Wednesday, May 5th, 1971

CLASS at American Brahman Bookstore, Ithaca, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

May 5, 1971

PB BOOKS; WISDOM OF THE OVERSELF;

"BIRTH OF THE UNIVERSE"

TOPIC: PB Books

SUBJECT: Wisdom of the Overself

SUBSUBJECTS: "Birth of the Universe," Karma, Infinite Possibilities, Parabrahman, Mind, Twofold Law of Karma, Individuality, Substance

CONTENTS:

MIND/PARABRAHMAN AS INFINITE POSSIBILITIES (UNIVERSES) SIMULTANEOUSLY ACTUALIZED BUT NOT MANIFEST

KARMA AS THE MANIFESTATION/REVELATION OF ONE OF THOSE POSSIBILITIES AS A UNIVERSE—THAT IS, MIND MANIFESTING ONE OF ITS INFINITE POSSIBILITIES TO ITSELF

KARMA AS THE MANIFESTATION OF A POSSIBILITY CONTAINED WITHIN THE OVERSELF, WHICH WILL EMPLOY THE TWIN-FUNCTIONS OF IDEATION AND ENERGY TO REALIZE ITSELF

KARMA AS POWER OPERATING IN A CERTAIN WAY THAT IS CLOSELY ALLIED WITH CERTAIN IMAGERY

KARMA AS A TWOFOLD LAW: GENERAL AND SPECIAL

KARMA AS THE KINETIC MEMORY OF NATURE THAT IS COUPLED WITH ITS IMAGINATIVE POWER

KARMA IS AN ARCHETYPE BECAUSE IT APPLIES TO EVERYTHING IN THE MANIFESTED UNIVERSE—AN INDIVIDUAL, A COSMOS, A PLANET

THE LAW OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL'S OWN CONTINUITY REFERS TO THE ETERNAL BEDROCK OF YOUR BEING

UNION WITH THE DIVINE DOESN'T MEAN YOU GET SWALLOWED UP OR ANNIHILATED

A SAGE DOESN'T HAVE THE SENSE OF DOERSHIP BECAUSE THEIR WILL IS IDENTIFIED WITH THE SELF

HOW COULD THE TOTALITY OF THE MIND OPERATE IN YOU AND THE TOTALITY OF THE MIND OPERATE IN ME? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "SUBSTANCE"?

DOES THE SECOND LAW OF KARMA APPLY ONLY TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE SENSE OF "MINENESS?"

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself

• Paul Brunton, The Spiritual Crisis of Man

DIAGRAMS referred to (not with this transcript version) [Transcriber note: [diagram] means the speaker is referencing a diagram as he or she is speaking. If someone is drawing or writing, with audible sounds of chalk on a blackboard, I indicate this by [drawing] or [writing].]

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2018. Reformatted from V11a version by JRM & JF 2019-2020, with Subheads and new Table of Contents added by JRM. In 2023, IT updates prefatory matter, footer, and audio file name, fixes errors/typos, alters some Subheads to make more accurate, adds new note within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions. In 2025, MW expands Subsubjects and alters Subheads to make more accurate. Archival verbatim transcript – V14.1a.

AUDIO FILES: 1971 0505a, 1971 0505b. [Note: "Tape" refers to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files, and which were also consulted for this transcript.]

1971 05/05 at American Brahman Bookstore

PB Books; Wisdom of the Overself; "Birth of the Universe"

Archival Verbatim Transcript

[Audio File 1971 0505a Begins]

MIND/PARABRAHMAN AS INFINITE POSSIBILITIES (UNIVERSES) SIMULTANEOUSLY ACTUALIZED BUT NOT MANIFEST

AD: --infinite possibilities which it contains and which the Hindus often refer to as mulaprakriti, which I think in-- in the beginning of the chapter goes something like this.

[Transcriber note: I am using The Wisdom of the Overself by Paul Brunton, Rider and Company, London, 1943.]

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 26, AD reading]: "There is no moment at which it has not existed, [either] latently or actively, and consequently there will [AD reads: there'll] be no moment when it will not continue to exist, [either] latently or actively."

AD: And what did that refer to, Anna?

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AP: Jones.

AD: That refer to the universes, right? The whole procession. Inconceivable to the mind. You can only stagger back and say, "That's enough, let's go on to the next sentence." Mulaprakriti, infinite possibility, the totality of all the universes that could ever be.

[student(s) assenting, faint]

S (whisper, possibly part of background): That's nice.

[students assent, faint]

AD: Ok? You see something here now, Dave?

