*
The phenomenon of self-remembering has been of interest to me since I first heard of the concept and found a word to apply to my experience
http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/self-remembering.html
It is that sense of Me! Here! Now! whereby quite suddenly we may become aware of our situation and condition: a simultaneous awareness of ourselves and our surroundings.
What is remarkable about self-remembering, in my experience, is its rarity; indeed it is so rare that I suppose that many people never experience it at all - but remain absorbed either in awareness of their inner selves or the outer environment - but not both simultaneously.
*
The sense that self-remembering had some significance thus predates my conversion to Christianity by many years - and is something I recall certainly from mid-teenage; indeed much of what I do recall from my life is these moments of self-remembering.
It would seem that this state of self-remembering is of such special significance that (for some reason) it orientates our lives: it provides the thread of continuity on which our lives are strung.
And if we lack it, we should seek it - the state can usually be induced (or allowed to emerge) simply by remembering to self remember; yet how seldom we do remember to do it, how swiftly we choose to ignore it and move back onto introspection or out into absorption in externalities!
*
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query self remembering. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query self remembering. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday 2 January 2013
Tuesday 18 February 2020
Self-remembering - then what?
Self-remembering has seemed a very important thing to strive for, ever since I first heard of the idea (from Colin Wilson) more than forty years ago. To be aware of Me, Here, Now is to awaken from that zombie like state that afflicts/ is-chosen-by most people - most of the time.
But having become aware of ones-self - what then? What should we do?
For some, self-remembering seems to be an aim in itself, itself the goal to strive for. This corresponds to a wish to return to the passive immersive state of early childhood (at its best) - a kind of open-eyed wonder at the situation of being alive in the world.
For others, self-remembering leads to the (meditative) attempt to lose the self (lose the ego); to stop thinking, to lose 'consciousness' and return to what is regarded as the primal one-ness. To cease to be a person.
For myself; I hope that self-remembering will lead on to an awareness of living in a world of Beings; and that I am in relations with these Beings - and an active recognition that this is an ongoing-creation: God's creation - the unfolding product of personal purpose.
Today, as I was in a public space - I 'came to myself' and attained self-remembering, and then became aware of the situation. Strangely, although I was surrounded by dozens of people; all of them were cut-off from the web of relations, gave-off no living vibes - and there was a much more significant relationship to be had with the non-human aspects of my environment - the stones and buildings, the trees and vegetation.
This seems so common as to be almost a fact of modern life. When I go to a beautiful historic city, such as Norwich or Oxford, the city itself is far more alive than the inhabitants; the city is vibrant and conscious and purposive - the inhabitants little more than ghosts of Hades, wandering aimlessly or rushing around dementedly.
And the same applies to England. I am aware of England more in rural areas - rural Northumberland, for example, is so alive and conscious and purposive that it is impossible to ignore when I am in a self-remembering state. But again most of the people are not.
It is very strange. It is as if the land itself is a conscious organism, with definite purpose; and the people merely mites crawling on its surface - convinced that this great slow-moving beast is dead and inert (dead and inert in a way that nothing truly is).
Nearly everybody has chosen to believe that this whole world is meaningless, purposeless, dead; and now this has spread to the verge of a self-belief. It is as if the nation is on the verge of a mass delusion of personal unreality: that we are all nothing more than our own delusions, and the fear is that we ourselves are as unreal as we consider the non-human world to be.
I keep hoping that some of the crawling mites will realise where they are, and what is potential in their situation; and will join with it in a spirit of love. But so far it doesn't seem to be happening.
But having become aware of ones-self - what then? What should we do?
For some, self-remembering seems to be an aim in itself, itself the goal to strive for. This corresponds to a wish to return to the passive immersive state of early childhood (at its best) - a kind of open-eyed wonder at the situation of being alive in the world.
For others, self-remembering leads to the (meditative) attempt to lose the self (lose the ego); to stop thinking, to lose 'consciousness' and return to what is regarded as the primal one-ness. To cease to be a person.
For myself; I hope that self-remembering will lead on to an awareness of living in a world of Beings; and that I am in relations with these Beings - and an active recognition that this is an ongoing-creation: God's creation - the unfolding product of personal purpose.
Today, as I was in a public space - I 'came to myself' and attained self-remembering, and then became aware of the situation. Strangely, although I was surrounded by dozens of people; all of them were cut-off from the web of relations, gave-off no living vibes - and there was a much more significant relationship to be had with the non-human aspects of my environment - the stones and buildings, the trees and vegetation.
This seems so common as to be almost a fact of modern life. When I go to a beautiful historic city, such as Norwich or Oxford, the city itself is far more alive than the inhabitants; the city is vibrant and conscious and purposive - the inhabitants little more than ghosts of Hades, wandering aimlessly or rushing around dementedly.
And the same applies to England. I am aware of England more in rural areas - rural Northumberland, for example, is so alive and conscious and purposive that it is impossible to ignore when I am in a self-remembering state. But again most of the people are not.
It is very strange. It is as if the land itself is a conscious organism, with definite purpose; and the people merely mites crawling on its surface - convinced that this great slow-moving beast is dead and inert (dead and inert in a way that nothing truly is).
Nearly everybody has chosen to believe that this whole world is meaningless, purposeless, dead; and now this has spread to the verge of a self-belief. It is as if the nation is on the verge of a mass delusion of personal unreality: that we are all nothing more than our own delusions, and the fear is that we ourselves are as unreal as we consider the non-human world to be.
I keep hoping that some of the crawling mites will realise where they are, and what is potential in their situation; and will join with it in a spirit of love. But so far it doesn't seem to be happening.
Wednesday 20 June 2018
The necessarily Christian metaphysics of Self-Remembering: William Arkle on 'Paying Attention' in this life
From a (probably early 1990s) audio-lecture by William Arkle: Discovering your soul's purpose that can be found at the Wessex research group website. Transcribed from about 1 hour 13 minutes, and edited a little for clarity...
What we want to do to get the full benefit of God’s lectures is to be fully present.
But we can’t be fully present if our soul is not with us in the ‘classroom’. That means being a physical body and personality, who – at the same time - knows he is a soul.
Then you are fully present in God’s lecture. However, if your soul is not happy being in a physical body, and is trying to get out all the time; you’re not really going to be paying attention to what God wants you to pay attention to: why you are in this particular classroom, at this particular moment.
That’s an argument for paying attention; but paying attention with all-of-you instead of just a bit of you.
'Paying attention’ means paying attention to all of the things to do with physical life – which includes your motivation and sense of purpose.
Here William Arkle is developing one of his primary metaphors for mortal life, which is that our own actual Life is ultimately to be regarded a personally-tailored set of experiences; from-which God hopes we may learn that-which it is most-important for each of us personally-to-learn. Thus he terms mortal life a 'university', and the key experiences of life he terms the 'lectures', from-which we need to learns the intended 'lessons'.
Paying attention is necessary, and paying attention in the proper context is necessary. That is, we need to be aware that we are living in God's creation, in which God is present, and that our actual life (your life, my life, everybody's life) is neither random nor passively-determined; but has specific meaning and purpose.
So we need to pay attention in awareness that our life (Here! Now!) is a communication, a message, from God; or, more exactly, that there is intended knowledge to be had from it - and not general instruction but specific lessons that we personally need.
This way of paying attention does not require special powers of health, clarity or concentration - because it is a paying attention by the 'soul' itself - that which is divine in us, and which is (therefore) eternal and immune to sickness and impairment. It is, when achieved, self-recognisable and self-validation - not least because this kind of attention is instantly (albeit, usually, very temporarily) lucid.
This is sometimes termed 'self-remembering' but those who call it that often neglect that without God acknowledged as as our loving creator and parent, self-remembering/ paying attention is merely a psychological state, of no particular value.
For self-remembering to be significant, for it to be meaningful; it must be known as a part of the mutual divine purpose; of our personal affiliation to God's on-going work of creation.
What we want to do to get the full benefit of God’s lectures is to be fully present.
But we can’t be fully present if our soul is not with us in the ‘classroom’. That means being a physical body and personality, who – at the same time - knows he is a soul.
Then you are fully present in God’s lecture. However, if your soul is not happy being in a physical body, and is trying to get out all the time; you’re not really going to be paying attention to what God wants you to pay attention to: why you are in this particular classroom, at this particular moment.
That’s an argument for paying attention; but paying attention with all-of-you instead of just a bit of you.
'Paying attention’ means paying attention to all of the things to do with physical life – which includes your motivation and sense of purpose.
Here William Arkle is developing one of his primary metaphors for mortal life, which is that our own actual Life is ultimately to be regarded a personally-tailored set of experiences; from-which God hopes we may learn that-which it is most-important for each of us personally-to-learn. Thus he terms mortal life a 'university', and the key experiences of life he terms the 'lectures', from-which we need to learns the intended 'lessons'.
Paying attention is necessary, and paying attention in the proper context is necessary. That is, we need to be aware that we are living in God's creation, in which God is present, and that our actual life (your life, my life, everybody's life) is neither random nor passively-determined; but has specific meaning and purpose.
So we need to pay attention in awareness that our life (Here! Now!) is a communication, a message, from God; or, more exactly, that there is intended knowledge to be had from it - and not general instruction but specific lessons that we personally need.
This way of paying attention does not require special powers of health, clarity or concentration - because it is a paying attention by the 'soul' itself - that which is divine in us, and which is (therefore) eternal and immune to sickness and impairment. It is, when achieved, self-recognisable and self-validation - not least because this kind of attention is instantly (albeit, usually, very temporarily) lucid.
This is sometimes termed 'self-remembering' but those who call it that often neglect that without God acknowledged as as our loving creator and parent, self-remembering/ paying attention is merely a psychological state, of no particular value.
For self-remembering to be significant, for it to be meaningful; it must be known as a part of the mutual divine purpose; of our personal affiliation to God's on-going work of creation.
Thursday 26 September 2013
Self-remembering as a preparation for prayer
*
Like most people, I often find prayer difficult - here is a 'tip' I find useful.
As preparation for prayer, try to induce the state of self-remembering
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/self-remembering.html
That is, become aware of Me! Here! Now! - of yourself in the context of your surroundings, and time - this place, this moment of time - and of yourself as alive and aware and here at at the centre of it all, at this exact and unique moment.
(For me, this usually requires that my eyes be open.)
And then pray - give thanks.
