Excellent column. How interesting that the AI transhumanist "revolution" (regression?) is so close to a reverse "mirror" of the gnostic evolution.
And here: this is one of the passages I referred to in a previous comment;
" it is the unpreparedness, the unfitness of the society or of the common mind of man which is always the chief stumbling-block. It is the readiness of this common mind which is of the first importance; for even if the condition of society and the principle and rule that govern society are opposed to the spiritual change, even if these belong almost wholly to the vital, to the external, the economic, the mechanical order, as is certainly the way at present with human masses, yet if the common human mind has begun to admit the ideas proper to the higher order that is in the end to be, and the heart of man has begun to be stirred by aspirations born of these ideas, then there is a hope of some advance in the not distant future. [HC 246‒48]"
I suppose, if I understand your aims correctly, that it is this idea that moves both of us to write, to create videos, etc:
- "the readiness of the common mind to admit IDEAS proper to the higher order that is in the end to be" (along with what I think may be a far more widespread phenomenon, the heart being stirred by aspirations born of these ideas).
in fact, re-reading this, my sense is so many millions, if not tens of millions of human beings alive today, very much have their hearts stirred by this aspiration, but look around and do not ee anyone giving voice to these in a way that speaks to their hearts.
Charles Eisenstein wrote a book about "the more beautiful world our hearts desire," yet he has fallen down a very strange rabbit hole of conspirituality) conspiracy theories masked as "spiritual").
Who is expressing this aspiration in a way people can relate to?
Swami Medhananda spoke to Richard Hartz and others at the Ashram about a book he is writing on Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo. I think he has a strong intuition about the need for people to understand Sri Aurobindo's vision. But Medhananda writes in an admirable yet complex scholarly style.
Perhaps it doesn't matter ultimately, but my sense is still that for all the John Vervaekes, and Jonathan Pageau's and Jordan Halls and Jordan Petersons and Ken Wilbers speaking of the "meaning crisis" and "polycrises," and those like Mark Vernon speaking on Gebser and the integral consciousness or Owen Barfield's "Final participation," who is speaking to those people about the Purna Advaita, about integral non dualism?
“How interesting that the AI transhumanist "revolution" (regression?) is so close to a reverse "mirror" of the gnostic evolution.” — In Gebserian terms one could say: the irruption of a new consciousness structure causes the old (thenceforth deficient) structure to travesty the salient features of the new one.
When I quoted HC 246‒48, I thought of our previous conversation. I can’t define what exactly moves me to write; it just feels like the right thing to do at the time. But of course, spreading “ideas proper to the higher order that is in the end to be” would be a welcome result. While my personal emphasis tends to fall on the ability “to see, to develop, to RE-CREATE THEMSELVES IN THE IMAGE of the spirit” rather than on “communicate both their idea and its power to the mass,” I can’t help doing the latter as well.
Every effort in this direction serves a useful purpose. Much the same holds in the context of quantum physics. While there are numberless popular books on the subject which to me are worthless drivel, I recognize that they can help others to progress intellectually. What causes eye-rolling in me can be eye-opening to others.
You are surely in a better position than I to estimate the number of aspiring hearts. Seriously. The cynic in me however feels that the number is still not large enough, or that the aspiration is not sufficiently intense, and that more hammering is needed. Hence my preference for the darker quotes, like the last paragraph of this post.
> “Wherefore God hammers so fiercely at his world, tramples and kneads it like dough, casts it so often into the blood-bath and the red hell-heat of the furnace? Because humanity in the mass is still a hard, crude and vile ore which will not otherwise be smelted and shaped: as is his material, so is his method.” — Sri Aurobindo (Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, p. 210)
This shouldn’t be quoted without its sequel:
> “Wherefore he selected or made such a material, when he had all infinite possibility to choose from? Because of his divine Idea which saw before it not only beauty and sweetness and purity, but also force and will and greatness. Despise not force, nor hate it for the ugliness of some of its faces, nor think that love only is God. All perfect perfection must have something in it of the stuff of the hero and even of the Titan. But the greatest force is born out of the greatest difficulty.”
