AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2024 12:06 amFederica wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 9:00 pmAshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 5:21 pm I wrote a whole response to this (within the forum instead of on gmail like I usually do) but I wasn't signed in and then it got erased when I went to post. I don't think I can rewrite it again now, but I see Cleric has posted something in the meantime. For now, I will just share the questions I posed in response to the last part, which is also connected with the RS quote.
Not a problem, naturally there is no necessity or expectation for responses and thank you by the way for your previous replies. An entirely separate, friendly note: this is a somewhat recurring occurrence. I just want to say that.
What makes us individual within the veil of the misalignments? To what extent are we individuals when we are simply the product of our environment, the etched soul pathways (which are entirely interwoven with sensory events) that our thinking-will has awakened into as something entirely given and which now steers its unfoldment? Where do we find our sense of individuality within such a state?
That's easy. While I am misaligned, I am beyond any doubt not the exclusive product of my environment. I find my sense of individuality on the one hand, in my destiny, in my name. Even if I am not conscious of how these were shaped and what their trajectory is, I know they are uniquely mine - and on the other hand, in my will. Even if it operates from the perspective of a limited aperture, and conditioned by unseen curvatures, there is without any doubt a direction of intents that fights to find realization, there is a quest that encounters both friction and recognition. I don't need to be an Initiate for that. Freedom too is a gradient.
Can you just remind me what we are concretely discussing at this point?
Your initial comments sounded as if you realized the sacrificial steps to resist the normal sensory-soul flow (including during non-meditative activity) were necessary to gain intuitive clarity about the intents that fight for realization of ideals, as opposed to the 'will' that only dreams it is fighting for that realization while it is passively flowing along with ingrained habits and preferences. But for you personally, some concrete measures felt rushed and you will only work your way to them much more gradually (again, because you realize they are necessary at some point and cannot be avoided).
Yes, at first it made sense that there shouldn't be any permanent dichotomy between 'normal life' and the moments of conscious, systematic exertion of spiritual activity. But then I tried that with music, to figure out what such a new way to relate to music would be, and it appeared mortifying. That one should promise oneself to do something every time something else happens, that also seemed mortifying. It's like we don't trust that we will approach the new activity in a novel way being grounded in a need that comes from within. Instead, we have to impose it on ourselves as a promise, as if it came from without, mimicking an exterior command. That didn't feel right either, but oppressive. I don't want to say to myself "from now on, every time you listen to a song, you will do that". It looks like an "accountability challenge".
Somewhere along the way, it morphed into identifying the whole sacrificial resistance process with 'mortification of earthly existence', 'attacking the sensory spectrum', and so forth. I don't think any such sweeping characterizations can be traced to my reasoning, examples, or what has been discussed on this forum as the modern path of initiation for years. I admit that I take it for granted all these discussions unfold within the context of seeking to journey deeper and deeper down that path, of course acknowledging the realistic flow of life and the creative ways to navigate that flow.
It can be traced to my efforts to put myself in that concrete perspective, as said. And I still don't see exactly why the soul work now needs to be addressed by doing something at the level of the physical experience. It had been just said that the first work that presents itself to us in concentrative meditation is soul work. There is a quite precise description with examples, in the Part II of the Phonograph Metaphor, while the sensory sphere has been said to be the least proximate. Why now tackle the perception of music, how can we reach the soul curvatures from that direction? It's been a change of direction, isn't it?
So what if anything is the outstanding issue(s) or misalignment(s) in understanding, also in light of Cleric's post? Is it still unclear how we only understand our individual perspective in so far as we grow ever-more conscious of how it is woven from all the infinite ensembles? And further how we grow more conscious by moving our intuitive activity in novel directions that cut across the grain of the World Groove so there is a need to reflect its existence at higher states of aggregation (imaginative, inspired, intuitive) and thereby refine its intuition for the symphonic flow of reality?
I will read that post again next. What I can say is that the novel directions seemed to follow an order, until Cleric shared that suggestion about a psychedelic-like way to listen to music. Until then, the "grain of the world groove" had been cut one slice at a time. Then suddenly the name of the game became "let's cut it in completely novel directions".
As long as our intuitive movements are faithfully reflected in the sensory spectrum, there is no need for our activity to awaken within the Imaginative space. The higher organs of perception don't need to develop if there is no purpose for their existence. That purpose can only be to further perfect our ideal metamorphoses by becoming more conscious of the elemental to archetypal ensembles that support the whole process and funnel our states toward concrete goals.
When we concentrate, even without any results, we are already creating intuitive movements that are not faithfully reflected in the sensory (@large) spectrum. We are looking back towards the origin of thinking, rather than in the same direction of its ray, as Cleric said to Lorenzo. Further, with meditation, we expect some soul curvatures to become apparent. Here, again, we are not moving our intents in sense-compliant ways. We go beyond the faithful reflection. At this point, isn't it a bit too early to throw in the reshuffling of the physical sensations themselves? Like the five senses? For me it seems to be so. I only want to rebel when I hear the proposition: "Resist the sound of music and replace it with sense-free enjoyment". It feels mortifying. And I can't see where it's going. For me, it could go all the way to the bed of nails, for that matter. I don't get it, it only makes me restless and, as you said, frustrated.
Is this a somewhat coherent way to summarize-explain the trajectory of this discussion from the perspective of my personal viewpoint?