Meditation

[Güney27]

I believe the Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition stages (as defined by Rudolf Steiner) is describing that process. If I understand so far, the Imagination stage is where one can start seeing spiritual imagery (which might be symbolic images for example?), or maybe seeing the forms that underlie the physical objects (i.e. the etheric world). The Inspiration and Intuition, I think, is where one can start seeing much subtler worlds than the etheric, and can also perceive higher beings and communicate with them directly or consciously, and experience their perspective as your own. Could you maybe comment on how accurate this short summary is, and help me correct errors or misunderstandings?

Luke, I would like to attempt to give a picture of the stages of consciousness, using the pond image given in Zajonc's meditation that Ashin quoted here. I’m not sure if Zajonc has the stages of consciousness in mind in that meditation but I surely find the image suitable. In that sense, please don’t try to map directly what I say to what Zajonc describes.

Preconditions – soul space – the pond

The first step would be to understand what the pond symbolizes. It is really the space of our inner experience. There’s no need to fantasize this space in some way. What we need is to simply feel the actual contents of our soul space, our perceptions, thought images, feelings and so on. This space is really the only space we ever know. Even when we imagine large things, like a planet or the whole Cosmos, it is still based on the sense of space we’re familiar with through our bodily sensations. In a certain sense, we can only know a large space when we imagine our imaginary hands spreading out so far that we can encompass it. In other words, all space that we know is inner space. This inner space and all its contents can be symbolized with the pond (and of course we shouldn't try to imagine that this inner space is somehow placed within the 'real' outer physical space).

Ordinary consciousness – lost in the patterns of the pond

At the first stage, this pond is criss-crossed with sensations in the most complicated ways. These patterns form our familiar bodily sensations. Normally our thinking is so sucked into these sensations that we feel that we live in their movements, our whole soul life is subordinate to their unfoldments. This is what we call the world of Maya.

Here we should make an important distinction. Maya doesn’t mean that the World is simply a thin dream image before our soul’s gaze, which has no substantiality. The World is real. It’s just that our familiar sensory experience of it is a secondary pattern. By secondary I mean something analogous to the way how the pixels of a screen are primary while the image is a new level of interpretation.

Imagination – consciousness of the pond

With all this in mind it should be easy to understand the first of the higher forms of consciousness – Imaginative. While in our ordinary consciousness we live entirely in the patterns in soul space and their secondary interpretation, when through concentration we manage to extricate our spiritual activity from the suction of the patterns, the pond metaphor becomes a reality. Now we really feel our inner space as an infinite pond, filled with the most complicated phenomena, patterns, ripples, waves. We understand directly how so far we have been mesmerized by the patterns. Of course, when speaking of patterns and ripples this shouldn’t be taken in the mechanical sense. These movements are not something that we simply see but something that our whole soul state metamorphoses through. It’s like the difference between only seeing a gymnastic exercise and actually performing.

This is the first important distinction. We see into soul space not simply by having an additional layer of visual sensations but by moving together with the driving forces behind phenomena. If it is only the former, the experience would never lead us to any certainty. It could be just a sensory hallucination. But when our thinking activity is liberated from the slots of the brain and begins to flow in novel ways, this can never be doubted – simply because it cannot be imagined through our old thinking patterns. We can be mistaken when we try to understand these movements and their relations but not about the fact that our spirit has lifted itself from the physical slots and wills its transformation in soul space.

This leads us also to another distinction. When we flow together with the transformations in soul space it becomes clear that they result from spiritual activity similar to our own. Just like our ordinary thinking activity stirs sounds, words, images in soul space, so on a greater scale our soul space is part of the World soul space and the most varied activities stir its forms. At this stage we understand very little of the nature of the various Intelligences, the spiritual beings who will the activities but it is clear that the contents of the soul space are impressions of their deeds. What we experience in soul space as contents and movements is not the beings themselves but only their effects, just like we don’t see our ego as a finished perception in front of us but we perceive its effects, for example, as the sound perception of our thinking voice.