ULRICH: I can’t define what exactly moves me to write; it just feels like the right thing to do at the time.
COMMENT: yes, this is for the most part a very apt description of my own experience of writing.
ULRICH: the ability “to see, to develop, to RE-CREATE THEMSELVES IN THE IMAGE of the spirit” rather than on “communicate both their idea and its power to the mass,”
COMMENT: yes, I've been talking about communicating ideas, but when i refer simply to "practice" my intention is always to convey such an ability. To 'recreate" oneself in the image of Spirit - this could be interpreted mentally, but i assume that would be incorrect. it sounds a bit more along the lines of the "imitation of Christ," though of course, with the integral transformation it goes far beyond that. I would consider it a miracle if a significant minority (and likely, a rather small one) was touched enough in their surface nature by intimations of the love, devotion, truth, nobility, beauty and goodness of the psychic being, as well as intimation of the vastness, freedom, unboundedness and freedom of the Self that the ideas you and I have spoken of communicating have some sufficient grounding in experience so as not to be merely "intellectual."
ULRICH there are numberless popular books on the subject which to me are worthless drivel, I recognize that they can help others to progress intellectually .
COMMENT: over the years, every time I've been tempted to include even a few sentences about quantum physics, I set aside the temptation and my heart is grateful that Marco and Ulrich are out there writing!
ULRICH: You are surely in a better position than I to estimate the number of aspiring hearts. Seriously. ....more hammering is needed. Hence my preference for the darker quotes,
COMMENT: This points to a genuine weakness of mine. I do tend to fall back into pollyanna-like positivity and it certainly helps to be reminded of the darker forces behind the scenes.
> “Wherefore God hammers so fiercely at his world, tramples and kneads it like dough, casts it so often into the blood-bath and the red hell-heat of the furnace? Because humanity in the mass is still a hard, crude and vile ore which will not otherwise be smelted and shaped: as is his material, so is his method.” — Sri Aurobindo (Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, p. 210) ...“Wherefore he selected or made such a material, when he had all infinite possibility to choose from? Because of his divine Idea which saw before it not only beauty and sweetness and purity, but also force and will and greatness. Despise not force, nor hate it for the ugliness of some of its faces, nor think that love only is God. All perfect perfection must have something in it of the stuff of the hero and even of the Titan. But the greatest force is born out of the greatest difficulty.”
COMMENT: This is, to me, where genuine sraddha is so helpful, the faith that is the "yet unrisen light of the Soul." That Light sees beyond the surface and even deeper than the Adverse Forces, to the Divine Shakti underlying all.
You: “when i refer simply to ‘practice’ my intention is always to convey such an ability.” — My emphasis was on the communicator’s OWN ability/practice. One might be able to convey the need for acquiring the ability, but communicating the ability itself requires a significant spiritual realization on the part of the communicator. (Just saying. No judgment.)
This reminds me of a passage in Mother’s Agenda (Feb 24, 1965) which begins with “Oh, if you want to be amused, I have received a letter from Alexandra David-Neel.” The Mother had written to ADN of the Tibetan’s “gratitude for the great intellectual progress they would be making with her.” ADN never forgave her: “she never forgave me! Because I wrote ‘intellectual’ instead of ‘spiritual’ (I consider she is quite incapable of making anyone progress spiritually, while intellectually, she is first-rate).” So there is this difference. Luckily the English language doesn’t have the difficulty the Germans have, who use the same word “Geist” for both mind and spirit — a translator's nightmare.
Excellent column. How interesting that the AI transhumanist "revolution" (regression?) is so close to a reverse "mirror" of the gnostic evolution.
