lorenzop wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2024 6:10 pm
AshvinP wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2024 5:31 pm
I don't think it will be of much use to abstractly try and explain why "Thinking and Willing" in Anthroposophical terms is not at all what people imagine it to be, i.e. the intellectual voice, mental picturing, and daily intents. These are only the shadows or
outermost circumference of Thinking-Willing which is World-Sustaining and -Creating activity. But I don't want to get into some abstract debate about whether an additional element is needed to reach the 'true ground' of Awareness.
Let me put it this way. If we are walking around the house, thinking about a million things, and stub our toe on some object, you would say this reflects a lack of presence-awareness, right? When navigating the sensory world, we often have an instinctive presence-awareness that keeps us from bumping into things all the time. We
don't need to think intellectually about every single sensation we encounter to avoid such painful encounters, rather we have learned it as children through a sort of instinctive wisdom. The latter maintains a certain level of presence-awareness in the sensory world without the intellect intervening.
Would you agree and say that we can further advance to
cognitively experience the instinctive wisdom that maintains this presence-awareness, which we unconsciously learned as children? If so, then could such an experience do anything but further enrich and enhance our presence-awareness? What is the goal of being present-aware, in any case? Is it simply a matter of inner peace and satisfaction, or something of much more significance for human and Earthly destiny?
What you are detailing here is a method to succeed in the world, from not walking into walls, learning to play a musical instrument, earning a living, etc.
There is certainly a value in success, but it is not realizing one's true nature. It is not increasing familiarity with Being.
This is the implicit duality we keep referring to. It is imagined that increasing familiarity with Being shouldn't also be intimately related to how we lucidly orient to the sensory world and develop skills, talents, capacities, virtues, etc. that will
manifest the limitless potential of Being in that world. By declaring the latter nothing more than pursuit of the 'golden calf', we introduce a schism into the very structure of Being. It is the same schism that is introduced by saying Being has no concern for humanity's moral intuition.
As indicated in my footnote, there is a real paucity of imagination here, for you and Eugene. Because we have become so conditioned to life in the 'mundane realm', we have lost all capacity to imagine just how much more spiritualized and harmonious that realm can be. We settle for the
bare minimum of breaking through the egoic bubble. This is only the very
beginning of the spiritualization process, but it is confused for an end-itself by those who lack higher organs of perception or who refuse to even consider their possibility and probe their reality through living thinking.
Eugene wrote:First of all, it is important because it is the aspect of truth, of our true nature (same is the nature of reality). So, if we want to know the truth to the best of our abilities, we cannot disregard the presence-awareness aspect of it. Second, it is a very efficient and expedient way to break through the egoic dualistic bubble in which we habitually abide in our mundane way of living and thinking. This is because the experiential realization of presence-awareness brings the experiential realization of the underlying unity of the universe (because everything in the universe shares the same fundamental nature of Presence-Awareness-Thinking-Willing). As a result, the illusion of separation with its egoic bubble dissolves naturally (without the efforts of "ego trying to destroy the ego"), and then love and compassion towards the living universe develops naturally, and we develop the ability to see the reality more clearly without the obstructions and limitations of our egoic mind.
But as I said before, I don't believe that just passively abiding in presence-awareness alone is a sufficient spiritual practice, and I agree with Steiner that the development of the active aspects of ATW, its higher-levels of intuitive and imaginative abilities of thinking, is also of key importance.
Eugene adds the caveat that presence-awareness isn't sufficient and we should also add in the higher cognitive practice, but I can't imagine this concretely means anything. Why? Because he also wrote this to you - "
If the "direct method" alone works for you without any reinforcements then go for it."
So which is it, Eugene, is the 'direct method' sufficient or not? Is it sufficient for developing the love and compassion to simply treat each other more kindly? Then what is the purpose of the intuitive and imaginative abilities of thinking? Let's remember, St. Francis of Assisi didn't simply go around using the medicines of his time to heal people, but drew on completely
unsuspected spiritual forces for healing through the Christ impulse. These healing forces are nothing other than the higher cognitive forces. They are one and the same thing. If we don't arbitrarily segregate these forces into exploring the 'dual realm' or 'mundane realm', because we fundamentally misunderstand their nature, then we too can participate in channeling those healing forces into the karmic organism of humanity.