Symphony

[Federica]

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?

[AshvinP]

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.





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".

Yes, thank you, this is a great summary of the issues from, not your personal perspective, but from any normal thinking perspective in the modern age. In other words, these are very typical issues that we should expect to arise when attempting to orient our intuition in a quite orthogonal direction from everything instilled in us through normal sensory life. 

The reason for the intro to my first comment in this discussion, as well as the Barfield quote, was to highlight that the rhythmic process of transmuting the old self into the new is not 'all or nothing', that we don't need to wage a war against all impulsive soul tendencies on all fronts at the same time. Indeed, there is no need to make explicit promises to oneself or even verbalize these things too much. It seems to me that such methods often become a subconscious way of psyching ourselves out so we can avoid taking the measures that are much more humble and within reach. I imagine many idealists and nondualists manage to think themselves out of engaging in concentration exercises in this way as well. Once we practically engage in some of these small measures, though, it may turn out to be a much smoother, enriching, and inspiring process than we were fearfully anticipating.
 
It's not really about the musical experiment in particular. If someone feels especially mortified by the image of a rose cross, this is no reason to abandon the entire principle of concentrated meditation. Same thing here. We can work on plenty of other areas of our impulsive sensory life and see what works for us, what needs further attention, what needs to be shelved for a while, and so forth. 

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?

I noticed this demarcation in one of your prior comments and tried to briefly address it in a few recent comments. I remember when I started meditation, there felt to be a clear demarcation between meditative sessions and non-meditative life. It felt like all the real work had to be done in the former and the most that I could do in the latter was study spiritual science. In many ways, this feeling is a reflection of our experiencing a clear demarcation between 'inner soul volume' and 'sensory world'. We also mentioned this in the context of people feeling that the sensory world is some large space 'out there' while the soul life unfolds within the small space 'in here', so how could the former possibly be structured in some mysterious way by forces flowing from the latter? It isn't suspected that there is a hidden assumption in such questions born from ingrained thinking habits. We should try to gradually decondition from that assumption, that inverted perspective, and reorient to the intuition that these spaces are entirely co-extensive. 

Our phenomenological (vertical) thoughts about the soul volume should become much more temporally extended. Even our modern intellectual thinking can be traced quite far back, for example to the linguistic pathways of Greek and Latin that have evolved over centuries and dispersed into many European languages. As we know, these linguistic molds structure how we make sense of the World in a quite literal way. Our feelings and impulses can be traced even further back. We could approach this by contemplating the difference between plants, animals, and humans. In many ways, we could say that many qualities which still live outwardly in the sensible gestures of plants and animals have been entirely inwardized in humans, raised into the soul life. The gestures have become supersensible in humans yet they are still there, instinctively unfolding beneath the surface of waking consciousness. When we look upon these kingdoms in the sensory world and contemplate the inner meaning of their gestures, we are literally perceiving domains of our own 'soul geometry'.

If we simply gaze at and delight in the beautiful blossoming flowers and elegant (or funny looking) animal movements, though, these deeper intuitive gestures within our own soul life won't become apparent. They come from the opposite direction of the perceptual experience, like when we concentrate on a mental image. We have to actively direct our attention towards these gestures, to be actively receptive to the intuitive context in which our thinking-perception is embedded, so to speak. It is in that way the sensory landscape can be experienced as more coextensive with our soul atmosphere and gestures.  

So a preference, desire, habit, etc. within the soul doesn't exist as some isolated entity that can be tweaked by sheer force of concentration. Rather, the concentration opens up more archetypal feelings and more holistic insights into the soul volume which can then be applied within the course of normal sensory life where these soul curvatures are truly active, modulating our thinking-perceptual states. Likewise, these efforts smooth the scratches on the soul record groove and cleanse our atmosphere of concented meditation. Concentration is the technique used 'to charm the night into the day' or 'sleeping into waking', as Barfield put it. The demarcation between meditation and non-meditative life then grows smaller and smaller in our experience as they spiral together. They are seen as two complementary poles through which we rhythmically attain our ideals.

It is always sensory events that stimulate our already etched pathways of the soul volume. Even if we are simply thinking about some topic not immediately related to sensory events around us, most of us need visual text or audible speech to stimulate that thinking. Here is an interesting observation from Barfield in that respect:

What do we mean by poetic form? What is it in poetry that is analogous to that constructing, that fashioning or combining, of material which seems to be the essential feature of the other arts? Now, a word is the final objective record for each person of the whole series of thoughts or sense-impressions received by him every time he has spoken or heard that word. Repeat it, and certain of these thoughts or sense-impressions are revived in his memory - associations are called up which, ever since he first learnt the word, have been rearranging and colouring themselves subconsciously in his memory. When two or more words are heard or read in juxtaposition, the set of associations clustering round the first word is immediately brought into touch with that different set, which grows and spreads from the second in such a way that some of their innumerable ramifications must intermingle in the mind. Moreover, each word reacts delicately upon the other, emphasising some of its associations, blurring some, and eliciting from the recesses of the subconscious mind, many which in any other context would have slept undisturbed. It is just this blending and harmonising of remembered impressions that constitutes true form in poetry, and it is here that poetry satisfies our aesthetic sense, our desire for and emotional appreciation of that form.