*
Like most people, I often find prayer difficult - here is a 'tip' I find useful.
As preparation for prayer, try to induce the state of self-remembering
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/self-remembering.html
That is, become aware of Me! Here! Now! - of yourself in the context of your surroundings, and time - this place, this moment of time - and of yourself as alive and aware and here at at the centre of it all, at this exact and unique moment.
(For me, this usually requires that my eyes be open.)
And then pray - give thanks.
*
Sunday 1 March 2020
Mindless mindfulness, and the meaning of (real Christian) meditation
I wrote a few years ago about 'mindfulness'* - and that kind of empty meditational practice; which is at best an analgesic, but is probably being pushed by The Establishment for much more malignant reasons.
This came to mind in watching one of John Butler's recent videos. I find him interesting because he exhibits the best and the worst aspects of the (Hindu/ Buddhist-derived) perennialist oneness spirituality as it affects the Western mind.
JB says much that is wise and valuable in the early part of the vid - and then towards the end demonstrates a stunning lack of discernment that comes through in supporting the vacuous 'mindfulness without God' fad, and references his dumb-evil belief in CO2-global-warming-totalitarianism that nowadays goes with New Agery. And the equally dumb-evil assumption that the rise in billionnaire-funded, mass media and state bureaucracy supported, mindfulness-training and climate-hysteria are steps in the right direction, that JB personally supports!
I mean, how unwise, how dense, does someone need to be to suppose that anything good for people, good for the planet, would really be emanating from such people and sources?
(The chap who interviews JB - Phil Shankland - is an Extinction Rebellion activist, who can be seen on his Facebook pages taking part in demonstrations. So much for the spiritual benefits of knowing and spending loads of time with a contemporary wise man, and meditating for hours every day - plus an active life associated with a liberal-'Christian' church!... JB himself - in other videos - apparently takes for granted the validity of Warmist claims to be able to predict and control the world climate by a - necessarily totalitarian - global government; empowered to monitor and control all human activity.)
Of course, if a oneness, Nirvana seeking, anti-ego meditator were trying to be consistent; he would have no political views at all; and no interest in other-people or the way that things apparently happen in this - by definition illusory - mortal life. He would have No Morality - because morality is regarded as just as much part of the illusion of This Life as is everything else we think is real.
However, in practice, such folk mostly seem to be on the stupid and ranting extreme of Leftist moralistic posturing; and when followed-up through time (which, in theory, they also regard as illusory) exhibit a stunning inability to learn from life experiences.
That is what oneness spirituality seems to do to Westerners - it makes them indifferent to personal experience, and indifferent to the truth (i.e. indifferent to the maya / illusion of this changing mortal life) - but just to a sufficient extent to prevent them from taking life seriously enough to learn from the experience! Just to a sufficient extent to reject the reality of traditional sexual morality; but not quite enough to reject the moral imperatives that justify the ever expanding claims of the modern sexual revolution.
Somehow the effect of oneness and loss of ego is never quite enough to induce them to set-aside mainstream, approval-seeking, virtue-signalling, fashion-dominated Leftism...
*
I would say that meditation does indeed begin with self-remembering, being here-and-now; knowing the 'presence' of God. So far, JB is valuable, helpful. But meditation then should - instantly - move-on-to being aware not of God as a diffuse omni-presence (analogous to our immersion in the sea, or floating in air); but to knowing God as a person: indeed knowing God as our loving parent (here, now, with-us)...
(Knowing, that is, God as a Being - not an abstraction.)
And meditation should not be seeking to annihilate 'the ego' or 'the self', nor to dissolve it into the abstract one-ness of deity - but to bring forth our true and divine self.
(What would be the point of God creating mortal life if its purpose was to annihilate the body and the self? Better not have mortal life in the first place! No - the purpose of this our mortal life is to experience and learn from temporary incarnation and self-hood, so that we may be able to choose - or reject - Christ's offer of immortal incarnation and divine self-hood.)
And meditation should be about our true-self meeting-with a Being: such as our Heavenly Father; or other divine, spiritual or other presence - perhaps the beloved dead.
And why should we meet such? Not for happiness, coping, to kill pain or reduce anxiety - But through love; that's the proper reason. It is indeed the proper reason for meeting anyone. Love of that person, or love of of God's creation.
And inter-personal love - between Beings; not love understood as a kind of gas, force-field, or high frequency vibration!
Also, meditation should Not be about trying to sustain itself as a solid lasting state; but about (when needed, at will) touching-base with this underlying reality to reorientate ourselves in life.
We are not - clearly, from the design of this world - meant to spend our lives suspended in a static-state of meditation or prayer; but (mostly) in loving and creating. And meditation is in order to make this possible, set us on the proper direction etc.
What I (personally) aim-for: is to be able to meditate and pray often, on demand; but not continuously. As Arkle says; God does not want us to be thinking about Him most of the time; but God wants us to do what we are here to do; live in the way God wants us to live (roughly: loving and creating).
Broadly; we best serve God by doing what God wants us to do (and that is an unique destiny for each person), not in continuously contemplating God.
Meditation and prayer are therefore best 'used' as ways of reminding our-selves of this situation; and of clearing away that evil addiction to fear that JB so well describes early in this video.
To leave aside fear is necessary; but not an end in itself. Unless detachment from the temporary and irrelevant concerns of worldly angst is only a first step; then meditation becomes just a drugless Valium.
Context is everything; the meaning of meditation depends absolutely on the spiritual, religious, metaphysical assumptions that are used to understand it, and its purposes.
We ought then to move straight-on to consider this mortal life in terms of our faith and hope of immortal resurrected life, through following Jesus.
*Note: Mindfulness is meditation without religion, without God. Mindfulness is thus meditation embedded-in an the assumptions of mainstream, materialist, Leftism. It is meditation reduced to pure technique. Hence mindfulness is directed merely at human happiness in this mortal life, to the individual in the present moment. This amounts to, as I say, merely a non-drug form of painkiller, anxiolytic or antidepressant. It is a way of 'coping' with the incrementally-escalating psychological evils of totalitarian Leftism - which then, of course, is able to grow unopposed and unabated.
This came to mind in watching one of John Butler's recent videos. I find him interesting because he exhibits the best and the worst aspects of the (Hindu/ Buddhist-derived) perennialist oneness spirituality as it affects the Western mind.
JB says much that is wise and valuable in the early part of the vid - and then towards the end demonstrates a stunning lack of discernment that comes through in supporting the vacuous 'mindfulness without God' fad, and references his dumb-evil belief in CO2-global-warming-totalitarianism that nowadays goes with New Agery. And the equally dumb-evil assumption that the rise in billionnaire-funded, mass media and state bureaucracy supported, mindfulness-training and climate-hysteria are steps in the right direction, that JB personally supports!
I mean, how unwise, how dense, does someone need to be to suppose that anything good for people, good for the planet, would really be emanating from such people and sources?
(The chap who interviews JB - Phil Shankland - is an Extinction Rebellion activist, who can be seen on his Facebook pages taking part in demonstrations. So much for the spiritual benefits of knowing and spending loads of time with a contemporary wise man, and meditating for hours every day - plus an active life associated with a liberal-'Christian' church!... JB himself - in other videos - apparently takes for granted the validity of Warmist claims to be able to predict and control the world climate by a - necessarily totalitarian - global government; empowered to monitor and control all human activity.)
Of course, if a oneness, Nirvana seeking, anti-ego meditator were trying to be consistent; he would have no political views at all; and no interest in other-people or the way that things apparently happen in this - by definition illusory - mortal life. He would have No Morality - because morality is regarded as just as much part of the illusion of This Life as is everything else we think is real.
However, in practice, such folk mostly seem to be on the stupid and ranting extreme of Leftist moralistic posturing; and when followed-up through time (which, in theory, they also regard as illusory) exhibit a stunning inability to learn from life experiences.
That is what oneness spirituality seems to do to Westerners - it makes them indifferent to personal experience, and indifferent to the truth (i.e. indifferent to the maya / illusion of this changing mortal life) - but just to a sufficient extent to prevent them from taking life seriously enough to learn from the experience! Just to a sufficient extent to reject the reality of traditional sexual morality; but not quite enough to reject the moral imperatives that justify the ever expanding claims of the modern sexual revolution.
Somehow the effect of oneness and loss of ego is never quite enough to induce them to set-aside mainstream, approval-seeking, virtue-signalling, fashion-dominated Leftism...
*
I would say that meditation does indeed begin with self-remembering, being here-and-now; knowing the 'presence' of God. So far, JB is valuable, helpful. But meditation then should - instantly - move-on-to being aware not of God as a diffuse omni-presence (analogous to our immersion in the sea, or floating in air); but to knowing God as a person: indeed knowing God as our loving parent (here, now, with-us)...
(Knowing, that is, God as a Being - not an abstraction.)
And meditation should not be seeking to annihilate 'the ego' or 'the self', nor to dissolve it into the abstract one-ness of deity - but to bring forth our true and divine self.
(What would be the point of God creating mortal life if its purpose was to annihilate the body and the self? Better not have mortal life in the first place! No - the purpose of this our mortal life is to experience and learn from temporary incarnation and self-hood, so that we may be able to choose - or reject - Christ's offer of immortal incarnation and divine self-hood.)
And meditation should be about our true-self meeting-with a Being: such as our Heavenly Father; or other divine, spiritual or other presence - perhaps the beloved dead.
And why should we meet such? Not for happiness, coping, to kill pain or reduce anxiety - But through love; that's the proper reason. It is indeed the proper reason for meeting anyone. Love of that person, or love of of God's creation.
And inter-personal love - between Beings; not love understood as a kind of gas, force-field, or high frequency vibration!
Also, meditation should Not be about trying to sustain itself as a solid lasting state; but about (when needed, at will) touching-base with this underlying reality to reorientate ourselves in life.
We are not - clearly, from the design of this world - meant to spend our lives suspended in a static-state of meditation or prayer; but (mostly) in loving and creating. And meditation is in order to make this possible, set us on the proper direction etc.
What I (personally) aim-for: is to be able to meditate and pray often, on demand; but not continuously. As Arkle says; God does not want us to be thinking about Him most of the time; but God wants us to do what we are here to do; live in the way God wants us to live (roughly: loving and creating).
Broadly; we best serve God by doing what God wants us to do (and that is an unique destiny for each person), not in continuously contemplating God.
