Two related second thoughts - the first on thinking. I've written much about primary thinking and heart thinking. On reflection it strikes me that 'thinking' is not the right word, because what 'it' is, is not much like thinking, and the word may mislead.
The problem with conscious thinking is 'the will' in the sense of explicit plans, schemes and strategies that gets explicitly articulated; and which we then try to follow and impose on reality. This is a big problem indeed. It affects religious people, it affects Christians, just as badly - and fatally. It is this idea of making a (necessarily simplified) abstract model of reality, then trying to impose that model which lies behind much of the presently world-dominant 'Ahrimanic' and bureaucratic evil.
It's hard to conceive of a thinking that is not 'will-full' in this bad sense. The man from whom I took much of this, Rudolf Steiner, fell into exactly this snare, I believe; that is, he gave primacy to a will-full and consciously-controlled 'method' of thinking, which he then forcefully applied to whatever subject matter was before him. This led him into a great mass of what I regard as systematized error.
I have used primary thinking and heart thinking as synonyms for what might otherwise (and better) be termed intuition; but for many people intuition is mixed up with instinct. Yet I regard intuition as being divine (God in us) - hence always right; whereas instinct is animal, hence often wrong (and even more-often inapplicable).
My idea of Final Participation (which ought to be my aim) is that it is primary and unanalysable - and identical with intuition; but that to be 'final' it needs to be conscious. The will ('thinking' should be subordinated to intuition. My goal is that I am trying to be aware of my intuition. And, if so, I do not need to 'think' it, or to 'think about' it.
It strikes me that Jesus (in the Gospels) doesn't 'think'. He knows what to say or do, and does it.
And that this surely ought to be my ideal too? (As best as possible in mortal life, and as an aim; and fully in Heaven.) So maybe all this stuff I've written about the importance of thinking is mistaken?
I have also written against ideas of one-ness as the idea, of the aimed-at extinction of self or ego (dissolving-into the divine...); and I hold to that rejection - and I also reject the conception of ultimate reality as a static state of time-less-ness, complete joining, and all space as one infinite. Instead what is wanted is the 'dynamic' state of open-ended creation, in-which God and other being may participate. Time is sequential with a before and and after; space is not infinite but instead un-bounded, endlessly expansile. Creation is growing as well as developing.
As young children we were passively immersed-in divine creation; and what we need to aim at as adults (spiritually adults) is to be consciously active in divine creation; but that doesn't need thinking. Our true creativity is natural and spontaneous - and it is Good, as well as true.
(This has been my experience also in ordinary mortal-life creating; as a scientist, especially.)
So, in successful meditation, we might first become aware of 'Me, Here, Now' - and then of the loving presence of the divine: the Holy Ghost. We don't lose our-selves in this, but ideally enter into a here-and-now loving relationship, aware of our-selves, aware of the Holy Ghost - and aware too of all other men and women who are in this same state of active creating. Love entails beings. Love is impossible with unity/ one-ness. So, since love is primary for Christians; one-ness is ruled-out as a goal.
We are at that time in meditation (usually brief, perhaps just a moment) tuned-into the ongoing work of creation, and we are aware of that creating; and by our relationship with the Holy Ghost we are playing some part in it. We are then participating, actively and consciously; yet (I would now say) without thinking.
It may seem as if consciousness is here acting merely as an observer, but it is something more; it seems that our consciousness is what makes the choice to do this, to enter into this, to contnue to participate in this; consciousness either embodies or brings with it the totality of our being.
By contrast, as young children, we may be swept-along by divine creation; caught-up in its flux; unconscious of it, and without any need to choose it (and without any way of choosing otherwise).
In our spiritual adolescence (from which sadly few emerge) we are isolated and cut off from the divine, and from this participation in creation. This is the state of existential alientation. To escape the consequent despair; we need consciously to choose to re-enter participation... To become aware of the workings of God, and the presence (here and now) of the Holy Ghost, and the possibility (the actuality, indeed) of a personal relationship with these: Me, Here, Now.
It seems that my task, in this situation of the world-at-present, is to make these conscious choices, and to have these experiences; so that I can learn from them to make a firm committment to accept Jesus's offer of resurrection into everlasting life; because this is exactly a foretaste of that Heavenly state.
By knowing it (and with a transcendental and eternal 'knowing' - not by means of mortal memory, doomed to fade and die), I then know that I want it.
And this seems necessary given all the false reasons and instinctual manipulations of Satan triumphant - that would probably otherwise seduce me into rejecting the call to follow Christ.
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