This is also what Cleric spoke of when describing verbal thoughts as encodings of the imaginative soul space. And the natural sensory spectrum at large is also a kind of encoding of ideal space, although a few more layers removed from the linguistic space. All of it flows within and through the soul space into manifest existence, taking on imaginative form before conceptual and sensory form. 

We aren't speaking of reshaping the sensory groove, spiritualizing our physical sensory organism and reordering the 'laws' of nature. But rather gaining more sensitivity to the soul groove and gradually reshaping its rougher contours so that our spiritual activity interacts with the sensory groove less impulsively, with more creative and harmonious engagement. This can certainly feed back into our experience of sensations as well, in so far as they are felt to be naturally more extensive with our soul life and spiritual activity. We grow more sensitive to the meaningful feedback these sensations are always offering us in relation to our activity. There is little more enriching than experiencing the sensory spectrum as a sacred dialogue with living intelligences. Artistic sensory experience is the clearest example, but it could even deepen to natural sensations. For example, we may more easily trace certain pains and disturbances to our inner psychic states. Perhaps we may even try to imaginatively channel some healing energy to those areas. But things like that can also wait until we are more comfortable with our intuitive orientation to the flow of existence.

[Federica]

Instead of enumerating what the higher self is not and how to free it from the lower, please tell me what makes it individual behind the veil of all the severe misalignments. There is not a word about that so far in this discussion.

Federica, here's something that may be seen as rather abstract but possibly it may help. In the SoM I used this image.


There's no simple, nor right way to present these things. If the image above should be more exact, all centers should also coincide. But this makes it more difficult to draw. Here's how it may look like if we only look at a segment:



In this perspective, there's only One Center and One Periphery. All differences manifest through the fact that the strings connecting the center and the periphery vibrate in different frequencies and phase relationships. An ensemble of such strings which vibrate in meaningful coherency, constitute an individual spiritual experience of being. Of course, we shouldn't imagine this ensemble as something spatially defined. It spans the full volume. Here we can use the coffee house metaphor again to explain why only a specific ensemble constitutes our conscious experience.

Now there's nothing fundamentally different between spiritual experience in the embodied and the disembodied state. It's the 'mode of vibration' that differs. In the embodied state the ensemble is entangled in much more complicated ways, and if there's to be continuity of consciousness, our perspective needs to follow in lockstep the unfoldment of the rhythm - from its Cosmic harmonics to the elemental sub-harmonics.

After death, the strings vibrate in greater harmony with the totality but still 'overshoot' (remember the ice skate analogy).

The crucial thing is that this out-of-phase vibration is the technique of creation. All existence is possible only because there's vibration that is off the perfect alignment. The difference is that what is creative technique on high, could lead to destruction when the vibrations are willed without awareness of the greater context.

So to your question about the higher self and God - Yes: at Infinity, our higher self is God the Absolute. That's the state where all strings coincide. However, as we have warned so many times, this idea shouldn't evoke pride. There's no conscious perspective where we can say "Now I'm the Absolute and there's nothing above me." God within our unique ideal ensemble is always a servant of the God at Infinity.

Here's something:

If a person looks back in a more unselfish way to what he has experienced in childhood, youth, etc. — according to the age he has reached — there emerges as if out of the gray depths of the spirit various persons who have had something to do with his life in all sorts of relationships.

Look back into your life and pay less attention to what interests you in your own respectable person and much more to those figures that have come into contact with you, educating you, befriending you, assisting you, perhaps also injuring you — often injuring you in a helpful way.

One thing will then become evident to you and that is how little reason a person really has to ascribe to himself what he has become. Often something important in us is due to the fact that one person or another came into contact with us at a certain age, and — perhaps, without knowing it himself, or perhaps, being fully aware of the fact — drew our attention to something or other. In a comprehensive sense, a really unselfishly conducted survey of our lives is made up of all sorts of things that do not give us occasion to immerse ourselves selfishly in our own being, to brood over ourselves egotistically, but lead us to broaden our views to include those figures who came into contact with us. Let us immerse ourselves with real love in what has come into our life.

We shall often discover that what evoked an antipathy in us at a certain period is no longer so disagreeable to us when a sufficient length of time has passed because we begin to see an inner connection. The fact that we had to be affected in an unpleasant way at a certain time by one person or another might have been useful to us. We often gain more from the harm that a person does to us than from the furtherance afforded us by another. It would be advantageous to a person if he more frequently exercised such a survey of his life, and should permeate his life with the convictions flowing from his self observation. “How little occasion I really have to occupy myself with myself! How immeasurably richer my life becomes when I look back to all those who have entered my life!”

