Federica wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 7:36 pm
AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Jul 13, 2023 11:39 pm
You (Federica) really captured the spirit of resisting the temptation of fragmenting and systematic thinking in
this post.
It would be interesting to hear how you feel what was written there compares to your last comment, where it was said, "
I think we have to maintain some ability to also segment, consider things in isolation, and to discriminate..." In my view, the latter ability is only useful when a) it is used to spectrum analyze our environment as part of some specific applied purpose (which we must continue to do at our stage of evolution), or b) it is part of a more holistic endeavor to reunite what we have spectrum analyzed into a broader constellation of principled spiritual wisdom, and to rhythmically and repeatedly do that (or have that done by higher powers) without ever ceasing. That is how we spiral the pole of "everyday earthly life" into the pole of "all-encompassing and all-seeing" that we truly experience
after death. Yes, that is indeed the path of modern initiation, which requires the sacrifice of personal beliefs and opinions. Because a mindset that clings to its desire for belief and opinion is capable of formulating a conceptual system of "zooming in and zooming out", but it practically prevents itself from
living into the rhythmic practice of zooming in and zooming out. The system comes at the expense of the practice. If our ideal is to move freely across the threshold in waking consciousness, then we can't carry the systematic scaffolding with us.
Yeah, nice post
I had forgotten about it. I often think and write more easily and maybe better when I think about others’ questions than my own. Anyhow, I don’t see opposition between the two posts I wrote
here and
here. That's how I feel about the two.
In the first one I said: "We come to accept that knowledge is an all-round expansion. Everything evolves around its center, including ourselves, as symbolized by the simple mandala Cleric shared". Another description of the same approach to knowledge is what I called zooming in and out from that center, in the second post. It’s not a
linear expansion. We cannot instantly behold any points in the periphery of the cone, or mandala, just by switching in symbolic mode. That’s why it’s a path and not an instant enlightenment. Steiner spoke of the importance for the student to be exposed to illustrations of the higher worlds before being able to know them directly, through higher cognition. Such recommended approach is nothing else than exerting the ability to zoom in, and to remain flexible, ready to zoom out in living thinking, on the next wave of progression. In other words, it’s the same thing as forming reasoned and flexible opinions, subject to constant evolution, and supported by open-mindedness and feelings of reverence and gratitude. Maybe I could compare such a transitory opinion to something like a morphic space. It has to have form, before it can dissolve into symbolic nature. It's a step that we don't expect to stop on.
In the first post, I said that we need to “let go of our obsession with breaking down complex problems in simple steps, hoping to feel smart, resourceful, and in control”. In other words, we need to let go of the systematic approach. But this doesn’t mean that, when we do that, we have left all our context behind and we instantly flow into perfect instant redemption of all reality. We can’t look at a point in the far periphery of the mandala and make it known, redeemed and integrated by declaring it a symbol. Probably, in the centuries and millennia to come, the symbol of the RCC will shine as memory of a physical body of wise traditions, and will also exist as a living hierarchy of double-sided access points to stations of experience, and the two identities will be one thing. But here and now I for myself, who is writing at this end of the world, cannot jump straight in that reality or attract it to (my) center by grace of the pure light of Thinking. I only can walk steps, one step towards the threshold, and the next back on Regent Street, zooming out and then back in.
As I said in the post that you approved, we have to “meet our questions without intermediaries” - which could also be expressed: without the intercession of systematic hierarchies, right? - "knowing that the experience will not feel fully complete and mastered. And hopefully what happens next is that patience and open mindedness start to spring from that feeling (of reverence and gratitude), helping us accept that knowledge is brought within our reach only in slow waves of progression." Yes it's a path, as individuals and collectives, as you would say.
Now, I don’t forget that you and I are at different stages of development, so with these thoughts I am not trying to infer anything about your inner experiences, of course. But here you are accepting the constraints of human language, posting about the reasoned opinions Steiner suggests to the students’ consideration, as useful for their development on the path. Either we trust his methods and apply ourselves to grasp the evolutionary sense of the RCC as dead corpse in the 5th PA epoch, or we can see beyond that path of schooling, as you probably can. But putting in a post that there is nothing in that lecture that “declares it impossible that the two streams can spiral together in some way during the 5th epoch” and that “the means by which that could happen was not clear to Steiner at the time” is another thing, as I see it in this moment.
