Anthroposophy as Fascio

[Lou Gold]

On the other hand, if the dualism is not transcended, eliminating the badness becomes almost a futile endeavor, because the self of separate self-entity will always be a catalyst of desires (because the sense of separate self-entity wants to survive and prosper, it fears death, it is always concerned and obsessed with itself etc). This is not a philosophy, it is a practical observation.

Eugene,

I'm especially interested in your take about fear of death. I am not personally anxious but I perceive a generally death phobic culture, for sure! The disincarnate entity with whom I consult about it tells me that fear of death has a lot to do with feelings of guilt but I don't quite get it. I'm still not understanding the cause of such a general phobia. Would you care to comment on what role might be played by guilt?

[Federica]

I hope that what I'm going to say is not taken as criticism or judgement. From a purely descriptive witness perspective, I find two individuals who have never birthed a child in this lifetime agreeing that childbirth is a better analogy. This, thusly, strikes me as an abstraction. What am I missing?

Maybe that we have both been children and also adults who easily understand the longing for a return to childhood

I made this image in support of the mothers who must let go as their child becomes a strong individuated being.

Lou, in addition to what Ashvin said, what you might also be missing is this: how do you know that you are adopting a "purely descriptive witness perspective"? Could it not be that your current thoughts are inseparable from, and influenced by, feelings and other soul influences that you don't currently have in perfectly sharp focus?
This might not be a very "juicy" matter, still SS guides the seeker, among other things, towards a clearer differentiation of consciousness, where one becomes more and more able to discern the objective element in the flow of thinking, as well as the subjective influences exerted by various personal soul forces on the finally packaged thought that we record. So we can become aware, not only of the final tip of the thought as it falls in our perceptual range (perceivable tip of the iceberg of our thinking), but also of the various interacting forces that make the final shape of the tip into what falls into the scope of our normal perception as 'this is my thought'. In fact, that is only the tip of a massive, largely submersed iceberg, and the only way to know whether it is detaching from Antartica, drifting off to this or that attractor, etc., is to develop this differentiating ability, for instance through Spiritual Science. Such skill would have come in handy, in a case like this one for instance, not true?

[Lou Gold]

Maybe that we have both been children and also adults who easily understand the longing for a return to childhood

I made this image in support of the mothers who must let go as their child becomes a strong individuated being.

Lou, in addition to what Ashvin said, what you might also be missing is this: how do you know that you are adopting a "purely descriptive witness perspective"? Could it not be that your current thoughts are inseparable from, and influenced by, feelings and other soul influences that you don't currently have in perfectly sharp focus?
This might not be a very "juicy" matter, still SS guides the seeker, among other things, towards a clearer differentiation of consciousness, where one becomes more and more able to discern the objective element in the flow of thinking, as well as the subjective influences exerted by various personal soul forces on the finally packaged thought that we record. So we can become aware, not only of the final tip of the thought as it falls in our perceptual range (perceivable tip of the iceberg of our thinking), but also of the various interacting forces that make the final shape of the tip into what falls into the scope of our normal perception as 'this is my thought'. In fact, that is only the tip of a massive, largely submersed iceberg, and the only way to know whether it is detaching from Antartica, drifting off to this or that attractor, etc., is to develop this differentiating ability, for instance through Spiritual Science. Such skill would have come in handy, in a case like this one for instance, not true?

Of course! And this is true of every path, which is why we focus not exclusively on Truth but on Truth , Goodness and Beauty in order to test our perceptions. And, BTW, I like your notion of "tip of the iceberg" because it so well explains why I think ascent-and-descent are necessary in an expanding awareness. Indeed, sometimes it can be more important to know the below (ex: Antarctica). And, in short, to know if our direct perceptions or experiences are more than idiosyncratic we must have a peer group and see if the results are the beautiful ones promised by our stories, hopes and dreams.

I would add that I am aware of at least some of the soul forces beyond my puny personal perceptions, which is the result of my path including a doctrine and communion with vastly larger forces via ritual devotion.