In this way we free ourselves from ourselves when we carry out such an unselfish survey. We then escape from that terrible evil of our times, to which so many fall victims, of brooding over ourselves. It is so extremely necessary that we should free ourselves from this brooding over ourselves. Anyone who has once felt the power of such self-observation as I have just described will find himself far too uninteresting to spend much time brooding over his own life.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0186/19181207p01.html

This is a tremendously important thing to grasp. We understand our individual perspective only by understanding how it is defined by all other infinite ensembles and vice versa. This naturally gives the answer also of what makes us individual beyond the threshold. It's once again the unique way the tone of our ensemble sounds in relation to the whole infinite ensemble. Just like in space the uniqueness of our perspective is determined by the unique visual vantage point, so it is also in the disembodied state, where we have a unique ideal vantage point of the Cosmic ensemble. In fact, the very same holds in the embodied state, except that here we've been misled to imagine the world outside as something independent, instead of grasping our existence as continuous spiritual metamorphosis. However, as RS implies, the key is that as our ensemble evolves it more and more grasps that we share the same center and periphery.

All this also gives us a greater appreciation of concentration. The focal point of spiritual activity that we cultivate in meditation, in the course of evolution will prove to be precisely this One Center of all.

Thanks so much Cleric. I will have to keep these ideas in sight for much longer, before I can say I am satisfied with how I grasp them. For now, it's about digesting that all our individual perspective ultimately is, is a co-responsible dissonance. And that what freedom ultimately is, is the ability to take the whole tour and back to center, to finally realize there is none. I know I've picked an extreme way to say it. But it's nonetheless that, isn't it? The ultimate due sacrifice is that of our spiritual activity altogether, and this is very tough to encompass, with whatever organ. Does it become conceivable once new organs are developed? Is it simply pride the impediment to accept complete dissolution of being?

[Cleric K]

Thanks so much Cleric. I will have to keep these ideas in sight for much longer, before I can say I am satisfied with how I grasp them. For now, it's about digesting that all our individual perspective ultimately is, is a co-responsible dissonance. And that what freedom ultimately is, is the ability to take the whole tour and back to center, to finally realize there is none. I know I've picked an extreme way to say it. But it's nonetheless that, isn't it? The ultimate due sacrifice is that of our spiritual activity altogether, and this is very tough to encompass, with whatever organ. Does it become conceivable once new organs are developed? Is it simply pride the impediment to accept complete dissolution of being?

Federica, my last post to Guney may throw some more light on your questions when they are seen also from a perspective of the higher minds/beings.

[AshvinP]

Thanks so much Cleric. I will have to keep these ideas in sight for much longer, before I can say I am satisfied with how I grasp them. For now, it's about digesting that all our individual perspective ultimately is, is a co-responsible dissonance. And that what freedom ultimately is, is the ability to take the whole tour and back to center, to finally realize there is none. I know I've picked an extreme way to say it. But it's nonetheless that, isn't it? The ultimate due sacrifice is that of our spiritual activity altogether, and this is very tough to encompass, with whatever organ. Does it become conceivable once new organs are developed? Is it simply pride the impediment to accept complete dissolution of being?

Federica,

It may be helpful to add here that we have a stellar (literally) example of how the individual earthly perspective becomes free through realization of its shared Center with all beings. That, of course, is Christ Jesus.

As the image suggests, this is not some personal event. It is Cosmic and it consists of the cooperative work of all levels of minds. These alignments are like the astronomical events where certain planetary bodies arrange in some way. This also hints that it is not always possible to experience sublime states of being on demand. Certain higher phase-conjunctions are necessary. The question is that we don’t miss them.

It's interesting because I have just been reading up on some Astrosophy and came across the following:

Now, if we take this solar process just described [the Zodiacal 'substance' streaming in through Saturn, reaching its densest state on Earth, and then being re-spiritualized through the 'negative space' of the Sun], we can in a sense see that activity also expressed in the nature of the “I Am,” the ego. As discussed earlier, with our earthly sense of self we have this sense of “I,” which we discussed in relation to the planet Mars, the sense of “I,” which is the “me that is not that”; the me that is separate and independent. We point to our self bodily when we say “I.” So, on Earth we have a kind of spatial concept of our “I” as a kind of “thingness.” We associate it with our personality, our character, and the totality of the various identities that define us—career, family role, race, culture, and so on. However, when we really try to elevate our consciousness to the nature of the true “I” of the human being, born out of the Sun, we can come to realize that the nature of the true “I Am” is in fact this less-than-emptiness that is always in process of transformation. This is hard to conceptualize but can be simply held as an imagination of our true nature. I bring this up because in understanding the Sun we can actually have a bit of an understanding of “the Christ,” He who in the Gospels refers to himself as “I Am.” This being of the Christ is the personification so to speak, the manifestation, the revelation, of this great solar being in our cosmos, who is also the Logos. The Logos—the meaning of the cosmos, the life of the cosmos, the “I Am” of the cosmos in a spiritual sense—descended and became matter, became flesh
....
"Thus, in Palestine during the time that Jesus of Nazareth walked on the Earth as Christ Jesus—during the three last years of his life, from his 30th to his 33rd year—the entire being of the cosmic Christ was acting uninterruptedly upon Him and was working into Him. The Christ stood always under the influence of the entire cosmos. He made no step without this working of the cosmic forces into and in Him. What took place here in Jesus of Nazareth was a continual realization of the horoscope, for at every moment there occurred what otherwise happens only in a person’s birth. This could only be so because the whole body of Jesus descended from Nathan had remained open to the influence of the sum total of forces of the cosmic spiritual hierarchies that direct our Earth. . . . He who went about as a being upon the Earth appeared quite like any other man. The forces active within Him, however, were the cosmic forces coming from the Sun and stars; and these directed His body. And it was always in accordance with the collective being of the whole universe with whom the Earth is in harmony, that everything the Christ Jesus did took place." (Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Guidance of Humanity)

Jonathan Hilton. Speaking to the Stars: An Introduction to Astrosophy (pp. 80-81). SteinerBooks. Kindle Edition. 

Of course there is an endless depth to probe here. But, simply put, Christ Jesus didn't miss any higher-phase conjunctions during the 3 years because his "I am" within the bodily sheaths was perfectly centered and present, perfectly concentric with the whole Cosmic intent. Yet we can in no way say that there was a complete dissolution of being after the Resurrection, when he appeared to the disciples through the spiritualized physical body, or after the Ascension, when he appeared to St. Paul in the etheric. Clearly, he is still active in Earthly humanity in the most intimate and personal ways, shepherding our development as individuals and collectives.

This is also what humanity as a whole, each individual, is going through in its relative stages of development over many ages of remaining Earthly evolution. We are gradually unveiling the true nature of our "I am" as we seek to remain attentive and present to the higher-phase conjunctions that give Cosmic meaning to everything we think, feel, and do over the course of many incarnations. Eventually we will also inherit a redemptive Christ role within the Cosmic hierarchy for new life waves, new individual perspectives arising from the Divine technique of creation. 

[Federica]

Of course there is an endless depth to probe here. But, simply put, Christ Jesus didn't miss any higher-phase conjunctions during the 3 years because his "I am" within the bodily sheaths was perfectly centered and present, perfectly concentric with the whole Cosmic intent. Yet we can in no way say that there was a complete dissolution of being after the Resurrection, when he appeared to the disciples through the spiritualized physical body, or after the Ascension, when he appeared to St. Paul in the etheric. Clearly, he is still active in Earthly humanity in the most intimate and personal ways, shepherding our development as individuals and collectives.

This is also what humanity as a whole, each individual, is going through in its relative stages of development over many ages of remaining Earthly evolution. We are gradually unveiling the true nature of our "I am" as we seek to remain attentive and present to the higher-phase conjunctions that give Cosmic meaning to everything we think, feel, and do over the course of many incarnations. Eventually we will also inherit a redemptive Christ role within the Cosmic hierarchy for new life waves, new individual perspectives arising from the Divine technique of creation. 

Thanks for adding more contrext, Ashvin. I am not sure I can properly follow the thread in your and Cleric's last post, but in any case I was speaking of dissolution with reference to what Cleric has called "at Infinity".

[Cleric K]

Thanks for elaborating, Cleric. I am clearly very far from all this. I was just wondering about ways to help rewire the experience of music in general, in much more basic terms, having in mind that it's soon the end of music that stirs feelings, as you recently said.

Let me first remind of what we've been talking recently.

We would be mistaken if we imagined that the alternation of transformation with strengthened ego feeling were regulated in the elemental world just as naturally as waking and sleeping are in the physical world. According to clairvoyant consciousness — and to this alone it is perceptible — it takes place at will, not passing so easily as waking here passes into sleep. After one has lived for a time in the element of metamorphosis, one feels the need within oneself to engage and use the other swing of the pendulum of elemental life. In a much more arbitrary way than with our waking and sleeping, the element of transforming oneself alternates with living within with its heightened feeling of self. Yes, our consciousness can even bring it about through its elasticity that in certain circumstances both conditions can be present at the same time: on the one hand, one transforms oneself to some degree and yet can hold together certain parts of the soul and rest within oneself. In the elemental world we can wake and sleep at the same time, something we should not try to do in the physical world if we have any concern for our soul life.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA147/En ... 26p01.html

We need to realize that these sleeping and waking comparisons are not just figures of speech. To expand consciousness into the depth of reality we really need to move to a special state that is between sleeping and waking. This is connected with completely measurable changes in the physical body, just like falling asleep is. If we study these closely, we’ll get some hint on how we can consciously steer our soul context towards these states.