Federica,
I agree with much of your characterization above. As usual, the question becomes how we start
living into what we have started to work our in our conceptual thinking,. so we aren't saying one thing (or thinking about one thing) and doing another. Gradually we want to harmonize these layers of our be-ing. What follows should be understood within that ideal context. Sorry it became rather lengthy - it follows a sort of zooming in and out structure, which is indeed helpful. Although it is primarily directed in response to your comments, I hope it is also instructive for Anthony as well. Feel free to also respond to my question in the previous post based on what is written here, if you want to do it that way.
It is interesting, because your phrasing in posts often suggest you have made definitive conclusions on some of these topics, but it seems like you actually hold them as loose opinions that you are not only willing to revisit and refashion, but are almost certain to do so within a short period of time. I suppose most people in the esoteric context simply tend to refrain from making the assertions/opinions at that stage. I can see the reasons why your approach could be advantageous in various ways, strengthening the will-to-explore unknown realities with your spiritual activity.
At the same time, there is something to be said for not allowing these ideas-opinions that are unmanifest in our consciousness to descend into manifestation through our feeling-will. Once the latter happens, it is like a bit of karma that we have cast out into the World and therefore it will serve as an attractor force for future spiritual activity. Generally that means it will keep drawing our feeling and thinking back to it, even when we have encountered new insights that should modify or discard the opinions. It becomes something we feel attached to and subconsciously need to continue justifying or defending in some way. People end up with drug addictions that started out as temporary and provisional ideas to experiment with a substance. "Let me just see how this feels for now and later I will be in a good position to decide whether it should be continued or not." Our conceptual judgments, as imperceptible as they are and as trivial as they may seem compared to a chemical substance, can support quite similarly degenerative habits in our thought-life.
In the pool metaphor, it's as if we are standing in the pool and have the idea-intent to swim to the other side and punch a little kid in the stomach. Those sorts of ideas can pop into our consciousness, but hardly anyone will let it descend into their feeling-will so that it actually manifests. If it did manifest, then the result would be quite traumatic and, as a karmic consequence, would keep drawing our stream of becoming back to it (until some equally potent compensation is made). We wouldn't be able to simply dismiss that attractive force with the power of logical thought, but only with the power of genuine repentance. Clearly the typed-out and posted opinions are not on the same level of karmic intensity as physically harming someone, but if we let enough of those manifest through our will, they can become unnecessary and stubborn obstacles to our striving for higher knowledge. Of course, I can only speak about these traps because I have extensive experience falling into them. The other danger to keep in mind here is that of reaching the mechanical tentacles into the morphic spaces.
We often mention how the higher unmanifest worlds should be conceived as orthogonal to our normal waking experience, completely unfamiliar and unsuspected. But that is even true of the
manifest world as well. In this context, we can ask ourselves what we really know about the EOC or RCC, for ex. Unless we were raised in those structures, what we know are
mental pictures, i.e. memories based on other peoples' opinions, maybe history books, or esoteric writings if we are lucky. If we were fortunate enough to come across an individuality like Steiner, then we have a more solid basis for forming judgments based on clairvoyant research into supra-sensory ideas. But we still have the choice to treat the 'judgments' as
symbols - conceptual portals - that are mapping out a sort of topographic image of the supra-sensory landscape. When we look at such an image in the physical context, it is easy enough to recognize that we would fall into great traps if we confused it for true knowledge of the territory it is imaging. We know it doesn't provide true knowledge of the territory's qualitative significance, i.e. the atmospheric quality, the water quality, the quality of life, the quality of people living there, and so forth.
But when it comes to spiritual realities explored with conceptual activity, we have the hardest time remembering this, even though the danger of confusing the symbol-image for the territory is much greater for our inner life. I simply don't think it is correct to say that Steiner "
is suggesting the student to use those 'facts' as support to form temporary, provisional opinions about the worlds, lower and higher". It would be like using the information contained in the map above to form opinions about the qualitative significance of the territory it is mapping. I know that, practically speaking, the 'forming provisional opinions' approach
is the way our relation to Steiner's lectures will proceed for a while, but the reason we discuss these things on the forum is also to refine and improve that approach, making it a smoother and more efficient journey towards higher understanding (within the context of our personal Karmic destiny, of course). Steiner also makes this same point in many of his lectures.
