Quite interesting reflection. I noted a couple insights which resonate with Heidegger. We are most often caught up in something which Heidegger would call a project but you identify as a lecture or maybe flow. The point Heidegger makes is this being caught up in something leads us to use things like equipment and no longer see things like objects. When a carpenter is using a hammer or tool to build something this tool is an extension of himself. Only if it breaks does he come to be aware and of the hammer for what it is, its constituent parts. Just like one hearing a lecture and caught up in it, it’s not until something is out of place or breaks down (a break in the flow) that one becomes self-reflective and realizes the distance between himself and the orator. The question I’d ask is is being caught up in something or the flow inherently the goal or post flow phenomenological analysis, or is there a means of intuition proper to its object or subject which can be cultivated say with hesychastic prayer? Moreover, Heidegger notes that we live in an age of a world picture. This age is unique for we become the subject I’m, the origin and ground of all abstract thought and because this thought is given to research of ever narrowing and more settled fields which re-present the world to us as a picture, we have now a re-presentation, a world picture between us and the presenting of being. We refer all experience to the picture and no longer know the present for how it gives ourselves to us. Your idea of breaking away from the perspective of research, I agree with, but to a degree how much is the task at hand spiritually not to let go of the picture and reconnect with an intuitive understanding of things? Moreover, is the flow really reality or don’t desires, judgments, and entertainment often capture our intentional gaze and leave us unaware of depth and more than appearance, etc…. I guess my questions here would be do we have to a) acknowledge the distractions or judgments which shape the quality of consciousness, and b) intentionally act in such a way that we are not automatically caught up in things (prosoche, nepsis, awareness, prayer watchfulness? And c) don’t we have to be purposive in how we orient our intention as to see things in light of the absolute (God) if we don’t wish to just refer everything to the world picture handed us? I deal with some of these questions in my blog if your interested:https://open.substack.com/pub/nasmith/p/from-secular-constraints-to-spiritual?r=32csd0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true and https://nasmith.substack.com/p/burning-off-the-warts-and-becoming?r=32csd0
Thanks for bringing the connections to Heidegger! That is exactly what I was trying to suggest with how our concepts can be experienced more as artistic tools to express and orient to our deeper intuitive being. They first point us back to the constellation of our own personality - the desires, judgments, preferences, habits, etc. A major reason why this shift in perspective is instinctively avoided is precisely because it invites us to confront our old patterns of being that we have identified with. That sort of inner work is seen as entirely disconnected from the pursuit of modern philosophy and science, but the latter will never make it across the the threshold of the Catch-22 without it.
I think you are right about a, b, and c. These are the artistic tools we need to cultivate to reorient our perspective on thinking and redeem our lower impulses, which of course influence all of the Earthly kingdoms. The next part will focus specifically on the role of moral virtues in reorienting to the Sun-perspective, from which we shift our interest from what reality personally means to us to what WE mean to the shared reality, i.e. how the latter knows us and the objective consequences of our spiritual activity.
Thanks for sharing your blog, I have subscribed and look forward to checking out the posts!
I am only going to say at this point that this kind of exercise in thinking is entirely owing to the present dilemma of Lucifer in the human head, and bringing Ahriman up from the rest of the human organism, where living substance still exists, in order to create a kind of "thought monument", which would try to become a universal principle. For example, Heidegger, or even Hegel, although Hegel did strive to achieve the Cosmic Word, and was successful in doing so, according to Rudolf Steiner.
Quite interesting reflection. I noted a couple insights which resonate with Heidegger. We are most often caught up in something which Heidegger would call a project but you identify as a lecture or maybe flow. The point Heidegger makes is this being caught up in something leads us to use things like equipment and no longer see things like objects. When a carpenter is using a hammer or tool to build something this tool is an extension of himself. Only if it breaks does he come to be aware and of the hammer for what it is, its constituent parts. Just like one hearing a lecture and caught up in it, it’s not until something is out of place or breaks down (a break in the flow) that one becomes self-reflective and realizes the distance between himself and the orator. The question I’d ask is is being caught up in something or the flow inherently the goal or post flow phenomenological analysis, or is there a means of intuition proper to its object or subject which can be cultivated say with hesychastic prayer? Moreover, Heidegger notes that we live in an age of a world picture. This age is unique for we become the subject I’m, the origin and ground of all abstract thought and because this thought is given to research of ever narrowing and more settled fields which re-present the world to us as a picture, we have now a re-presentation, a world picture between us and the presenting of being. We refer all experience to the picture and no longer know the present for how it gives ourselves to us. Your idea of breaking away from the perspective of research, I agree with, but to a degree how much is the task at hand spiritually not to let go of the picture and reconnect with an intuitive understanding of things? Moreover, is the flow really reality or don’t desires, judgments, and entertainment often capture our intentional gaze and leave us unaware of depth and more than appearance, etc…. I guess my questions here would be do we have to a) acknowledge the distractions or judgments which shape the quality of consciousness, and b) intentionally act in such a way that we are not automatically caught up in things (prosoche, nepsis, awareness, prayer watchfulness? And c) don’t we have to be purposive in how we orient our intention as to see things in light of the absolute (God) if we don’t wish to just refer everything to the world picture handed us? I deal with some of these questions in my blog if your interested:https://open.substack.com/pub/nasmith/p/from-secular-constraints-to-spiritual?r=32csd0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true and https://nasmith.substack.com/p/burning-off-the-warts-and-becoming?r=32csd0
Thanks for bringing the connections to Heidegger! That is exactly what I was trying to suggest with how our concepts can be experienced more as artistic tools to express and orient to our deeper intuitive being. They first point us back to the constellation of our own personality - the desires, judgments, preferences, habits, etc. A major reason why this shift in perspective is instinctively avoided is precisely because it invites us to confront our old patterns of being that we have identified with. That sort of inner work is seen as entirely disconnected from the pursuit of modern philosophy and science, but the latter will never make it across the the threshold of the Catch-22 without it.
I think you are right about a, b, and c. These are the artistic tools we need to cultivate to reorient our perspective on thinking and redeem our lower impulses, which of course influence all of the Earthly kingdoms. The next part will focus specifically on the role of moral virtues in reorienting to the Sun-perspective, from which we shift our interest from what reality personally means to us to what WE mean to the shared reality, i.e. how the latter knows us and the objective consequences of our spiritual activity.
Thanks for sharing your blog, I have subscribed and look forward to checking out the posts!
I am only going to say at this point that this kind of exercise in thinking is entirely owing to the present dilemma of Lucifer in the human head, and bringing Ahriman up from the rest of the human organism, where living substance still exists, in order to create a kind of "thought monument", which would try to become a universal principle. For example, Heidegger, or even Hegel, although Hegel did strive to achieve the Cosmic Word, and was successful in doing so, according to Rudolf Steiner.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA199/English/AP1986/19200827p01.html