Anthony66 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 2:22 pm
One thing that has been animating me of late is what I perceive as a disconnect between various elements of esoteric/SS spiritual practice. On one hand we have the classical spiritual practices of prayer, devotion, ethical/moral development and the reading of spiritual texts. But then when we turn to meditation, it has the character of learning to speed read or leaning a memory system. For example concentrating on a mental image such as a dot or the vowels exercise seem so...unspiritual. These latter practices seem in tension with the norms of saints throughout the ages, e.g. Meister Eckhart, where we have Bhaktic posturing and trying to be empty within to allow the mystery of God become real. And this means letting go of the contents of consciousness.
An answer I would give to myself is that these concentration exercises are preliminaries and will lead one to imaginative cognition. But to go beyond that, Steiner advises one to use this strengthened thinking to drive the images out of consciousness and so yield an empty mind. So while not appearing terribly spiritual, these early exercises develop a necessary toolkit for later use.
I'm aware that some of this may reignite the Eugene/Cleric/Ashvin battles of old
Anthony, if I understand rightly, you see the disconnect between the technical (unspiritual) concentration and the consequent emptying of consciousness from contents. Thus the natural question is: "How do I know if I've had enough playing around with dots and vowels and it is time to start emptying the mind, such that the
truly spiritual can fill me in?" We have spoken about this many times and tried to explain that they are not in contradiction. Let's try once more.
First, we have to understand that our thinking process is the
most spiritually real thing we know. I'm not speaking about the semi-automatic words that we hear all the time but the energetic spiritual activity through which we recognize our existence. Everything else which we consider supremely spiritual - God, Angels, the mystical states of the masters - all of this, at least initially, exists for us only as
mental pictures. We may have incredibly powerful
religious feelings pulsating as an aura clothing these mental images but if we are perfectly honest, we'll have concede that whatever these mental images represent, is
far less spiritually real than the living thinking process which brings them forth. Just ask yourself: what is more real - the Angel, which I don't even know how to conceive, or my thinking process through which I'm conscious of my spiritual existence? I'm getting banal here but: what's more alive - the tree or the apple that has fallen off the tree?
This is the first step. Unless we're struck by the lightning of insight and realize that our thinking process is the
most spiritual part of our human experience, we'll keep looking for the spiritual only as some vague expectation, as something that we hope one day will peek behind the curtains of phantasmagoria. Yes, our thinking process seems absolutely insignificant on the face of the limitless Cosmos but at the same time it is the
only instance of the
Divine Process that we experience.
The second thing depends on our understanding of the first. If we simply empty the mind in the obvious sense, we'll remain in the world of powerful religious
feelings. We'll find God but as a feeling. When our thinking comes back to its senses, we say "I felt God in everything." Yes, we felt the Divine but our "I" still remains on the other side of God.
All this happens because we don't appreciate the
small. We jump straight for the grand, the 'spiritual', but that is really only a mental picture loaded with powerful expectations. We don't need to go far to see that Wisdom has spoken:
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which indeed is smaller than all seeds but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches.
If we don't recognize the Spirit in its smallest manifestation, we simply can't find it anywhere else. We prefer the idols which are great, shiny, 'spiritual', yet their supposed reality always remains on the other side of our thinking mustard seed.
That's why we keep stressing that our meditation is not simply a technical act. There's something sacred concealed in the process that pops out thought after thought, which can be known not by simply clearing our mind and expecting to perceive or feel it, but when we're willing to admit that there might by something far more powerful pulsing behind the facade of our earthly "I". This something can manifest a tiny spark of its infinity only if we surrender our dreamy self and are willing to allow a little bit of a far wiser and loving being to awaken from within our perspective - that is, to see ourselves through the consciousness of this being. A being from whose perspective our Earthly self is what the glove is for the hand.
When we concentrate, we're not idolizing our thought images, believing that it is a necessary boredom that we have to endure before we can see God. This would indeed be highly unspiritual. No, the concentration is needed in order to shed the crude clothes of thinking and come to know
the living Spirit that animates the thoughts. When this concentration goes further and further, the clothes naturally fade away - this is the driving away of images. However, there's great difference whether we put out the soul imagery and remain in an empty container filled with religious feelings or we put out the imagery as an act of
undressing the Spirit. Then we also reach the state of Cosmic infinitude, yet we now come to know that in this tiny thought process, the Divine Spirit has been concealed. This is the mighty tree that can grow from the mustard seed in the course of evolution.
I hope it is clear how great the difference is between the kind of humility that worships the spiritual and even empties its mind in order to feel its insignificance in the bosom of God, and the kind of humility that acknowledges that we need to sacrifice our Earthly persona for the
truly spiritual to awaken within our perspective, and to live in the stream of Divine Thoughts.
Are those two situations understood? Is it clear that the second goes further and knows God not only as a mighty feeling, but
from within the creative process of His Spirit. Could there by anything more spiritual than living as one with the creative process of the Spirit?