Scott and I recently discussed the spiritual reality of musical experience. In that discussion, I stated that our normal musical experience is the shadowy remembrance of our liminal experience of the sevenfold planetary spheres and their rhythms of spiritual activity within the context of the Zodiac. Now we could say that statement is a provisional 'judgment' about musical experience that I have made and am asking others to contemplate and pursue, but notice that the 'judgment' is still a
symbol. It does not purport to explain what the heavenly bodies are, what their rhythms are, what the Zodiac is, how they evolved and continue to evolve, and so forth. Those are all great mysteries that the symbolic judgment merely gives our consciousness a portal to explore through continued effort. So we should always pay attention to what
sort of 'provisional judgments' we are making about spiritual realities. If they make us feel we really understand the true nature of the reality in question - that we can safely sidestep further inner exploration - then they are being employed for purposes of a closed loop conceptual system.
So I hope what now follows will be an example, however crude, of reading the content of an excerpt from Steiner's lectures with the ideal of symbolically working through that content to get a fluid, but still concrete sense of the spiritual landscape he is painting. It is helpful to remember that symbolic ordering is really our
native mode of spiritual activity. We engage this mode every period that we descend from the soul world into our physical-etheric instrument, i.e. every morning we awaken. Do we awaken to construct a system out of our daily experiences of the physical (symbolic) plane? No, we awaken to work through those symbolic experiences, like swimming through the water to reach ideal aims, and offer the ripe inner fruits of that experience back to the soul world for wise judgment and to the spirit world for elaboration into new forces to further the pursuit of ideals we share with humanity and the Earth organism. It is only because, at our current stage of evolution, the intellect grabs hold of that native mode and
resists its symbolic function, that we either use our conceptual activity during the day without experiencing any higher purpose to it, or the 'higher' purpose becomes the accumulation of head-knowledge and other selfish, worldly interests.
We experience this same resistance in meditation - usually the first minute or 30 seconds are the easiest to concentrate our superfluid, imaginative spiritual activity. Then a few distractions come in from the side and, over a short amount of time, they are raging the waters of our soul-life to the extent that we feel it is impossible to remain concentrated. We will notice this same progression from waking to early or mid-afternoon if we are paying attention to our ability to maintain a more spiritual-oriented consciousness. So the symbolic ordering is simply finding ways, when we are meditating inwardly or outwardly (reading through spiritual materials), to minimize the systematic intellect from exerting itself to the extent it normally does. It may also help to remember
why symbolic ordering works - because, as Scott discussed before, the OP is Spiritual Activity. When we use the symbolic natural image of cleansing with fresh water to point towards the purification of inner soul tendencies, for ex., this can lead us into the depths of higher-order reality because it is truly inner soul activity that structure natural processes. When there is a big storm with a lot of fresh rain, that is literally a Divine cleansing of lower astral qualities that have amassed within the Earth's atmosphere.
"
And it thus appears that the entire world is like a single mirror full of lights presenting the divine wisdom, or as charcoal emitting light." - St. Bonaventura
The power in the symbol of the baptism or the rain storm is not in our dialectically matching it with soul-spiritual meanings, but in
resonating with the wise intuitive Spiritual Gestures that impress the reality of such symbolic appearances. Likewise, when we read through materials on deep spiritual topics, we don't aim to imitate the thought-forms of the author, like we are taking driving directions to get from point A to the 'right answer' of point B, but to resonate with the author's spiritual gestures that are concealed behind the content. We practice the technique of zooming in and zooming out because we aim to resonate with the rhythmic structure by which spiritual reality becomes manifest and evolves. So it is a similar reason why spiritual concepts-images work as symbols without any arbitrary 'matching' activity by the intellect. Symbols are not man-made conventions, but rather the very vehicle of all Divine creation. If we want to expand our limited intellectual aperture into the wider spheres of that Divine be-ing, then we can only do so through the portals of symbols.
So the following isn't about forming conclusive or even temporary judgments about the essential nature of the EOC or the Russian folk, but holding the content as symbols that help us acquire a textured sense for the way in which these cultural phenomena spiritually evolve. Not everything needs to make great sense or form a coherent and exhaustive conceptual framework - even if we tell ourselves we have no need for such frameworks, we should assume that is what our conceptual thinking, entangled with the lower personality, is striving for. The symbolic approach helps us purify that tendency which continually asserts itself. It is somewhat similar to the concentration exercise that Scaligero elaborates for us, in terms of what we are
aiming to do with symbolic ordering (not in terms of its technique).