I’m writing this in connection with ‘listening with the whole volume of the room’. I realized that this makes little sense if we don’t understand that it can only come about by certain changes not only in our ideal life but also all the way down to the physical.

What happens when one falls asleep? One thing is that the body relaxes (this depends on the quality of sleep, of course). Breathing also changes. I guess we all have had the experience of watching a movie with somebody when even without looking we realize that the person has fallen asleep by just noticing how the sound of their breathing has changed. The inhalation is usually slow and silent. The body very gently expands the chest, as if to do it with minimal effort. Then the muscle tension suddenly lets go and the exhalation happens on its own, as if a spring has been released, often sounding like sighing. This recurring sighing sound is usually what betrays that our friend has fallen asleep.

We can use these characteristics to help ourselves approach the elemental state. The difference is that we need to do that while remaining awake. We can’t make the transition while remaining in our daily beta brainwaves, which are present when we’re engaged in racing and fragmentary mental activity.

Let’s start with relaxing the body. This is something we must learn to do. Modern man lives with many tensions in all parts of the body. Imagine what most of us do just before we’re administered an injection. Usually our whole body stiffens, we may even squeeze our face in anticipation of the pricking. Whether we know it or not, such tensions could be present continuously and we don’t notice them just because they’ve become the ordinary background of consciousness (the fish and the water).

To relax the body we can consult any guide. There’s nothing esoteric here. It helps to voluntarily stiffen some part of the body and then with sighing exhalation release the tension, completely letting go. In this way we can really feel the contrast. We can go in this way body part by body part.

Next, we also need to relax the head-space. Here things become more psychic. This is also where brainwave patterns change more pronouncedly. We can start by gradually passing from the bodily sensations to the more internal ones. For example, we can focus on our nose and how we exhale through it. We can do that several times and feel how with every exhalation the nose is relaxed, it should feel a little tingly, as if we let it go and it moves a little out together with the air.

The next step would be to expand that sensation from the nose to the whole face. Our fleshy mask is a very artistic expression of our inner life and very often we don’t have consciousness of the grimaces we assume. Through this kind of breathing we can let go of the face mask with every exhalation, feeling how it becomes relaxed, tingly, and as if increasing the leeway between our inner life and physical expression. For some, this may already be a little difficult if we’re too merged with our face mask.

As a side note (this was mentioned a while ago), we can experiment with intending a very gentle smile. It doesn’t even need to move any muscles, it’s just the intention that we radiate with each exhalation. One may be surprised by how bright the whole experience becomes, especially if we realize how until a moment ago we had a very sombre mask.

Gradually, we encompass the whole head. With each exhalation we breathe out the sensations of our head, and even the fragmentary thoughts. We literally blow them away. This, however, can only happen if we correspondingly become more and more centered in a point. We can’t contract in a point by trying to compress our usual sense of self and usual thinking patterns. We need to let them go, exhale them. The point is what remains after stripping out and exhaling the outer layers. Also we shouldn’t forget that together with the face mask we should relax and exhale the eyes. As Ashvin noted recently, this will soon feel as certain dots and patterns begin to take form, however, we need to let them go, continue to exhale them.

When we inhale, we shouldn’t inhale what we have already let go. It’s better if we breathe in while completely focused in the point of concentration. It is as if we draw the air through a pinhole from unknown regions. Then we exhale and expand in all directions. This expansion should feel like letting go. We shouldn’t try to control what we exhale. What we exhale is now something independent.

Now if someone was to take an EEG, we would already be more towards alpha brainwaves (usually associated with creative flows and daydreaming) and even further. This is the point where the experience of music can markedly change. Through the exhalation, it is as if our head space expands together with the face mask and now a certain wider volume of inner experiences opens. If we succeed in letting go of the exhalation (instead of trying to possess it and control it) we’ll gradually begin to feel the anthill. Now the sounds of the music begin to feel like little dream fragments, as if each sound can become the seed from which a dream can begin to flow. The moment we try to grasp and control these fragments they are deadened. So the more we resist this, the more magical their movements become.

So we see that ultimately, our goal here is to fully relax our body, then our head-space, as if we’re trying to transition our body into a dreaming state but at the same time remaining awake at the center point. Needless to say, this goes hand in hand with slowing down. We should find for ourselves the rate of slowing down. It shouldn’t feel that we force ourselves, because then we’ll simply feel impatient – we’re trying to do something at a rhythm that our cognition is not synchronized to. Our intellect tries to cram too many things in one timeslice. Instead, when we smoothly exhale we should feel how the slowing down opens the liminal spaces that we normally miss in our hasty and aliased daily consciousness. As soon as we feel that they open we simply continue to exhale, let them go.