Meditation and prayer are therefore best 'used' as ways of reminding our-selves of this situation; and of clearing away that evil addiction to fear that JB so well describes early in this video.
To leave aside fear is necessary; but not an end in itself. Unless detachment from the temporary and irrelevant concerns of worldly angst is only a first step; then meditation becomes just a drugless Valium.
Context is everything; the meaning of meditation depends absolutely on the spiritual, religious, metaphysical assumptions that are used to understand it, and its purposes.
We ought then to move straight-on to consider this mortal life in terms of our faith and hope of immortal resurrected life, through following Jesus.
*Note: Mindfulness is meditation without religion, without God. Mindfulness is thus meditation embedded-in an the assumptions of mainstream, materialist, Leftism. It is meditation reduced to pure technique. Hence mindfulness is directed merely at human happiness in this mortal life, to the individual in the present moment. This amounts to, as I say, merely a non-drug form of painkiller, anxiolytic or antidepressant. It is a way of 'coping' with the incrementally-escalating psychological evils of totalitarian Leftism - which then, of course, is able to grow unopposed and unabated.
Saturday 5 January 2019
Spiritual experiences - If not, then what?
A few days ago I stated my view that the 'standard methods' of attaining spiritual experiences have the disadvantage of failing to be associated with spiritual development; such that people who have frequent and intense spiritual experiences are often entirely lacking in spiritual wisdom.
Specifically, I said that magic and ritual systems of divination on the one hand; and training in meditation methods or induing of altered consciousness on the other hand; were both ineffective when it comes to developing the Romantic Christian life which I believe ought to be our priority, in The West.
Yet the Romantic Christian life is one that aims to restore the spiritual to life, so that we may reconnect with creation, and ultimately participate in creation; because Western people are dying of alienation - and mainstream Christianity does not even begin to address this core malaise - mainly because it emerged in an already alienated world, and grew to incorporate the alienated consciousness.
This is why the spiritual 'techniques' above operate separately from the kind of development in consciousness that is needed; the needed development is in the future and unprecedented; while the methods of the past only draw us back towards an obsolete consciousness that we cannot return to, nor would it be good for us if we could return.
This seems to set-up an impasse, in which on the one hand we must-have spiritual experiences - and I mean must; because I think that this is an absolute essential in The West if we are to avoid continuing down our path to mass chosen damnation... yet on the other hand we must-not seek such spiritual experiences using any of the standard, historical methods of doing so.
So, if not, then what? If not these methods, yet we must become more spiritual - then what should we do?
My answer is related to the idea of final participation as being our goal in consciousness (to use Owen Barfield's term); this is the consciousness that we will attain as resurrected beings dwelling in Heaven - but we need to attain this same quality of consciousness, as much as possible (as frequently and intensely as possible), during mortal life; in order to respond to the special challenges of this era.
To be in final participation is to participate in God's ongoing work of creation; it happens when we are thinking from our real self - because our real self is divine. Our real self - being divine - is free, and therefore our personal thinking adds to God's creation, is woven-into it; and this is indeed the main 'work' of our Heavenly lives.
When we attain to Final Participation in our mortal lives, we are having a spiritual experience. We are a part of the ongoing work of creation, which we experience in the mode of thinking. Our thinking is also divine thinking. Yet when this happens it is not in an 'altered state of consciousness' such as a trance or a dream; nor is it the narrowed and channelled consciousness of a ritual - it is simply ordinary thinking, rooted in the real self and raised to the fullness of clarity and simplicity.
Such thinking is, if we let it, self-validating - intuitively valid. We know that we know.
And I think many people have experienced this kind of thinking; although they seldom have a name for it; and very often deny its special significance. In my own life, the times when I have been thinking in this way make up a special sequence of memories I have termed the Golden Thread; the times and events that feel as if they were the only truly significant things (with all the great mass of routine and shallow pleasures falling away, barely remembered).
(These might include phenomena such as peak experiences, flow states, self-remembering, holiday consciousness, epiphanies and the like - as discussed often in the works of Colin Wilson.)
Yet these Golden Thread moments include many seemingly 'trivial' things, often unplanned and surprising; and apparently 'not real' things like reading something, or imagining something. And in the past I was more puzzled by them than inspired by them.
And this is the danger - that we have spiritual experiences but fail to notice and learn from them, for the simple reason that we discount them, disvalue them - regard them as trivial instead of The most Important Things in our lives.
In sum, spiritual experiences - properly understood - happen as a by-product of a proper way of living and understanding. And, as many people have noticed; the more they are noticed and learned-from; the more often they will happen.
So - the proper action to take is a kind of self-awareness, not simply to drift through life half-asleep; but be aware of what is happening, as it happens; and to recognise value the best of life as it deserves on the basis of intuitive experience rather than theory.
Specifically, I said that magic and ritual systems of divination on the one hand; and training in meditation methods or induing of altered consciousness on the other hand; were both ineffective when it comes to developing the Romantic Christian life which I believe ought to be our priority, in The West.
Yet the Romantic Christian life is one that aims to restore the spiritual to life, so that we may reconnect with creation, and ultimately participate in creation; because Western people are dying of alienation - and mainstream Christianity does not even begin to address this core malaise - mainly because it emerged in an already alienated world, and grew to incorporate the alienated consciousness.
This is why the spiritual 'techniques' above operate separately from the kind of development in consciousness that is needed; the needed development is in the future and unprecedented; while the methods of the past only draw us back towards an obsolete consciousness that we cannot return to, nor would it be good for us if we could return.
This seems to set-up an impasse, in which on the one hand we must-have spiritual experiences - and I mean must; because I think that this is an absolute essential in The West if we are to avoid continuing down our path to mass chosen damnation... yet on the other hand we must-not seek such spiritual experiences using any of the standard, historical methods of doing so.
So, if not, then what? If not these methods, yet we must become more spiritual - then what should we do?
My answer is related to the idea of final participation as being our goal in consciousness (to use Owen Barfield's term); this is the consciousness that we will attain as resurrected beings dwelling in Heaven - but we need to attain this same quality of consciousness, as much as possible (as frequently and intensely as possible), during mortal life; in order to respond to the special challenges of this era.
To be in final participation is to participate in God's ongoing work of creation; it happens when we are thinking from our real self - because our real self is divine. Our real self - being divine - is free, and therefore our personal thinking adds to God's creation, is woven-into it; and this is indeed the main 'work' of our Heavenly lives.
When we attain to Final Participation in our mortal lives, we are having a spiritual experience. We are a part of the ongoing work of creation, which we experience in the mode of thinking. Our thinking is also divine thinking. Yet when this happens it is not in an 'altered state of consciousness' such as a trance or a dream; nor is it the narrowed and channelled consciousness of a ritual - it is simply ordinary thinking, rooted in the real self and raised to the fullness of clarity and simplicity.
Such thinking is, if we let it, self-validating - intuitively valid. We know that we know.
And I think many people have experienced this kind of thinking; although they seldom have a name for it; and very often deny its special significance. In my own life, the times when I have been thinking in this way make up a special sequence of memories I have termed the Golden Thread; the times and events that feel as if they were the only truly significant things (with all the great mass of routine and shallow pleasures falling away, barely remembered).
(These might include phenomena such as peak experiences, flow states, self-remembering, holiday consciousness, epiphanies and the like - as discussed often in the works of Colin Wilson.)
Yet these Golden Thread moments include many seemingly 'trivial' things, often unplanned and surprising; and apparently 'not real' things like reading something, or imagining something. And in the past I was more puzzled by them than inspired by them.
And this is the danger - that we have spiritual experiences but fail to notice and learn from them, for the simple reason that we discount them, disvalue them - regard them as trivial instead of The most Important Things in our lives.
In sum, spiritual experiences - properly understood - happen as a by-product of a proper way of living and understanding. And, as many people have noticed; the more they are noticed and learned-from; the more often they will happen.
So - the proper action to take is a kind of self-awareness, not simply to drift through life half-asleep; but be aware of what is happening, as it happens; and to recognise value the best of life as it deserves on the basis of intuitive experience rather than theory.
Monday 16 May 2016
GI Gurdjieff - The war against sleep by Colin Wilson (1986)
I came across the work of Gurdjieff through the books of Colin Wilson - and I was particularly captivated by the idea of self-remembering which is the term for theose moments when we are aware of Me! Here! Now!
http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/self-remembering.html
But beyond my secondhand acquaintance via Wilson, I made no further progress with Gurdjieff; indeed quite the reverse. I found his books (and those of Ouspensky, his most famous disciple) completely unreadable, to the point that I could not progress more than a few sentences before being paralyzed with demotivation.
When a movie was produced of Meetings with Remarkable Men in 1979, I was very eager to see it (easier to watch a movie than read a book, I thought) - but did not get the opportunity until the next summer when I was in Toronto, Canada. To say the film was a disappointment is an understatement - it was perhaps the most forgettable and under-whelming couple of hours I have ever spent at the movies; I remember literally nothing about it except a picture of a desert mountainside, and the sense of disappointment afterwards.
(Of course, the movie was directed by Peter Brook, who was one of the most-over-rated, pretentious, boring and hollow theatre/ film directors of all time - so realistically I should not have expected otherwise.)
When Colin Wilson wrote a biography of Gurdjieff in 1986 I was keen - finally - to get to grips with Gurdjieff; perhaps find the key to understanding him? The books is good, as a book - this was a period when everything Wilson wrote was worth reading. But the man himself...
Gurdjieff comes across as a psychopath - much on the lines of another author of that ilk, Carlos Castaneda. In other words; manipulative, impulsive, selfish, abusive, sadistic and quite staggeringly dishonest. Like Castaneda he was wildly evasive and self-contradictory about his place of birth and even his date of birth/ age, so nobody could check even the basic facts about his tall tales.
Of course, Gurdjieff was not just a psychopath - in the sense that he also had talent, intelligence, insights and a massive charismatic charm - so he did have some interesting things to say. But his literary abilities and powers of explanation seemed negative rather than positive - so almost everything written about him and his views come from disciples, acolytes and other admirers.
Furthermore, at the end of the day everything Gurdjieff proposed was merely 'therapy' - it was about feeling better, feeling more alive, having more energy and being more effective. This is fine, so far as it goes - but it does not go far enough. And in the end usually does more harm than good and subverts itself as being merely a transient and subjective psychotherapy.