Inspiration – resonating with the intents of the beings

While in Imagination we’re lifted from suction of the pond patterns and begin to cognize the impressions of the activities of the Cosmic Intelligences (symbolized by the stars, mountains, etc. reflected in the pond) we still don’t have particularly clear idea of what and why they act in such ways. This is what we approach in Inspirative consciousness. Probably the best analogy for this is reading or the difference between hearing sounds and understanding them as words.

Of course, these are only sensory analogies. To understand this, in our ordinary cognition we have first to make very clear the distinction between the perceptual element of thoughts (for example the sounds of our thinking voice) and the inner activity that we perform in order to impress these sounds. In other places we have called these ‘thinking gestures’. Just like we can distinguish between the perceptions of our hand and the willing efforts to move it, so we should try to do the same for our thinking. This is of course much more challenging because we need special effort to observe our thinking process. In any case, it can be said that in the Imaginative state we live not only in the thinking gestures that we consider our own but we allow our thinking gestures to move together with the gestures in the environment. These of course, just like our ordinary thoughts, have their perceptual counterpart – encompassing images, weaved of color, sound and so on. Yet, these perceptual elements are not the essential thing. It is only because our transformed thinking gestures merge with those which fill the whole of Cosmic soul space, that we understand the perceptual counterpart as images of higher order reality.

So in this analogy, our liberated thinking gestures correspond to the sound. We understand that soul space is real, that it is animated by the thinking gestures of the most varied Intelligences, yet besides the most immediate effects, we don’t intuit any deeper intents. For example, in Imagination we can unite with the thinking gestures that work in our blood flow. This is not the same as simply having a bodily sensation of blood moving, in the sense that we can feel warm water sipping down our throat when drinking it but instead we find that there’s something akin to will impulses that live in the rhythms of our circulation. In Imagination we can find these blood forces as facts of experience but only in Inspiration we can understand their wider significance, how through them the whole evolutionary journey of man is intended.

Intuition – resonating with the perspectives of the beings

Finally, in Intuition the intents that we come to know in Inspiration are experienced in an even deeper way, in the context of the individual beings.

Probably it would be easier with another analogy. Let’s suppose we see a man walking. On the lowest level we see transformations of patterns of perceptions. We can study them as a scientist would. We can analyze them, quantify them and even discover some mathematical ‘laws of nature’ that seem to match what we see. At the second stage we recognize that this walking man is perceived as such only because certain will impulses work in him. Note that the only reason we can understand this is because we know from our own experience what it is to will the movements of our feet. Similarly, to know the deeds of the Cosmos in soul space, our thinking-will must be able to transform into the corresponding forms. At the third stage we can understand something of the intents of the movement. For example, we may find out that the person is going to see a friend. Now we have not only the will but also the idea that guides it through time. Finally, the fourth stage would be analogous to understanding the individual perspective of the person. In the previous stage we understand his movement according to our perspective. We understand what it means to us. But now we understand what it means to the I-experience of the person, how that movement fits in the unique story of his life.

In a similar way. Intuitive cognition leads to concentric experiences of the spiritual beings. We now grasp something of the transformations of soul space in the context of evolution of these perspectives.

,,So in this analogy, our liberated thinking gestures correspond to the sound. We understand that soul space is real, that it is animated by the thinking gestures of the most varied Intelligences, yet besides the most immediate effects, we don’t intuit any deeper intents. For example, in Imagination we can unite with the thinking gestures that work in our blood flow. This is not the same as simply having a bodily sensation of blood moving, in the sense that we can feel warm water sipping down our throat when drinking it but instead we find that there’s something akin to will impulses that live in the rhythms of our circulation. In Imagination we can find these blood forces as facts of experience but only in Inspiration we can understand their wider significance, how through them the whole evolutionary journey of man is intended."