A time comes when we indeed feel how our whole body diffuses. This is something that happens each time we fall asleep but this time we remain conscious. Now the dream imagery really comes to life. We haven’t flown off into another parallel universe, we still feel our expanded bodily context and we still hear the music but now it evokes quite amazing dream-like images. It feels that the space of the sound waves and room is now part of our expanded inner space.

Of course, all these indications shouldn’t be taken one-sidedly. Otherwise, it would lead only to the lower kinds of visionary clairvoyance. The fact that we keep our concentration, already sets our activity apart from the more atavistic states. As long as we keep firmly that higher-order intuitive activity works behind everything and we’re open to intimately knowing this inner intuitive life, we should have a healthy counterbalance. Nevertheless, in one way or another, we should learn to do this transition if we want to really loosen the lower bodies and behold the elemental (Imaginative) realm.

As a side note, I’ve found that when we have trouble falling asleep, we can help the process by voluntarily changing our breathing into such a pattern – slowly inhaling and then letting go as a sigh. In this way we induce the body closer to its sleeping state.

[Federica]

...
We could approach this by contemplating the difference between plants, animals, and humans. In many ways, we could say that many qualities which still live outwardly in the sensible gestures of plants and animals have been entirely inwardized in humans, raised into the soul life. The gestures have become supersensible in humans yet they are still there, instinctively unfolding beneath the surface of waking consciousness. When we look upon these kingdoms in the sensory world and contemplate the inner meaning of their gestures, we are literally perceiving domains of our own 'soul geometry'.

If we simply gaze at and delight in the beautiful blossoming flowers and elegant (or funny looking) animal movements, though, these deeper intuitive gestures within our own soul life won't become apparent. They come from the opposite direction of the perceptual experience, like when we concentrate on a mental image. We have to actively direct our attention towards these gestures, to be actively receptive to the intuitive context in which our thinking-perception is embedded, so to speak. It is in that way the sensory landscape can be experienced as more coextensive with our soul atmosphere and gestures.

So a preference, desire, habit, etc. within the soul doesn't exist as some isolated entity that can be tweaked by sheer force of concentration. Rather, the concentration opens up more archetypal feelings and more holistic insights into the soul volume which can then be applied within the course of normal sensory life where these soul curvatures are truly active, modulating our thinking-perceptual states. ...

Ok, so in order to actively observe and direct attention to the animal life, and so realize something of our own unconscious soul nature, we need to have previously meditated on that (or on themes that have reverberated on that) so that insights from the intuitive context have emerged close to waking consciousness, and have the potential to become conscious in connection with the perceptions of the animal? If this is correct, maybe I‘m beginning to understand how perceptions can be experienced as resonant with our soul currents and gestures.

But I have a general sense of real struggle. Only to properly follow and get some concrete sense out of what you and Cleric share these days is heavy work. I am literally more tired than usual at the end of each day.

It is always sensory events that stimulate our already etched pathways of the soul volume. Even if we are simply thinking about some topic not immediately related to sensory events around us, most of us need visual text or audible speech to stimulate that thinking. Here is an interesting observation from Barfield in that respect:

What do we mean by poetic form? What is it in poetry that is analogous to that constructing, that fashioning or combining, of material which seems to be the essential feature of the other arts? Now, a word is the final objective record for each person of the whole series of thoughts or sense-impressions received by him every time he has spoken or heard that word. Repeat it, and certain of these thoughts or sense-impressions are revived in his memory - associations are called up which, ever since he first learnt the word, have been rearranging and colouring themselves subconsciously in his memory. When two or more words are heard or read in juxtaposition, the set of associations clustering round the first word is immediately brought into touch with that different set, which grows and spreads from the second in such a way that some of their innumerable ramifications must intermingle in the mind. Moreover, each word reacts delicately upon the other, emphasising some of its associations, blurring some, and eliciting from the recesses of the subconscious mind, many which in any other context would have slept undisturbed. It is just this blending and harmonising of remembered impressions that constitutes true form in poetry, and it is here that poetry satisfies our aesthetic sense, our desire for and emotional appreciation of that form.

This is also what Cleric spoke of when describing verbal thoughts as encodings of the imaginative soul space. And the natural sensory spectrum at large is also a kind of encoding of ideal space, although a few more layers removed from the linguistic space. All of it flows within and through the soul space into manifest existence, taking on imaginative form before conceptual and sensory form. 

Ah! Are you still saying that the layer of verbal thoughts does the connection between conceptual and sensory forms? It doesn't seem you are here?

