It is important that the passive techniques are not intended for "enjoying the bliss", but to do active work on training to remain in mindfulness and clarity at higher levels of cognition and work on getting insights into the patterns and machinery of our psyche on subconscious levels to bring them to the level of awareness.

The active methods are usually easier for dealing with the chatter because we have a certain activity that we can focus on which naturally suppresses the chatter. The key in all these methods is to keep a persistent effort to stay in mindfulness at the highest level of cognition available to us without identification and involvement with the outer scaffolding thoughts, and even if they happen, catch them and dis-involve from them as soon as we can and return to the practice. It is not useful to blame and label ourselves as "bad meditators" when we get distracted into the mind chatter, it is natural for human condition and none of our fault. We need to be patient and compassionate with our inner human animal while remaining in mindful control like we do with our pets. We usually have good days when it is easier to remind mindful and bad days when the discursive mind is very active and mindfulness is hard to maintain and the practice may be very frustrating, and that's completely normal.

[AshvinP]

The question is, what is your strategy for dealing with this inner contradiction in meditation? I am sure that the releasing comes very natural to you at this stage, but if you can think back to when you had to struggle with it, what methods did you use to sacrifice the conceptual chatter?

Ashvin, it is great that we finally get to the "nuts and bolts" of the actual practice. And this question you asked is indeed a usual stumbling block and challenge. There is not one but many strategies to approach it, and we can use them as a toolbox, like we use different kinds of exercises in sports. Roughly they can be sorted in passive and active techniques.

The active ones are when we try to focus on certain spiritual activity, for example, developing higher-cognition faculties and doing proper meditative exercises for that, or performing prayer, and if we are focused then such activity usually suppresses the "outer scaffolding", but realistically the outer scaffolding still happens with certain periodicity, and this is where, if we remain in mindfulness and do not "fall asleep" into these outer scaffolding thoughts, we can catch and sacrifice/stop them at the beginning and return to the inner higher-cognition activity. So, this requires and further trains the state of mindfulness. Again, realistically, we still may once in a while get distracted into the outer scaffolding, but once we catch it, we just need to drop/let-go/sacrifice the scaffolding and patiently return back to the main activity. It takes time to train the mind to remain in mindfulness, and it depends on individual circumstances, it is usually harder to do for people with ADHD or very active minds. It takes time to stabilize the mind and train mindfulness and we need to be patient with ourselves.

The passive ones may seem to be more relaxed, but they are actually even harder, and I know that in the Anthroposophic practice they are not considered useful, but they still have their certain usefulness. There are two kinds of passive meditation: one is called shamatha when we try to suppress any cognitive activity while remaining in the state of quiet mindfulness, this is useful to train mindfulness and to become aware of the "clear and alive timeless spaciousness" between phenomena and thoughts, and also gives an opportunity to carefully watch and study with mindfulness how the thoughts arise and develop. The other technique is vipassana when we allow thoughts to freely flow without actively suppressing them but remain in mindfulness at a higher level of cognition and watch/study their development without getting involved. In this way the thoughts usually naturally subside without our active involvement while we have opportunity to study their origin, their impulse-feeling and meanings etc. In this way the scaffolding becomes not a hindrance but a subject of study and in this way we study the guts of our human psyche penetrating into subconscious layers from where these thoughts arise and cognizing the forces and patterns of our egoic layers that govern those thoughts. Or we can watch sense perceptions without being involved into discursive thoughts about them but intuitively perceiving the meanings-ideas behind the percepts (like the idea of flower behind the percept of a flower). In these methods the consciousness remains at a higher non-discursive intuitive level where it comprehends everything going on without trying to control it. It is important that the passive techniques are not intended for "enjoying the bliss", but to do active work on training to remain in mindfulness and clarity at higher levels of cognition and work on getting insights into the patterns and machinery of our psyche on subconscious levels to bring them to the level of awareness.