Is the blood I can see in the sensory world, something like a crystallization of the will impulse, that comes from spiritual beings?
The manifested impuls so to say?

[Cleric K]

Is the blood I can see in the sensory world, something like a crystallization of the will impulse, that comes from spiritual beings?
The manifested impuls so to say?

In a way it is but it is more complicated. You are right that what we know as blood is something quite different when investigated in its archetypal beginnings.

First, in a spiritual sense, blood is not something that we can fit in our consciousness. In the physical world we can drain our blood in a 5 liters bucket and see it in front of us. Then we say: “that’s my blood”. But spiritually, blood is something greater than our intellectual conceptions. Furthermore, it is not simply a substance but a living process that unfolds through time. In a certain sense, this blood-process acts like the carrier wave within which our states metamorphose. These carrier waves are really the general envelope of destiny. Our soul states are steered through these musical rhythms. Yes, from a higher perspective, our destiny is grasped as a song with rhythm, melody, harmony and lyrical meaning. We live within the unfoldment of this song.

When from within these Imaginative soul states we enter frictious relations with other beings, the states accordingly become more complicated and constrained. Together with this the etheric and mineral form of our bodily organization take shape. In that respect, the bodily blood system indeed takes form as crystallization of the Imaginative soul states, through which the Will pulsates.

However, we should remember that each ‘fractal level’ has relative independence. All manifested existence owes to this fact – that there’s a hysteresis-like ‘dephasing’ between levels. In the case of our physical evolution, the mineral body has become quite independent. The liquids in the blood, the blood cells and so on are like independent formations that originate from the higher order rhythms but at the same time they are being extricated. It’s like in the being of blood a second, shadow being emerges that rests upon the coarser blood foundations. This being says “Yes, my origins are indeed within the spiritual processes, which guided the original manifestation of the blood system but now I can found my existence on this mineral and etheric foundation. I can use it for my own ends and tear it out from its origins.”

So we see that our blood can’t be seen one-sidedly. It’s actually a battlefield of beings (Steiner has spoken about it). Progressive beings and beings of hinderance instill their own rhythms, their own songs in this carrier wave of soul existence.

If we understand this, we also naturally arrive at a method for spiritual work. In our meditations we can try to feel our blood flow, the pulsations of our heart and blood vessels. Then we can conceive that this rhythm beats according to the waveguide of our destiny, our karmic interference. By means of intense thought we can consecrate our blood rhythm to the progressive forces of the Cosmos. We can surrender our blood rhythm such that we desire it to be synchronized with the pulse of the Heart of the Solar system, thus our destiny can pulsate harmonically and concentrically with the symphony of Cosmic Life. This is a very powerful exercise.

[Anthony66]

I believe the Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition stages (as defined by Rudolf Steiner) is describing that process. If I understand so far, the Imagination stage is where one can start seeing spiritual imagery (which might be symbolic images for example?), or maybe seeing the forms that underlie the physical objects (i.e. the etheric world). The Inspiration and Intuition, I think, is where one can start seeing much subtler worlds than the etheric, and can also perceive higher beings and communicate with them directly or consciously, and experience their perspective as your own. Could you maybe comment on how accurate this short summary is, and help me correct errors or misunderstandings?

Luke, I would like to attempt to give a picture of the stages of consciousness, using the pond image given in Zajonc's meditation that Ashin quoted here. I’m not sure if Zajonc has the stages of consciousness in mind in that meditation but I surely find the image suitable. In that sense, please don’t try to map directly what I say to what Zajonc describes.

Preconditions – soul space – the pond

The first step would be to understand what the pond symbolizes. It is really the space of our inner experience. There’s no need to fantasize this space in some way. What we need is to simply feel the actual contents of our soul space, our perceptions, thought images, feelings and so on. This space is really the only space we ever know. Even when we imagine large things, like a planet or the whole Cosmos, it is still based on the sense of space we’re familiar with through our bodily sensations. In a certain sense, we can only know a large space when we imagine our imaginary hands spreading out so far that we can encompass it. In other words, all space that we know is inner space. This inner space and all its contents can be symbolized with the pond (and of course we shouldn't try to imagine that this inner space is somehow placed within the 'real' outer physical space).

