Astral Arc (youtube series)

[Cleric K]

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)."

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.

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?

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.

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.

"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, 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.

And is this encasement the same thing we have commonly referred to in phenomenology of cognition as a thought perceptions of feeling, or thought-images of feeling?

Yes.

Also, that feelings can be described as weaved of refined sympathies and antipathies: when we, for example, want to fill our heart with feelings of awe, reverence, humility and love, aren’t we aspiring to go beyond our sympathies and antipathies?

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.

[Federica]

Thank you, Cleric. The above has clarified all doubts I had on madala meditation.

[Federica]

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.

No, sorry, Cleric, I was too quick to classify this as understood. May I ask for some more comments?
The impression in our mind space is one thing, but we can't isolate it from reality, correct? The mandala we form in our perceptual space in the brain is not reality, you say, but it must be part of it, even if it is a symbol. So what part of reality is it exactly, as symbol? What you write can be misunderstood as if the mandala were a replica of reality, but we can't understand thinking activity in this way, can we? Including when the creation of this activity is a symbol. So what is a symbol exactly? In which way does it interact with the spiritual landscape?

For some reason, that I have still not understood, you point to the head, the perceptual space, the brain as if you were to create or suggest a sort of duality? What is this "canvas"?

[Federica]

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?

Federica,

On the question above, I had asked specifically for a meditative symbol that most 'explicitly' reflects the intuitive temporal context in which the meditation is taking place. So that is why the Mandala symbol arose, because it is the closest spatial approximation to the purely temporal (inner) context. I don't think he is saying it is generally better or more preferred than other symbols. If anything, it is more preferred by me in the context of keeping the intuitive temporal structure in consciousness during the meditation. Although I haven't been able to work with it much yet and my preference might change after doing so, if it proves less effective for that aim than other verses/images.

It is really an individual question what is best, because some people may have little problem with keeping that context in consciousness while using another verse or image. The only 'rules' for what symbols to use is generally that it should be something unfamiliar, i.e. not drawn from normal sensory perception or memory, and it should be simple enough to reconstruct with each meditation without disrupting the process or sucking us into the details. Ultimately, we use the symbols as a helpful crutch for steering our concentration towards living ideals, but aim to release them from that role after some time. With practice, we may even be able to start the concentration and expand it into the intuitive temporal cone without using any symbols.

Ashvin,

May I ask: how did you use to understand the mandala meditation, the rotating symbol Cleric has shared various times, before these latest explanations about its explicit symbolism for the temporal context?

[Cleric K]

No, sorry, Cleric, I was too quick to classify this as understood. May I ask for some more comments?
The impression in our mind space is one thing, but we can't isolate it from reality, correct? The mandala we form in our perceptual space in the brain is not reality, you say, but it must be part of it, even if it is a symbol.

Of course. The images that we experience in our consciousness are part of reality just like the paint on the artist's canvas is part of reality. Probably it can be useful to use again the sock metaphor. Our thought-images are like very convoluted Moiré patterns.

So what is a symbol exactly? In which way does it interact with the spiritual landscape?

When we manipulate the symbols, we're working at a certain level of abstraction, so to speak. We're pushing and pulling the shapes of the convoluted Moiré patterns. But these don't exist 'in the air'. The changes of the Moiré patterns are in full accord with the folds that interfere.

Maybe some intuition can be gained if we look into what is called Inverse Kinematics (IK).



This is a practical problem where we have a complicated system of many moving parts usually resembling bones and joints. To appreciate the problem we have to consider that on a low level we can control individually only the amount of rotation in the joints (q1, q2, q3, q4). For example, the low level control panel for the above robotic arm above can be implemented as four potentiometers:



Each knob controls the angle of rotation of one motor. Now imagine you have to position the hand of the robot arm at a certain position. You'll have to manipulate all four motors. As you can see this can be tedious. This is the forward kinematics problem. You set the angles of the individual motors and from their total contribution the end position is determined.