The active methods are usually easier for dealing with the chatter because we have a certain activity that we can focus on which naturally suppresses the chatter. The key in all these methods is to keep a persistent effort to stay in mindfulness at the highest level of cognition available to us without identification and involvement with the outer scaffolding thoughts, and even if they happen, catch them and dis-involve from them as soon as we can and return to the practice. It is not useful to blame and label ourselves as "bad meditators" when we get distracted into the mind chatter, it is natural for human condition and none of our fault. We need to be patient and compassionate with our inner human animal while remaining in mindful control like we do with our pets. We usually have good days when it is easier to remind mindful and bad days when the discursive mind is very active and mindfulness is hard to maintain and the practice may be very frustrating, and that's completely normal.

Thanks for the detailed response, Eugene. There are naturally many overlaps in the toolset which can be employed. What you say about catching or anticipating the thought-distractions is something we also discussed on this thread, in terms of baiting them with our spiritual activity. I think that is a very helpful tool to use. It is discussed by Cleric how we may even begin to intuitively cognize how our train of thought would have unfolded if we got carried away on a certain thought-distraction. Would you say you have experienced something like the following?

What’s interesting in this exercise is that we entirely change our attitude. Normally we try to concentrate and when we get distracted this leads to frustration. But here we turn the game around. We actually want to see the true nature of distraction. We have nothing against being distracted but we want to see exactly how it happens. We want to see in slow motion how our laminar thinking-breath starts to vibrate again and begins to speak new words. We’re like a fisherman who wants to see in slow-motion the vibration of the tip of the fishing rod when the fish nibbles, so that he can pull back. He can’t afford to blink, he needs uninterrupted slow-motion focus. In our case our laminar spiritual activity is the rod and the bait. We’re intensely vigilant and wait to see in slow motion how an external (distracting) force agitates our flow and channels our thinking-breath into thinking something else.

When we practice in this way, something very peculiar happens. We find that we have to wait longer and longer for the nibbling. And when the agitation approaches, it is experienced as a nudge which doesn’t really break our concentration but very interestingly, in this nudge we feel like in a flash of intuition that we have seen a picture of what we might have thought about if that nudge was to take control of our thinking voice. This gradually leads into a very interesting state where it’s as if our whole environment becomes filled with such nudges. Yet they don’t succeed in breaking our laminar flow every time. Our thinking-breath continues to flow, yet our consciousness begins to fill with flashes of intuition, like pictures of all those things that we might otherwise think about in verbal sequences.

I think we should also clear up that the Anthroposophical practice seeks to get into the living thinking flow which is prior to the active-passive distinction. For ex., we become active with regards to maintaining/supporting a thought-image, which is what we have become responsible for doing through our evolutionary progression, but in a sense we are simultaneously passive with regards to the inuitive background or periphery of Cosmic forces which support our entire be-ing and which it would be presumptuous for us to take responsibility for at this stage of our creative-moral development. Like you indicate above, I do actually find this passivity (which may not be the best word to use) with regards to the intuitive periphery as the harder one to attain. The most helpful tool for that has definitely been prayer in my experience.

We could also look at it from the angle of non-meditative practice in contrast to meditative practice. Normally we are very passive in our non-meditative life, allowing our thinking to simply flow along with whatever we encounter during the day, i.e. sensory impressions/events and the corresponding concepts. This may differ somehwat if we work in a creative field or a mathematical field with a lot of sense-free thinking. In meditative practice we seek to become more active in our focused thinking. Ideally that will also feedback into our non-meditative life and we learn to take greater hold of our thinking during the day. Naturally the question then arises, what can we do in our non-meditative life to also support greater focused activity during our meditative practice? I am wondering what sort of exercises, apart from drawing and music, have you used before or do you currently use to support that greater strength of will in non-meditative practice?

