AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 11:58 amFederica wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 9:39 amAshvinP wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2023 8:45 pm
I would like to offer a couple thoughts here, which is not intended to challenge anything written by others. Or mainly, just one - the difference generally resides in our approach to these different individualities and their spiritual understanding. If we automatically assume they are comparable and speaking of the same exact things because they have similar ideas and call what they do 'spiritual science', then we are being presumptuous. As I stated earlier to Eugene, I think it's clear that Martinus did not go through spiritual training for higher modes of cognition, which is why his resolution is so low. If we confuse these radically incomplete teachings for something complete-in-itself, then we are bound to reach misleading conclusions about spiritual reality. It is like a person doing a jigsaw puzzle, throwing half of the pieces away, and then remaining satisfied with the half-complete puzzle. This person forgets he threw half the other pieces away (by way of some theoretical abstraction or another) and says, 'I don't see any possible way to render a more complete picture here, so this must be the best we can do'.
Unfortunately, experience does show that this is generally the way people approach all philosophical and spiritual systems which resonate with them. They take its ease of understanding and approachability as an invitation to rest comfortable with what has been presented, tying everything together in a neat low-resolution package, rather than a prompting to ascend further in their own cognitive development and explore new unfamiliar avenues of spiritual seeking. It is then assumed that all one needs to know during this lifetime is basically in that system and everything else can wait until after death. I mentioned the laws of reincarnation and Karma before because that is clearly a case where, if we decide these are details that we can wait to become inwardly familiar with only after death, we are forsaking many opportunities to actually increase our level of consciousness after death in the Spheres where the threads of our next incarnation will be woven. These things have tremendous practical ramifications in our stream of becoming.
Now, to the extent Martinus and/or his main followers stated he 'saw the whole truth' and that is reflected in the teachings (and I'm not sure they did), that is a real problem. I have shared several passages where Steiner makes explicitly clear that is not the case with him or Anthroposophy. But, again, regardless of what the followers say, we have to take responsibility for our own approach to the teachings and separate the wheat from the chaff, and not to simply assume we are speaking of horizontal alternatives of 'spiritual science' which can be placed side by side. There is vertical depth involved and, generally, the Anthroposophical path is currently the one which gives us the most detailed insight into how and why all these other ones have arisen at this most critical juncture in humanity's spiritual evolution. Above all, it cultivates the mindset that our spiritual journey is just beginning and we should continuously move through all the conceptual outlooks with fluidity and flexibility, using them to kindle our higher faculties but never confusing them for those faculties.
Ashvin,
I agree with everything you said, however let's recall that nobody stated or suggested that Martinus' teachings should be taken as the final and only truth. For my part, I have invariably considered them as helpful "first steps", as you obviously also did when you recommended to Anthony a certain Martinus symbol for contemplation. Then you didn't warn him that there was a risk of throwing away half of the puzzle pieces, nor did you do that when commenting on my symbol recommendation to Eugene. You didn't say "be careful though", you said "great post". So, well, what's going on here?
Right, and that's why I said the point above was not a challenge to any points made by you or Guney.
We just discovered Martinus a week ago, so our understanding and approach is still in early development. As stated, the tendency of modern thinking is clearly to latch onto these systems in a rigid way over time, so it never hurts to reiterate these cautions in the early stages. Eugene was positively insulted when I suggested the teachings are low resolution and incomplete due to lack of higher cognitive development. Of course it's easy for people to say, at any given time, 'this isn't the final truth, only a tool on my spiritual journey', but what is their concrete disposition and approach over time? I did and do recommend the basic teachings/images because they seem to point in a helpful direction, but I probably should have added some more cautions about their limitations at the same time.
I also agree with Cleric that the reasons why Martinus teachings' are more approachable and digestible at first, which a few people voiced, including me, need to be clarified. It needs to be understood exactly why that is the case, so we don't mistake the reason as being that Martinus took a more sensible and clear-headed approach to the same spiritual science while Steiner took a more convoluted approach. The way I see it, their tasks to fulfill were quite different and Anthroposophy is clearly intended as not only a cosmology or set of practical teachings, but as a way of spiritual life which anticipates and inaugurates the Christ impulse inflowing humanity for the next few centuries and beyond. Simply put, it works on higher planes and with higher-order progressive intents for the course of human evolution towards spiritual freedom.
The intent is that we are to come meet the Christ in the 'clouds' with our higher thinking consciousness on his new descent (which is not to the physical plane). This requires us to strain the intellect and energetically work our thinking through the spiritual realities. We should always pay attention to our first person thinking experience of these things - does it feel like we are mostly passive, almost like we are watching a movie about spiritual cosmology and evolution? Or does every sentence or paragraph require a corresponding striving upwards on our part, which impels us to read and re-read and revisit? That energetic effort is probably more important than even understanding the content of what is written at first. The latter will naturally fall into place at its proper time if we are devoted and persistent. There is also room for more 'relaxed reading', which is how I would characterize the website texts of Martinus (I haven't ordered any books yet), but it should be pursued more sparingly in my view and only as a complement to the more energetic thinking through spiritual realities.
Alright, Ashvin, thanks for your patience. I appreciate your always new ways to describe how living thinking should feel, as opposed to in principle agreement with a metaphysical system. I must admit, I still feel that the warning in this case, although appropriate, has a somewhat inexplicably harsher character, but I can definitely live with that, please don't take this as a further question on my part. Only one last note, because you speak of possible book ordering Maybe you have noticed, but in case you haven't, everything is freely available online.