BS (simultaneously): But-- but as a possibility, as infinite possibility.

AD: What do you mean is impossibility, as in--

BS (simultaneously): As possibility.

AD: For Parabrahman it's as possibility!?

BS: Well you said all the universes that are--

AD: Here's one universe, another one, another one, and another one, right? Pralaya [student assents] in between, alright, [BS assents] they come and they go, alright? [BS assents] They're all contained within this [diagram], right? [student assents, very faint] Can you conceive of a universe with-- outside of that?

S (faint): No.

BS: No, not outside of that [diagram] but inside of that [diagram].

AD: Inside of what, infinite possibilities? (laughter)

S: What did he say?

AD: Would it be a possibility in the Infinite?

BS: Maybe they're like the same, except one we could speak of and the other we can't, right?

S (faint): But how so?

AD: Well, [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] maybe I don't understand you, Bert, repeat yourself.

[short pause]

BS: Well when you speak of the root of Nature or infinite possibility, I don't know if you agree with me, you're not speaking of an actualization of these possibilities, are you? Or are you?

AD: I'm speaking of them, of course they cannot be actual for me. But insofar that we refer them to Parabrahman, they're all actual.

BS: Oh.

AD: There's no such thing as "possibly real" with the Infinite. Whatever It thinks, is.

[short pause]

JS: Tony, I'm confused now.

AD: Why are [S simultaneously: So am I (one word inaudible)] you confused? It's so straightforward.

JS (simultaneously): In-- I guess in terminology.

AD: Alright, we--

JS: 'Cause I thought we were equating infinite possibility with Mind.

AD: Infinite possibility is out there [diagram], right?

JS: Uh-huh.

AD: In other words, if you consider Supreme Mind, Parabrahman, [JS assents] and you want to try to define it, the only way you can define it is in terms of its productions or manifestations. But as soon as you're dealing with its productions or manifestations, you are considering all the possibilities. Now these possibilities are all actual for the Supreme. Alright, you follow that?

JS: Yeah.

AD: They're actual for the Supreme, there's nothing-- the Supreme doesn't have to plan, lay it out and then build it and do it, alright. On the other hand, over there [diagram], in the series of manifested universes, one after the other, this one, the one that comes, and the pralaya periods and all that in between, alright, all these have to be conceived as, so to speak, contained within the World-- the Mind Itself, alright?

JS: Uh-hm.

AD: Now where's your confusion?

[short pause]

JS: I'm not sure.

AD: Well, that's a good start.

JS: That's why I'm so confused.

AD: Yeah Kurt.

S: Are we to understand [AD simultaneously: Think about it.] Parabrahman as the World-Mind?

VM: No, [S simultaneously: No.] I don't think so, no.

PD: Ishvara is [couple words inaudible]

AD: This is the World-Mind [diagram].

JS: And is mulaprakriti--

AD (simultaneously): This is Mind in Itself [diagram], alright, [JS assents] and those are the world [diagram], the world that, so to speak, arises within the World-Mind, the manifested cosmos; of which there are innumerable numbers, it's indefinite. Doesn't he say at the very beginning, doesn't he say precisely that? No moment when this universe didn't exist, this one, the next one, the one after. Well then they're all contained as possibilities as far as we're concerned. I'm trying to make you aware of another way of trying to understand the notion of Mind. [short pause] If you try to understand the nature of mental substance itself-- Well, let's use an analogy. You have a dream, and the whole scene is laid out, alright, you go through the dream and you wake up, chapter one is over, alright? You go back to sleep, chapter two starts and chapter three, chapter four, ok? And imagine an innumerable series. Now I-- this is the way-- this is the way I want you to think now for a minute. All the scenes that are played out in the dream are, let's say, different universes coming into manifestation. These are all possibilities that are contained within the mind. What-- when they're actualized of course then you can see them, alright. Can you see what I mean by infinite possibilities?

[student assents, very faint]

S: Thing that's difficult is I keep-- I keep making the infinite possibilities (in Mind/combined). Now, a possibility, a possibility, is a-- is a principle of manifestation.

AD: A possibility is a principle?

S: It would-- like with respect to the diagram you had before, I guess you took it down [few words inaudible] just seems like it's a different point of view than that, than universal automatic (destiny) from this manifestation.

[VM and another student assent, faint]

AD: Yeah. I'm taking you up a wrong end, alright, let's back off and come back another way.

S: Tony, I-- I thought that mulaprakriti was sort of like the-- the receptive principle and-- and--

AD: The what?