Since the goal of concentration is to experience the synthetic element of thinking, normally alienated in the analytical-rational process, the object must be one whose meaning does not exert any influence upon the operation, since this operation demands only the arid a-psychic willful determination of thought. The original force of thinking lies within this willful determination. We only need to discover it. This force is itself in movement within the activity aimed at discovering it. Such movement is fundamental to the whole life of the soul and its relation with the spirit and the body, because, for the first time, the typical order, “I”-soul-body, normally contradicted by everyday experience is realized. Therefore, this basic exercise is the key to the equilibrium and wellbeing of the soul and the body. The fact that—despite its elementary nature—it is always difficult to realize, can be explained by means of its truly exceptional task, namely, to be the ideal operation that reconstitutes the original equilibrium of the formative human principles.
Scaligero, Massimo. A Practical Manual of Meditation . Lindisfarne. Kindle Edition.
Steiner clearly indicates in various places that the Eastern Church, even though it embodies much hierarchical structure, dogmas/doctrines, and rites similar to those of the RCC, is much more amenable to reintegration with the spiritual impulse of Christ that works directly into the soul-life of individual humans, regardless of gender, ethnicity, nationality, creed or confession.
Steiner (my emphasis) wrote:Let us resume our observations of yesterday. I showed how, in the main, through factors I have mentioned, the People of the Christ was diverted eastwards and how, as a consequence of other factors, the Peoples of the Church developed in the centre of Europe and spread from there in a westward direction. I then pointed out how the various conflicts which arose at the turning-point which marked the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch were connected with this basic fact. I also showed how, within that territory where the true People of the Church developed, through the fact that the Christ impulse to some extent no longer exercised a lasting influence, but was associated with a definite moment in time and had to be transmitted through tradition and written records, there arose the troubled relationship between Christianity and the politically organized church, subject to the Roman pontiff; and how then other individual churches submitted to Rome. These other churches, though manifesting considerable differences from the papal church have, however, many features in common with it — in any case certain things which are of interest to us in this context and which seem to indicate that the state church of the Protestants is closer to the Roman Catholic Church than to the Russian Orthodox Church, in which however the dependence of the church upon the state was never the essential factor. What was of paramount importance in the Russian church was the way in which the Christ impulse, in unbroken activity, expressed itself through the Russian people. I then showed how the radical consequence of this dragging down of the Christ impulse into purely worldly affairs was the establishment of Jesuitism, and how Goetheanism appeared as the antithesis of Jesuitism.
This Goetheanism endeavours to promote a countermovement, somewhat akin to Russian Christianity. It seeks to spiritualize that which exists here on the physical plane, so that, despite the circumstances on the physical plane, the soul unites with the impulses which sustain the spiritual world itself, impulses which are not brought down directly to the plane of sensible reality, as in Jesuitism, but are mediated by the soul.
But he also indicates in other places that the above is a
germinal tendency in the Russian folk and Orthodox Church that was clearly masked by 20th century events, i.e. atheistic communist revolutions, and therefore remains quite unsuspected to most. That is still practically the case today. So what is the practical means by which this germinal redemptive tendency will condense into exoteric forms over the course of years, decades, or even centuries? It all begins in the
thinking consciousness of individual souls like you, Cleric, Scott, myself, and others. If we return to the pool metaphor, the supra-sensory idea-ideal that lives in our consciousness can't remain there if it is to have practical significance, but it must descend into our feeling-will and animate our physical body. The problem is that the normal human will is entirely personalized by being entangled with the Earthly context - we strive to move from point A to point B, to satisfy our hunger, to satisfy our lust, to accumulate material goods, to impress our family and friends, etc. Even physical exercise to stay healthy is generally a means to impress people and live longer so we can pursue other selfish aims. On the path of esoteric striving, however, we descend the intent into brain and animate our lucid conceptual life to pursue selfless spiritual ideals.
An integral part of those ideals is to purify the lower personal will that runs its course in the normal Earthly context. We actually aim to make our exercise, eating, sleeping, social interactions, etc. more aligned with spiritual ideals that encompass all of humanity. We could say that is what begins to distinguish Christian esotericism from mere spiritual asceticism. The latter purifies the soul to attain knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment, but the spirit so attained doesn't descend back into the Earthly context for the latter's progressive redemption. And the fact is that, without this redemptive leg which establishes a harmonious spiritual rhythm, there is only so much the human spirit can attain in the way of true knowledge and wisdom. It eventually falls prey to deceptions and illusions of a spiritual nature. So we should take the redemptive responsibility seriously.
