Spiritual science of Martinus

[AshvinP]

Of course I haven't read his actual books yet, but if they generally remain at the resolution of his articles and writings accessible on the website, then I would say he possibly developed imaginative cognition through his practice. It is very unlikely someone who developed higher cognition would be satisfied with that resolution. I know you won't like that comment, but it's how I see it at this point.

On another note, I'd like to point that, when someone else's views are in disagreement with your own views, you often use this argument that the views of the other person are incorrect because they have not sufficiently developed higher cognition or do not speak from first-person experience (well, you did it multiple times with respect to me, so I know ...). However, it is illegitimate to use such argument as part of your argumentation, and there are multiple reasons for that. First, all of us humans, including Steiner or Martinus, have only developed our cognition to certain limits, and it is only the Godhead who has no limits to its cognition. Second, the level of cognitive development or whether or not some knowledge was acquired through a direct first-person experience is something that can only be known through first-person experience and cannot be judged or known by other persons. And third, even regardless of these two reasons, saying that someone is wrong just because they are intellectually or spiritually deficient it is just a bad argument. I know that you disrespect secular sciences and trades, but you can never find people using such argument in professional scientific or technological societies, it is considered there completely unprofessional. So, if you are going to claim that Martinus was wrong here or there because he did not sufficiently developed his higher cognition, then I would suggest that you would rather find some better arguments.

This is an erroneous accusation on too many fronts, Eugene, so I won't even bother. If you think I have claimed Martinus or you were "wrong", it's as if you have not read or remembered anything we have written, as recently as a couple hours ago. It is really like trying to converse with someone who loses their previous view every time they turn their head left or right. And on top of that, you say I disrespect secular science, when it is you who thinks all science is inspired by a deceptive hierarchy. That is why you think human biology has nothing to teach us about the essential relations of spiritual reality. I only claim most modern scientists have turned their trade into metaphysics and therefore study only their dead thought-abstractions, rather than the living phenomena of experience. But, again, these subtle distinctions are apparently lost on you and can't be remembered, in any case, so I won't bother anymore.

[ScottRoberts]

May I suggest a possible resolution? Yet, ontologically (and not within the temporal causality) the Creator can be said to be "prior" to the creation.

Why? There is creation. We break this down to creator- creating-created (though for pedagogical reasons I would replace 'creator' with 'the power to create', so as to avoid anthropomorphism and possible idolatry (abstraction)). Why prioritize any of the three? In any case, if you pointed a gun at my head and demanded a 'prior', I would choose 'creating'.

[Stranger]

Why? There is creation. We break this down to creator- creating-created (though for pedagogical reasons I would replace 'creator' with 'the power to create', so as to avoid anthropomorphism and possible idolatry (abstraction)). Why prioritize any of the three? In any case, if you pointed a gun at my head and demanded a 'prior', I would choose 'creating'.

Well, if we want to be clear in philosophical terms, you are a pantheist. And that is fine, there are and have been many pantheists in philosophy and spiritual traditions of both West and East, as well as there have been many panentheists. Both have their strong points in argumentation, but the dispute has still not been resolved (and I do not think will be resolved in the near future). This is to say that this is not just a dispute between you and me, but a centuries-long dispute between pantheists and panentheists. Martinus is clearly a panentheist, and I also remain in the panentheist's camp. To which camp Seiner belongs - that I don't know, to me his texts are too ambiguous and unclear to figure that out, so I will leave this question for you guys to sort out.

But now, once it is clarified, we can see where our discrepancies originate from. In pantheistic view God and the World are tautologically identical, which means that the structure of the world (ideas, hierarchies etc) are intrinsic/inherent to God-Reality-World. So, from this perspective, God is the same as the hierarchically structured cosmic organism, and God is the same as the Idea of this organism (if we are in the idealist position that the cosmic organism is ideational by nature). Obviously, nondualism (for example in its classical Advaitist or Tibetan Buddhist formulation) just does not fit to such paradigm.

As opposed to that, in panentheistic view, God (who is ontologically "prior to" the Cosmos), is unstructured (or as Christian theologians would say, he is "simple") and nondual in its core essence. All structures and events in the Creation-Cosmos (belonging to X3 aspect according to Martinus) do not affect or apply to the God's essence-I (X1) and his ability to create and experience (X2), while Creation still being not separate from God. This paradigm is inherently and naturally non-dualistic.

