Yes that article was a good recommendation, wasn't it:>))
That's interesting, the idea of Goethe's view as a higher-mind view (for folks not familiar with the term, the "higher mind" is a term Sri Aurobindo gave for the first of 4 levels of what he called "the spiritual mind."
I had thought the same as you when I came across Henri Bortoft's "The Wholeness of Nature," in which he applies Goethe's phenomenological view to the understanding of nature.
But I later came across a statement by Sri Aurobindo - which, by the way, conflicts with what Satprem, M Pandit and numerous others have said about the higher mind - saying that the essential thing that identifies the higher mind is that there has already been a stable realization of the Self (I know, he doesn't make this clear in The Life Divine; i think it's from a letter he wrote to a student asking about details)
This makes much more sense to me, as it relates to the 'spiritual' mind. We attempted to describe this in the appendix on scientific research of the future which we included in our yogic psychology book. There is at least a sense of the vastness and all pervading nature of pure Consciousness, and possibly a direct "knowing" (knowledge by identity, though not the complete knowledge of the Supermind) of each perceived form as a direct formation of that Consciousness. It seems to me the kind of understanding of morphogenesis and other aspects of evolution would be radically different when everything as seen directly as the Self.
Oh, very good. I'm amazed how much confusion there is about this in the IY community (and don't get me started on Ken Wilber, who equates it to an ordinary developmental stage just beyond abstract thinking, wholly on the surface with no connection to the Self whatsoever!!
Yes that article was a good recommendation, wasn't it:>))
That's interesting, the idea of Goethe's view as a higher-mind view (for folks not familiar with the term, the "higher mind" is a term Sri Aurobindo gave for the first of 4 levels of what he called "the spiritual mind."
I had thought the same as you when I came across Henri Bortoft's "The Wholeness of Nature," in which he applies Goethe's phenomenological view to the understanding of nature.
But I later came across a statement by Sri Aurobindo - which, by the way, conflicts with what Satprem, M Pandit and numerous others have said about the higher mind - saying that the essential thing that identifies the higher mind is that there has already been a stable realization of the Self (I know, he doesn't make this clear in The Life Divine; i think it's from a letter he wrote to a student asking about details)
This makes much more sense to me, as it relates to the 'spiritual' mind. We attempted to describe this in the appendix on scientific research of the future which we included in our yogic psychology book. There is at least a sense of the vastness and all pervading nature of pure Consciousness, and possibly a direct "knowing" (knowledge by identity, though not the complete knowledge of the Supermind) of each perceived form as a direct formation of that Consciousness. It seems to me the kind of understanding of morphogenesis and other aspects of evolution would be radically different when everything as seen directly as the Self.
You are right! I amended this in the text with 'spiritual-mind.' Thank you for the clarification.
Oh, very good. I'm amazed how much confusion there is about this in the IY community (and don't get me started on Ken Wilber, who equates it to an ordinary developmental stage just beyond abstract thinking, wholly on the surface with no connection to the Self whatsoever!!