S: The receptive-- the gift of receptivity. [one/two words inaudible, possibly another student]

S (faint): You mean like pure potential?

S: Yeah. And it doesn't seem the same as infinite possibilities for the [one word inaudible]

S (faint): Ok.

AD: You think of prakriti as infinite receptivity, alright, pure potentiality. Is that what you're saying? Well then why can't you think of the correlate?

S: I can, but where would you put it?

AD: You can't put it anywhere. That would be Mind. If you can think of [couple/three inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] Mind in its receptivity or pure potentiality, alright, of which it will manifest every one of these possibilities, then you're getting close to what the notion of Parabrahman means. Otherwise, you're trying to do this. I ask you to consider, you remember the example we use, think of a pinhead, and you think of a pinhead, alright. Now think of a large city, and you think of a large city, alright? Now I ask you, was the totality-- wa-- was your mind involved in the creation of this pinhead and this city and you say yes, alright. The totality of the mind was involved in it, right? The totality of the mind was involved in understanding or, that is, picturing a city as a pin. Now see, see if you can get to this point. Conceive of all the things that the mind could imagine. You can't, right? [S: Yeah.] [S, faint: Uh-uh.] Infinite possibilities. I didn't use the word indefinite, I used the word infinite.

S: Um-- [short pause] It seemed, well, it seems to me that to say mulaprakriti or root of Nature isolates an aspect of two-- You know, it's so far beyond-- beyond Nature it's-- but to say infinite possibilities, we know that there are actually in Nature and like, you know, where does the world fit into that or like the way we were speaking, almost like they-- that you had it-- had it all stated up there [diagram].

AD: I'm sorry, I didn't follow you at all.

S: Um--

[tape break]

AD: Read the next paragraph. The whole paragraph.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "The cosmos, being a thought-formation, can never really disappear any more than a human idea can really disappear when it is put aside from attention. We may understand this point better by considering how thoughts exist in a man's mind."

AD: Now listen to this analogy, try to follow it.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "What happens to them when they vanish? Where do they come from when they appear? At any time he can [AD reads: can he] call them up again even though during the interval they have seemingly been nonexistent. His ideas are manifestations of his own mind, not creations out of some external stuff. In the same way the World-Mind manifests something of its own self in the cosmos. And its own self, as will be shown later, being uniquely eternal and undying, it is inevitable that the world-ideas which have arisen within it are eternal and undying too."

AD: Now, let's see if this paragraph helps us. If we take the analogy that he gives us here, a human idea, idea after idea drops into the unconscious, alright? And, we lose awareness of an idea, it vanishes, and then we could recall it and it comes back again. Now evidently what's postulated here is the existence of an overwhelming superior kind of consciousness--now I'm going to disown the Buddhists for a while, you don't mind, do you gentleman?--that can, so to speak, re-- be relied on, if you think about it, to pick it out, say "Ah, 28 years ago on a Monday morning I had ketchup put on my grapefruit." (bit of laughter) Now there's some kind of overwhelming functioning intelligence and awareness operating here, right? You can imagine, so to speak, now this is only for a picture, an entity behind you that records everything you've ever done, every thought you've ever had, right? You know, in deep hypnosis they could do that too, they could make you remember things you did when you were three years old. So evidently there's some kind of action going on, there's some kind of mirroring going on underneath. All these ideas drop there and they're all available to this superior kind of consciousness. Alright? Now to this superior kind of consciousness, we can't say, so to speak, that these ideas which vanish for us are in a latent state for it. We cannot say that they're not actual. Here, do you follow what I'm trying to get at it Richard? [student assents, very faint] All I'm trying to do is g-- is get this notion out of what we're really talking about. So it sends a shudder d-- up and down your spine when you realize that this kind of superior intelligence, which symbolically is represented in a fragmentary way by the World-Mind, alright, that the entirety, alright, of these infinite possibilities, so to speak, lie like an open book to the Absolute, which by the way the Egyptians always regarded in the form of Thrice Great Darkness. [short pause] Alright, I guess you're beginning to realize that you cannot know it. [student assents, very faint] There's no possibility of knowing Parabrahman. Never. [student assents, faint] Yeah.

DB: Could I try an analogy with that?

AD: Yeah, sure, if you got an analogy, swell.

DB: It would be like a-- a dream character having a dream of the dreamer's mind.

[short pause with faint background student words]

AD: It'd be like a-- (laughter)

DB (amidst laughter): Well, like I go to sleep tonight, instead of having a dream that, you know, consists of a series of events and people and objects I have a dream about-- about my mind. It's an impossibility.