[lorenzop]

So in meditation, we try to anticipate this future evolutionary state of supra-conceptual thinking

If I may interject my own question . . . re the above from your post . . .
is this "supra-conceptual thinking" more of a specific mental activity, or is this more of a way of being present.
Is it more of a kind of thinking about this or that, or is it more of a being aware and less concerned about the content?
IOW, how are you using the word 'thinking'?
For example, as concepts become more expansive, thinking becomes more about being than content or manner of thinking.
Or a similiar question, in between thoughts - space between thoughts, is this still a kind of thinking as you use the word 'thinking'?

[AshvinP]

So in meditation, we try to anticipate this future evolutionary state of supra-conceptual thinking

If I may interject my own question . . . re the above from your post . . .
is this "supra-conceptual thinking" more of a specific mental activity, or is this more of a way of being present.
Is it more of a kind of thinking about this or that, or is it more of a being aware and less concerned about the content?
IOW, how are you using the word 'thinking'?
For example, as concepts become more expansive, thinking becomes more about being than content or manner of thinking.
Or a similiar question, in between thoughts - space between thoughts, is this still a kind of thinking as you use the word 'thinking'?

Lorenzo,

It is more a spiraling together of 'thinking about' and 'being thinking' (or being aware), so that neither comes at the expense of the other. We don't need to polarize to one extreme or the other, as they are synthesized into a higher Unity. This is generally what we call Imaginative cognition. We are certainly no longer concerned with the content of our normal concepts, although the Imaginations which inflow the 'space' of our consciousness have their own archetypal content in which our normal concepts are embedded.

For ex., as a rough analogy, let's take a famous image as follows:





In our normal prosaic thinking, we may describe this as, 'there are people on a boat in dark stormy weather, on the verge of capsizing'. With more artisitc/poetic thinking, we could say, 'the stormy impulses and passions of the soul are raging and threatening to engulf the rational mind'. Imaginative cognition would perceive this image and together with it, simultaneously, the archetypal cognitive feeling of how the rational mind is always floating on the waves of the passionate soul which threatens to rage and engulf it at any moment. We also discern the image is not an isolated entity but has a greater context, which is that of Christ and his discples on the sea of Galilee - now we have the deeper meaning that our loyal trust in the Logos will never fail to tame the raging waters of our soul.

Moreover, we experience that the image is not a flattened, seemingly isolated entity, but issues from the concrete activity of higher-order ideational perspectives which manifest our normal cognitive life, like we normally experience our own words or drawings issue from our ideational perspective. That deeper activity is clothed in the symbolic image, like we clothe our cognitive meaning in words or pictures. Clearly the words or pictures, in their outer form, don't resemble the inner cognitive gestures they are expressing. So we come to see how deeper spiritual activity is responsible for impressing the sensory and conceptual manifestations we are normally familiar with, starting first of all with our own deeper soul currents which modulate our conceptual life.

Notice how the normal prosaic meaning and the artistic meaning are still embedded within the Imaginative meaning. Through the latter, we begin to discern how it is that the former actually manifest in our normal consciousness. Put another way, we discern how our normal thinking is always reaching into the 'imaginative substance' when it forms concepts-gestures-words-pictures (including sense-percepts), but we normally only become conscious of the end result of that 'reaching into' process rather than the process itself. So then we naturally lose sight of the fact that this process is even taking place. It was not so for our ancestors even a few thousand years ago, who attributed all their artistic inspiration and even their normal thoughts to concrete Divine activity, because this process was more transparent to them (although they couldn't form clear concepts about it and technically describe it like we can now).

Of course, these are only very rough analogies/descriptions of something which literally cannot be imagined by the intellect alone, as long as the latter has not awakened to its own Imaginative potential. Once that awakening takes place, however, a gradient is gradually built and these higher-order thinking experiences can be translated into the language of the intellect more easily.