We aren't speaking of reshaping the sensory groove, spiritualizing our physical sensory organism and reordering the 'laws' of nature. But rather gaining more sensitivity to the soul groove and gradually reshaping its rougher contours so that our spiritual activity interacts with the sensory groove less impulsively, with more creative and harmonious engagement. This can certainly feed back into our experience of sensations as well, in so far as they are felt to be naturally more extensive with our soul life and spiritual activity. We grow more sensitive to the meaningful feedback these sensations are always offering us in relation to our activity. There is little more enriching than experiencing the sensory spectrum as a sacred dialogue with living intelligences. Artistic sensory experience is the clearest example, but it could even deepen to natural sensations. For example, we may more easily trace certain pains and disturbances to our inner psychic states. Perhaps we may even try to imaginatively channel some healing energy to those areas. But things like that can also wait until we are more comfortable with our intuitive orientation to the flow of existence.

So in this spirit, maybe I could reframe my difficulty with that musical exercise in terms of not having developed the necessary insights in meditation that would have given me the language to understand and speak of the nature of the sacrifice suggested, and the nature of its sense-free 'alternative'. I don't have access to such reading of the sensory experience of music at this point. So there is no value in fighting to extract something for which the necessary language has not been received. If this makes sense, it sounds to me like a much more acceptable way to understand the situation. Thank you for these precise elaborations.

[AshvinP]

Of course there is an endless depth to probe here. But, simply put, Christ Jesus didn't miss any higher-phase conjunctions during the 3 years because his "I am" within the bodily sheaths was perfectly centered and present, perfectly concentric with the whole Cosmic intent. Yet we can in no way say that there was a complete dissolution of being after the Resurrection, when he appeared to the disciples through the spiritualized physical body, or after the Ascension, when he appeared to St. Paul in the etheric. Clearly, he is still active in Earthly humanity in the most intimate and personal ways, shepherding our development as individuals and collectives.

This is also what humanity as a whole, each individual, is going through in its relative stages of development over many ages of remaining Earthly evolution. We are gradually unveiling the true nature of our "I am" as we seek to remain attentive and present to the higher-phase conjunctions that give Cosmic meaning to everything we think, feel, and do over the course of many incarnations. Eventually we will also inherit a redemptive Christ role within the Cosmic hierarchy for new life waves, new individual perspectives arising from the Divine technique of creation. 

Thanks for adding more contrext, Ashvin. I am not sure I can properly follow the thread in your and Cleric's last post, but in any case I was speaking of dissolution with reference to what Cleric has called "at Infinity".

Right, and for all intents and purposes, I would say Christ Jesus after Golgotha is God 'at infinity' - He is what we will attain at the culmination of Solar evolution.

I only presented this angle because, without intimate experience of higher cognitive states, these things concerning distant evolutionary stages can become really abstract. Then we are tempted to simply imagine them as increasing levels of formlessness and merger into the 'pure emptiness' or void, similar to the nondualist. And, moreover, we are tempted to preserve a parallel process of evolution by which we retain something of our familiar individual perspective and witness this approaching void from the side with dread, which would be a perfectly reasonable feeling from such a non-existent perspective. This is a very difficult habit to resist and I also have trouble with it.

Yet if we already have reasoned faith that Christ incarnate is the archetype of our whole evolutionary drama, then we at least we have a concrete image that hints toward what this is all about. I doubt anyone can seriously contemplate the Christ events, past and future, especially in the light of esoteric science, and confuse that process for dissolution of being or the "I am". It cannot be confused with escape from all Earthly existence, either, since Christ has united with the Earth and remains with it, and with every individual being that comprises it, until all is fulfilled. He partakes not only in the broad collective developments from epoch to epoch, but in the suffering and trials of each individual perspective.

And we don't need etheric clairvoyance to assess the results of supersensible research into the Christ events. More than any other such research (which are basically different angles on this central fulcrum of spiritual evolution), I would say, they are amenable to healthy reasoning through the concrete facts of collective and individual experience at all temporal scales, from the flow of aeons to our yearly and daily flow. Anyone can test the research with living reasoning and see if they bring those facts into a coherent and organic whole.

[AshvinP]

...
We could approach this by contemplating the difference between plants, animals, and humans. In many ways, we could say that many qualities which still live outwardly in the sensible gestures of plants and animals have been entirely inwardized in humans, raised into the soul life. The gestures have become supersensible in humans yet they are still there, instinctively unfolding beneath the surface of waking consciousness. When we look upon these kingdoms in the sensory world and contemplate the inner meaning of their gestures, we are literally perceiving domains of our own 'soul geometry'.

If we simply gaze at and delight in the beautiful blossoming flowers and elegant (or funny looking) animal movements, though, these deeper intuitive gestures within our own soul life won't become apparent. They come from the opposite direction of the perceptual experience, like when we concentrate on a mental image. We have to actively direct our attention towards these gestures, to be actively receptive to the intuitive context in which our thinking-perception is embedded, so to speak. It is in that way the sensory landscape can be experienced as more coextensive with our soul atmosphere and gestures.