So, all our disagreements are simply a consequence of representing different and in certain respects incompatible views on the nature of Reality, while still being both theistic and idealistic (and that is a heck a lot of agreement already).

[ScottRoberts]

Well, if we want to be clear in philosophical terms, you are a pantheist.

No, I'm not.

In pantheistic view God and the World are tautologically identical, which means that the structure of the worldincompatible views on the nature of the Divine, while still being both theistic and idealistic.

God and World are not identical, tautologically or otherwise. They are a polarity.

[Federica]

Incidentally, and before I look into the philosophical debate that you, Scott and Ashvin have produced while I was not looking I'd like to get back to:

Right, I can see a lot of overlap with anthroposophy, but Martinus had a talent to present these ideas in a way that is accessible for average people. It is remarkable that Martinus did not even complete his school education and had no background in philosophy or sciences.

The blue is a phrase I could definitely have expressed as well, so please don't take this as finger pointing. It's something I also do, and I am just trying to notice it more and more. What's implicit in the expression is: I see Martinus' system, I picture it, or represent it as some sort of (mathematical) set floating in reality, and I see the Anthroposophical set floating besides, and from this comfortably settled belvedere, I see an intersection, or overlap. As I ponder the overlap, I could almost pull out the binoculars, and give it a finer look. Certainly we can't help but use phrases like these ones, but it's good to check whether we are implicitly setting ourselves in a comfortable external observer role, like a train passenger who watches the landscape scroll past. In other words, we can spot none other than our third person intellectual perspective in full deployment.

So I just wanted to remind us what we already know - that the "overlap", rather than watched as a panorama from a handrailed belvedere, should occur, and be consciously felt, in our own body-flesh and mind-flesh. In a way, we should be the intersection, rather than seeing it outside. Ideally, it's only because of our experienced resonance with - in this case - the Anthroposophical view, and only because of our felt, thought, meditated, and grasped experience of resonance with Martinus' view, that we can say "I see an overlap".

[Federica]

As this body in all its details constitutes nothing but a tool through which a "something" can manifest itself, this "something" is thus the real essence of being behind the organism. As this "something" is the same as that which we express as the I, it can in itself have no analysis.

Phew... here we go, a perfect coalescence of SS and nonduality. This is a perfect expression of nondual perspective which does not contradict but embraces the structural-evolutionary vision of the Cosmic Organism in SS. I have no doubt that Martinus was describing his first-person spiritual experience here and not just some intellectual knowledge, and that is how we also need to come to the same experiential vision.

I don't get what type of relief you are getting specifically from the super-bolded phrase, however the important thing is that it makes sense that behind our physical organism, our "I" or higher self, is our essential being, finding various expressions, or manifestations, in various layers of reality and our various bodies, including our intellectual layer who is iteratively thinking through all this 'substance' in imperfect ways. If you want to call it non-dual, I guess it's not an issue. The issue would only arise in case this new-born Eugene's-nonduality came to leave a gaping hole between the ideal Godhead and the phenomenological training along the ridge of the physical-spiritual mount, required to realize it, which is difficult to ascertain.

This makes me think of Stranger's first post on the forum, last October, about the self-causality of the reality of consciousness. Eugene - I was wondering: How do you relate to that question today - for example when it comes to the sub-question of suffering - with all you have since considered and discussed - would you post it at all today? And if yes, has the standpoint the question was coming from changed in any ways since then?

That was only a hypothesis, I still cannot connect all the dots there, but it may turn out to be true. My intuition is that there are more and deeper mysteries of the Divine Reality which we do not know yet at our current evolutionary stage. But anyway, I don't see how Martinus views would contradict with the self-causality.

I was not suggesting Martinus contradicts self-causality. I was only asking you to self-assess if and how spiritual science is changing you.

[Stranger]

God and World are not identical, tautologically or otherwise. They are a polarity.

OK, I would think that it's just another form of pantheism, because being a polarity, they are still existentially equal (one is no other than the other), while in panentheism God is existentially prior to the World (the World is God but God is more than the World). So, in panentheism God and the World are not a polarity, but an existential/ontological hierarchy.

