Hello Ton,
Thank you for your posts. I’m rather busy at the moment but will take a deeper look as soon as I can.
Have a good time. Elena
16 Elena
Hi Ton,
I’m addressing the posts as I read because I don’t really have time at the moment for two readings.
In relation to post 11
Ton: my impression was then, as it is now, all things (and thinkers) should be seen in a proper context and not held up as a sort of ‘pinnacle’ — this leads to onesidednesses, and in extreme cases to various forms of fanatacism..
Ton: my impression was then, as it is now, all things (and thinkers) should be seen in a proper context and not held up as a sort of ‘pinnacle’ — this leads to onesidednesses, and in extreme cases to various forms of fanatacism..
Elena: Yes, it depends on the extreme to which we take the “identification” with the writer but no matter how much relativity one might have, there are some very great men and women and their greatness, far from diminishing one’s self, raises it to where they’ve reached. It is an aspect of the “laws of being” that when we have the courage to be, we inspire others. “Inspiration” is a special kind of magic, communication amongst beings. Our tendency to look outside ourselves for such authorities in a pathological way is what is so questionable today in relation to cults to which we both succumbed together with millions others.
Without disagreeing with what you’re saying, what I would add is that being one’s self fully does not take anything away from other great men or women. In other words, one can fully love and admire others without diminishing one’s self in any way. Being one’s self does not exclude others, on the contrary, it includes them completely.
Looking at the rest of the article that you present, I believe it is lopsided. The author is only looking at an aspect of religion and the extreme aspects of it in which people set it up as a dogma but I personally believe that if its dogmatic, its not religion. Religion to me is the science of the spirit and all men in all places have tried to connect their lives with their spirit through religion. The degeneration of religion into dogmatism is not religion. In the text the author speaks about the outside world mainly in terms of nature as if the human being could actually limit themselves to nature like the rose but our earth, air, water and fire is in our “humanity”, that is, in the relationship all aspects of our selves connect to all aspects of each other. We are each the Sun, the Earth, the Air and the Water and swim in the Sun, Earth, Air and Water of each other. It is much more complex than for the rose because while unconscious, we are each trying to take it all for our own self, separating and “spending” rather than uniting and recreating. And yet, the analogy the author gives is no less beautiful or worthwhile, only that the odds within which we are placed are much more intense, delicate and at the same time more complex. There is nothing simple about our simplicity. “Being” is “Godly”. Perhaps that is why most of us are more in the process of becoming than actually being. At least for myself, realizing that is no offense, it is a beautiful thing to travel from not being to being and understand the tremendous difficulties and demands that “being” poses. Just like the pleasure of getting to the top of the mountain is in the overcoming the many obstacles. It is also equally wonderful to realize that the fact that all people are not in a Godlike state today, it doesn’t mean that we can treat each other as if we were anything less. Every time we treat each other as anything less, we keep our selves from becoming what we really are. Perhaps they understand these things better in places like India where every time they greet and separate, they acknowledge in each other the God within. What we most need to overcome in the West is the numbness that we’ve developed towards the divine within as much as without our selves. When the divine within is able to connect with the divine without, then the experience of the rose is actualized in our human lives.
Nothing makes us more “divine” than “humaneness”.
Now that I finished I looked at the link and realized the author is Steiner and the text continues. Maybe I’ll look at it one of these days. It will be a pleasure.
17 Elena
“The world outside me is not divine; by virtue of my essential being, however, I assume the right to project the divine into the outer world.”
Beautiful! It explains so many things and yet its tricky isn’t it? For by virtue of my essential being in my right to project the divine into the outer world, IT IS raised to the divine. That is what I understand by the logos. That “magic”.
18 Elena
Regarding the continuation of post 13 I must admit that I am too ignorant in history to have enough of an authorized point of view at the moment and yet, with the little I’ve read what surprises me is that Steiner, if it’s Steiner who we’re talking about, doesn’t point out the fact that the problem with Christianity is not necessarily Christianity but the way the divine was “separated” from the human very early on in its practice, condemning people to an indirect connection to it through the pope.
In the research I’ve been doing on religion THAT is what jumps out so clearly and THAT is what continues to be crucial in the dogma that holds cults in power. As long as people continue to not trust their own self enough to ACT in this world, then the development of idolatry and false authorities will continue to be the context in which spiritual as much as physical slavery develops.