Gurdjieff had no religious vision, and provided no transcending sense of purpose. He was, therefore, a prescursor of the more dangerous, exploitative and self-serving type of 'sixties cultist or New Age guru.
But well worth reading about - especially when Wilson is on hand to extract the nuggets of wisdom from the sensational and scandalous life story (if you can believe it all - which I don't).
http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/self-remembering.html
But beyond my secondhand acquaintance via Wilson, I made no further progress with Gurdjieff; indeed quite the reverse. I found his books (and those of Ouspensky, his most famous disciple) completely unreadable, to the point that I could not progress more than a few sentences before being paralyzed with demotivation.
When a movie was produced of Meetings with Remarkable Men in 1979, I was very eager to see it (easier to watch a movie than read a book, I thought) - but did not get the opportunity until the next summer when I was in Toronto, Canada. To say the film was a disappointment is an understatement - it was perhaps the most forgettable and under-whelming couple of hours I have ever spent at the movies; I remember literally nothing about it except a picture of a desert mountainside, and the sense of disappointment afterwards.
(Of course, the movie was directed by Peter Brook, who was one of the most-over-rated, pretentious, boring and hollow theatre/ film directors of all time - so realistically I should not have expected otherwise.)
When Colin Wilson wrote a biography of Gurdjieff in 1986 I was keen - finally - to get to grips with Gurdjieff; perhaps find the key to understanding him? The books is good, as a book - this was a period when everything Wilson wrote was worth reading. But the man himself...
Gurdjieff comes across as a psychopath - much on the lines of another author of that ilk, Carlos Castaneda. In other words; manipulative, impulsive, selfish, abusive, sadistic and quite staggeringly dishonest. Like Castaneda he was wildly evasive and self-contradictory about his place of birth and even his date of birth/ age, so nobody could check even the basic facts about his tall tales.
Of course, Gurdjieff was not just a psychopath - in the sense that he also had talent, intelligence, insights and a massive charismatic charm - so he did have some interesting things to say. But his literary abilities and powers of explanation seemed negative rather than positive - so almost everything written about him and his views come from disciples, acolytes and other admirers.
Furthermore, at the end of the day everything Gurdjieff proposed was merely 'therapy' - it was about feeling better, feeling more alive, having more energy and being more effective. This is fine, so far as it goes - but it does not go far enough. And in the end usually does more harm than good and subverts itself as being merely a transient and subjective psychotherapy.
Gurdjieff had no religious vision, and provided no transcending sense of purpose. He was, therefore, a prescursor of the more dangerous, exploitative and self-serving type of 'sixties cultist or New Age guru.
But well worth reading about - especially when Wilson is on hand to extract the nuggets of wisdom from the sensational and scandalous life story (if you can believe it all - which I don't).
Thursday 24 February 2022
Meditating towards Christian Final Participation
Final Participation is primary thinking - and can only be attained by one who is thinking from his divine self and in harmony with divine creation.
Primary thinking is desirable because by it we escape alienation and participate in reality; and can also attain to direct knowing by communion of thought - unmediated by language and communications.
In other words it is not the kind of thing that can be done as a technique, not practiced as a method; nor is it at all likely to be a frequent or lasting state - for the simple reason that we are seldom wholly aligned with God's purposes and providence.
(In other words; in this mortal life we cannot for long avoid sin - the turning-away from God's ongoing purposes - and sin blocks Final Participation.)
However; I think there are some things that might be helpful in attaining, while other things tend to inhibit, Final Participation.
Most (or all) of our normal everyday thinking is secondary, not primary; that is to say it is thinking driven (caused) by external stimuli or internal associations (as in dreams or clouded consciousness).
So, removing or reducing secondary thinking is probably helpful. For instance reducing external distractions.
And staying awake and alert, too.
As a first step, self-remembering may be valuable in setting us along the path: that is, recognizing "Me! Here! Now!"
Or, by making a deliberate effort to consider one's physical sensations - touch (feet pressing the ground, wind between the fingers etc.); vision - noticing surroundings that are normally taken for granted, such as the sky or small details; hearing - listening beyond the obvious to background and environmental sounds.
This may lead to an opening-out, a coming-to, an awakening of awareness simultaneously of the self and surroundings. Plus, especially, awareness of the presence of the Holy Ghost - everywher, invisible, but a person whom we can know.
Secondly, to allow the real, primary self to come to awareness - our conscious will can perceive and recognize that thinking that comes from the divine in us.
We are equipped (by God) to detect and know this.
So - we need to recognize "It is happening, Now!"
Thirdly, this is the time to recall that primary thinking is reality; by thinking thus we are participating in divine creation - and this is the source of direct knowing and genuine (genius-type) creativity.
This serves to validate what we are experiencing - to remind us that it is true, real and Good.
Of course, in practice, it is very easy to be thrown off track at any point, and to lose the actuality of primary thinking. For instance - we may take a passive, not-thinking, un-self-aware path - which leads us towards lower consciousness, less human and less divine. We may fall into a trance or asleep!
Much the same applies if our motivation becomes to seek blissful or exciting mental states, to use Final Participation as an 'analgesic' or escape from suffering - or to prolong the state of primary thinking for this kind of psychological-emotional reason.
Primary thinking is certainly rewarding - nothing more so- but as a by-product. If pleasurable gratification becomes the end and aim - then primary thinking ceases.
Or our superficial thinking may try to 'hijack' the primary thinking in order to attain some personal and selfish goal, to manipulate others or the world (as with some kind of 'black magic'). In which case we will instantly drop-out-from primary thinking down-into merely secondary and superficial mundane cognition.
Only when we are actually aligned-with divine creation and providence can we attain Final Participation - when it happens automatically. On the one hand, if we try to use it for some worldly purpose, the state ceases. But, by recognizing the validity and here-and-now presence of its happening; we can encourage its recurrence, and learn from the experience.
Tuesday 2 June 2020
Emergency treatment for Project Fear
Since it seems that fear is the prime weapon that the Global Establishment are deploying for the damnation of Men's souls (more exactly, Project Fear leading to Project Despair); and since it is obvious that the recent totalitarian coup has all of societies institutions sewn-up (such that there is nobody with power that can be trusted - because they are all on the side of evil); therefore an emergency treatment for escalating acute, or grinding chronic, fear is useful.
The antidote to fear is a combination of love and trust in that which is good and powerful.
I find that what works best as a start is to concentrate on the here-and-now - in other words self-remembering; because fear is about the future. This can then be followed-up by reflection on the fact that God is the creator of this world, who is our loving Father, therefore can be trusted to do whatever is necessary and possible.
Another source of fear is about whether we ought to be doing something to prevent the feared from happening, but what? And how can we be sure what is for the best?
This is when self-remembering can be followed by seeking the guidance of the Holy Ghost, who will tell us here-and-now what, if anything - and often there is nothing - should be done. This obviates the guilt pressing us towards that obsessive but fruitless planning, which plagues modern Men.
John Butler is very good on the specific business of detaching from abstract and theoretical angst; and becoming aware of oneself in the here-and-now; and (at his quietest) has just about the most soothing voice I've ever heard! - This immediately takes the sting out of present fear, and can be used to lead-into the process described above:
The antidote to fear is a combination of love and trust in that which is good and powerful.
I find that what works best as a start is to concentrate on the here-and-now - in other words self-remembering; because fear is about the future. This can then be followed-up by reflection on the fact that God is the creator of this world, who is our loving Father, therefore can be trusted to do whatever is necessary and possible.
Another source of fear is about whether we ought to be doing something to prevent the feared from happening, but what? And how can we be sure what is for the best?
This is when self-remembering can be followed by seeking the guidance of the Holy Ghost, who will tell us here-and-now what, if anything - and often there is nothing - should be done. This obviates the guilt pressing us towards that obsessive but fruitless planning, which plagues modern Men.
John Butler is very good on the specific business of detaching from abstract and theoretical angst; and becoming aware of oneself in the here-and-now; and (at his quietest) has just about the most soothing voice I've ever heard! - This immediately takes the sting out of present fear, and can be used to lead-into the process described above:
Wednesday 25 March 2020
The invisible world, in which we swim
If we are to try to 'remember to self-remember' - that is, to come awake from our usual semi-consciousness into the awareness of the present: Me! Here! Now! - then (to be genuinely valuable) this needs to be continued on to a consciousness of our situation in the world.
In different words: self-remembering can (and I think should) continue into an awareness of the invisible world that surrounds us.
This can be imagined in three 'layers' - pagan, theistic and Christian. I see these as increasing levels, each built upon what went before so.
So we can (very swiftly, in a matter of seconds I mean) transform our awareness through the pagan, theistic and Christian by becoming aware of these in turn - finishing with Jesus Christ.
Something like:
1. Awareness of nature, in the form of nature spirits
The first step is recovering that 'animistic' awareness that all is alive and sentient, that the world is a world-of-Beings.
So there are nature spirits around us, constituting both anything that is alive (plant or animal) and also the supposedly-not-alive - sky, clouds, stars, water; and including the artefacts made by men. I don't mean 'imagining' that some specific 'thing' (like a chair, house, or computer) is a disrete nature spirit - but having the awareness of being surrounded by living and conscious beings. (These may be benign or hostile - happy Beings or in despair.)
Wherever we are; Everything is a Being or part-of a Being - and as such is aware of us, and in-communication to some degree - even if only very simply and slowly so.
2. Awareness of God's creation
Moving swiftly to this level; we might remember (or notice) that we live in God's creation; that this is a creation in which we live.
That there is purpose to everything, meaning to everything. That all the Beings around us (and our-selves) are part of this divine creation. And that divine creation is accomplished by God who is our loving parent/s, who regards us each as a beloved child.
We are not 'lost in space' - we are instead 'at home in the universe'!
This comes-through as a sense somewhat-like being held safely in the arms of an invisible, benign and loving person that surrounds us; a sense that all is ultimately well, if we choose it so ("...all manner of things shall be well").
3. The presence of Jesus
And then we may move on to become aware of the actual presence of Jesus Christ (that is, the Holy Ghost*), here-and-now, in the room with us; and in direct contact with our hearts and minds - present in the thoughts of our real and true selves.
Jesus as someone we can ask (if our questions are validly framed), and who will answer truthfully and relevantly.
(If, that is, answering is expedient to us... Remembering that the default in mortal life is that we ought to work think out for our-selves, by trial and error if necessary: that being the best way to learn. So, inexpedient questions are not answered: and that is the answer.)