[AshvinP]

in support of the mothers who must let go as their child becomes a strong individuated being.

I surely understand the longing for childhood but if you do not feel the presence of the child in you now, why not?

Thanks for the image, Lou. I hope you don't mind that I deleted the previous two posts which were near duplicates of this one.

I feel the presence of the child as a responsibility right now, in so far as I desire to redeem the lower qualities of childhood - selfishness, dependence, lack of responsibility, indolence, frivolity, etc. - and transmute them to higher faculties - reverence, wonder, open-mindedness, imagination, etc. The healthy reintegration of the childhood self is an ideal whom I am working towards. In this process, I aim to experience the inner forces which animated that childhood self, especially in so far as it learned to stand upright, speak, and think. These are the forces of imagination, inspiration, and intuition.

[Lou Gold]

in support of the mothers who must let go as their child becomes a strong individuated being.

I surely understand the longing for childhood but if you do not feel the presence of the child in you now, why not?

Thanks for the image, Lou. I hope you don't mind that I deleted the previous two posts which were near duplicates of this one.

I feel the presence of the child as a responsibility right now, in so far as I desire to redeem the lower qualities of childhood - selfishness, dependence, lack of responsibility, indolence, frivolity, etc. - and transmute them to higher faculties - reverence, wonder, open-mindedness, imagination, etc. The healthy reintegration of the childhood self is an ideal whom I am working towards. In this process, I aim to experience the inner forces which animated that childhood self, especially in so far as it learned to stand upright, speak, and think. These are the forces of imagination, inspiration, and intuition.

Great, Ashvin, I wish you well. I offer testimony that in rediscovering my inner child there was not a regression into negativity as you describe and not all qualities you describe as negative turned out to be so. I definitely feel more vulnerable and dependent in my current situation and such humility feels like a good thing. I also recall a time I walked into the kitchen of friends and saw their three year old with a horrible scowl on her face. I asked what was wrong? She planted her fists firmly on her hips and shouted, "Me grumpy!" Imagine the value of such simple honesty in our adult relations!

When I encountered my inner child in some powerful Jungian therapy, he was furious that I was so focused on social justice and saving the trees that I no longer played with him. That made me change and the result was that art blossomed forth from me, art that I never knew I could do. It was an amazing transformation.

PS: Thanks for the deletions. I was having posting problems at this end.

[Federica]

I made this image in support of the mothers who must let go as their child becomes a strong individuated being.

Lou, in addition to what Ashvin said, what you might also be missing is this: how do you know that you are adopting a "purely descriptive witness perspective"? Could it not be that your current thoughts are inseparable from, and influenced by, feelings and other soul influences that you don't currently have in perfectly sharp focus?
This might not be a very "juicy" matter, still SS guides the seeker, among other things, towards a clearer differentiation of consciousness, where one becomes more and more able to discern the objective element in the flow of thinking, as well as the subjective influences exerted by various personal soul forces on the finally packaged thought that we record. So we can become aware, not only of the final tip of the thought as it falls in our perceptual range (perceivable tip of the iceberg of our thinking), but also of the various interacting forces that make the final shape of the tip into what falls into the scope of our normal perception as 'this is my thought'. In fact, that is only the tip of a massive, largely submersed iceberg, and the only way to know whether it is detaching from Antartica, drifting off to this or that attractor, etc., is to develop this differentiating ability, for instance through Spiritual Science. Such skill would have come in handy, in a case like this one for instance, not true?

Of course! And this is true of every path, which is why we focus not exclusively on Truth but on Truth , Goodness and Beauty in order to test our perceptions. And, BTW, I like your notion of "tip of the iceberg" because it so well explains why I think ascent-and-descent are necessary in an expanding awareness. Indeed, sometimes it can be more important to know the below (ex: Antarctica). And, in short, to know if our direct perceptions or experiences are more than idiosyncratic we must have a peer group and see if the results are the beautiful ones promised by our stories, hopes and dreams.

I would add that I am aware of at least some of the soul forces beyond my puny personal perceptions, which is the result of my path including a doctrine and communion with vastly larger forces via ritual devotion.