[Stranger]

So I just wanted to remind us what we already know - that the "overlap", rather than watched as a panorama from a handrailed belvedere, should occur, and be consciously felt, in our own body-flesh and mind-flesh. In a way, we should be the intersection, rather than seeing it outside. Ideally, it's only because of our experienced resonance with - in this case - the Anthroposophical view, and only because of our felt, thought, meditated, and grasped experience of resonance with Martinus' view, that we can say "I see an overlap".

…The issue would only arise in case this new-born Eugene's-nonduality came to leave a gaping hole between the ideal Godhead and the phenomenological training along the ridge of the physical-spiritual mount, required to realize it, which is difficult to determine.

I agree with that, this overlap is in the phenomenological World with all its hierarchical structures and evolution and with our place in it, and both Martinus and Steiner are in agreement about that. So yes, we can’t leave a gaping hole, we as consciousness organisms are inseparable part of the cosmic organism in X3 aspect and so we have to evolve through its curvatures. But as I pointed, there are still X1 and X2 dimensions that are existentially prior to X3 and that is where we are always one with the Godhead, and that aspect also needs to be experientially realized and cognized in order to reach to a more complete and holistic state of knowledge in spiritual science.

[AshvinP]

A note on the concept of polarity - it's interesting to observe how it acts as a prompting. We should feel that it is straining the intellect to think through. It basically says to us, 'what you're dealing with here is nothing like you have ever come across in standard thought of philosophy, science, theology, etc. - now that you have unwound the classical categorizations or 'camps' in your thought by way of this concept, it is time to seek out the inner experience of polarity in your own willed thinking'. At that point, if we still feel it is adequate to use the traditional labels to categorize, then we have not understood or heeded the prompting of the polarity concept.

[Federica]

Correspondences:

This morning I was reading Martinus' Meditation, Art. 3 Chapter 8, his demonstration of the immortality of the living being:
(by the way I would be curious to know what ScottRoberts thinks of it )

I have an issue with it, but I think I can say how it can be resolved (see below).

All created phenomena are time- and space-dimensional, and cannot therefore be eternal.
The creator existed before the created and will live when the created no longer exists.

This is what I have an issue with (and with the Steiner quote of Eugene's). But there are also some things I am not following:

The state of eternity that this "something" is in is its analysis. But this analysis can only be nameless and can only be termed "X1". As the above-mentioned "something" has a faculty of creating, this faculty must be just as eternal as this "something" itself, for if there had been a time when it had no faculty of creating how could this faculty have come into existence? It is therefore likewise to be expressed as a nameless "something", which we must then term "X2". But when "X1" and "X2" thus exist eternally, these two X's, just like "X1" and "X2" in the structure of the Godhead, are the source of a reality we must call "X3". Just as "X3" in the Godhead constitutes the eternal result of his manifestation or creation, so too is "X3" in the living beings the result of their manifestation and creation. As these three X's, just like the Godhead, constitute an inseparable unity, which in this case is the same as a living being, the living being is thus absolutely eternal.

This is what I have trouble following (and a terminological issue). First, what is "its analysis"? Who's analysis? Maybe it's a translation problem. But mainly, I don't understand what he means by X3. Isn't the "result of [living beings'] manifestation and creation what he earlier said is impermanent, i.e., not eternal? The terminological issue here is to call "creating" a faculty of X1. Rather, I would say it is X1.

My issue, then, is with saying the creator is prior to the created. That thinking is prior to any thought. (And, as an idealist, I consider "creating" and "thinking" to be synonyms.) Without a created there is no creator. It is the case that my thought "What shall I have for dinner?", considered by itself, is not God. But does it exist "by itself"? No. It exists in relation to other thoughts, which in turn are related to others, and those relations are themselves thoughts.... In short, there is only one ever-expanding Thought (Created), which is in polar relation to the power to Think Create), so I would say the latter is not prior to The Thought. Which means that everything created (thought) is eternal, existing in the Akashic Records, to speak theosophically.

Scott, I don’t think there’s any translation issue (I’ve checked, Danish and Swedish are very similar). The translation is not beautiful, but it is accurate. In particular, the word “analysis” is the same (analyse) in Danish.