[Cleric K]

For ex., as a rough analogy, let's take a famous image as follows:





In our normal prosaic thinking, we may describe this as, 'there are people on a boat in dark stormy weather, on the verge of capsizing'. With more artisitc/poetic thinking, we could say, 'the stormy impulses and passions of the soul are raging and threatening to engulf the rational mind'. Imaginative cognition would perceive this image and together with it, simultaneously, the archetypal cognitive feeling of how the rational mind is always floating on the waves of the passionate soul which threatens to rage and engulf it at any moment. We also discern the image is not an isolated entity but has a greater context, which is that of Christ and his discples on the sea of Galilee - now we have the deeper meaning that our loyal trust in the Logos will never fail to tame the raging waters of our soul.

Ashvin, I just want to mention that I had a great experience reading your elaboration on the Imagination above. Even though, if someone asked me about the meaning of this biblical scene, I would probably come up with something similar, as I read your description I realized that I've never went specifically into deeper meditation about it. So when I read it, it really came alive in me. This reminds of the important principle that we shouldn't settle for the general principles alone, even if they are the highest possible. These principles must continually receive flesh from our concrete experiences, and the flesh receives the spirit. In other words, it's a great joy to return and rediscover with greater depth things even when they have been examined before (at the level possible at the time).

I felt similarly about your other thread about the polar relations. So don't let the fact that it didn't spark a discussion, make you think that it didn't have impact (at least for me).

[Stranger]

Naturally the question then arises, what can we do in our non-meditative life to also support greater focused activity during our meditative practice? I am wondering what sort of exercises, apart from drawing and music, have you used before or do you currently use to support that greater strength of will in non-meditative practice?

Meditation is not a goal on itself, but only means to train and enhance our mind in certain higher-cognitive ways and then extend and apply it to the continuity of everyday life. In order to do such extension, we need to maintain constant remembrance of the states and insights we gained in meditations and maintain mindfulness and willpower to align our thoughts and actions according to the Divine Will of Love, Compassion and Beauty in everyday life. This is not easy as we tend to fall back into our habitual egoic and narrow-minded daydreaming mode of operation, it takes time and patience, but we will progress as long a as we are determined and persistent. As Alan Wallace said (he is a contemporary Tibetan Lama and consciousness scientist at the same time): "It's all about MOTIVATION, DETERMINATION and CONTINUITY OF PRACTICE". For me music helps me to apply-extend the meditative state to creative activities while maintaining mindfulness, nondual state and intuitive level of thinking. It is a good training of the mind to then further extend this state to work and everyday activities.

[lorenzop]

Ashwin, thanks for your response . . . and yes there are differences between our belief systems.

For example depending on the question, and who's asking the question, there is an important intellectual distinction between thinking and Being . . . especially for the beginner.
Also, I don't see the significant distinctions between your two impressions of the boat painting . . . whether is of a superficial nature, such a boat being tossed about on the sea, or an image of some archetypal feeling or struggle, either way they are both thinking, both mental activity.
Re archetypal ideas and etc - I don't believe these are baked into reality, but if they do exist\persist, they exist as artifacts of an individual body\mind, or perhaps as some community of body\minds . . . such as a culture, family or religious belief system. For example, the Christian community of body\minds could generate archetypal ideas that fellow Christians might seek out.
Personally I am not interested in existing\persistent archetypal ideas, and avoid belief sytems which include these.

[AshvinP]

Ashwin, thanks for your response . . . and yes there are differences between our belief systems.

For example depending on the question, and who's asking the question, there is an important intellectual distinction between thinking and Being . . . especially for the beginner.
Also, I don't see the significant distinctions between your two impressions of the boat painting . . . whether is of a superficial nature, such a boat being tossed about on the sea, or an image of some archetypal feeling or struggle, either way they are both thinking, both mental activity.
Re archetypal ideas and etc - I don't believe these are baked into reality, but if they do exist\persist, they exist as artifacts of an individual body\mind, or perhaps as some community of body\minds . . . such as a culture, family or religious belief system. For example, the Christian community of body\minds could generate archetypal ideas that fellow Christians might seek out.
Personally I am not interested in existing\persistent archetypal ideas, and avoid belief sytems which include these.