Ordinary consciousness – lost in the patterns of the pond

At the first stage, this pond is criss-crossed with sensations in the most complicated ways. These patterns form our familiar bodily sensations. Normally our thinking is so sucked into these sensations that we feel that we live in their movements, our whole soul life is subordinate to their unfoldments. This is what we call the world of Maya.

Here we should make an important distinction. Maya doesn’t mean that the World is simply a thin dream image before our soul’s gaze, which has no substantiality. The World is real. It’s just that our familiar sensory experience of it is a secondary pattern. By secondary I mean something analogous to the way how the pixels of a screen are primary while the image is a new level of interpretation.

Imagination – consciousness of the pond

With all this in mind it should be easy to understand the first of the higher forms of consciousness – Imaginative. While in our ordinary consciousness we live entirely in the patterns in soul space and their secondary interpretation, when through concentration we manage to extricate our spiritual activity from the suction of the patterns, the pond metaphor becomes a reality. Now we really feel our inner space as an infinite pond, filled with the most complicated phenomena, patterns, ripples, waves. We understand directly how so far we have been mesmerized by the patterns. Of course, when speaking of patterns and ripples this shouldn’t be taken in the mechanical sense. These movements are not something that we simply see but something that our whole soul state metamorphoses through. It’s like the difference between only seeing a gymnastic exercise and actually performing.

This is the first important distinction. We see into soul space not simply by having an additional layer of visual sensations but by moving together with the driving forces behind phenomena. If it is only the former, the experience would never lead us to any certainty. It could be just a sensory hallucination. But when our thinking activity is liberated from the slots of the brain and begins to flow in novel ways, this can never be doubted – simply because it cannot be imagined through our old thinking patterns. We can be mistaken when we try to understand these movements and their relations but not about the fact that our spirit has lifted itself from the physical slots and wills its transformation in soul space.

This leads us also to another distinction. When we flow together with the transformations in soul space it becomes clear that they result from spiritual activity similar to our own. Just like our ordinary thinking activity stirs sounds, words, images in soul space, so on a greater scale our soul space is part of the World soul space and the most varied activities stir its forms. At this stage we understand very little of the nature of the various Intelligences, the spiritual beings who will the activities but it is clear that the contents of the soul space are impressions of their deeds. What we experience in soul space as contents and movements is not the beings themselves but only their effects, just like we don’t see our ego as a finished perception in front of us but we perceive its effects, for example, as the sound perception of our thinking voice.

Inspiration – resonating with the intents of the beings

While in Imagination we’re lifted from suction of the pond patterns and begin to cognize the impressions of the activities of the Cosmic Intelligences (symbolized by the stars, mountains, etc. reflected in the pond) we still don’t have particularly clear idea of what and why they act in such ways. This is what we approach in Inspirative consciousness. Probably the best analogy for this is reading or the difference between hearing sounds and understanding them as words.

Of course, these are only sensory analogies. To understand this, in our ordinary cognition we have first to make very clear the distinction between the perceptual element of thoughts (for example the sounds of our thinking voice) and the inner activity that we perform in order to impress these sounds. In other places we have called these ‘thinking gestures’. Just like we can distinguish between the perceptions of our hand and the willing efforts to move it, so we should try to do the same for our thinking. This is of course much more challenging because we need special effort to observe our thinking process. In any case, it can be said that in the Imaginative state we live not only in the thinking gestures that we consider our own but we allow our thinking gestures to move together with the gestures in the environment. These of course, just like our ordinary thoughts, have their perceptual counterpart – encompassing images, weaved of color, sound and so on. Yet, these perceptual elements are not the essential thing. It is only because our transformed thinking gestures merge with those which fill the whole of Cosmic soul space, that we understand the perceptual counterpart as images of higher order reality.