As you can imagine this can be complicated. For example, on the ISS there's the Canada Arm, through which all kinds of logistic tasks are performed.


It would be difficult to move the SpaceX capsule above to the needed docking port if all joints have to be operated individually. For this reason we can approach the problem from the opposite direction. We want to control the exact position and orientation of the endpoint. From there, algorithms are used which basically solve the forward equations in the opposite directions (thus inverse kinematics). In other words we ask the question: "What should be the angles of all the motors if I want the endpoint to be in position X, Y, Z?"

You can get a feel for this with this interactive demo:
https://openprocessing.org/sketch/304048/

Notice how with the mouse you move the black endpoint while the system automatically calculates the joint angles.

It's interesting to note how in our conscious life we continually make use of IK. When we reach for an object in front of us we simply focus on the point in space that we want to reach. We don't have to will the rotations of our joints individually. Actually it is a very fun experiment to try grasp an object by moving our arm only one joint at a time. In this way we can appreciate how much we take for granted.

Something similar happens also in our thinking life. With our thinking activity we will the metamorphosis of our states through the intellectual configuration space. This however acts in the sense of IK to all the other layers. Of course, our thinking is not the sole master control that fully determines through IK the other configuration spaces. The other layers have will of their own, so to speak, so it's more like a collective work. As a simple example think of the following:



Here we have two striped sheets that interfere and produce the black bands. The forward problem would be to bend the sheet at the right, then the black bands are the effect. But we can think about the movement also from IK perspective. You can imagine that you move the black bands and the needed relative position of the sheets is calculated such that it satisfies it.

This might be way too technical but in one way or another we need to get a feel for such things. When we manipulate the thought-symbol in our mind it is like we manipulate the black bands which affect the sheets through IK. So we see that the symbol is indeed part of reality and not something isolated. The symbol and the sheets are fully related. When we say that the symbol shouldn't be mistaken for the full reality we only mean that no matter how we manipulate the black band, as long as we remain on its level, the interfering sheets shall remain unconscious to us. In the context of our discussion it can be said that these interfering sheets are the periphery of the mandala. The transition from the pattern towards what interferes is always accomplished through a form of concentration of spiritual activity. It is like we realize that there's something concealed in our thought gestures (which are the interference pattern, like the black bands) and we want to gain consciousness of what interferes, which is also a kind of movement of the Spirit, yet of a different order.

[AshvinP]

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?

Federica,

On the question above, I had asked specifically for a meditative symbol that most 'explicitly' reflects the intuitive temporal context in which the meditation is taking place. So that is why the Mandala symbol arose, because it is the closest spatial approximation to the purely temporal (inner) context. I don't think he is saying it is generally better or more preferred than other symbols. If anything, it is more preferred by me in the context of keeping the intuitive temporal structure in consciousness during the meditation. Although I haven't been able to work with it much yet and my preference might change after doing so, if it proves less effective for that aim than other verses/images.

It is really an individual question what is best, because some people may have little problem with keeping that context in consciousness while using another verse or image. The only 'rules' for what symbols to use is generally that it should be something unfamiliar, i.e. not drawn from normal sensory perception or memory, and it should be simple enough to reconstruct with each meditation without disrupting the process or sucking us into the details. Ultimately, we use the symbols as a helpful crutch for steering our concentration towards living ideals, but aim to release them from that role after some time. With practice, we may even be able to start the concentration and expand it into the intuitive temporal cone without using any symbols.

Ashvin,

May I ask: how did you use to understand the mandala meditation, the rotating symbol Cleric has shared various times, before these latest explanations about its explicit symbolism for the temporal context?

