Reincarnation and Analytic Idealism

[AshvinP]

Thanks for the responses back, Ashvin and Federica.

It seems that it would potentially be a very good idea to incorporate some form of expression of gratitude into meditation. Specifically, gratitude towards the higher heirarchies who help make our incarnations possible. Do any of you know any meditations or prayers that achieve this?

Luke,

Zajonc explicitly incorporates gratitude into his meditations, such as the one here. Every meditation for him enters through the gate of humility and reverence and exits through the gate of gratitude, and I think that is a great practice to emulate. As Federica noted, the Psalms are generally great prayers for expressing gratitude to the Divine All.





However, we should not imagine that the meditations/prayers achieve gratitude out of of themselves. Our innermost disposition is always the critical factor. If we don't truly feel the sense of gratitude, there is no way to 'fake it' into our prayers, like we might do when putting on certain masks for other people in outer life. So it is something we need to work on cultivating and we can certainly pray for this soul quality-faculty to enlarge within us so that we become of better and better service to humanity and the Earth.

An area where I try to work especially hard on cultivating the feeling of gratitude is when eating, because my default tendency is to gobble down the food while watching TV and thinking a million different things, with little attention to the taste and nutrition that the hierarchies have worked into this food that sustains me and also allows me to exercise my spiritual activity (Steiner lectures on how food substance is converted into etheric forces for our head). We can at least start by saying a simple mantra while contemplating the food before us, like "God's love is full of abundant life" (3x). We can also try to work on chewing slowly and intentionally and sensing all the harmonious natural and cultural processes that went into bringing that food to us.

Another way of cultivating the quality that we all probably have some familiarity with is by contemplating the wondrous scenes of Nature. Zajonc writes about that as well:

In our meditative practice we can cultivate the above change in consciousness. For example, consider a still mountain pond surrounded by stone and trees. Birds wing across the pond, and an occasional fish breaks its surface. The blue sky and white clouds are reflected in its depths. Sitting with such an image, we can recognize at least four stages on the path of reverence.41 We first meet the pond with wonder. Before the sublime we are astonished by what we experience, we are awed and quietly amazed, joy spreads through us, and we are simultaneously energized and settled inwardly. Wonder can change to reverence when we ponder the force or agency that lies behind the phenomenon beheld. As in a work of art, we recognize the wisdom and beauty that are reflected in the form, colors, sounds, and movements of the mountain pond. How did these come into existence? What wise and generous agency created them? No longer an “It,” that which is before us has become a “Thou,” in Martin Buber's language.42 In the third stage we find ourselves drawn more and more deeply into the scene of pond and mountain. We resound with the interior tones and currents of that which is before us. Its own harmonious nature sounds also in us. We participate in the pond, sensing its watery nature; we live partly into the hard stone that rises up on all sides, we open into the infinite reaches of the sky. Our own sense of autonomy and identity blurs and we identify increasingly with the other. The Thou before us moves gradually into us. The final stage is self-surrender. The universal, protean aspect of our own nature is capable of becoming all things, and in the final fourth stage we do exactly this. Subject-object consciousness disappears and a non-dual form of awareness takes its place. We know from within because we are the object itself.

Albert Schweitzer recounts his discovery of reverence as a guide while making his way by boat along the narrow creeks of Africa. He tells us that he was seeking a universal ground for ethics, writing his reflection in his journal as he traveled. Suddenly, “Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase, ‘Reverence for Life.’ The iron door had yielded: the path in the thicket had become visible.” Reverence opened a path for Schweitzer as it can for us.

The closing lines of Mary Oliver's poem “Wild Geese” reminds us, “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, /calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—/over and over announcing your place/in the family of things.”43 Schweitzer heard the call. The world's offer is one we should take up repeatedly. When we are open enough it will surely awaken us to a true ethic based on a reverence for life.

Whether experienced by Thoreau on Walden Pond, or John Muir writing on the Western wilderness, or Mary Oliver musing on wild geese, nature continuously invites us to move beyond our physical and psychological struggles and to enter into a vaster universal rhythm and current that embraces us always but mostly remains unnoted. It offers itself to our imagination, calls to us, announcing our place within the family of things. We have evolved in relationship with these currents of nature, and we can use them as a trusted foundation for our meditative life every day of our lives.