So if you recognize that you are aware of some soul forces, and otherwise you rely on a peer group, why did you state as a matter of fact that you were writing from a "purely descriptive witness perspective" with regards to the Mother?

Also, how can a peer group be the solution, given that peer advice only can come way afterwards, and not in the moment when the objective consciousness is needed, and given that the peers are themselves required to be aware of their personal unconscious influences, in order to provide reliable advice?

[Federica]

One is like the child weaning itself off of parents, teachers, authorities, etc. so that it can give birth to the thinking "I" within and take more creative responsibility for its further evolution (SS). The other is like the child striving to realize its in utero state of Oneness with its Mother. It seeks to know itself as pure Awareness, rather than thinking awareness of the World Content.

This is really a perfect analogy, Ashvin!
It's more than an analogy. This position of the child who strives to realize Oneness with its mother is specular to the one of the Egyptians who kept a strong link with the physical world by mummifying their dead bodies, as you have described on the other thread. Their trajectory through their disincarnate cycle remained close to the physical Earth, "lower altitude" so to say, in its unfolding in the Spiritual world. Specularly, whoever has remained energetically bound to the Mother more than necessary (through physical or psychological circumstances) will experience more difficulties in being fully and completely born to this physical world, and will feel strong attraction to the mystical asymptote of the hysteresis of thinking. Their trajectory in incarnate form will tend to remain too fixated on Oneness, too aspiring to direct connection with Divinity. I am realizing this applies to people I know well. I can't push the parallel far enough to see what the evolutionary usefulness of this "higher altitude route" through the Sense world could be, where one does not fully descend on Earth at birth, and therefore has not enough grip on the physical, and has difficulties turning the sensory experience inside out...

Thanks, Federica.

We can also consider it in the context of our collective evolution. Eugene previously spoke of the wise teachers of humanity who can redeem the Earth evolution. When I asked about how we can contribute now, basically the idea was that we can continue our evolution in other realms after death and then choose to go on a Bodhisattva mission and guide humanity from 'above'. Through spiritual scientific investigation, we learn that this process already happened during the infancy of humanity. It is an image of how we evolved from our instinctive, collective animal stages to something much more similar to our current individual thinking consciousness. To begin with, all the wise sages, teachers, leaders, etc. were actually higher supra-human souls incarnated in human sheaths. This lasted even into the time of ancient Egypt, which connects to what we were discussing on the other thread. They said 'the Gods were our leaders' because their leaders actually were Angelic beings incarnated in human bodies. Those beings had not gone through previous incarnations like the rest of us.

We can only understand our primordial human evolution if we are aware of this process. But this phenomena basically ended at that time. Once we get to ancient Greek civilization, humans who have gone through the normal incarnational process were tasked with leading civilization further. What was once received as wise instruction and impulses from without becomes fully inwardized, and this culminates in the Christ events and impulse. Now the Divine lives fully in the inner forces which animate our thinking and we can progressively unfold these forces, bringing new life into the appearances which had to spiritually and physically die for our development. A physical birth requires a spiritual death and a spiritual birth requires a physical death (or many of them). We can't expect the higher beings to descend and sacrifice themselves once again to lead us further - they already did that, to the utmost imaginable extent.

All around us we see a subconscious longing for the primordial past way of progressing further, where outer events and impulses will bring us forward. Even in materialistic popular culture that is evident - maybe some random mutation will make us X-men mutants with super spiritual powers. Or the Avengers will save us. Of course it is even more stark in fundamentalist religious circles where people are waiting for the apocalypse, rapture, 2nd coming, eternal salvation and virgins in heaven, etc. And what we find in mystical streams is not too different. It's harder to notice with the latter because we may have a patchwork of imaginations stitched together from different sources, as Cleric noted. None of it comes directly from experience of the higher worlds, oneness, etc., but from theories overlaid on top of those experiences which are rooted in past traditions. The key point is that we are not just seeking to criticize these streams and their world outlooks, but understand exactly why they are arising now and what that can teach us about how to move forward.