So in this analogy, our liberated thinking gestures correspond to the sound. We understand that soul space is real, that it is animated by the thinking gestures of the most varied Intelligences, yet besides the most immediate effects, we don’t intuit any deeper intents. For example, in Imagination we can unite with the thinking gestures that work in our blood flow. This is not the same as simply having a bodily sensation of blood moving, in the sense that we can feel warm water sipping down our throat when drinking it but instead we find that there’s something akin to will impulses that live in the rhythms of our circulation. In Imagination we can find these blood forces as facts of experience but only in Inspiration we can understand their wider significance, how through them the whole evolutionary journey of man is intended.

Intuition – resonating with the perspectives of the beings

Finally, in Intuition the intents that we come to know in Inspiration are experienced in an even deeper way, in the context of the individual beings.

Probably it would be easier with another analogy. Let’s suppose we see a man walking. On the lowest level we see transformations of patterns of perceptions. We can study them as a scientist would. We can analyze them, quantify them and even discover some mathematical ‘laws of nature’ that seem to match what we see. At the second stage we recognize that this walking man is perceived as such only because certain will impulses work in him. Note that the only reason we can understand this is because we know from our own experience what it is to will the movements of our feet. Similarly, to know the deeds of the Cosmos in soul space, our thinking-will must be able to transform into the corresponding forms. At the third stage we can understand something of the intents of the movement. For example, we may find out that the person is going to see a friend. Now we have not only the will but also the idea that guides it through time. Finally, the fourth stage would be analogous to understanding the individual perspective of the person. In the previous stage we understand his movement according to our perspective. We understand what it means to us. But now we understand what it means to the I-experience of the person, how that movement fits in the unique story of his life.

In a similar way. Intuitive cognition leads to concentric experiences of the spiritual beings. We now grasp something of the transformations of soul space in the context of evolution of these perspectives.

Is the highlighted the end of the road? You speak of these spiritual beings, perhaps lofty spiritual beings, but what about the perspective of the highest of the high, God himself? As you know, there are plenty of individuals who have claimed to have reached such levels. Heck, many a born again Christian has risen to these rarefied levels in their come-to-Jesus moment - at least that's what they say. No need to worry about all this inner development and years of meditation, come to Jesus Cleric!

[Anthony66]

Sorry I should have added that I'm leading a study on "Experiencing God" next month where I intend to talk about higher knowledge but I'm struggling how to connect "God" to higher knowledge. My simple answer is that the experience of God is an "asymptotic state", approachable through higher cognition but likely unattainable. In fact the term God is an expression of cognitive direction which points to an all-encompassing intuitive state.

My last post was fishing for some insights.

[Federica]

the term God is an expression of cognitive direction which points to an all-encompassing intuitive state.

here we are again........

[Cleric K]

Is the highlighted the end of the road? You speak of these spiritual beings, perhaps lofty spiritual beings, but what about the perspective of the highest of the high, God himself? As you know, there are plenty of individuals who have claimed to have reached such levels. Heck, many a born again Christian has risen to these rarefied levels in their come-to-Jesus moment - at least that's what they say. No need to worry about all this inner development and years of meditation, come to Jesus Cleric!

Anthony, I think I understand the source of your question. If we take the hierarchy of Cosmic Intelligence as a pyramid, it’s obvious that God should be at the top. At the same time, when we speak of spiritual beings, this suggests that since they are many, they should belong to a lower ladder of the pyramid. Yet they are also those who come directly to Jesus in mighty visions. So why bother with the Cosmic ladder if we can unite directly with the highest peak?