Zajonc, Arthur. Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love (pp. 63-64). SteinerBooks. Kindle Edition.

[LukeJTM]

Brilliant! Thanks again for the replies, Ashvin and Federica. Both replies contain plenty of helpful information, thanks.

By the way, Ashvin, I run into the same habit with watching TV whilst eating food. So what you've suggested to purify this habit sounds like a good step for me.

'Faking' gratitude in prayers/meditation was a concern I had in mind, so I'm glad that was brought up in your reply, Ashvin.

[AshvinP]

Brilliant! Thanks again for the replies, Ashvin and Federica. Both replies contain plenty of helpful information, thanks.

By the way, Ashvin, I run into the same habit with watching TV whilst eating food. So what you've suggested to purify this habit sounds like a good step for me.

'Faking' gratitude in prayers/meditation was a concern I had in mind, so I'm glad that was brought up in your reply, Ashvin.

Luke,

I'm glad you found our comments helpful.

In my experience, purifying the habits can prove very difficult, much more difficult than we expected it to be at first when fired up with enthusiasm to transform ourselves. Even something as seemingly simple as being conscious and grateful when eating can elude us. When encountering these difficulties we should remember that noticing and taking stock of how stubbornly resistant our lower self is to transformation is the beginning of wisdom. We can take those opportunities to realize just how little control we have over most aspects of our being that determine our experience from day to day, and we can let this reality humble us. I like to think back to the times of my life, not too long ago, when such thoughtful experiences would not even be occurring for me and therefore I would have no opportunity to learn from them, to let them become my teacher. That change in circumstances in itself is something worthy of our deep gratitude.

Once we become conscious of this reality, whole new worlds of opportunities open up for us to grow spiritually and eventually purify/transmute our lower habits into higher faculties of soul and spirit, through the power of our "I". It is that inexhaustible power of the "I' that is our ark, our salvation. Through it, we will reintegrate forces, kingdoms, and worlds, without fail. The only thing we need to do is strive to become ever more conscious of the reality of our situation, and thereby cultivate the virtues of humility, reverence, gratitude, faith, love, and hope within the free domain of our "I".

Thus, you must look up at the relevant stars if you want to track down the forces within yourself. Man is a complicated being; he has come into being because the powers of the cosmos have converged within him. Finally, all of this shall be presented in a picture. Imagine, someone would see here on the wall a small Sun spectrum, a rainbow, i.e. the colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Imagine that this is not projected onto the wall but only visible in the sun-dust. This is what you would look at first. Then, when you investigate how this comes about, you would see how the sunlight enters the room through a crack and that through different contraptions, through a prism, or through another type of light-breaking substance, this spectrum, this “spectre” comes about. You cannot remove it, but if you take away the separate parts of it that are outside the spectrum, then the spectre disappears. Take the outer light away—gone is the ghost—take away the prism, the wall with the light— and the ghost disappears. It had formed itself purely as a result of outside influences.

When a clairvoyant looks at a human being, it is the same with him as it is here with the spectrum. Man is actually nothing in and of himself, for what the clairvoyant sees, where the human being stands, are forces from Venus, from Mercury, and from Mars. Take away the Venus forces—and the human being vanishes. Take away the influences of Mercury and Mars —and the human being vanishes. The clairvoyant sees the human being as a convergence of cosmic forces. For the clairvoyant, the only thing that solely remains real in this spectre is the “Ego”. This working “Ego” is the true reality; it is the reason for everything flowing together; it works on the absorption of all such influences. Under the gaze of the clairvoyant, all converging streams disappear, leaving solely the “Ego” behind as the only truth. This Ego, that so few people nowadays recognise as reality, is the only thing that remains. What the physical perception considers to be a human being, is in reality only a ghost whose individual parts are held together by the almost magnetic force of the Ego. Everything about the human being, apart from the working Ego, is an optical illusion.