*By my understanding of the Fourth Gospel; we have been told (and intuitive experience confirms it for me) that the Holy Ghost is the person of Jesus, present in this mortal world, as spirit.
It might be asserted (often is asserted) that Christians could-and-should go straight to an awareness of Jesus - should in particular ignore or shun the pagan awareness. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this idea - except that it misses-out most of this mortal world, making for a thin and demotivating understanding of reality; and also (for people like myself) it just doesn't work very well.
What I am suggesting can be regarded as a rapid recapitulation of the historical development of Christianity - from pagan, through Jewish monotheism, to Jesus Christ. It can also be taken to represent a development that - in the past - will have been followed by many Christians as they grow-up and mature.
And it represents the track of some ex-atheist adult converts to Christianity - such as CS Lewis and myself: beginning with a love of pagan myth and legend, passing through a philosophical theism, finally into an awareness of the essential role of the person of Jesus.
At any rate, this is something that might be tried, practised a few times, and evaluated as to its effect (good or ill - because anything which is strong enough medicine to do good to one Man, may harm another) - by those who seek more depth and breadth in their lives; by those who seek the friendship and guidance of the Holy Ghost.
In different words: self-remembering can (and I think should) continue into an awareness of the invisible world that surrounds us.
This can be imagined in three 'layers' - pagan, theistic and Christian. I see these as increasing levels, each built upon what went before so.
So we can (very swiftly, in a matter of seconds I mean) transform our awareness through the pagan, theistic and Christian by becoming aware of these in turn - finishing with Jesus Christ.
Something like:
1. Awareness of nature, in the form of nature spirits
The first step is recovering that 'animistic' awareness that all is alive and sentient, that the world is a world-of-Beings.
So there are nature spirits around us, constituting both anything that is alive (plant or animal) and also the supposedly-not-alive - sky, clouds, stars, water; and including the artefacts made by men. I don't mean 'imagining' that some specific 'thing' (like a chair, house, or computer) is a disrete nature spirit - but having the awareness of being surrounded by living and conscious beings. (These may be benign or hostile - happy Beings or in despair.)
Wherever we are; Everything is a Being or part-of a Being - and as such is aware of us, and in-communication to some degree - even if only very simply and slowly so.
2. Awareness of God's creation
Moving swiftly to this level; we might remember (or notice) that we live in God's creation; that this is a creation in which we live.
That there is purpose to everything, meaning to everything. That all the Beings around us (and our-selves) are part of this divine creation. And that divine creation is accomplished by God who is our loving parent/s, who regards us each as a beloved child.
We are not 'lost in space' - we are instead 'at home in the universe'!
This comes-through as a sense somewhat-like being held safely in the arms of an invisible, benign and loving person that surrounds us; a sense that all is ultimately well, if we choose it so ("...all manner of things shall be well").
3. The presence of Jesus
And then we may move on to become aware of the actual presence of Jesus Christ (that is, the Holy Ghost*), here-and-now, in the room with us; and in direct contact with our hearts and minds - present in the thoughts of our real and true selves.
Jesus as someone we can ask (if our questions are validly framed), and who will answer truthfully and relevantly.
(If, that is, answering is expedient to us... Remembering that the default in mortal life is that we ought to work think out for our-selves, by trial and error if necessary: that being the best way to learn. So, inexpedient questions are not answered: and that is the answer.)
*By my understanding of the Fourth Gospel; we have been told (and intuitive experience confirms it for me) that the Holy Ghost is the person of Jesus, present in this mortal world, as spirit.
It might be asserted (often is asserted) that Christians could-and-should go straight to an awareness of Jesus - should in particular ignore or shun the pagan awareness. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this idea - except that it misses-out most of this mortal world, making for a thin and demotivating understanding of reality; and also (for people like myself) it just doesn't work very well.
What I am suggesting can be regarded as a rapid recapitulation of the historical development of Christianity - from pagan, through Jewish monotheism, to Jesus Christ. It can also be taken to represent a development that - in the past - will have been followed by many Christians as they grow-up and mature.
And it represents the track of some ex-atheist adult converts to Christianity - such as CS Lewis and myself: beginning with a love of pagan myth and legend, passing through a philosophical theism, finally into an awareness of the essential role of the person of Jesus.
At any rate, this is something that might be tried, practised a few times, and evaluated as to its effect (good or ill - because anything which is strong enough medicine to do good to one Man, may harm another) - by those who seek more depth and breadth in their lives; by those who seek the friendship and guidance of the Holy Ghost.
Friday 14 February 2020
A micro-nap (brief deep sleep) may instantly lead-to presentness and self-remembering (i.e. something of what meditation also tries to do)
Some days I can't seem to get my head clear; thoughts whirl in a rather futile manner; and in particular I cannot 'wake-up' properly; in the sense that I cannot 'self-remember': cannot get that recognition of Me. Here. Now.
In other words I am not really 'present' in my situation, my life. I am on autopilot, disengaged.
This is one condition that formal meditation training (in various schools) attempts to remedy; by learning either control of thoughts, or Not thinking, or letting thoughts fly through the mind without holding onto any. This is quite difficult, but can work; and then I can bring myself to presentness.
(Some people find that this presentness state is the experience of one-ness; but I tend to regard it psychologically rather than spiritually.)
I don't regard presentness as an especially deep or significant state - nor is is a goal in itself; it is more like a basic pre-requisite for the 'state' of intuition: which I do regard as deep and significant. Intuition is that primary thinking or Final Participation which is the mode of Romantic Christianity. That is what I personally regard as my major life goal.
Nonetheless, presentness is, as I said, a valuable or sometimes essential pre-requisite to higher states; and I have found that it is best attained by a very short sleep - specifically when I experience the momentary absence of deep, dream-less sleep.
This works as a very effective re-boot; both clearing and opening-out my thinking; awakening me, and producing an instantaneous sense of presence: Me! Here! Now!
Of course, not everybody can take a micro-nap at will - nor can we control whether such a period of sleep will drop us into deep sleep rather than into 'REM' dreaming sleep. But I present it as a repeated observation that when it does happen that I have a micro-sleep; it can achieve in an instant what struggling to meditate has failed to do over a period of hours.
In other words I am not really 'present' in my situation, my life. I am on autopilot, disengaged.
This is one condition that formal meditation training (in various schools) attempts to remedy; by learning either control of thoughts, or Not thinking, or letting thoughts fly through the mind without holding onto any. This is quite difficult, but can work; and then I can bring myself to presentness.
(Some people find that this presentness state is the experience of one-ness; but I tend to regard it psychologically rather than spiritually.)
I don't regard presentness as an especially deep or significant state - nor is is a goal in itself; it is more like a basic pre-requisite for the 'state' of intuition: which I do regard as deep and significant. Intuition is that primary thinking or Final Participation which is the mode of Romantic Christianity. That is what I personally regard as my major life goal.
Nonetheless, presentness is, as I said, a valuable or sometimes essential pre-requisite to higher states; and I have found that it is best attained by a very short sleep - specifically when I experience the momentary absence of deep, dream-less sleep.
This works as a very effective re-boot; both clearing and opening-out my thinking; awakening me, and producing an instantaneous sense of presence: Me! Here! Now!
Of course, not everybody can take a micro-nap at will - nor can we control whether such a period of sleep will drop us into deep sleep rather than into 'REM' dreaming sleep. But I present it as a repeated observation that when it does happen that I have a micro-sleep; it can achieve in an instant what struggling to meditate has failed to do over a period of hours.
Tuesday 17 March 2020
How I do Christian meditation
This is not a cook-book method; indeed I agree with William Arkle that the essence of our mortal situation is that God wants us to work out as much as possible for ourselves. That's the best way to learn. But help is always available for anybody, when necessary.
A commenter asked me for references I could recommend on Christian meditation. I know of none. What I do know, I worked out for myself, collating bits and pieces from many sources. It may not be helpful for other people.
My usual pattern is as follows:
1. Self-remembering. I come to my senses, wake-up and realise that this is Me, Here, Now.
2. I instantly move this into a recognition that the whole world around me is alive and conscious and purposive - and by 'whole world' I mean not only animals, but also plants and minerals. This is a return to Original Participation, to the animism of young children and hunter-gatherers.
3. Then - again as soon as the above state has impinged - I consider Jesus Christ; that he is everywhere and right here with me, now (in the spirit form known as the Holy Ghost). I experience Jesus as a present person.
(...As a present person and Not as an abstraction, force, vibration or the like. And as a separate person from my-self in a loving relationship - Not as a light or ocean into which I aspire to diffuse or melt. The experience is of two-ness, Not one-ness.)
Now, that is as far as I can usually take my Christian meditation - it is a passive state of realisation; a wakening up to how things actually are. It can happen several or many times a day - if I am in a good frame of mind; but never when my frame of mind is wrong: busy, selfish, sinful - including fearful or despairing.
But it is Very Brief, happening in a matter of seconds.
I regard it as an error for Christians to expect or to aim-at sustained states of meditation. God wants us to learn from the (many) experiences of our mortal lives - he arranges our lives to make this possible; and to remain for long periods rapt in a chronic meditative trance is clearly not what God wants from us. That is why sustained trance-like meditation is not spontaneous, and so difficult.
(At least, God does not want this, as a generalisation - there will no doubt be exceptions for specific people in specific circumstances; since each life is bespoke-tailored for our unique personal needs.)
Sometimes I find it possible to go beyond the above brief and contemplative meditation into a broader or more active state. Broader when - instead of Jesus as the Holy Ghost - I become aware of God - my Heavenly Parents - Father or Mother.
...Or become aware of one of the so-called-'dead' such as a beloved relative; or even someone I never knew but whom I genuinely love from their works (like JRR Tolkien, Owen Barfield, William Arkle). Or aware of the personified the spirit of a place or people.
In a nutshell, become aware of another specific Being.
The key is 'motivation': the state of love. When I am in a state of love and remain conscious and purposive and make the necessary decision - then it is not just possible but it happens naturally to go beyond passive contemplation and actively to participate in the ongoing work of Creation.
This is the state of Final Participation. This may briefly happen during acts of earthly creation when that creation is motivated by love (including love of truth or beauty) - during writing, perhaps. It may happen in a conversation, or being-with another person. It can be described sometimes as inspiration, sometimes as an intuition.
