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Go and see the magnificent “V for Vendetta” and sit back and enjoy all the great allegories provided! Especially the one on 9-11.
Thanx for your answer Tumo! 🙂 It’s always interesting to hear other people’s opinion on these matters.
Tumoessence: Not specifically Steiner, sice the guardian on the threshold is wellknown phenomenon within the WMT. I do look upon Rudolf Steiner as a man of attainment and thus value his words and opinions and insights even though I might not always agree with them.
If you look in my ramblings post you’ll find a link to an article by Gareth Knight that spawned my original question.
Spongebob: You are so right. It’s a rather pointless intellectual habit of mine to develop these theories. I should get back to practice.
But I will still continue to post stupid questions like these now and then in the future.
Well I just find it interesting. It was this Gareth Knight article that made me start to wonder whether there is a similar phenomenon within all traditons. Within some strands of the WMT there seems to be such a fixed and almost scientific understanding of what comprises the various stages on the road to enlightenment. Something that feels highly missing if you’re trying to be a solitary wandering taoist without a teacher. http://www.innerlight.org.uk/journals/Vol22No4/dweller.htm
I personally tend to believe that most of the traditional religio-mystical paths lead to the same goal although some may lead one step higher than others on the ladder(e.g. the sufis often do stress the fact that one should past the exstatic meditation phases once they have been reached, stabilised and learnt from)
Well I’m not good at giving examples. A lot of people have tried to compare systems. Like “The Meditative Mind” by Daniel Goldman etc.
A book that personally gave me a lot of major insights into all this, at a time when I couldn’t possibly see how Buddhism and Christianity could share the same cosmological structure, was “Qabalah – The mystical heritage of the Children of Abraham” published by a small organisation called “Work of the Chariot”. I belive the book is out of print, but you can download it for free or read the parts that interest you on their webpage. http://www.workofthechariot.com
Especially interesting was their distinction of Attaining Small face (tipareth, meeting jesus, enter heaven etc.) and Vast face cosnciousness (Attaining Kether and then exiting the world to the negative substatum of Ayn Soph/Ayn Soph Aur, Emptiness Tao, Nirvana) (you better check it out yourself because my understanding and summary from memory is not very precise)
They also talked about the distincitons of ascending the tree along the middle pillar as opposed to the side pillars, the difference between the way magicians, sorcerers and mystics climb the tree. Furthermore they compare this mystical qabalism to different traditions such as tantra, sufism and alchemical taoism in a respectful manner, acknowledging that all paths are valid vehicles for attainment.
I urge you all to give it a read, if you have the time. Since I myself enjoyed it immensely. 🙂
HOWEVER, I still wonder if one can straight off compare different traditons various stages with eachother. Is sufi stage 2 comparable with buddhist stage 2? etc. Maybe some paths don’t have any fixed stages of attainment but there is a lot that seems to speak for this phenomenon from what I’ve read and heard.
So, If Final Enlightenmnet/Nirvana/The Great Work/Ephemeral Tao/ is compared to the summit of a mountain, then the reason I’m asking is because I’m curious whether the various stages in different systems are in any way similar to eachother or not along the way to the final destination. And if so, if it is possible to pick a pathway(tradition) up the mountain that is less rocky and perilous up to the summit. Both from an objective and a subjective viewpoint. Or do you get it all, just in a differnt order, no matter what road you pick?
Well I know I’m ranting away but.. 🙂
Not really sure where I wanna go with all this, but I guess I’m just interested in hearing your personal viewpoints about this.IO