Now we have gone through a thought process together. Please, now transform this into a feeling, because only then will this become truly valuable. Go through the world with this feeling. Imagine our earthly beings dissolved into ghosts, apart from the Egos working within.

[LukeJTM]

Thanks, Ashvin.

Already it is a challenge, I suppose I had to expect it will be hard because of my past explorations with shadow work and self-transformation. I definitely believe things are turning into a deeper direction.
I would like to get in a better routine with my spiritual practice. I haven't had much of a routine lately with it, and have been quite distracted with other things. So now is a good time to make a small change.

I have paid attention to my eating habits more yesterday and today. I still put on the TV, but this time I eat in the dining room instead of the living room (where the TV is located). This is a step forward because it gives me more opportunity to focus less on the TV, and more on what I am eating such as taste, texture, exactly like you are suggesting to do. I still think about a million things (like you have experienced), but that is fine because it is still early days for me with this small change. I think, one small step forward each day seems enough because it will build up over time.

It definitely sounds like a good idea to consider what I am learning, what my experiences or events of the day are teaching me.
I would like to read The Seers Handbook (Dennis Klocek) because I didn't actually read it, just bits and pieces. I am hoping to learn new skills to practice with that book.

Regarding what you are saying about the "I." I imagine that, at first, these various forces, energies, kingdoms, or whatever they may be called, first meet us from the outside. They are given to us from without. But as we work with them, learn from them, they become integrated on the inside (our inner world). There is an unfathomable depth or layers of reality to uncover inside the self. Is that what you are saying?
I believe the Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition stages (as defined by Rudolf Steiner) is describing that process. If I understand so far, the Imagination stage is where one can start seeing spiritual imagery (which might be symbolic images for example?), or maybe seeing the forms that underlie the physical objects (i.e. the etheric world). The Inspiration and Intuition, I think, is where one can start seeing much subtler worlds than the etheric, and can also perceive higher beings and communicate with them directly or consciously, and experience their perspective as your own. Could you maybe comment on how accurate this short summary is, and help me correct errors or misunderstandings?

[AshvinP]

Thanks, Ashvin.

Already it is a challenge, I suppose I had to expect it will be hard because of my past explorations with shadow work and self-transformation. I definitely believe things are turning into a deeper direction.
I would like to get in a better routine with my spiritual practice. I haven't had much of a routine lately with it, and have been quite distracted with other things. So now is a good time to make a small change.

I have paid attention to my eating habits more yesterday and today. I still put on the TV, but this time I eat in the dining room instead of the living room (where the TV is located). This is a step forward because it gives me more opportunity to focus less on the TV, and more on what I am eating such as taste, texture, exactly like you are suggesting to do. I still think about a million things (like you have experienced), but that is fine because it is still early days for me with this small change. I think, one small step forward each day seems enough because it will build up over time.

It definitely sounds like a good idea to consider what I am learning, what my experiences or events of the day are teaching me.
I would like to read The Seers Handbook (Dennis Klocek) because I didn't actually read it, just bits and pieces. I am hoping to learn new skills to practice with that book.

Regarding what you are saying about the "I." I imagine that, at first, these various forces, energies, kingdoms, or whatever they may be called, first meet us from the outside. They are given to us from without. But as we work with them, learn from them, they become integrated on the inside (our inner world). There is an unfathomable depth or layers of reality to uncover inside the self. Is that what you are saying?
I believe the Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition stages (as defined by Rudolf Steiner) is describing that process. If I understand so far, the Imagination stage is where one can start seeing spiritual imagery (which might be symbolic images for example?), or maybe seeing the forms that underlie the physical objects (i.e. the etheric world). The Inspiration and Intuition, I think, is where one can start seeing much subtler worlds than the etheric, and can also perceive higher beings and communicate with them directly or consciously, and experience their perspective as your own. Could you maybe comment on how accurate this short summary is, and help me correct errors or misunderstandings?

That's great, Luke! One thing I experiment with is watching more philosophical-scientific-spiritual content on YT that stimulates the imagination and forces my thinking to be somewhat active rather than mostly mindless entertainment that I can passively absorb. Generally, we are aiming to establish new conscious habits for our organism, and we can try to do this by deconditioning our impulses from overly sensuous, passive, materialistic, narrow-minded content and reconditioning to content that embodies higher ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness.