And it comes as a direct-knowing; my mind, my thinking, comes into-line with divine creation (for a moment); so that my thinking is also the thinking of creation: my thinking is objectively real and permanent.
I can personally add a little to the harmony of ongoing creation.
Such are my Christian meditations. They are fairly frequent, but happen only when properly-motivated, consciously-chosen; and only briefly.
But - as you may imagine - they are of primary importance to this, my mortal life.
Note added: In principle, and given that Christians are now 'on their own' (for good or evil - but in an ultimate sense it is for uour own good), some kind of meditation becomes a necessity. As institutions, rituals and symbols lose their effect, are corrupted or withdrawn; what is needed is direct and personal experience of 'the divine' - and for Christians the most relevant divine is, of course, Jesus Christ. What about prayer? Necessary - but on its own, insufficient.
A commenter asked me for references I could recommend on Christian meditation. I know of none. What I do know, I worked out for myself, collating bits and pieces from many sources. It may not be helpful for other people.
My usual pattern is as follows:
1. Self-remembering. I come to my senses, wake-up and realise that this is Me, Here, Now.
2. I instantly move this into a recognition that the whole world around me is alive and conscious and purposive - and by 'whole world' I mean not only animals, but also plants and minerals. This is a return to Original Participation, to the animism of young children and hunter-gatherers.
3. Then - again as soon as the above state has impinged - I consider Jesus Christ; that he is everywhere and right here with me, now (in the spirit form known as the Holy Ghost). I experience Jesus as a present person.
(...As a present person and Not as an abstraction, force, vibration or the like. And as a separate person from my-self in a loving relationship - Not as a light or ocean into which I aspire to diffuse or melt. The experience is of two-ness, Not one-ness.)
Now, that is as far as I can usually take my Christian meditation - it is a passive state of realisation; a wakening up to how things actually are. It can happen several or many times a day - if I am in a good frame of mind; but never when my frame of mind is wrong: busy, selfish, sinful - including fearful or despairing.
But it is Very Brief, happening in a matter of seconds.
I regard it as an error for Christians to expect or to aim-at sustained states of meditation. God wants us to learn from the (many) experiences of our mortal lives - he arranges our lives to make this possible; and to remain for long periods rapt in a chronic meditative trance is clearly not what God wants from us. That is why sustained trance-like meditation is not spontaneous, and so difficult.
(At least, God does not want this, as a generalisation - there will no doubt be exceptions for specific people in specific circumstances; since each life is bespoke-tailored for our unique personal needs.)
Sometimes I find it possible to go beyond the above brief and contemplative meditation into a broader or more active state. Broader when - instead of Jesus as the Holy Ghost - I become aware of God - my Heavenly Parents - Father or Mother.
...Or become aware of one of the so-called-'dead' such as a beloved relative; or even someone I never knew but whom I genuinely love from their works (like JRR Tolkien, Owen Barfield, William Arkle). Or aware of the personified the spirit of a place or people.
In a nutshell, become aware of another specific Being.
The key is 'motivation': the state of love. When I am in a state of love and remain conscious and purposive and make the necessary decision - then it is not just possible but it happens naturally to go beyond passive contemplation and actively to participate in the ongoing work of Creation.
This is the state of Final Participation. This may briefly happen during acts of earthly creation when that creation is motivated by love (including love of truth or beauty) - during writing, perhaps. It may happen in a conversation, or being-with another person. It can be described sometimes as inspiration, sometimes as an intuition.
And it comes as a direct-knowing; my mind, my thinking, comes into-line with divine creation (for a moment); so that my thinking is also the thinking of creation: my thinking is objectively real and permanent.
I can personally add a little to the harmony of ongoing creation.
Such are my Christian meditations. They are fairly frequent, but happen only when properly-motivated, consciously-chosen; and only briefly.
But - as you may imagine - they are of primary importance to this, my mortal life.
Note added: In principle, and given that Christians are now 'on their own' (for good or evil - but in an ultimate sense it is for uour own good), some kind of meditation becomes a necessity. As institutions, rituals and symbols lose their effect, are corrupted or withdrawn; what is needed is direct and personal experience of 'the divine' - and for Christians the most relevant divine is, of course, Jesus Christ. What about prayer? Necessary - but on its own, insufficient.
Tuesday 8 May 2018
The sense in which we already 'know everything', and just need to realise it
At first sight this seems a ridiculous idea, that has apparently been refuted by the great accumulation of knowledge through human history; but I believe there is a sense in which the broader argument is indicative of a profound insight - and this is why the argument has been taken seriously for more than 2000 years (ie. since Plato).
The sense is that life is two curves running from childhood to maturity - a rising line of self-consciousness which increases from childhood to a maximum plateau attained at adolescence. And a descending line of innate and spontaneous knowing which is high in childhood (albeit it is an unconscious knowing), and reaches a nadir in at adolescence.
In modern society adolescence is (spiritually) usually where matters stop - what we call adulthood is not 'maturity' but merely a sustained and degenerate adolescence. Modern 'adults' have lost their spontaneous natural knowledge (instead just passively absorbing propaganda and hypothesies from 'society') and they live in a cut-off state of self-consciousness (so cut-off that it doubts and denies even itself).
The task of adolescence ought-to-be to change that descending line of knowing into an arc - rising in adult maturity to reach the same kind of spontaneous and universal knowing that we began-with - but this time it is conscious knowing.
Thus, children know everything but are unaware of the fact, adolescents know nothing and are aware of the fact; but spiritually-mature grown-ups potentially know everything, and know-what-they-know.
I say adults potentially know everything, because the process of discovering-what-you-already-know is linear and happens in-time; so it would be more accurate to say that knowledge is un-bounded, open-ended, and tends-towards a situation of knowing everything-that-can-be-known - always from the perspective of a single self.
This scenario is, presumably, why all real learning - all knowing of truth - has the distinct feeling of being a realising, a remembering, a recognition... true knowledge is always 'familiar' - we always feel that we 'always knew that' but had never articulated it. I'm saying that we always Did know that - but did not realise we knew it, and could not use that knowing until after we had articulated it.
In terms of knowledge the trajectory is therefore from unconscious knowledge to conscious knowledge; from the implicit to the explicit; from immersion-in knowledge to standing outside it; from passivity through contemplation to creativity.
Thursday 31 October 2013
A withdrawal management, detox programme for mass media addiction and indoctrination
*
Actually, there is really no need for anything complex in this endeavor; since withdrawal from the mass media is more like going 'cold turkey' from heroin (feels very bad, but won't kill you) than it is like suddenly stopping alcohol consumption (very dangerous, often fatal).
*
Breaking-out from mass media addiction and the accompanying indoctrination, (manipulation into evil) is for many people the vital first step in recovering from the nihilistic psychosis of modern life.
But the good news is that the process is simple and the healing is spontaneous; because it is only the continuous high volume consumption of mass media that is keeping us ill.
So, at root, the detox progam is merely a matter of Just. Say. No.
*
1. Do not seek out mass media.
2. Develop mental 'blinkers' so as not to notice or be distracted by mass media.
3. Turn away (physically and or mentally) when you do notice and are distracted by mass media.
*
Positive treatment entails
1. Filling-up your mind with good things
2. Living in the present moment (self remembering Me! Here! Now!), take notice of experience as it happens.
3. Ensuring unstructured, undistracted solitary time - walking, travelling, sitting etc.
*
A new evaluation system:
1. Attitudes - treat the mass media as you would a conference of con-men; people you know are out to exploit you: somehow, anyhow.
2. Knowledge - Recognise that the Mass Media is so dishonest that you know nothing from it: there is biased reporting, gross selection within reports, and there are made-up lies and falsehoods seeded throughout.
Thus the Mass media is misleading in its general trend, its specific framing, and in its fine detail. Nothing about it can be assumed correct. And it is in practice very seldom possible to detect discount all of the ongoing dishonestys: the most dangerous delusion is that you personally can filter the mass media, decode and see through its biases, selections and lies to discern the truth of the situation.
*
So there is no programme for quitting the mass media, no 'antidote' is required; rather the de-programming begins to happen as soon as you begin significantly to cut yourself off from the mass media.
Of course you will still be wrong about many things - probably about most things - but you will no longer be believing or spouting utterly incoherent nonsense.
This is not about trying to be right about everything but about trying to avoid the common state of being crazily and incurably wrong about all the most important things of life.
Only after you have escaped from the toils of the mass media can you, will you, begin again to thinks-straight - to see what is going-on in yourself, your life and the world around you.
For many. mass media withdrawal is a necessary first step in pursuit of anything better. Because so long as someone is addicted to the mass media, all potential gains are swept-away by unrelenting distraction; by recurrent episodes of amnesia or intoxication.
*
Actually, there is really no need for anything complex in this endeavor; since withdrawal from the mass media is more like going 'cold turkey' from heroin (feels very bad, but won't kill you) than it is like suddenly stopping alcohol consumption (very dangerous, often fatal).
*
Breaking-out from mass media addiction and the accompanying indoctrination, (manipulation into evil) is for many people the vital first step in recovering from the nihilistic psychosis of modern life.
But the good news is that the process is simple and the healing is spontaneous; because it is only the continuous high volume consumption of mass media that is keeping us ill.
So, at root, the detox progam is merely a matter of Just. Say. No.
*
1. Do not seek out mass media.
2. Develop mental 'blinkers' so as not to notice or be distracted by mass media.
3. Turn away (physically and or mentally) when you do notice and are distracted by mass media.
*
Positive treatment entails
1. Filling-up your mind with good things
2. Living in the present moment (self remembering Me! Here! Now!), take notice of experience as it happens.
3. Ensuring unstructured, undistracted solitary time - walking, travelling, sitting etc.
*
A new evaluation system:
1. Attitudes - treat the mass media as you would a conference of con-men; people you know are out to exploit you: somehow, anyhow.
2. Knowledge - Recognise that the Mass Media is so dishonest that you know nothing from it: there is biased reporting, gross selection within reports, and there are made-up lies and falsehoods seeded throughout.
Thus the Mass media is misleading in its general trend, its specific framing, and in its fine detail. Nothing about it can be assumed correct. And it is in practice very seldom possible to detect discount all of the ongoing dishonestys: the most dangerous delusion is that you personally can filter the mass media, decode and see through its biases, selections and lies to discern the truth of the situation.