So a preference, desire, habit, etc. within the soul doesn't exist as some isolated entity that can be tweaked by sheer force of concentration. Rather, the concentration opens up more archetypal feelings and more holistic insights into the soul volume which can then be applied within the course of normal sensory life where these soul curvatures are truly active, modulating our thinking-perceptual states. ...

Ok, so in order to actively observe and direct attention to the animal life, and so realize something of our own unconscious soul nature, we need to have previously meditated on that (or on themes that have reverberated on that) so that insights from the intuitive context have emerged close to waking consciousness, and have the potential to become conscious in connection with the perceptions of the animal? If this is correct, maybe I‘m beginning to understand how perceptions can be experienced as resonant with our soul currents and gestures.

But I have a general sense of real struggle. Only to properly follow and get some concrete sense out of what you and Cleric share these days is heavy work. I am literally more tired than usual at the end of each day.

Perhaps I have been giving the impression these sorts of exercises can be carried out as some standalone items for inner development, when in fact they should always be viewed in the broader context of our concentration efforts, including the phenomenological study-meditate approach. So yes, we should be continuously and thoroughly probing the intuitive context in our concentrated thinking, at varying levels of intensity. What Cleric just conveyed above, for ex., are the most important steps we can take to delaminate the inner life and grow sensitivity to the inner side of the World (which is, of course, the same inner side as our own waking consciousness). Concentration should also help exercise the will so that we have more attentive discipline during normal sensory life.

We also want to continue our reading and study to become intimately familiar with the intuitive, inspired, and imaginative movements of Spirit over the archetypal stages of spiritual involution-evolution. We need to build a rich and living palette of ideas related to the Cosmic intents and their expression in manifest existence. Otherwise it's as if there are too many empty spaces in our thinking consciousness and the intuitive gestures will continue to pass through unnoticed. So none of these aspects should be pushed to the side or taken as isolated exercises, but should all work harmoniously together.

When you say, "how perceptions can be experienced as resonant with our soul currents and gestures", I'm trying to understand what is still missing for you. If we start with the perceptions of the letters you typed out in the post, clearly you experience these as resonant with your soul gestures, right? The letters I am typing out are not as resonant, yet you are still intimately familiar with the sort of soul gestures that gives rise to our collective posts on the forum - the sort of ideal and feeling life that animates them. So is it that, somewhere between here and the sensory experience of music, or between there and animal behavior, you feel the soul volume must exhaust itself and no longer coincide with the outer physiognomy in a way that can be realistically reached in an experiential way?

If that's the case, perhaps Cleric's last post shed light on that.

Ah! Are you still saying that the layer of verbal thoughts does the connection between conceptual and sensory forms? It doesn't seem you are here?

We aren't speaking of reshaping the sensory groove, spiritualizing our physical sensory organism and reordering the 'laws' of nature. But rather gaining more sensitivity to the soul groove and gradually reshaping its rougher contours so that our spiritual activity interacts with the sensory groove less impulsively, with more creative and harmonious engagement. This can certainly feed back into our experience of sensations as well, in so far as they are felt to be naturally more extensive with our soul life and spiritual activity. We grow more sensitive to the meaningful feedback these sensations are always offering us in relation to our activity. There is little more enriching than experiencing the sensory spectrum as a sacred dialogue with living intelligences. Artistic sensory experience is the clearest example, but it could even deepen to natural sensations. For example, we may more easily trace certain pains and disturbances to our inner psychic states. Perhaps we may even try to imaginatively channel some healing energy to those areas. But things like that can also wait until we are more comfortable with our intuitive orientation to the flow of existence.

So in this spirit, maybe I could reframe my difficulty with that musical exercise in terms of not having developed the necessary insights in meditation that would have given me the language to understand and speak of the nature of the sacrifice suggested, and the nature of its sense-free 'alternative'. I don't have access to such reading of the sensory experience of music at this point. So there is no value in fighting to extract something for which the necessary language has not been received. If this makes sense, it sounds to me like a much more acceptable way to understand the situation. Thank you for these precise elaborations.

Yes, our verbal thinking mediates between the imaginative space and the sensory space. Here I am speaking of the form that sensory experience takes through the physical organism. We could think of the article Cleric recently posted about the Himbas possibly perceiving the color spectrum differently through the mediation of linguistic space. This clearly doesn't' mean the linguistic space solely governs the objective and lawful transformation of sensations in relation to our will activity. Even if I liberate my thinking from the conceptual space and enter the imaginative state, I won't be able to walk through a wall or fall through the floor. It's only that the sensory qualities will be released from their constricted form and will become the ideal background of existence, which still orients all spiritual activity as a standing 'gravity wave' but experienced 'from the same side' as that activity, unlike normal sensory experience (especially colors and sounds) that seem to confront us from the 'other side' of thinking consciousness.

When you speak of the 'language to understand' in this context, do you see how simply reasoning through what we are communicating and seeing if it makes some intuitive sense in light of the facts of living experience you are familiar with already gives some of that language?