Yes, your characterization of the higher stages is generally accurate. I don't have a whole lot of inner experience with them myself. I think it's important to discern that when we speak of spiritual seeing or sight, it is not exactly the same as physical sight where objects simply present themselves to our senses and we automatically discern their intuitive meaning. Perhaps you have heard that many people who have had sight-restoring operations that bring their eyes to completely normal functionality, especially if it is done after the first few formative years of life, find it very difficult if not impossible to see the world around them. That is because sight is a spiritual faculty of the mind - it must be learned in the earliest years of life. It is by exercising this faculty in our early years that we actually instruct the eyes and shape the brain to perceive the world with understanding. Because this happens for us instinctively, however, we awaken in the sense world with a feeling that the meaning just comes to us from the appearances.

To discern the higher meaning within the appearances, we must be active and retrace exactly how it is that we are able to perceive and understand in the sense world. Our spiritual sight is not only perceiving forms like we do in the sense world, but gaining an ever-more luminous intuitive orientation towards the forms and processes we already perceive. Sometimes this can manifest as symbolic visual imagery either inwardly or outwardly, such as the perception of 'auras' around plant, animal, and human life, but that isn't necessarily the case. The images and visions don't really imply higher development unless they are eventually accompanied by insight as to how they practically relate to our everyday stream of becoming - our rhythms of thoughts, feelings, and desires, our tasks in the physical world, our relations with other beings, and so forth. We could say imagination mostly gives insight into the soul-life (thinking) and the qualities of sense-perception, inspiration into the life processes (feeling) and rhythms of nature, and intuition into the physical processes (willing) and the karmic laws of destiny.

But none of these should be held as too rigid and compartmentalized, as they are all overlapping spheres that influence each other, just like our life of thinking-feeling-willing.

[LukeJTM]

That's great, Luke! One thing I experiment with is watching more philosophical-scientific-spiritual content on YT that stimulates the imagination and forces my thinking to be somewhat active rather than mostly mindless entertainment that I can passively absorb. Generally, we are aiming to establish new conscious habits for our organism, and we can try to do this by deconditioning our impulses from overly sensuous, passive, materialistic, narrow-minded content and reconditioning to content that embodies higher ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness.

Ashvin, what are some of the examples of what I have highlighted in bold? I find it hard to break the habit of watching mostly mindless content whenever I am on YouTube or a social media app (e.g. watching mindless entertainment, or scrolling through my phone sometimes). To be honest one of the main reasons I may distract myself is to block out what's on my mind, so I am slowly working on healing my issues. I think another reason for distracting can sometimes simply be boredom or something like that, which I think can be rectified with meditation or practing being present or something along those lines; meditation or similar is always good and it feels revitalizing, whereas too much screen usage can feel draining or kinda like my mind is in a fog, I wouldn't be surprised if too much screen time causes some kind of smog in the etheric body.
But anyway, I'm wondering what examples you have of philosophical or scientific or spiritual content on YT that stimulates active thinking, please share if you would like to.

[LukeJTM]

This is a YouTube channel I came across recently. I think it is a good example of content that helps inspire active thinking: https://www.youtube.com/@Formscapes/videos

[AshvinP]

That's great, Luke! One thing I experiment with is watching more philosophical-scientific-spiritual content on YT that stimulates the imagination and forces my thinking to be somewhat active rather than mostly mindless entertainment that I can passively absorb. Generally, we are aiming to establish new conscious habits for our organism, and we can try to do this by deconditioning our impulses from overly sensuous, passive, materialistic, narrow-minded content and reconditioning to content that embodies higher ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness.