S: Why, why (do you say that)?

S: Yeah.

JS: You dream that you're dreaming about your own mind.

DB: No, the-- [few inaudible student words simultaneous with DB] the dream I have is of that which makes possible dreams.

S: There's no dream about [one/two words inaudible]

S: Then it's [one/two words inaudible]

DB: Now how could that be?

[simultaneously] [couple students at once, few words inaudible]

S: Yeah David, how can it be? (bit of laughter)

S (faint): Yeah David.

S (simultaneously): Yeah Dave.

S: Uh-hm.

S (faint): It was your dream, (what's the status of--)

AD: Yeah. Or the analogy I like to give about the image in the mirror.

DB: Uh-hm.

AD: This is our situation when we meditate and we're going to try to become aware of that image in the mirror, so we want to step out of the mirror, but if we do there's no image there to look at. And maybe we can dissolve in the process and just leave the mirror there. [student assents] But then again, Hui-Neng would not accept this analogy, would he Paul?

PD (faint): No. (bit of laughter)

S (faint): You have to take away the mirror too.

AD (simultaneously): Huh?

S: You have to take away the mirror too. Can't do that.

AD: Well, then the analogy becomes useless. (laughter) Now don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to compete with Hui-Neng. But there is a point beyond which you don't drive an analogy, otherwise it loses all value.

S (faint): Yeah.

S: No, like wouldn't it be--

[tape break]

AD: --subject or the object or the mirror.

S: Ok.

AD: Now I'm only-- I'm only pulling them out of the mirror to give an analogy. You gotta leave them back in the mirror there. [short pause] Alright, let's try again, come on.

[short pause]

PD: Oh. Would it be correct to say then that mulaprakriti is a revelation of the Mind by the World-Mind?

AD: Is a revelation--

PD: Of Mind by the World-Mind.

[9¼ second pause]

AD: It's hard to answer yes or no to that, Paul.

PD (simultaneously): Well, if-- if you-- I was trying to put Ishvara in there 'cause when-- when you're speaking of-- of the manifestation of these possibilities, you have to somehow refer to the-- the principle which actual-- actualizes them in the relative sense.

AD: Hit me again. You know like when you go to the bar, hit me again. (laughter, students assent)

PD: Well, the analogy he gives here, like it has it own memory contents, and-- and me as an individual would be analogous to that-- to that Ishvara. And--

AD: I'm sorry, the what?

PD: Me as an individual would be an analogy for Ishvara. And, my act of beholding all these-- all the memory contents, if I could behold them all, I would-- I would be at the same time creating them. And this-- that's what we call Ishvara or the World-Mind.

S (very faint): Uh-hm, that's right.

AD: Yeah.

PD: But what-- what I'm revealing, those memory contents, is a revelation of Mind, what they are.

[11¾ second pause]

AD: Once more.

PD: That mental substance--

AD: Once more and I'll question you now.

[short pause]

PD: Well, the act of the World-Mind in beholding the world, it's revealing Mind or it's reveal--

AD: It's revealing Mind?

PD: Yeah.

AD: Uh-huh. In what way is it revealing Mind? I'm not trying [PD assents] to [PD assents] criticize, I-I'm trying to understand, please.

[student assents, very faint]

PD: Insofar as able-- as it's able to be revealed at all and that's-- is that veil of manifestation.

AD: Insofar that it is trying to reveal the manifestation?

PD: No, insofar that Mind's able to be known at all, is-- is-- is active, the World-Mind in creating-- create.

AD: Here let's-- let's see if you're saying something like this. This is Mind-in-Itself [drawing/diagram], alright?

PD: Right.

AD: Now you got World-Mind here [diagram], alright, and then its act of contemplation, alright, the cosmos springs into order [diagram].

PD: Yes.

AD: Alright? Now, in springing to order, alright, you're trying to say that it's springing into order, it reveals the World-Mind-- it reveals Mind?

PD: The-- the very substance of that world is Mind.

AD: The very substance of this cosmos--

PD: Is Mind.

AD: [drawing] Yeah.

PD: And that-- I was showing you that to help understand that sentence when you say--

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, PD reading]: "…it is brought into being by the World-Mind out of itself, out of its own mental"substance"…"

AD: Yeah, ok.

PD: And that's what I was trying to say there, that Mind is that substance in itself.

S: In that case, could you substitute the word 'essence' for substance?

S (very faint): No.