19 Elena
“The philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is a further bold attempt to explain the world on the basis of a content lying within the “I.” Hegel sought, comprehensively and thoroughly, to investigate and present the whole content of what Fichte, in incomparable words to be sure, had characterized: the being of the human “I.” For Hegel also regards this being as the actual primal thing, as the “in-itselfness of things.” But Hegel does something peculiar. He divests the “I” of everything individual, personal. In spite of the fact that it is a genuine true “I” which Hegel takes as a basis for world phenomena, this “I” seems impersonal, unindividual, far from an intimate, familiar “I,” almost like a god. In just such an unapproachable, strictly abstract form does Hegel, in his logic, expound upon the content of the in-itselfness of the world. The most personal thinking is presented here in the most impersonal way. According to Hegel, nature is nothing other than the content of the “I” that has been spread out in space and time. Nature is this ideal content in a different state. “Nature is spirit estranged from itself.” Within the individual human spirit Hegel’s stance toward the impersonal “I” is personal. Within self-consciousness, the being of the “I” is not an in-itself, it is also for-itself; the human spirit discovers that the highest world content is his own content.”
Elena:
Ah Ton! That is so beautifully put! We’ve said so often that words can never grasp the reality of such states but these words at least make a great attempt to explain the unexplainable.
Ah Ton! That is so beautifully put! We’ve said so often that words can never grasp the reality of such states but these words at least make a great attempt to explain the unexplainable.
“He divests the “I” of everything individual, personal”
Yes. Objective reality is not “personal, individual” or to turn that upside down, objective reality becomes so personal that the persona disappears in its objectivity. In the very short and few but intense experiences I’ve had of such states, one “is” “reality” or “reality” is “one”, like a log on fire: what is on fire? The log or the fire? You can’t experience the fire without burning the log. Likewise, you cannot experience “reality” without “burning” in it, becoming IT.
That is why “death” is presented as a necessity in religious traditions. The “death” of the ego, or the false ego, but what we seem to have misunderstood or where we seem to have deviated so extremely, is in thinking of the body and its desires as evil and separating them from the spirit and its grace as the divine. It’s perhaps true that there is not desire in grace but the process of forming a “false ego” with all its suffering is every man’s legacy. No man can understand the human condition without experiencing the desolateness of the false ego nor can they understand the human being without experiencing unity.
What every human being eventually understands is that they are themselves the “walker” and the “path” which is why there is no separation between “being” and “reality”.
What every human being eventually understands is that they are themselves the “walker” and the “path” which is why there is no separation between “being” and “reality”.
“According to Hegel, nature is nothing other than the content of the “I” that has been spread out in space and time.”
That’s beautifully put but then I would not limit it to nature but to “life”, “culture”, “community”. “Reality” is only the expression of our “united” being and every human being is responsible for all of it. The greatness of each individual is in his or her capacity to bring from within his self and herself, new life to the whole. The individual is not only not diminished by his consciousness and “incarnation” of unity, he is fully himself and herself only when he actualizes that reality within and without his self through each act. Every act has the power of uniting or separating him. That is what life is about. We cannot talk about reality without understanding the power of ACTS. It is in the act where the individual realizes not only the reality of their own being but the reality of “our” being or “beingness”. The “world”, “life” is in a constant process of regeneration in the life of each individual. Each individual is the Whole of Life, “Life” is the sum total of all individuals.
The absurdity of today’s Western consciousness lies in the fact that individuals think that they can experience life without considering others. That they can have a direct experience of the world, suppressing other people. That they can be a lonely “rose” in direct contact with the Sun, without remembering their earthly roots. That they can be each the sole owner of air and water. The roots of every human being are within him and herself and within him and her self is every man and woman. There is nothing subjective or personal about the “I AM” because “We Are One” in “I AM”.
A “conscious” being or rather, all beings in certain stages of development, do not “fall in love”, because they cannot “separate” into one being at the cost of others: their heart cannot be so minimized! What is “personal”, “beautiful” and “necessary” for some human beings in a certain stage of their development, becomes an obstacle in another stage.
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In this dialogue as much as in the texts that we read from all this authors what seems of utmost necessity is to realize that all things can be applied to different stages of development as much as different parts of the human being. “Everyone” is saying the truth according to their own consciousness and we cannot ask of each other more than that. But the aim of the dialogue is to raise each other’s consciousness not only in what is said but in how it is said.
While what is said might raise the knowledge of the subject and through that knowledge the being might be raised, how it is said, raises or diminishes the being itself. Where there is separation, or lack of love, where the intent to unite is not clear, being and consciousness are diminished and separation ensues. Speech is not independent of the speakers. That is exactly what objectivity is NOT about.
While what is said might raise the knowledge of the subject and through that knowledge the being might be raised, how it is said, raises or diminishes the being itself. Where there is separation, or lack of love, where the intent to unite is not clear, being and consciousness are diminished and separation ensues. Speech is not independent of the speakers. That is exactly what objectivity is NOT about.
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