Everything is superimposed and interwoven when it comes to spiritual striving. We can remember Cleric's example of the cookbook recipe - we take out the eggs, break them, season the batter, whip the batter, pour it into the frying pan, etc. When it comes to spiritual ideals, however, we are working on many of these stages
simultaneously. We are to some extent working on the life of spirit, soul, and body simultaneously. We are working on our own development and the redemption of the World Forms simultaneously. The latter are redeemed in direct relation to the expansion of human spiritual consciousness. We spoke of musical experience before - symphonic classical music has degenerated into mechanical pop music, heavy metal, and EDM, but their essential experiential roots all extend back into the Music of the Spheres we journey through during sleep and after death. The same can be said of religious institutions and their hierarchies. The latter have an
ideal function that we once knew and can know again.
St. Dionysius the Areopagite (5th century AD) wrote:Hierarchy is, in my opinion, a holy order and knowledge and activity which, so far as 157 is attainable, participates in the Divine Likeness, and is lifted up to the illuminations given it from God, and correspondingly towards the imitation of God. Now the Beauty of God, being unific, good, and the Source of all perfection, is wholly free from dissimilarity, and bestows its own Light upon each according to his merit;* and in the most divine Mysteries perfects them in accordance with the unchangeable fashioning of those who are being perfected harmoniously to Itself... For each of those who is allotted a place in the Divine Order finds his perfection in being uplifted, according to his capacity , towards the Divine Likeness; and what is still more divine, 158 he becomes, as the Scriptures say, a fellow-worker with God, and shows forth the Divine Activity revealed as far as possible ‘in himself. For the holy constitution of the Hierarchy ordains that some are purified, others purify; some are enlightened, others enlighten; some are perfected, others make perfect; for in this way the divine imitation will fit each one... Thus each order in the hierarchical succession is guided to the divine co-operation, and brings into manifestation, through the Grace and Power of God, that which is naturally and supernaturally in the Godhead, and which is consummated by Him superessentially, but is hierarchically manifested for man’s imitation as far as is attainable, of the God-loving Celestial Intelligences.
Steiner revealed through his research how the ideal hierarchy depicted above will be progressively restored through the 6th and 7th epochs. The latter, for ex., will recapitulate in lucid (free) consciousness the 1st Indian epoch, where we find the caste system. Most people today would say that system is a clear example of an oppressive hierarchy that we shouldn't return to. But that is only because they feel the essence of such a system is
already known - they have formed definitive judgments about it rather than treating it as a fluid symbol for unknown Divine realities, or 'mysterious laws' by which reality unfolds at the levels of nature, culture, and individuals, across the mirrored planes of consciousness between involution and evolution. So we see that these topics are complex and (a) we need the help of symbolic thinking to expand our aperture on the complex ideal relations and (b) they generally point towards the concrete possibility of redeeming
all cultural forms of the PA epoch. That redemption only happens through our participation, which begins in the practiced
perfection our thinking consciousness and the devotional soul-life oriented towards these high ideals.
To make this mysterious law somewhat clearer, we should add the following. We know that India has something that strikes our humanitarian consciousness as strange. This is the division into definite castes, into priests, warriors, merchants, and laborer. This strict segregation is foreign to our modern views. In the first post-Atlantean culture it was not strange, it was entirely natural; in those times it could not be otherwise than that the souls of men should be divided into four grades according to their capacities. No harshness was felt in it for men were distributed by their leaders, who had such authority that what they prescribed was accepted without question. It was felt that the leaders, the seven Holy Rishis who had received their instruction from divine beings in Atlantis, could see where each man should be placed. Thus such a classification of men was something altogether natural. An entirely different grouping will appear in the seventh period. The division in the first period was effected by authority, but in the seventh period men will group themselves according to objective points of view. Something similar is seen among the ants; they form a state which, in its wonderful structure as well as in its capacity to perform a relatively prodigious amount of work, is not rivaled by any human state. Yet there we have just what seems to be alien to us, the caste system; for each ant has its particular task.
Whatever we may think of this today, men will see that the salvation of humanity lies in division into objective groups, and they will even be able to combine division of labor with equality of rights. Human society will appear as a wonderful harmony. This is something we can see in the annals of the future. Thus ancient India will appear again; and in a similar way certain traits of the third period will appear again in the fifth.