Federica,

That's a good question. To a certain extent, I suppose that I always knew it was related to the intuitive temporal context that Cleric has illustrated in many places. Of course, these ways of thinking about our stream of becoming (as opposed to standard linear time flow of cause-effects on the physical plane) are so unfamiliar that we will need to rekindle our intuition for it over and over again. I never focused on the Mandala symbol too much or used it for meditation, though. I felt it was too complex for me before and it still is, to some extent. However these latest illustrations have given me a much better feel for it. For ex. when Cleric wrote:

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

Now I was able to connect the above with what we were discussing in the context of Hermetic astrology, i.e. how the waves of destiny are woven into the etheric body during the embryonic phase and then unfold in rhythmic periods after birth. From birth to age 21, we are recapitulating the stages of involution - the physical body, life body, and desire body are fashioned before the Ego-I fully descends into these vehicles. From 21 to 42, the sentient, intellectual, and spiritual souls are developed. Then after that, we have the opportunity to work on developing the germinal spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man, which is of course what we are aiming to do here with all these exercises and contemplations. A big part of that is purifying the spiritual soul life by deconditioning the intellect from lower passions, prejudices, etc. and turning it towards the high ideals. 

With the Mandala exercise, I am proceeding with Cleric's suggestion for only using the classic symbol of a dot with a circle around it and manipulating that thought-symbol to rotate the 'dials' in opposite directions. We could say the dot is the masculine intellect and the circle is the feminine higher intuitive reasoning. The latter is the wise reasoning that, for ex., perceives something on the road while driving and activates our will to avoid it before it registers to our waking intellect, or that simply knows how to grasp an object without micro-managing the individual joints. I always try to remember that the 'interfering sheets' are above and behind my mind's eye, i.e. they cannot be found anywhere in the volume of my current soul-content of perceptions, feelings, thoughts. Instead, I can only attune my current consciousness to their higher Intents-Ideals, by focusing concentration into the thought-symbol, and patiently wait for the Grace of their attractive pull. Another helpful diagram I came across recently is as follows.





That is the higher "I" situated on the vertical axis connecting with the lower "I" (the two-petalled lotus). The former is oriented towards the supra-sensory future (the interfering sheets) while the latter is observing the sensible past, including the thought-symbol we are meditating on. We could say that, through proper concentration which attunes the lower "I" to the higher "I", the higher "I" perceives the spiritual counter-image of our thought-symbol, i.e. the constellation of spiritual forces that weaved the intuitive temporal context resulting in the black bands of the symbolic pattern. It then transmits this knowledge to the lower "I" and we are able to 'triangulate' some portion of the Time-stream that connects the course of past events to those of the present and the future. In other words, our waking consciousness is able to begin making more sense of our holistic stream of becoming within the intuitive temporal context, i.e. the waves of karmic destiny (and the pull of karmic potential) through which our life unfolds. 

[Federica]

Here we have two striped sheets that interfere and produce the black bands. The forward problem would be to bend the sheet at the right, then the black bands are the effect. But we can think about the movement also from IK perspective. You can imagine that you move the black bands and the needed relative position of the sheets is calculated such that it satisfies it.

This might be way too technical but in one way or another we need to get a feel for such things. When we manipulate the thought-symbol in our mind it is like we manipulate the black bands which affect the sheets through IK. So we see that the symbol is indeed part of reality and not something isolated. The symbol and the sheets are fully related. When we say that the symbol shouldn't be mistaken for the full reality we only mean that no matter how we manipulate the black band, as long as we remain on its level, the interfering sheets shall remain unconscious to us. In the context of our discussion it can be said that these interfering sheets are the periphery of the mandala. The transition from the pattern towards what interferes is always accomplished through a form of concentration of spiritual activity. It is like we realize that there's something concealed in our thought gestures (which are the interference pattern, like the black bands) and we want to gain consciousness of what interferes, which is also a kind of movement of the Spirit, yet of a different order.

Ok, what a great opportunity to practice equanimity. How is this Inverted Kinematics thing different from a Fourier transform? And how are these striped sheets different from a Moire pattern? I am sorry if you have tired yourself out putting together these simpler illustrations since I unfortunately can't see how they go any further than what you previously posted about Fourier and Moire. These are the same things. If anything, they are less fitting. I was not asking for the kid version of the Fourier metaphor. I understand how our unrefined WFT is only the visible tip of a depth of combined layers of forces. What I was asking is this. You spoke of a trap and a risk in meditation, that is to say:

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. When we imagine a mandala in our mind’s eye, what we really experience is the configuration that we impress in the head organ.
...
Here it becomes critical to distinguish between the feeling experiences from their symbol which is still experienced in the perceptual head space.

