Thank you Federica!Federica wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 5:11 pm
Güney - I wanted to share that, thanks to your post and interest in the CT essays, I decided to read them again and understand your questions the best I could, and I really have to thank you for the inspiration, because without it I wouldn’t have realized an inexplicable, but true fact. Indeed, I had completely overlooked TCOTCT 2 and 3. Last year I read the Central Topic, and also the beginning of TCOTCT 1. Then, for some odd reason, I forgot to continue!
So I have discovered the number 2 and 3 only over these last few days… Thank you
Cleric - if you are reading, I have said it before with regards to other essays: it’s amazing how you are able to maintain clarity without compromising on uncoiling any of the distinct threads of your illustration. I really feel that, if one has the intention to understand, it’s impossible to not make any progress with the help of these writings. Thank you! By the way, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, I want to say that I found that which is hidden in TCOTCT 3 if for no other reason, at least as pretext to spark new interest in this series of essays. I invite everyone who is reading here to go back and benefit from this precious resource and the crucial insights hiding in plain sight in this series:
The Central Topic: viewtopic.php?t=687
The Center of the Central Topic Part 1: viewtopic.php?t=723
The Center of the Central Topic Part 2: viewtopic.php?t=726
The Center of the Central Topic Part 3: viewtopic.php?t=730
Here I would like to add a small disclaimer, since the exercises are mentioned. I'm surely in no position to give proper advice on esoteric development. All the exercises that have been shared here should be seen like experiments, illustrations of certain principles. In no way they should be understood as something like "Do this three times a day for three months and so and so will happen." They are intended to stimulate first and foremost our thinking. It's like through these experiments attention is drawn to a certain 'muscle'. The harmonious development of all muscles however is a much greater task which involves also nutrition, sleep and so on. So it is in spiritual development too.
Guney, you say that at this time you feel the need that everything goes through your intellect first. This is actually a good thing in my opinion. This doesn't mean that the intellect will build out of its combinations of thoughts the higher states but only that it gains a good orientation in its environment.
Of course, at some point the intellect probes quite well its immediate environment. With our thinking we're like a small child that visits a family friend's house for the first time and initially everything is interesting. Everything has to be perceived, named, touched, tasted and so on. After some time however, perceptions begin to repeat themselves. The child has seen most of the interesting things that are to be seen. This is actually a very pleasant period not only in the sensory world but in our spiritual development too. It's always interesting to break through a door and find so much new material to be explored. At some point however, the environment gets well probed and this is the critical moment when we have to make up our mind on how to proceed. One variant is to keep cycling through the same old thoughts and perceptions. But we can also understand that it's time to go further and break through new doors.
At this time I believe you shouldn't worry that you feel the need to think intellectually. As long as you explore your (inner and outer) environment in this way, it is all in place. As long as you remember that everything is a stage within a longer journey you should be safe from stagnation. You'll know when it is time for new kinds of effort when you begin to feel that you are treading the same closed loops over and over again.
With the risk to make thing complicated, we have to make a distinction here. If we take the above in a one-sided way it may sound like we have to seek only new sensations, much like in our sense-bound culture people get bored so quickly and want new sensations all the time. This is not what it's meant. There are plenty of concepts and ideas that we need to return to over and over again. The explanation is very simple - such ideas are like gateways. For example let's take Light or Love. If we get the above in the wrong way we may say "Love, Light? Got it! Next please!". But what we grasp at any given time through these words is only the tiniest spark of a whole Universe. That spark is like a pinhole, a gateway towards these worlds. Thus there are concepts which at our level capture only the tiniest tip of the iceberg. It is to these that we have to return over and over again and pray that a tiny bit will be revealed to us. The patterns that lead to stagnation are recognizable since they are not open ended. Such is any attempt to find the perfect metaphysical theory of everything (as an arrangement of abstract thoughts that correspond to reality). This would result in an intellectual closed loop and the gateway will be left out of sight. A whole world is lost to us.
So use your wave of inspiration and use your thinking to probe everything you can. Keep the openness that we're always somewhere along the road and then when you indeed begin to go in loops you'll know that it is time to introduce new methods.
I remind that the advancement to Imaginative cognition feels like a transition of the 'aggregate state' of our consciousness. It can be metaphorically expressed in many ways. Here's one that I've shown before: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/NtVXRt
The transition passes through a point of concentration (which normally should feel in the head and expands from there). In our ordinary state there's the characteristic jerkiness of our inner movements (illustrated in the first part of the animation). This is partly due to the discrete nature of our thinking (verbal, mathematical, etc.) but not only.
In concentration all this jerkiness ceases. This doesn't mean that we enter a state of absolute stillness. In fact, the new state is even more mobile but it's a movement of different order. It is completely normal that we should feel resistance to approach that point of phase transition. Let's also be clear that there's no need that we turn that in our primary goal. Actually most of the important tasks at our present stage are of much more prosaic nature - we have to learn how to move, how to eat, how to speak, how to work, think, feel, love. Our understanding of higher development is our evolutionary compass. The important thing is to have the direction. And we can of course make small experiments all the time. For example, at certain points throughout our day we can stop, take a breath and hold it, then freeze completely from tip to toe, concentrate in the point in the head and feel the periphery of our whole still bodily and soul world, then just hold it for a few seconds. Even though we'll be back to our jerkiness almost immediately, for these few seconds we can glimpse something of the liminal space in which our full body and soul sensations float.
What counts is to have a sense for this portal through which we shall pass when our intellect begins to find itself going through the same patterns. As long as we're still discovering new things and increasing our intuitive orientation in our intellectual probings, I think it is alright. When we begin to find out that we're going in flat loops maybe it is time to go deeper and hold the concentration for a little longer. This will become naturally easier since our intellect is already bored with the same old patterns and will more easily let go for longer periods. Of course, as it should be clear, it's not only about the technique of ceasing the jerkiness. The quality of the liminal space into which we awaken is of primary importance and that means that we have to work also on the warmth of our feelings and the strength of our will.