*
So there is no programme for quitting the mass media, no 'antidote' is required; rather the de-programming begins to happen as soon as you begin significantly to cut yourself off from the mass media.
Of course you will still be wrong about many things - probably about most things - but you will no longer be believing or spouting utterly incoherent nonsense.
This is not about trying to be right about everything but about trying to avoid the common state of being crazily and incurably wrong about all the most important things of life.
Only after you have escaped from the toils of the mass media can you, will you, begin again to thinks-straight - to see what is going-on in yourself, your life and the world around you.
For many. mass media withdrawal is a necessary first step in pursuit of anything better. Because so long as someone is addicted to the mass media, all potential gains are swept-away by unrelenting distraction; by recurrent episodes of amnesia or intoxication.
*
Wednesday 22 April 2020
Another beautiful day
I wake-up... at 03:30, with a migraine - third night in a row! But that aside... It's another beautiful day; and at least I was awake to appreciate it breaking, and to hear the dawn chorus take-over from the solo nightingale.
Over the last four weeks we have been experiencing the longest run of sunny early spring weather I can remember. This has made the... recent changes... into something of a golden era, when considered on a day-by-day basis - and that is how I have been considering them.
(That is, when I am not doing my circa hour-a-day of general, abstract, overviewing and prognosticating; results of which is what I what I tend to post here.)
A lot of what I am doing is meditative, in the sense of trying to become better at self-remembering, better at recognising that everything is alive and conscious; and more continuously-aware of the presence of Jesus Christ (the Holy Ghost) and the detailed creative activities of God.
This comes under the category of that imperative for Modern Man of becoming aware of that which is mostly unconscious - including those intuitions which we are so adept at denying, ignoring or suppressing.
Furthermore, is my attempt to enhance or strengthen 'thinking' in the direction of Final Participation - which means that my conviction that thinking is real, active and objective needs to become not-just-a-theory and develops into experiences.
Such experience is greatly rewarding, so long as I do not allow myself to be dismayed at how transient are my successes - which is inevitable in this mortal world.
When I am at my best I do not regard such imperfections and difficulties with life as being due to us living in a 'fallen' world; rather, I regard such limitations as being 'functional' (part of the divine plan for mortal life) and for my own good.
After all; it would not do me much good if I had as a routine the ability to experience each new day, in its many aspects of repetition and novelty. It is better for me that I am unable to sustain an ecstatic response to life; and am compelled to continue solving many variants of the same old problems, as well as having new problems challenge (and defeat) me on a frequent basis.
Thus I am encouraged to keep learning - about love, faith, and hope among many other things - which is what this mortal life is 'for'.
In some ways, the sunny and fresh days are not much distinguishable, one from the other, in terms of what I can do (and what I am allowed to do); but in other ways, every hour brings me up-against new limitations of my attitudes and knowledge, or reveals how partial and feeble were yesterday's (or last night's) 'answers'.
So I strive, and often succeed, in greeting each new dawn with hope and confidence.
Over the last four weeks we have been experiencing the longest run of sunny early spring weather I can remember. This has made the... recent changes... into something of a golden era, when considered on a day-by-day basis - and that is how I have been considering them.
(That is, when I am not doing my circa hour-a-day of general, abstract, overviewing and prognosticating; results of which is what I what I tend to post here.)
A lot of what I am doing is meditative, in the sense of trying to become better at self-remembering, better at recognising that everything is alive and conscious; and more continuously-aware of the presence of Jesus Christ (the Holy Ghost) and the detailed creative activities of God.
This comes under the category of that imperative for Modern Man of becoming aware of that which is mostly unconscious - including those intuitions which we are so adept at denying, ignoring or suppressing.
Furthermore, is my attempt to enhance or strengthen 'thinking' in the direction of Final Participation - which means that my conviction that thinking is real, active and objective needs to become not-just-a-theory and develops into experiences.
Such experience is greatly rewarding, so long as I do not allow myself to be dismayed at how transient are my successes - which is inevitable in this mortal world.
When I am at my best I do not regard such imperfections and difficulties with life as being due to us living in a 'fallen' world; rather, I regard such limitations as being 'functional' (part of the divine plan for mortal life) and for my own good.
After all; it would not do me much good if I had as a routine the ability to experience each new day, in its many aspects of repetition and novelty. It is better for me that I am unable to sustain an ecstatic response to life; and am compelled to continue solving many variants of the same old problems, as well as having new problems challenge (and defeat) me on a frequent basis.
Thus I am encouraged to keep learning - about love, faith, and hope among many other things - which is what this mortal life is 'for'.
In some ways, the sunny and fresh days are not much distinguishable, one from the other, in terms of what I can do (and what I am allowed to do); but in other ways, every hour brings me up-against new limitations of my attitudes and knowledge, or reveals how partial and feeble were yesterday's (or last night's) 'answers'.
So I strive, and often succeed, in greeting each new dawn with hope and confidence.
Friday 23 September 2016
How to set-about achieving a higher consciousness
by William Arkle
I am convinced by the overall validity of Rudolf Steiner's 1918 prophecy concerning the spiritual future of Western Man:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=steiner+prophecy
The bottom line of this insight is that within a Christian context the number one priority for modern Western Man is to expand and enhance consciousness such that we become aware of the spiritual world beyond the 'five senses', including the divinity of our fellow Men.
This enhanced consciousness aimed-at is not a matter of the kind of hallucinatory, dream or trance-state we associate with shamans and other mystics of former eras - but is to be achieved in and by lucid, alert and purposive thinking.
Overall, not so much about seeing new (and previously unseen) things, so much as seeing old things anew (see Arkle's painting above).
In other words, it is a particular kind of thinking which is to provide us with valid knowledge - but not just abstractly 'knowing about' stuff; but actual experience of the reality of knowledge.
(Why? My understanding is currently that there is a kind of thinking which is primary, spontaneous, and does not depend upon perception or any other kind of 'input' - and this comes form God-within-us, that which makes is children of God: and that is the reason why it is intrinsically valid thinking.)
The 64,000 dollar question is how do we do this? How do we raise our thinking to this level, and keep it there? Where do we even start on this task?
Having been reading Colin Wilson's Beyond the Occult recently, I think one general answer may be that we should start with any of the spiritual, paranormal or enhanced types of consciousness that we personally spontaneously experience. These go by many names, but could include peak experiences, synchronicity, self-remembering, clairvoyance, fore-sight, the sense of being transported to another time or place (what Wilson termed Faculty X)...
Or (especially) those 'magical' (or holiday) times of several or many minutes when we seem to be living inside a narrative or story or tableau, and in a state of awareness of connections and a providential unfolding...
In a nutshell, we can start with those moments or times when the ordinary and the everyday are felt to be meaningful, purposive and we are engaged by them.When this happens, we are inside the kind of thinking we are aiming-at, the kind of thinking we most need - these phenomena are (often) a sign that this is it.
That is the kind of thing we start-with, and what we need to remember, take seriously, and endeavour to build-upon.
Nothing we might do is more important - the task deserves our best efforts.
Sunday 16 June 2019
Effort and forcing are inappropriate, counterproductive, in the spiritual life
On the one hand, if we do nothing - then nothing will happen.
But it is abundantly clear that to make the spiritual life and act of 'will power' is ineffective at best or disaster and self-damnation at worst - essentially because (absent the proper spirit, whose absence makes the spiritual quest necessary in the first place...) that entity which wills-with-power, can only be a false personality, and not the real self. Will power can only dig us deeper into our delusions.
In his booklet The Hologram and Mind, from about 1990, William Arkle wrote (this is edited from the full account at the link):
We can imagine that the synthesis of question and reply happens through a method which is as subtly as the genius of mind is subtle. And yet, the two processes of question and answer are clear and distinct.
The ability to pose a good problem or ask a good question is as much a part of the genius as that which is liable to bring forth a good response.
The attitude of trust on the part of the questioner is also an integral part of the value of the reply. The fact that effort and force is alien to the correct working of this creative synthesis is apparent in the realisation that the' reference beam' of the hologram of mind (which corresponds to the nature of God) is only too glad to give of its best to the 'working beam' (which corresponds to our our true self).
God does not need to be either forced or even coaxed. Pressure of this sort is almost equivalent to rape, and simply shows that the individual has not reached the level of evolution of consciousness which knows how to behave with proper respect.
Such an immature person has not realised that force is distorting the question being asked, and preconditioning the answer.
My interpretation: This is about as strong language as Arkle ever uses, when he compares to attempted-rape the use of effort, force, coaxing in relation to asking God (our Heavenly Parents) for answers. Since God loves us, since we are God's children - there is no good reason for such an attitude.
God is only too glad to give of his best to each of his children; and to strive and strain to compel God's help can only come from a misunderstanding, a false understanding, an inversion of God's relation to us.
So we ought not to strive and strain - what then? I would say to 'remember' - as when William Wildblood, in his recent book, reminds us to Remember the Creator. The spiritual life is mostly a matter of remembering.
But it is abundantly clear that to make the spiritual life and act of 'will power' is ineffective at best or disaster and self-damnation at worst - essentially because (absent the proper spirit, whose absence makes the spiritual quest necessary in the first place...) that entity which wills-with-power, can only be a false personality, and not the real self. Will power can only dig us deeper into our delusions.
In his booklet The Hologram and Mind, from about 1990, William Arkle wrote (this is edited from the full account at the link):
We can imagine that the synthesis of question and reply happens through a method which is as subtly as the genius of mind is subtle. And yet, the two processes of question and answer are clear and distinct.
The ability to pose a good problem or ask a good question is as much a part of the genius as that which is liable to bring forth a good response.
The attitude of trust on the part of the questioner is also an integral part of the value of the reply. The fact that effort and force is alien to the correct working of this creative synthesis is apparent in the realisation that the' reference beam' of the hologram of mind (which corresponds to the nature of God) is only too glad to give of its best to the 'working beam' (which corresponds to our our true self).
God does not need to be either forced or even coaxed. Pressure of this sort is almost equivalent to rape, and simply shows that the individual has not reached the level of evolution of consciousness which knows how to behave with proper respect.
Such an immature person has not realised that force is distorting the question being asked, and preconditioning the answer.
My interpretation: This is about as strong language as Arkle ever uses, when he compares to attempted-rape the use of effort, force, coaxing in relation to asking God (our Heavenly Parents) for answers. Since God loves us, since we are God's children - there is no good reason for such an attitude.