Further, you spoke in these terms of a risk that it's important to avoid:

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.

But isn't this the initial goal? To loosen the bodily spectrum and enter the reality of the world and of our I as a co-incidence? Why are you cutting the fourfold convolution in half, letting half of the sock, the intellectual and imaginative part, on one side, the 'wrong one', that it becomes critical not to mistake for reality, and the other half, the 'true reality', on the other side?


Now you write:

When we say that the symbol shouldn't be mistaken for the full reality we only mean that no matter how we manipulate the black band, as long as we remain on its level, the interfering sheets shall remain unconscious to us.

Beyond the fact that "full" is a late addition, in which sense was it a problem and a real risk that, in your first meditations, you interpreted the mandala "in your mind" as reality? What could have happened in the worst case scenario in that imaginative state as a consequence of you taking the imagination seriously?

And how is it important for me, or any other beginner in meditation, to try to maintain the thought that what we experience as the mandala is not real, but only our own construction we ourselves impress in our mind? I may be wrong, of course, but my belief right now is that, if one tries to keep in mind that, the effect would be to curtail the unfolding of the imaginative experience.

:

[Cleric K]

But isn't this the initial goal? To loosen the bodily spectrum and enter the reality of the world and of our I as a co-incidence? Why are you cutting the fourfold convolution in half, letting half of the sock, the intellectual and imaginative part, on one side, the 'wrong one', that it becomes critical not to mistake for reality, and the other half, the 'true reality', on the other side?

The fourfold convolution is not cut in half. We're still dealing with the fundamental polarity of intuitive spiritual activity and perception. These are both convoluted at the same time so to speak.

The 'risk' is something very simple and we have spoken about it in different contexts. It's the risk of taking the perceptual (Imaginative) impressions of the beings for their inner reality. For example, in the sensory world we wouldn't take the auditory experience of a human voice for what their "I" is in itself. We can't expect to dissect the voice perceptions and find there the spirit. The latter comes from the opposite side so to speak. Thus in the Imaginative state, with the loosened sensory spectrum, we are surrounded by perceptual content. We have spoken how beings can appear as beasts hurling at us. These images are real insofar that they reflect spiritual relations that take Imaginative forms. But in order to know the inner reality of the beings we need to proceed to Inspiration and Intuition. Then we gradually resonate with the inner life of the beings.

As a simplified analogy, we can imagine that with our breath we can blow leaves on the ground. These are perceptions. Now if there are also other beings that blow in the leaves it would be wrong to imagine that when we contemplate the leaves we perceive the beings themselves. What we perceive is only the impression, the effect of their life. Actually a spiritual being can never be perceived in such a way that we say "This is the total being in front of me". To know a spiritual being is to know their inner life (just like we don't know our "I" by perceiving as something complete but by direct knowing of its inner life). For this we need to seek resonance. Our inner spiritual gestures become self-similar to theirs, we become concentric to them. Then we can understand much more intimately how their inner intuitive life blows in the leaves just like we know how our own inner life does it.

This analogy of course has many merits. For one, it presents things too conveniently separated - as intuitive activity and the ground with leaves below us. Things are much more intertwined of course.

Now you write:

When we say that the symbol shouldn't be mistaken for the full reality we only mean that no matter how we manipulate the black band, as long as we remain on its level, the interfering sheets shall remain unconscious to us.

Beyond the fact that "full" is a late addition, in which sense was it a problem and a real risk that, in your first meditations, you interpreted the mandala "in your mind" as reality? What could have happened in the worst case scenario in that imaginative state as a consequence of you taking the imagination seriously?