What I just wrote above is a brief recapitulation of similar points which have been made in many posts now on this forum, from different angles. Every recapitulation should result in something truly new coming forth, such as an exploration of the fourfold convolution of our inner be-ing which Cleric continues to illustrate for us. I want to be clear that there is no negative criticism here just for the sake of criticizing. We are at a critical juncture of evolution and we have, in a sense, been thrown back on ourselves. The most natural thing right now is to feel a subconscious resentment for the Gods who have seemingly abandoned us, a desire for someone or something to blame, and a longing for the ancient sources of Wisdom and primordial Unity. We simply need to begin discerning how the key to recovering that Wisdom of the past is through creatively manifesting the future. It is all there as fuel and kindling to ignite our higher ideational capacity and bring what is new into the World by working back through the folds.

Thanks Ashvin, that's a very clear recap that certainly answers my doubts about the usefulness of the growing mystical impulse we can observe today. So for those who are sensitive to this impulse, there seems to be lots of work ahead, actually more than for the materialist or anyone else, because they cannot yet work towards their second birth into spiritual constitution, in order to then die before their physical body. In their case, they will have to re-act their second birth into the physical sheath, first. Maybe what they would benefit from in their practice, rather than quiet, sitting meditations, is some sort of nature camp or immersion, with plenty of exhausting activity... I am wondering. Do you know if Steiner has any practical advice?

[Stranger]

Eugene,

I'm especially interested in your take about fear of death. I am not personally anxious but I perceive a generally death phobic culture, for sure! The disincarnate entity with whom I consult about it tells me that fear of death has a lot to do with feelings of guilt but I don't quite get it. I'm still not understanding the cause of such a general phobia. Would you care to comment on what role might be played by guilt?

It's a good question. We humans is a blend of a discarnate soul with its own karma and the human body with its karmic patterns. Most of the incarnate souls on Earth are the souls in dualistic state, which means they perceive and believe themselves to be separate selves, and they pass this belief to the human being. So, a soul in human form perceiving itself as a separate self will naturally fear nonexistence as a result of such perception. The body structure has its own karmic ancestral survival mechanisms that they inherited from humanoids, and one of the key survival mechanisms is the fear of death. No animal would survive without a fear of death, this is a necessary mechanism developed in the process of natural evolution, and so it is not something to be considered bad. So, the bodily fear of death and soul's fear of death of separate self match and reinforce each other. Needless to say, this fear, being a useful survival mechanism is a source of much mental suffering in our human life. At the same time, it still very useful because it protects humans from self-harm, otherwise the suicide rate would be very high among humans. But this fear becomes atavistic and will be transcended when we transcend the dualistic state.

By the way, we should be very critical and skeptical to what discarnate beings tell us, most of them are as confused as we humans are (which does not necessarily mean they are "evil", but it only means that they, like us, are evolving and transitioning through evolutionary phases, and on each phase have their beliefs and confusions according to the level of the phase).

[Lou Gold]

Eugene,

I'm especially interested in your take about fear of death. I am not personally anxious but I perceive a generally death phobic culture, for sure! The disincarnate entity with whom I consult about it tells me that fear of death has a lot to do with feelings of guilt but I don't quite get it. I'm still not understanding the cause of such a general phobia. Would you care to comment on what role might be played by guilt?

It's a good question. We humans is a blend of a discarnate soul with its own karma and the human body with its karmic patterns. Most of the incarnate souls on Earth are the souls in dualistic state, which means they perceive and believe themselves to be separate selves, and they pass this belief to the human being. So, a soul in human form perceiving itself as a separate self will naturally fear nonexistence as a result of such perception. The body structure has its own karmic ancestral survival mechanisms that they inherited from humanoids, and one of the key survival mechanisms is the fear of death. No animal would survive without a fear of death, this is a necessary mechanism developed in the process of natural evolution, and so it is not something to be considered bad. So, the bodily fear of death and soul's fear of death of separate self match and reinforce each other. Needless to say, this fear, being a useful survival mechanism is a source of much mental suffering in our human life. At the same time, it still very useful because it protects humans from self-harm, otherwise the suicide rate would be very high among humans. But this fear becomes atavistic and will be transcended when we transcend the dualistic state.