First, what is "its analysis"? Who's analysis? Maybe it's a translation problem. But mainly, I don't understand what he means by X3. Isn't the "result of [living beings'] manifestation and creation what he earlier said is impermanent, i.e., not eternal? The terminological issue here is to call "creating" a faculty of X1. Rather, I would say it is X1.

I would understand Martinus' word “analysis” as ‘qualities’, like the qualities of experience. So I believe he is saying: “That “something” that we call the I cannot in itself bear any qualities.” He means that qualities are proper to manifested phenomena only. The qualities of the created organism cannot identify the creator of the organism. I would further translate:

“The condition of eternity in which this “something” is, this condition is its quality (analysis). But this quality can only be nameless, and will then only come to expression as X1."


Here I will make a short digression, to come to the meaning I believe Martinus is trying to express by the use of nameless X1. In the post “how the world began, in “w-a-t-e-r” and in spirit”, Max Leyf illustrates how the experience of perception narrated by deafblind Helen, confirms how intelligible sensory perception, far from being standalone and objective, depends on concepts and their expression in words:

Helen Keller’s testimony shows us that without language, there is no world for us, only an immediate sensory environment. She says this much herself: “Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am. I lived in a world that was a no-world.”
Just as “water” remains imperceptible to Helen Keller until she had grasped the word for it and, by extension, the concept or idea of it, so “the world” is not perceptible to us until we perform a similar task. Just as ideas share in the nature of things, so things share in the nature of ideas and that is why the world is intelligible to us (...). Humans, without ceasing to inhabit an environment, can begin to occupy a world, but that is not a genetic inheritance but a cultural and spiritual one. That means that every individual must realize or actualize this inheritance in his or her own lifetime. It is perhaps in undertaking this task that we also begin to undertake the Great Work, or magnum opus of the alchemists: namely, the forging of the self. Again, Helen Keller’s account illustrates what each of us accomplishes in our own way:
“When I learned the meaning of “I” and “me” and found that I was something, I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me.”

So I believe Martinus decides not to give any name to X1, in order to avoid equating it to a perceived phenomenon, or thing, with qualities. For this reason, X1 is the name-less and concept-less condition of eternity of the I.

X2 is X1’s equally eternal creating capacity. And just as X1-X2, as structure of the Godhead, is the origin(ator) of reality, so X1-X2, as structure of the I too, is the origin(ator) of reality. Reality therefore has to be referred to as X3.
X3 is the eternal result of the Godhead’s creating capacity, and also the result of the creating capacity of the I. And the living beings you and I are (constituted by the I with its created manifestations) acquire eternity by the fact that they are the same as the inseparable unity of the three Xs, just like the Godhead is the same as the inseparable unity of the three Xs.
(incidentally, here is where I think Eugene can find a more explicit "nondual touch and feel")


That was as for my attempt to clarify what I believe Martinus says.
As for your issue with the creator nor preceding creation, I don’t think Martinus states that the creator is prior to the created. Rather he says: the creator is eternal, the created is its impermanent manifestation.

You say: “creating and thinking are synonyms” - yes.

You say: “without a created there is no creator” - no, because creating/thinking is a verb, an evolution, a time-immersion, off of, or out of, eternity.

You say: “there is only one ever-expanding Thought (Created), which is in polar relation to the power to Think Create), so I would say the latter is not prior to The Thought.” - I don’t think so. I don’t get the polar relation thinking-thought. Rather, thought is the arbitrary precipitation of thinking activity in the individual perceptual spectrum. Thinking has to die, become stripped of its creative living capacity, and fall into standard perception as hyper-fragmented and dry” thinking dust” mixed in, and smeared all over, the screen of our experience, together with the rest of our perceptual flow (feeling, willing, sensing). There is a structural imbalance between thinking and thought.
I believe you are abstracting a supposed polarity thinking-thought as if it went parallel to the spiritual-physical polarity? But I don’t see any "one ever expanding Thought". Thoughts can only be fragmented. That’s why we have to keep them at bay, we have to keep the fragments out of the way, by concentrating on only one tiny point, and that’s the only way to trace back to the unity of thinking. Besides what Ashvin says about livingly inhabiting the meaning of polarity, maybe you hold this view because you have not tried to consider thinking as X1 (or X1-X2 if you prefer) ‘above’ (not prior to) all else, which includes the manifested-perceptual, which includes thoughts-pictures?

By the way, as Ashvin says, it is straining