Maybe nothing particularly bad in the immediate sense but in the longer run it becomes an obstacle for further development. It would be like reading a book and instead of trying to resonate with the ideas of the authors such that we draw nearer to their inner life, we imagine that in the forms of the letters we perceive what reality is made of, in a sense similar to how the physicist imagines the atoms and conceives that this is what reality is made of.

And how is it important for me, or any other beginner in meditation, to try to maintain the thought that what we experience as the mandala is not real, but only our own construction we ourselves impress in our mind? I may be wrong, of course, but my belief right now is that, if one tries to keep in mind that, the effect would be to curtail the unfolding of the imaginative experience.

:

It's not that we have to meditate on the symbol and keep in mind 'this is an illusion'. It's rather to feel the symbol as the feedback of our spiritual activity, just like the vortex of leaves is a feedback for our blowing or the shape of a clay vase is feedback for what we're doing with our hands at the turntable. In all cases these perceptions recede into the past. What's important is to unfold our inner forces which will receive feedback in ever new ways.

So in one approach it is like we begin shaping the vase which then expands into an encompassing clay panorama which we consider the vision of the spiritual world. This is possible but we shouldn't remain as a mere observer of this vision. As said, reality is found in knowing the inner life of the forces that impress in the panorama.


Federica, please don't be upset if what I wrote above seems to you again as kids version of things you already know. For me it is a challenge to understand what exactly you need to put things in place. This is also why we shouldn't imagine that it is an easy task to be an educator in spiritual matters. It's not in the least sufficient to simply recite our knowledge. I try to learn from these exchanges because I see how lacking I am in this respect. Obviously I'm repeating myself, going in circles and failing to understand what you need. Hopefully we'll all benefit from these exchanges even if they become frustrating at times.

[AshvinP]

Further, you spoke in these terms of a risk that it's important to avoid:

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.

But isn't this the initial goal? To loosen the bodily spectrum and enter the reality of the world and of our I as a co-incidence? Why are you cutting the fourfold convolution in half, letting half of the sock, the intellectual and imaginative part, on one side, the 'wrong one', that it becomes critical not to mistake for reality, and the other half, the 'true reality', on the other side?

The 'risk' is something very simple and we have spoken about it in different contexts. It's the risk of taking the perceptual (Imaginative) impressions of the beings for their inner reality. For example, in the sensory world we wouldn't take the auditory experience of a human voice for what their "I" is in itself.

I think the 'risk' may be even easier to grasp if we consider how often we do, in fact, treat the outer appearances of other people as their essential nature. Not only their outer physical appearance but the outer appearance of their soul-life in gestures-thoughts-speech. It is easy enough for us to intellectually disclaim this tendency and say 'I never confuse that for the essential being of the person', but in reality, we are subconsciously pronouncing judgments on people's essential nature all the time based on those outer appearances. That manifests in all the ways we treat or don't treat them, pay attention to or not pay attention to them, etc.

Now with the imaginative state, our environment becomes the images that actually lay behind all outer physical perceptions, so they are experienced as even more real than the outer perceptions we normally rely on to form our various judgments. The trap is even greater and the history of spiritual striving shows plenty of people who have fallen into it and still remain there. All of this is alleviated, however, by remaining self-aware of the idolatrous tendency within ourselves that seeks to exert itself at every opportunity, at every new stage of insight. That is the essential safeguard of the esoteric path proceeding under the Christ impulse.

[Federica]

The 'risk' is something very simple and we have spoken about it in different contexts. It's the risk of taking the perceptual (Imaginative) impressions of the beings for their inner reality. For example, in the sensory world we wouldn't take the auditory experience of a human voice for what their "I" is in itself. We can't expect to dissect the voice perceptions and find there the spirit. The latter comes from the opposite side so to speak. Thus in the Imaginative state, with the loosened sensory spectrum, we are surrounded by perceptual content. We have spoken how beings can appear as beasts hurling at us. These images are real insofar that they reflect spiritual relations that take Imaginative forms. But in order to know the inner reality of the beings we need to proceed to Inspiration and Intuition. Then we gradually resonate with the inner life of the beings.