Ashvin, what are some of the examples of what I have highlighted in bold? I find it hard to break the habit of watching mostly mindless content whenever I am on YouTube or a social media app (e.g. watching mindless entertainment, or scrolling through my phone sometimes). To be honest one of the main reasons I may distract myself is to block out what's on my mind, so I am slowly working on healing my issues. I think another reason for distracting can sometimes simply be boredom or something like that, which I think can be rectified with meditation or practing being present or something along those lines; meditation or similar is always good and it feels revitalizing, whereas too much screen usage can feel draining or kinda like my mind is in a fog, I wouldn't be surprised if too much screen time causes some kind of smog in the etheric body.
But anyway, I'm wondering what examples you have of philosophical or scientific or spiritual content on YT that stimulates active thinking, please share if you would like to.

Luke,

I agree, too much screen time can be really depleting. We hardly realize how the sub-sensory images from TVs and computers are influencing our organism. Especially images with too much violence, sexual stuff, loud noises, and similar things can negatively influence our astral-etheric bodies. So the more we can limit that exposure while also finding creative ways to channel it for our spiritual development, the better. There are many YT channels with explicitly philosophical-spiritual content. Here are a few who come to mind in no particular order.

- Michael Levin - you are probably familiar with Levin; he isn't explicitly spiritual, but his scientific research is quite imaginative and he clearly discerns the important role of consciousness/intelligence in biosystems.

- Brian Gray - Anthroposophist who has some good lectures on PoF and other similar topics

- Andrew Linnell - Anthroposophist who focuses on the mysteries of modern technology

- Douglas Gabriel - "Neoanthroposophist" who seems to speak about almost everything, but some familiarity with spiritual scientific concepts is really helpful. I think this one is a great video -

- Dennis Klocek - Anthroposophist with some really interesting talks

- Astral Arc - Lisa Romero's channel that has interviews/lessons on topics related mostly to inner work and meditation

- Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago also has a lot of interesting talks by a wide array people.

- Hazel Archer-Ginsberg - she does some really good videos that usually tie into Christian festivals throughout the year.

When it comes to movies, if I watch them, I have started veering away from sci-fi, horror, action, etc. (although we can easily discern many imaginative themes and occult inspirations in such movies, we are better off and perhaps even more entertained by going directly to the occult sources). I mostly look for character dramas where the characters are intimately developed and we can explore archetypal relations between them. Anything inspired by Shakespeare is a good bet. It is very helpful to begin resonating with our fellow humans at the soul-level, discerning what archetypal impulses, feelings, and ideals move them between the layers of subnature (animalistic) and supranature (angelic), which of course gives us insight into our own soul-structure. We should try to subdue the commentating intellect as much as possible and simply live with and breath in the stories.

Besides that, I am also trying to develop an interest in technical science videos to be viewed from an imaginative perspective, but so far, besides Levin, I still put those at the end of the list and I'm not really sure of the best channels for that. I'm sure it also doesn't hurt too much to watch funny clips on YT. Sometimes I do that as well. There are some good ones posted right here on this forum

[AshvinP]

This is a YouTube channel I came across recently. I think it is a good example of content that helps inspire active thinking: https://www.youtube.com/@Formscapes/videos

Yes, btw, I have been participating on this discord server a bit recently. I had mentioned Steiner to the founder a while back and now he is very much enthralled by Anthroposophical thought. The problem is, as usual, things are taken too intellectually and abstractly. People are trying to synthesize an all-encompassing TOE and that can lead in very unhealthy directions, mainly towards psychological instability. So I try to bring it back to the phenomenology of spiritual activity and spiritual exercises as much as possible. But that really requires lengthy posts and great attention span by the readers (and a willingness to try seemingly mundane and trivial thinking-will exercises), which is unfortunately lacking on discord forums. The very structure of the latter is geared towards incentivizing people to quickly snipe back and forth with brief comments about known topics, rather than patiently think through unfamiliar lines of reasoning. Anyway, you still may be interested in checking it out.

https://discord.com/channels/1117553909 ... 8235909121

[LukeJTM]

That's great, Luke! One thing I experiment with is watching more philosophical-scientific-spiritual content on YT that stimulates the imagination and forces my thinking to be somewhat active rather than mostly mindless entertainment that I can passively absorb. Generally, we are aiming to establish new conscious habits for our organism, and we can try to do this by deconditioning our impulses from overly sensuous, passive, materialistic, narrow-minded content and reconditioning to content that embodies higher ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness.