And here: this is one of the passages I referred to in a previous comment;
" it is the unpreparedness, the unfitness of the society or of the common mind of man which is always the chief stumbling-block. It is the readiness of this common mind which is of the first importance; for even if the condition of society and the principle and rule that govern society are opposed to the spiritual change, even if these belong almost wholly to the vital, to the external, the economic, the mechanical order, as is certainly the way at present with human masses, yet if the common human mind has begun to admit the ideas proper to the higher order that is in the end to be, and the heart of man has begun to be stirred by aspirations born of these ideas, then there is a hope of some advance in the not distant future. [HC 246‒48]"
I suppose, if I understand your aims correctly, that it is this idea that moves both of us to write, to create videos, etc:
- "the readiness of the common mind to admit IDEAS proper to the higher order that is in the end to be" (along with what I think may be a far more widespread phenomenon, the heart being stirred by aspirations born of these ideas).
in fact, re-reading this, my sense is so many millions, if not tens of millions of human beings alive today, very much have their hearts stirred by this aspiration, but look around and do not ee anyone giving voice to these in a way that speaks to their hearts.
Charles Eisenstein wrote a book about "the more beautiful world our hearts desire," yet he has fallen down a very strange rabbit hole of conspirituality) conspiracy theories masked as "spiritual").
Who is expressing this aspiration in a way people can relate to?
Swami Medhananda spoke to Richard Hartz and others at the Ashram about a book he is writing on Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo. I think he has a strong intuition about the need for people to understand Sri Aurobindo's vision. But Medhananda writes in an admirable yet complex scholarly style.
Perhaps it doesn't matter ultimately, but my sense is still that for all the John Vervaekes, and Jonathan Pageau's and Jordan Halls and Jordan Petersons and Ken Wilbers speaking of the "meaning crisis" and "polycrises," and those like Mark Vernon speaking on Gebser and the integral consciousness or Owen Barfield's "Final participation," who is speaking to those people about the Purna Advaita, about integral non dualism?
Here is Medhananda on Sri Aurobindo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lSdrofo9uc
“How interesting that the AI transhumanist "revolution" (regression?) is so close to a reverse "mirror" of the gnostic evolution.” — In Gebserian terms one could say: the irruption of a new consciousness structure causes the old (thenceforth deficient) structure to travesty the salient features of the new one.
When I quoted HC 246‒48, I thought of our previous conversation. I can’t define what exactly moves me to write; it just feels like the right thing to do at the time. But of course, spreading “ideas proper to the higher order that is in the end to be” would be a welcome result. While my personal emphasis tends to fall on the ability “to see, to develop, to RE-CREATE THEMSELVES IN THE IMAGE of the spirit” rather than on “communicate both their idea and its power to the mass,” I can’t help doing the latter as well.
Every effort in this direction serves a useful purpose. Much the same holds in the context of quantum physics. While there are numberless popular books on the subject which to me are worthless drivel, I recognize that they can help others to progress intellectually. What causes eye-rolling in me can be eye-opening to others.
You are surely in a better position than I to estimate the number of aspiring hearts. Seriously. The cynic in me however feels that the number is still not large enough, or that the aspiration is not sufficiently intense, and that more hammering is needed. Hence my preference for the darker quotes, like the last paragraph of this post.
> “Wherefore God hammers so fiercely at his world, tramples and kneads it like dough, casts it so often into the blood-bath and the red hell-heat of the furnace? Because humanity in the mass is still a hard, crude and vile ore which will not otherwise be smelted and shaped: as is his material, so is his method.” — Sri Aurobindo (Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, p. 210)
This shouldn’t be quoted without its sequel:
> “Wherefore he selected or made such a material, when he had all infinite possibility to choose from? Because of his divine Idea which saw before it not only beauty and sweetness and purity, but also force and will and greatness. Despise not force, nor hate it for the ugliness of some of its faces, nor think that love only is God. All perfect perfection must have something in it of the stuff of the hero and even of the Titan. But the greatest force is born out of the greatest difficulty.”
ULRICH: I can’t define what exactly moves me to write; it just feels like the right thing to do at the time.
COMMENT: yes, this is for the most part a very apt description of my own experience of writing.