As a simplified analogy, we can imagine that with our breath we can blow leaves on the ground. These are perceptions. Now if there are also other beings that blow in the leaves it would be wrong to imagine that when we contemplate the leaves we perceive the beings themselves. What we perceive is only the impression, the effect of their life. Actually a spiritual being can never be perceived in such a way that we say "This is the total being in front of me". To know a spiritual being is to know their inner life (just like we don't know our "I" by perceiving as something complete but by direct knowing of its inner life). For this we need to seek resonance. Our inner spiritual gestures become self-similar to theirs, we become concentric to them. Then we can understand much more intimately how their inner intuitive life blows in the leaves just like we know how our own inner life does it.

This analogy of course has many merits. For one, it presents things too conveniently separated - as intuitive activity and the ground with leaves below us. Things are much more intertwined of course.

Now you write:

When we say that the symbol shouldn't be mistaken for the full reality we only mean that no matter how we manipulate the black band, as long as we remain on its level, the interfering sheets shall remain unconscious to us.

Beyond the fact that "full" is a late addition, in which sense was it a problem and a real risk that, in your first meditations, you interpreted the mandala "in your mind" as reality? What could have happened in the worst case scenario in that imaginative state as a consequence of you taking the imagination seriously?

Maybe nothing particularly bad in the immediate sense but in the longer run it becomes an obstacle for further development. It would be like reading a book and instead of trying to resonate with the ideas of the authors such that we draw nearer to their inner life, we imagine that in the forms of the letters we perceive what reality is made of, in a sense similar to how the physicist imagines the atoms and conceives that this is what reality is made of.

And how is it important for me, or any other beginner in meditation, to try to maintain the thought that what we experience as the mandala is not real, but only our own construction we ourselves impress in our mind? I may be wrong, of course, but my belief right now is that, if one tries to keep in mind that, the effect would be to curtail the unfolding of the imaginative experience.

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It's not that we have to meditate on the symbol and keep in mind 'this is an illusion'. It's rather to feel the symbol as the feedback of our spiritual activity, just like the vortex of leaves is a feedback for our blowing or the shape of a clay vase is feedback for what we're doing with our hands at the turntable. In all cases these perceptions recede into the past. What's important is to unfold our inner forces which will receive feedback in ever new ways.

So in one approach it is like we begin shaping the vase which then expands into an encompassing clay panorama which we consider the vision of the spiritual world. This is possible but we shouldn't remain as a mere observer of this vision. As said, reality is found in knowing the inner life of the forces that impress in the panorama.


Federica, please don't be upset if what I wrote above seems to you again as kids version of things you already know. For me it is a challenge to understand what exactly you need to put things in place. This is also why we shouldn't imagine that it is an easy task to be an educator in spiritual matters. It's not in the least sufficient to simply recite our knowledge. I try to learn from these exchanges because I see how lacking I am in this respect. Obviously I'm repeating myself, going in circles and failing to understand what you need. Hopefully we'll all benefit from these exchanges even if they become frustrating at times.

Cleric,

I think I understand now, thank you. I believe the issue is in part that the comments I couldn't understand are replies to Ashvin's question. They were meant to be an answer to his post. The comments you made directly to my post in this thread were absolutely clear and helpful to me, as I said. I know you don't want replies to be taken too personally, but I still suspect this is one reason. I don't have the experience of meditation that would allow me to contextualize the risk you speak of, so when I read those descriptions of risks within higher cognition, laid out with certain vocabulary such as head, mind, canvas, they sounded to me like a strange steering towards materialism, and I got confused. It's actually this perceived unexpected orientation that got me "upset", and made me reopen the question in little curt way this morning. I was not upset by the fact that you later tried to simplify the concepts of convolution with simpler metaphors. I am sorry to be a challenge in this way. It's clear to me it depends on the fact that I am still not in sufficient control of my feelings, which makes me express in certain challenging way. I hope this does not completely occult the fact that your posts have been and continue to be enormously educative and inspiring to me, as I sometimes try to convey, maybe not enough.


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