Lorenzo,

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.

We could also mention that the evidence for archetypal ideas as foundational realities, available even to our ordinary thinking, is copious. Jung for ex. studied their manifestations in the psyche of his patients and across the mythology of ancient cultures which had no apparent contact with one another, and could reach no other reasonable conclusion than they exist as 'autonomous complexes' of the collective unconscious. In fact, we make the best sense of cultures, religious systems, mythic stories, etc. when we understand them as manifestations of the living Ideas, rather than the other way around.

Jung’s most basic and far-reaching discovery is the collective unconscious or archetypal psyche. Through his researches, we now know that the individual psyche is not just a product of personal experience. It also has a pre-personal or transpersonal dimension which is manifested in universal patterns and images such as are found in all the world’s religions and mythologies.2 It was Jung’s further discovery that the archetypal psyche has a structuring or ordering principle which unifies the various archetypal contents. This is the central archetype or archetype of wholeness which Jung has termed the Self.

There are also a number of other associated themes and images that refer to the Self. Such themes as wholeness, totality, the union of opposites, the central generative point, the world navel, the axis of the universe, the creative point where God and man meet, the point where transpersonal energies flow into personal life, eternity as opposed to the temporal flux, incorruptibility, the inorganic united paradoxically with the organic, protective structures capable of bringing order out of chaos, the transformation of energy, the elixir of life–all refer to the Self, the central source of life energy, the fountain of our being which is most simply described as God. Indeed, the richest sources for the phenomenological study of the Self are in the innumerable representations that man has made of the deity.

Edinger, Edward F.. Ego and Archetype (C. G. Jung Foundation Books Series) (pp. 23-24). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.

But none of the above will mean anything of import unless we also address the 'belief-entertainment' approach to Truth. I say 'entertainment' based on your previous comments to Federica. I think you are very open about the fact that your approach to Truth is entirely rooted in what beliefs about reality currently seem interesting and preferable to you, including your participation on this forum. I completely get where you are coming from with that approach, why it's appealing, even if I whole-heartedly disagree with it. It is a great advantage to be self-aware of what this approach is rooted in, since most people aren't at all and convince themselves they are only employing the strictest reasoning when they are just as influenced by these underlying personal interests.

But it's also an undeniable fact that, with such an approach, even IF archetypal ideas are real and foundational (which they might not be), there is zero chance you could ever come to know about it unless your interests and preferences already align with that. If they don't already align, as you indicate here, then nothing anyone ever presents here or elsewhere, nothing you ever perceive or think about or experience, would lead you to their reality. Even the most profound visionary experience could be written off as a brain malfunction or whatever else preserves the preference. So we just need to be clear with ourselves about that fact. If we always let our approach to the existential truths be colored by our current interests and preferences, when we hardly have any idea where those things actually come from, then we don't even give ourselves the choice of whether to investigate the reality of archetypal ideas, or anything else for that matter.

At the end of the day, no one is here on this forum to convince you, Lorenzo, of anything. I won't feel proud of myself if Lorenzo starts believing archetypal ideas are real, foundational, and decides to pursue them. Obviously I won't gain any material or social benefits from that. Even from a spiritual perspective, the Karmic effect isn't really dependent on whether the seeds we try to plant take root immediately or not at all. And who knows, whatever healthy Karma comes my way from such an effort may be trivial compared to the unhealthy Karma I have amassed for the first half of my life. So the point being, the only person who has anything immediate to gain or lose from how you choose to approach Truth, is you. And on that choice rests whether any deeper meaning baked into reality, IF it exists, has any chance of being found.

[Stranger]

For example depending on the question, and who's asking the question, there is an important intellectual distinction between thinking and Being . . . especially for the beginner.

Personally I am not interested in existing\persistent archetypal ideas, and avoid belief sytems which include these.

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.