There are so many things which can be said here that I’m afraid it will turn into another lengthy post. I’ll try to point out only one aspect – the Divine takes different forms (sheaths as it were) along the Cosmic gradient. There’s indeed the Highest Trinity which we can conceive very abstractly as the threefold seed of the Cosmic Fractal from which all eternal potential differentiates and can be experienced through evolutionary time-arcs. When we experience the Jesus form – in meditation or in spontaneous/accidental/abnormal ways, such as the vision of Paul on the way to Damascus – we come into contact only with the sheath that is closest to us. Actually, to be more correct, the closest encounter was when the Christ impregnated the physical body of Jesus. After the resurrection it can be said that this Christ force spread out over the whole Earth and now every atom is ablaze with the Spirit. Thus the Christ being is very close to us, he is present in every particle of our physical body. What is needed is that our "I” could become like a lightning bolt uniting the Spirit above with the Elemental below.

This is as far as the physical world is concerned. On the other hand, the etheric form of Jesus, through which the Christ expressed himself continues to exist and acts as a kind of attractor, a blueprint for the perfected life processes of the human body. We can think of it as superimposed with every life body. If we imagine them all ringing as tuning forks, the diseased and corrupted life bodies can be attuned as if through resonance with this perfected life-blueprint in order to restore the harmony of their ‘vibrations’. This is a real method of healing.

This etheric Jesus form is obviously still very similar to the human form. This is what most people with spontaneous visions of Christ-Jesus really experience, although in a visionary state this life body can be experienced not as superimposed but as an Imaginative picture of the Jesus figure standing before us. This is really what “born again Christians” behold. The Christ Being indeed expresses even now through this etheric form (and thus we’re justified to speak of God as similar to human and having personal relation to us) but there are also higher forms of the Logos.

As we can see, things are not so conveniently linear. And we shouldn’t blame spiritual investigation for overcomplicating things. If we take John’s Revelation we can also see that the first character that he encounters is “the one who is like the Son of Man”. Yet later, when he rises Imaginatively through the Cosmic ladder, he beholds the Throne of God, where, as we know, we find the Lamb of God with seven horns and seven eyes. If we cling to our linear conceptions it would be quite a mystery how we find the Christ first in a human form, then as an admittedly quite grotesque animal form. So spiritual investigation doesn’t aim to overcomplicate things but to explain why this is so.

Hopefully, this throws some light on how it is possible to behold the Christ in his Jesus etheric form while being still very far from Inspirative and Intuitive consciousness through which we can approach the inner being of the higher hierarchies. Don't get me wrong. This is not to demean the etheric experience of Christ. In fact this is something that more and more people will experience in time. And this is also why we need deeper spiritual knowledge. Otherwise we'll be stopping short only at the etheric clothing of the Divine. The above should also help us understand why it is not foolish to have personal relation with the Christ being. The etheric form of the Christ indeed manifests to us like our "own personal Jesus". He's a master, a friend, a healer. Yes, the perspective of the Highest Trinity is inconceivable through our human capabilities but the Center of the Cosmic Fractal has its manifestations at each level and we should be working our way through these centers, stringing them together with our "I" as it were.

[AshvinP]

Sorry I should have added that I'm leading a study on "Experiencing God" next month where I intend to talk about higher knowledge but I'm struggling how to connect "God" to higher knowledge. My simple answer is that the experience of God is an "asymptotic state", approachable through higher cognition but likely unattainable. In fact the term God is an expression of cognitive direction which points to an all-encompassing intuitive state.

My last post was fishing for some insights.