ULRICH: the ability “to see, to develop, to RE-CREATE THEMSELVES IN THE IMAGE of the spirit” rather than on “communicate both their idea and its power to the mass,”
COMMENT: yes, I've been talking about communicating ideas, but when i refer simply to "practice" my intention is always to convey such an ability. To 'recreate" oneself in the image of Spirit - this could be interpreted mentally, but i assume that would be incorrect. it sounds a bit more along the lines of the "imitation of Christ," though of course, with the integral transformation it goes far beyond that. I would consider it a miracle if a significant minority (and likely, a rather small one) was touched enough in their surface nature by intimations of the love, devotion, truth, nobility, beauty and goodness of the psychic being, as well as intimation of the vastness, freedom, unboundedness and freedom of the Self that the ideas you and I have spoken of communicating have some sufficient grounding in experience so as not to be merely "intellectual."
ULRICH there are numberless popular books on the subject which to me are worthless drivel, I recognize that they can help others to progress intellectually .
COMMENT: over the years, every time I've been tempted to include even a few sentences about quantum physics, I set aside the temptation and my heart is grateful that Marco and Ulrich are out there writing!
ULRICH: You are surely in a better position than I to estimate the number of aspiring hearts. Seriously. ....more hammering is needed. Hence my preference for the darker quotes,
COMMENT: This points to a genuine weakness of mine. I do tend to fall back into pollyanna-like positivity and it certainly helps to be reminded of the darker forces behind the scenes.
> “Wherefore God hammers so fiercely at his world, tramples and kneads it like dough, casts it so often into the blood-bath and the red hell-heat of the furnace? Because humanity in the mass is still a hard, crude and vile ore which will not otherwise be smelted and shaped: as is his material, so is his method.” — Sri Aurobindo (Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, p. 210) ...“Wherefore he selected or made such a material, when he had all infinite possibility to choose from? Because of his divine Idea which saw before it not only beauty and sweetness and purity, but also force and will and greatness. Despise not force, nor hate it for the ugliness of some of its faces, nor think that love only is God. All perfect perfection must have something in it of the stuff of the hero and even of the Titan. But the greatest force is born out of the greatest difficulty.”
COMMENT: This is, to me, where genuine sraddha is so helpful, the faith that is the "yet unrisen light of the Soul." That Light sees beyond the surface and even deeper than the Adverse Forces, to the Divine Shakti underlying all.
You: “when i refer simply to ‘practice’ my intention is always to convey such an ability.” — My emphasis was on the communicator’s OWN ability/practice. One might be able to convey the need for acquiring the ability, but communicating the ability itself requires a significant spiritual realization on the part of the communicator. (Just saying. No judgment.)
This reminds me of a passage in Mother’s Agenda (Feb 24, 1965) which begins with “Oh, if you want to be amused, I have received a letter from Alexandra David-Neel.” The Mother had written to ADN of the Tibetan’s “gratitude for the great intellectual progress they would be making with her.” ADN never forgave her: “she never forgave me! Because I wrote ‘intellectual’ instead of ‘spiritual’ (I consider she is quite incapable of making anyone progress spiritually, while intellectually, she is first-rate).” So there is this difference. Luckily the English language doesn’t have the difficulty the Germans have, who use the same word “Geist” for both mind and spirit — a translator's nightmare.
From the point of view of soul and spirit, Pollyanna is right. From the present human mind’s nose-to-the-ground view, she of course isn’t. See my post https://aurocafe.substack.com/p/ignorance-a-bug-or-a-feature.
See also this post, which contains Krishna’s mocking words “Thou grievest for those that should not be grieved for yet speakest words of wisdom”: https://aurocafe.substack.com/p/on-death-grief-and-rebirth.
If I have anything going for me, it is my unshakable sraddha. It allows me to lean back and watch this horror movie popcorn in hand. See you tomorrow!
Oh, to me sufficient intuitive inklings (at the least) come through in your writings to make them worth reading!
(But then, what do I know?)