Ashvin, what are some of the examples of what I have highlighted in bold? I find it hard to break the habit of watching mostly mindless content whenever I am on YouTube or a social media app (e.g. watching mindless entertainment, or scrolling through my phone sometimes). To be honest one of the main reasons I may distract myself is to block out what's on my mind, so I am slowly working on healing my issues. I think another reason for distracting can sometimes simply be boredom or something like that, which I think can be rectified with meditation or practing being present or something along those lines; meditation or similar is always good and it feels revitalizing, whereas too much screen usage can feel draining or kinda like my mind is in a fog, I wouldn't be surprised if too much screen time causes some kind of smog in the etheric body.
But anyway, I'm wondering what examples you have of philosophical or scientific or spiritual content on YT that stimulates active thinking, please share if you would like to.

Luke,

I agree, too much screen time can be really depleting. We hardly realize how the sub-sensory images from TVs and computers are influencing our organism. Especially images with too much violence, sexual stuff, loud noises, and similar things can negatively influence our astral-etheric bodies. So the more we can limit that exposure while also finding creative ways to channel it for our spiritual development, the better. There are many YT channels with explicitly philosophical-spiritual content. Here are a few who come to mind in no particular order.

- Michael Levin - you are probably familiar with Levin; he isn't explicitly spiritual, but his scientific research is quite imaginative and he clearly discerns the important role of consciousness/intelligence in biosystems.

- Brian Gray - Anthroposophist who has some good lectures on PoF and other similar topics

- Andrew Linnell - Anthroposophist who focuses on the mysteries of modern technology

- Douglas Gabriel - "Neoanthroposophist" who seems to speak about almost everything, but some familiarity with spiritual scientific concepts is really helpful. I think this one is a great video -

- Dennis Klocek - Anthroposophist with some really interesting talks

- Astral Arc - Lisa Romero's channel that has interviews/lessons on topics related mostly to inner work and meditation

- Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago also has a lot of interesting talks by a wide array people.

- Hazel Archer-Ginsberg - she does some really good videos that usually tie into Christian festivals throughout the year.

When it comes to movies, if I watch them, I have started veering away from sci-fi, horror, action, etc. (although we can easily discern many imaginative themes and occult inspirations in such movies, we are better off and perhaps even more entertained by going directly to the occult sources). I mostly look for character dramas where the characters are intimately developed and we can explore archetypal relations between them. Anything inspired by Shakespeare is a good bet. It is very helpful to begin resonating with our fellow humans at the soul-level, discerning what archetypal impulses, feelings, and ideals move them between the layers of subnature (animalistic) and supranature (angelic), which of course gives us insight into our own soul-structure. We should try to subdue the commentating intellect as much as possible and simply live with and breath in the stories.

Besides that, I am also trying to develop an interest in technical science videos to be viewed from an imaginative perspective, but so far, besides Levin, I still put those at the end of the list and I'm not really sure of the best channels for that. I'm sure it also doesn't hurt too much to watch funny clips on YT. Sometimes I do that as well. There are some good ones posted right here on this forum

Excellent, thank you Ashvin. I will have a look at those people on YouTube.

And I agree, there is nothing wrong with watching some entertaining and funny videos on YouTube. I am just trying to keep it in balance like you seem to be saying.

As far as movies, I hadn't thought about that. To be honest I don't watch much in terms of movies these days because there is a lot of poor quality movies being released these days unfortunately. But not always. For example, I thought Oppenheimer was very good when I saw it at the cinema. The story, music, acting, lighting, costume, script, was all very impressive. I did some research and found out they didn't use much CGI, which was surprising.
I think it is potentially a decent thinking exercise to research the behind scenes of a movie because you can consider it if you re-watch the film, and then you have a new insight into the movie, or into human thought (which made the movie possible). I remember a while ago you shared an exercise like this from Rudolf Steiner, he mentioned something along the lines of people watching silent films and their etheric eyes look like goggles when they are watching it, so it is potentially useful to think actively about the film such as how they used a camera angle to convey a mood, or something like that. Is that right?