Anthony,

I don't know the context of the study that you are leading, but if I was called to lead such a study with religious believers, I would reflect on how most discussion of 'higher knowledge' will simply sound like abstract gibberish to the average person. It doesn't matter how clear and cogent the arguments and reasoning are - if you presented something like Cleric just did, for ex., it would give people the perfect excuse they were looking for to shut down to this possibility of higher experience-knowledge and retreat to familiar dogmas. So we need to approach such things carefully and with wisdom. The most direct place we can lucidly and intimately experience God's activity is in our own creative thinking, so perhaps you may want to consider incorporating the phenomenology presented on the other essay thread into your study. When we are able to experience the divine mysteries of the activity that we engage in every day, which is always right at our fingertips, even at the most minimal depth beyond our extremely thin average experience, we cannot help but take notice. We may even connect these experiences with verses of scripture if we are already familiar with the latter. There are few things if any more powerful than connecting our most treasured revelations, which previously seemed remote and inaccessible and to be taken on mere 'faith', with the course of our own inner activity. One could start with the simple fact that "the Kingdom of God is within you", and if we take Jesus' saying seriously, we should devote more time and attention to the phenomenology of our inner activity.

[Federica]

Preconditions – soul space – the pond

...
This space is really the only space we ever know. Even when we imagine large things, like a planet or the whole Cosmos, it is still based on the sense of space we’re familiar with through our bodily sensations.
...

Ordinary consciousness – lost in the patterns of the pond

At the first stage, this pond is criss-crossed with sensations in the most complicated ways. These patterns form our familiar bodily sensations.

Brief note: maybe worth specifying that by bodily sensations it's meant sensory perceptions taking place through sense organs? It may be obvious for all, but I remember it was confusing for me in the beginning.

[AshvinP]

Preconditions – soul space – the pond

...
This space is really the only space we ever know. Even when we imagine large things, like a planet or the whole Cosmos, it is still based on the sense of space we’re familiar with through our bodily sensations.
...

Ordinary consciousness – lost in the patterns of the pond

At the first stage, this pond is criss-crossed with sensations in the most complicated ways. These patterns form our familiar bodily sensations.

Brief note: maybe worth specifying that by bodily sensations it's meant sensory perceptions taking place through sense organs? It may be obvious for all, but I remember it was confusing for me in the beginning.

Federica,

Since our normal habit is to limit sensory perception to the 5 'outer' senses, I think the term 'bodily sensations' helps us also encompass the sense of warmth, balance, and life that inform the intuitive context experienced by ordinary consciousness. Of course, the more 'inner' senses are generally dulled out by the outer senses in our ordinary state, but they can quite easily be traced when we stop to pay attention. We could also call these 'sensory perceptions', as long as understand they are inner senses not taking place through the familiar sense organs.

[Federica]

Preconditions – soul space – the pond

...
This space is really the only space we ever know. Even when we imagine large things, like a planet or the whole Cosmos, it is still based on the sense of space we’re familiar with through our bodily sensations.
...

Ordinary consciousness – lost in the patterns of the pond

At the first stage, this pond is criss-crossed with sensations in the most complicated ways. These patterns form our familiar bodily sensations.

Brief note: maybe worth specifying that by bodily sensations it's meant sensory perceptions taking place through sense organs? It may be obvious for all, but I remember it was confusing for me in the beginning.

Federica,

Since our normal habit is to limit sensory perception to the 5 'outer' senses, I think the term 'bodily sensations' helps us also encompass the sense of warmth, balance, and life that inform the intuitive context experienced by ordinary consciousness. Of course, the more 'inner' senses are generally dulled out by the outer senses in our ordinary state, but they can quite easily be traced when we stop to pay attention. We could also call these 'sensory perceptions', as long as understand they are inner senses not taking place through the familiar sense organs.

Ashvin,

I am not sure a novel reader would have a chance to grasp a reference to the 12 senses as presented by RS, just because the expression "bodily sensation" is used. My guess is that, instead, one could wonder why it's referred to things such as the sensation of our heartbeat, or the sensation of the air inflow in the lungs, things like that. But I may be wrong of course, that's why I put a question mark.

(For many who are new to these discussions, there are still clearly separated inner and outer worlds. For this reason, when one hears "bodily sensations" one has a hard time thinking about the house one sees over there, or the sound of the traffic on the road, etc.)