By the way, we should be very critical and skeptical to what discarnate beings tell us, most of them are as confused as we humans are (which does not necessarily mean they are "evil", but it only means that they, like us, are evolving and transitioning through evolutionary phases, and on each phase have their beliefs and confusions according to the level of the phase).

Yeah, there are all kinds of discarnate souls and nature spirits too. There are protocols and practical tests like whether advice given turns out to be actually helpful. And, yes, I understand the fear of death as you describe it as basic to survival. Looking both ways when crossing the street is basic intelligence and not phobic. The question I was raising was related to added anxiety. The suggestion offered was this was due to guilt. I didn't quite get how that might unfold and passed the guilt question to you. Got any thoughts?

[Stranger]

As an exercise you can try to convince my nondual alter out of its position. No Steiner and SS involved. Pure nonduality. Why my experience of oneness is wrong when it tells me that all nondual disincarnate existence is only a fantastic projection of the unresolved thirst of the ego for immortal existence? How would you convince me that from my experience of oneness with ultimate reality, it somehow follows that I'll go in Gödel's candy shop after death?

I hope this makes the point that the arguments about SS have very little to do with oneness or its lack. It's a simple conflict of world outlooks, the cause of which is misidentified. The only reasonable way out is to seek the actual facts of existence in their manifold relations, which are not only a matter of taste but can be lawfully followed in the reality of our flow of becoming. Above all we should start with "How do I know?" I hope the last post in the other thread can help us move further in that direction.

You are right, in fact this dispute between "nothingness" nondualists and "nondual existence" nondualists have been going on in the Buddhist tradition from the early years of Buddhism and continues still in our days. Here is my answer. Consciousness is infinite and there is an unlimited variety of conscious states. Roughly, the states that we know so far can be classified in three categories: nothingness, dualistic and nondual, but there may be more categories of which we do not yet know. First thing to note is that there is always a free choice if a soul (understood as an individuated spiritual activity) chooses to stay in one state or category and refuses to change. However, IMO, the Spirit on the Cosmic scale is on the quest to evolve, explore and get to acquire the knowledge of itself and of all its states. It is a quest of “We want to know”, and all individuated spiritual activities are invited to participate in it but with no obligations or expectations. And there is no end to this quest because the variety of conscious states is infinite and the progression of evolution is endless. We have no idea what lies ahead of us, and how beautiful it is! So, if we are in line with this motivation to know, then we would also want to know the “nothingness” nondual state, but then why would we become stuck in this state? There is no reason to stay in the “nothingness” forever unless one chooses to prefer this state to any other states, but then why is there such preference? Likewise, if we are in line with this motivation to know, then we certainly would also want to know dualistic state, but then why would we become stuck in it and refuse to move along to explore other states such as nondual ones, unless we become addicted to and cling to it, but then why would there be such preference? Likewise, we would also want to know the nondual existence state in all its variety, but again, why would we stick to it and prefer it to other states if there are likely other even more advanced states for us to know? This is the curvature of the progression of the true SS – the quest to know that motivates us to develop our cognition on progressively higher levels and push the limits of our knowledge frontier in all directions with non-stop. Now, because as we push the frontier, its “surface” becomes so large that it may become intractable for a single soul to cover everything, so, it is not a problem if some souls may temporarily specialize and focus more on some specific areas. Also, you are right, the motivation of “I want to know” should also go along with “How do I know?”, because we need to also understand and apply the right scientific method if we want to do the science of consciousness in an efficient way.

On the lower evolutionary states we exist within the lawful structures created by more evolved beings with the purpose for us to learn and evolve. It’s a training platform and we should follow their lawful structures to "pass the tests” and graduate. On the higher levels, as we evolve and master our manifestation skills, we become co-creators of new structures that we further explore to enhance our knowledge.