In addition to what Ashvin said, the reason we can't speak of 'best' is because the mandala is the most general symbol. To understand this we can refer to HTKHW where it is explained that the petals of the soul organs are really the different soul qualities, some of them directly corresponding to those in the six basic exercises. Remember that the sixth exercise consists in the harmonization of the first five qualities. Can we say that the sixth exercise is the 'best'? Not exactly because without the other five there's nothing to harmonize. Similarly, we'll go through the most varied themes of meditation in our life where consciously or unconsciously we work from different directions on the petals. The mandala can only be effective if we see it as an ideal for making our stream of becoming a blossom that we yearn to make more beautiful with each wave.Federica wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 6:13 am
Cleric, when I read Ashvin’s question and your reply, I am under the impression that you're saying a mandala meditation is better, or preferred, or more insightful than a meditation on a verse, or at least that the question can hardly be answered within the “more radiant than the sun” meditation. I’m sure I am misunderstanding, but how? In general I have difficulties following the exposition in this post. The underlined below for example:
"The volume of the mandala is the totality of phenomena that we experience. The further in the periphery we go, the more archetypal the forces are and thus common for more and more beings. As we know, in reality the periphery is not a spatial periphery. It penetrates everything, yet can be called peripheral because it is elusive to our clear intuition (cognition)."
If we simply imagine a mandala in our mind's eye, hardly anyone will mistake it for reality. But as Imagination sets in, it is perfectly possible to have an experience where the memory panorama of our life is grasped as something like the above animation where we feel how our present life started to expand from the center (the fertilized egg) and life events arrange themselves as expanding petals. It is difficult to convey how real this can be because at that time we may not have a clear experience of our body. If we feel our body it's easy to say "I'm sitting here and I experience these things in my mind." But when the bodily spectrum is loosened then the images become the structure of our reality. In other words, we may feel that Time exists in such a shape. As an Imagination, this is perfectly legitimate way to experience Time. The risk is if we believe that we're contemplating the actual structure of Time. If we're theoretically prepared for higher cognition there shouldn't be such a risk because we'll be aware that we're encasing higher order ideal reality into images that ultimately are kindled by the sensory spectrum. But if we're not prepared, we may believe that we have attained to the 'second sight' and now we see the objective structure of Time. This risk is real because it is what happened to me in my early encounters with Imaginative experiences. The idea of Time-Consciousness as a fractal was so striking that I was under the impression that I actually see that structure in the Imaginative shapes, just like we believe that we see the reality of the Earthly space when we look with our eyes.Federica wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 6:13 am
Here:
“Now let’s consider things more closely. We have to keep in mind at all times the difference between the thought-image of the mandala that we build in our mind and the mysterious totality of existence of which the mandala is only a symbol.”
I don’t understand the risk. Is it possible to believe the mandala as thought-image to be the totality of existence itself? And why speaking of head space and head-imagination, rather than, as usual, thinking and feeling?
The reason I spoke about head-space was because I wanted to point attention to, so to say, the 'canvas' of ordinary thinking and imagination. And the reason I said 'space' is because this canvas is not really bounded in the head region in an absolute sense.
Yes, it is connected with that. And not only about 'control' but also the fact that we don't understand the metamorphosis of the vast majority of the mandalic experience. For man of today the periphery of the mandala is really a world of chaos, in the middle of which we try to make some sense and lead our lives accordingly. Actually the basic difference between materialism and spiritualism (in the progressive sense) is that for the former the world is inherently chaotic and our consciousness emerges like a temporary island amidst it, which tries to make some sense of existence. In the latter we understand that the periphery also has its higher logic and we can attune our island to it.Federica wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 6:13 am
"how can we grasp the reality of the mandalic experience beyond the head thought-forms that we are used to manipulate? We can gain intuition of this by turning attention to our life of feeling. These can be considered further in the periphery of the true mandala. Here it becomes critical to distinguish between the feeling experiences from their symbol which is still experienced in the perceptual head space (although, as said, this space is not limited to the head only)."
I have read it multiple times, but I can’t follow where it is going. Why feelings are more in the periphery? Is it simply another way to say that we have less control on our life of feelings than thinking, or as Ashvin usually says, that we dream through it?
Yes.
Yes we are. In a crude way you can think of these sympathies and antipathies as the inner aspect of what science discovers as electromagnetic attraction and repulsion. As such, these can be considered elemental forces, yet they are still of soul and spiritual character and have different qualities as mentioned. True Love is not simply a feeling of attraction but a creative flow of the Spirit. Nevertheless, this flow manifests through attraction of what is to be realized and repulsion of what is not to be. We shouldn't imagine these forces as sentimental likes and dislikes but instead as the driving forces that transform the dreamscape.
Think of the following, even if in a childish way. If you are a God and you want to create a new arena for beings to evolve, how would you do that? Remember that you are a Cosmic Spirit. You don't have hands, there's no matter that you can gather into a ball. Try to imagine these Divine spiritual activities that create worlds and this should lead into the direction of what sympathies and antipathies mean. Obviously at that level they don't have in the least the character of personal likes and dislikes. These are rather the Cosmic hands of a God through which a creative impulse is being given an expression.