God is only too glad to give of his best to each of his children; and to strive and strain to compel God's help can only come from a misunderstanding, a false understanding, an inversion of God's relation to us.
So we ought not to strive and strain - what then? I would say to 'remember' - as when William Wildblood, in his recent book, reminds us to Remember the Creator. The spiritual life is mostly a matter of remembering.
Monday 1 February 2016
Death - why is it necessary?
It is my primary assumption that death is necessary for spiritual progression toward a higher and fuller state of divinity - but how does this work?
If the purpose of mortal life is incarnation (to get a body) then why? One answer may be that the body brings us irresistibly into contact with 'the world' - because the body is unavoidably part of the world.
(Whereas, as pre-mortal spirits, we were not in direct contact with the world, and our spiritual body - if we had one - was not subject to the world.)
So long as we are awake, alert and purposive in thinking - our body is spontaneously and by-default part of reality. And our consciousness (our spirit) identifies with the body (including the body's senses).
We spontaneously get-away-from the body during sleep - and especially in dreaming sleep when we are all-but cut-off-from the senses, and paralysed; in dreams we remain influenced by the body (e.g. illness can influence dreams) but we are no longer constrained by the body (we can dream anything, and be anywhere).
Much mysticism is trying to get away from the body - but insofar as this includes drowsiness or sleep, undirected or free-associative thinking, thinking directed by external cues etc. then this represents (merely) a regression towards the situation of pre-mortal spirit existence - which is fine, but regression is not the reason why we became incarnate mortals (otherwise we would simply have remained in our pre-mortal state).
Minimally we are incarnated for our spirit/ consciousness to identify with the body - and then die (this applies, for instance, to those people who die in the womb, or around the time of birth - they experience little more than the bare fact of incarnation).
Beyond this minimum, some people survive into childhood, adulthood - perhaps for many decades... what is that for? The purpose of prolonged life seem to be spiritual progression, divinization, theosis, sanctification (variously conceptualized) during mortal life.
I think this divinization necessarily entails a development, or evolution, of consciousness - of a type which is a foretaste of the post-mortal resurrected state.
This state of advanced consciousness has been variously termed a particular type of clairvoyance by Rudolf Steiner (also called Final Participation by Owen Barfield), or 'self-remembering' by Gurdjieff or Colin Wilson), or Active Imagination by Jung, or some versions of Abraham Maslow's Peak Experiences.
In essence, this is an awareness of ourselves as spiritual beings simultaneous with identification with the body and its senses.
Death is therefore the separation of spirit from body, the spirit having experienced the identification of spirit with body.
So there are three stages in spiritual progression in relation to mortality:
1. The spirit is identified with the body (mortal life)
2. The spirit separated from the body (death)
3. The spirit rejoined with the body from which it had separated
This three-stage process of incarnation, death and resurrection was - of course - established and made possible for us by Jesus Christ.
It leads to the post-mortal state of a permanent and habitual attainment of that state of consciousness which is typically only glimpsed (if experienced at all) during mortal life.
This is the divine mode of consciousness - which can then embark on further development.
If the purpose of mortal life is incarnation (to get a body) then why? One answer may be that the body brings us irresistibly into contact with 'the world' - because the body is unavoidably part of the world.
(Whereas, as pre-mortal spirits, we were not in direct contact with the world, and our spiritual body - if we had one - was not subject to the world.)
So long as we are awake, alert and purposive in thinking - our body is spontaneously and by-default part of reality. And our consciousness (our spirit) identifies with the body (including the body's senses).
We spontaneously get-away-from the body during sleep - and especially in dreaming sleep when we are all-but cut-off-from the senses, and paralysed; in dreams we remain influenced by the body (e.g. illness can influence dreams) but we are no longer constrained by the body (we can dream anything, and be anywhere).
Much mysticism is trying to get away from the body - but insofar as this includes drowsiness or sleep, undirected or free-associative thinking, thinking directed by external cues etc. then this represents (merely) a regression towards the situation of pre-mortal spirit existence - which is fine, but regression is not the reason why we became incarnate mortals (otherwise we would simply have remained in our pre-mortal state).
Minimally we are incarnated for our spirit/ consciousness to identify with the body - and then die (this applies, for instance, to those people who die in the womb, or around the time of birth - they experience little more than the bare fact of incarnation).
Beyond this minimum, some people survive into childhood, adulthood - perhaps for many decades... what is that for? The purpose of prolonged life seem to be spiritual progression, divinization, theosis, sanctification (variously conceptualized) during mortal life.
I think this divinization necessarily entails a development, or evolution, of consciousness - of a type which is a foretaste of the post-mortal resurrected state.
This state of advanced consciousness has been variously termed a particular type of clairvoyance by Rudolf Steiner (also called Final Participation by Owen Barfield), or 'self-remembering' by Gurdjieff or Colin Wilson), or Active Imagination by Jung, or some versions of Abraham Maslow's Peak Experiences.
In essence, this is an awareness of ourselves as spiritual beings simultaneous with identification with the body and its senses.
Death is therefore the separation of spirit from body, the spirit having experienced the identification of spirit with body.
So there are three stages in spiritual progression in relation to mortality:
1. The spirit is identified with the body (mortal life)
2. The spirit separated from the body (death)
3. The spirit rejoined with the body from which it had separated
This three-stage process of incarnation, death and resurrection was - of course - established and made possible for us by Jesus Christ.
It leads to the post-mortal state of a permanent and habitual attainment of that state of consciousness which is typically only glimpsed (if experienced at all) during mortal life.
This is the divine mode of consciousness - which can then embark on further development.
Friday 13 October 2017
Understanding and learning-from the experience of primary thinking
Primary Thinking is the term I have devised for what Owen Barfield called Final Participation and Rudolf Steiner the Imaginative Soul - as a state it would also include some examples of Jung's active imagination, Gurdjieff's self-remembering, Maslow's peak experience, and alert types of shamanic, poetic and creative trances.
I regard the attainment of primary thinking to be the main task of modern Man - but clearly, since the state has been so widely noticed, and is experienced by so many people - merely experiencing primary thinking is ineffectual.
This is because primary thinking is firstly nearly-always brief and very intermittent, and secondly the experience of primary thinking nearly-always misunderstood by normal every day consciousness when that state resumes.
Primary thinking ought to be understood as an experience of the divine way of thinking, intrinsically Good and valid - and superior to other and lower types of normal existence. In primary thinking we know - and we know directly - truth, beauty and virtue; and in this state we are intrinsically creative; because primary thinking is that which is divine in us, active within the realm of universal knowledge.
However, most people who experience primary thinking most of the time will misinterpret the experience; or will try to use it for their own worldly expediency. Jung and Maslow, for example, regard it as therapeutic - in effect a branch of medicine, aiming at making people feel and function better. While mainstream New Agers tend to regard primary thinking as a source of pleasure and gratification - part of a satisfying lifestyle.
And of course most of us are substantially evil; so despite that the primary thinking state is intrinsically Good; once they 'snap out of it', people will try to use the knowledge attained during primary thinking for selfish and short-termist reasons, or else for actively-evil purposes - using their knowledge of Good to try and destroy Good.
(This is presumably what devils and demons do: i.e. a kind of inverted black magic.)
Mainstream secular leftist people usually regard primary thinking as a pleasant but foolish delusion - and make fun of, or scorn, those who take it seriously.
So the challenge of primary thinking is not so much to do it, but - when we are not doing it - to 1. understand it correctly, 2. learn from it, and 3. put those lessons into practice as best we can.
I regard the attainment of primary thinking to be the main task of modern Man - but clearly, since the state has been so widely noticed, and is experienced by so many people - merely experiencing primary thinking is ineffectual.
This is because primary thinking is firstly nearly-always brief and very intermittent, and secondly the experience of primary thinking nearly-always misunderstood by normal every day consciousness when that state resumes.
Primary thinking ought to be understood as an experience of the divine way of thinking, intrinsically Good and valid - and superior to other and lower types of normal existence. In primary thinking we know - and we know directly - truth, beauty and virtue; and in this state we are intrinsically creative; because primary thinking is that which is divine in us, active within the realm of universal knowledge.
However, most people who experience primary thinking most of the time will misinterpret the experience; or will try to use it for their own worldly expediency. Jung and Maslow, for example, regard it as therapeutic - in effect a branch of medicine, aiming at making people feel and function better. While mainstream New Agers tend to regard primary thinking as a source of pleasure and gratification - part of a satisfying lifestyle.
And of course most of us are substantially evil; so despite that the primary thinking state is intrinsically Good; once they 'snap out of it', people will try to use the knowledge attained during primary thinking for selfish and short-termist reasons, or else for actively-evil purposes - using their knowledge of Good to try and destroy Good.
(This is presumably what devils and demons do: i.e. a kind of inverted black magic.)
Mainstream secular leftist people usually regard primary thinking as a pleasant but foolish delusion - and make fun of, or scorn, those who take it seriously.
So the challenge of primary thinking is not so much to do it, but - when we are not doing it - to 1. understand it correctly, 2. learn from it, and 3. put those lessons into practice as best we can.
Sunday 29 March 2020
Living in the present and eternity
CS Lewis once said that we ought to live in the present and eternity; not the past or the future.
This seems to me the best possible advice at present.
We need to live in the present by self-remembering. And in eternity by our Christian faith.
Of course we will sometimes want or need to think about the past; and it is necessary also to have some kind of framework for the future if we are to understand what things means and how best to respond. But ideally, these should be intermittent and time-limited activities (like the post which follows this one).
For the bulk of our mortal lives, we should be engaged in consciously appreciating the present moment - in the context of our hope of eternal resurrection to dwell in Heaven.
Simple to say, simple to understand - and difficult to do: but that's our task, as Jesus taught again and again through the Gospels.
This seems to me the best possible advice at present.
We need to live in the present by self-remembering. And in eternity by our Christian faith.
Of course we will sometimes want or need to think about the past; and it is necessary also to have some kind of framework for the future if we are to understand what things means and how best to respond. But ideally, these should be intermittent and time-limited activities (like the post which follows this one).
For the bulk of our mortal lives, we should be engaged in consciously appreciating the present moment - in the context of our hope of eternal resurrection to dwell in Heaven.
Simple to say, simple to understand - and difficult to do: but that's our task, as Jesus taught again and again through the Gospels.
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