KARMA AS THE MANIFESTATION/REVELATION OF ONE OF THOSE POSSIBILITIES AS A UNIVERSE—THAT IS, MIND MANIFESTING ONE OF ITS INFINITE POSSIBILITIES TO ITSELF

AD: Let's go over this again slowly because we're getting at something worthwhile now. There's also something else being revealed but start with the way you go there, go ahead. Here's Mind [diagram], alright, which represents infinite possibilities, and this is one being actualized. This is the World-Mind in-- coming into operation and here's a cosmos that springs up [diagram], ok? The cosmos springs up, so to speak, when the World-Mind directs its gaze, alright, or contemplates, [student assents] and then all these ideas, so to speak, get clothed like my coffee. Ok? [student assents, faint] It springs up, ok? Now, what-- what did you add to that?

PD: Well if they-- in this act of beholding, [AD: Uh-hm.] the substance of-- of these images is Mind or the being of the World-Mind, this essence. That very substance which is there all the time, its essence, is the substance of the cosmos.

AD: Alright, now, on the one hand you say the substance is revealed as soon as the cosmos springs up-- springs up.

PD: Yes.

AD: On the other hand, what else is revealed? [short pause] Come on, just one [S simultaneously: Forms.] step further and you'll see something very important here. Isn't [student assents] one of the possibilities revealed?

DB: The negation of itself?

AD: No. Aren't possibilities being revealed? What is karma, what the [drawing] hell do you think karma is that you're so frightened of it? (laughter) Isn't that so? Isn't karma really in here somewhere [diagram]? What do you think, Neal?

S: Well, karma would be some way m-- yeah, it's-- it-- Give me one minute, I'm going to tell you in a second. (some laughter)

AD (amidst laughter): Alright, go ahead, take your time, take your [S simultaneously: That's good.] time.

JS: Isn't karma that thing that "chooses," in quotes, among the infinite possibilities, and it sort of determines what's going-- being manifest on [one word inaudible] in some sense?

AD: You mean karma actualizes a certain possibility, don't you?

JS: Yeah, but it also has I think to do with the choices that-- the choices that you--

AD (simultaneously): Well, that's what you think, yeah, that's what you think.

JS (faint): Well, ok, (that's good).

S (faint): Ok.

S (simultaneously): But PB cannot be differentiated, (soon/so) as all that can be differentiated is say mulaprakriti.

AD (simultaneously): Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow, slow. (bit of laughter, AD laughing) This is not engineering.

S (simultaneously): Yeah, yeah, P-- PB cannot be differentiated so what is differentiable is mulaprakriti, [S simultaneously: I don't see--] and if the infinite possibilities you have-- you have that-- all that system of poss-- possibility individual. And in the individual possibilities there would be karma which would be-- [AD: One--] will operate the individual level and that has to be only at mulaprakriti, it can't go anywhere past that.

AD: Can't go anywhere past that. Well what do you think of that? You worked it out all by yourself and s-- Huh? What do you think of that?

PD: I've missed the point, um-- (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): Yeah [one/two words inaudible]

JS (amidst laughter): You missed the whole thing.

S (faint): [few words inaudible]

AD: You missed the point of karma?

PD: Yeah.

[short pause]

AD: But look, here's a dream, you have a dream, right, and in the dream there is a manifestation of a certain sequence of events. Now this, you could say for instance, you could see the imagery, alright, and that represents the twin function of ideation, right? And you can see the karma, the energy behind it, right?

[student assents, very faint]

PD: Yeah.

AD: And isn't it a mind manifesting itself to itself? Actualizing one of the possibilities within it? Now we're speaking at a individual, you know, dream level as an analogy.

PD: Yeah.

AD: Why do you think I keep telling you, fall back on that analogy of the dream personality dreaming. [9¾ second pause] Look, you remember the sentence he uses there about twin function is that of ideation? Read the sentence, would you Andy?

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 31, S reading]: "The rise, abiding and [S simultaneously: The dissolution of karma.] [S adds: the] dissolution of karma is [S simultaneously: Is a twin-function to that of its ideation.] [indeed] a [S reads: the] twin…"

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: Be a good meditation theme, wouldn't it? Rise, abiding, dissolution of karma is twin function to that of ideation. Apply that toto to the universe, alright, or to an individual, to a plant, to anything.

S (very faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): Yeah, ok.

PD: In the very-- it's a cosmos and not a chaos and in that sense you're using the word 'karma' there?

AD: Well, naturally, it's a cosmos, it's this particular cosmos, right? It [PD assents] has a certain content. This content is decided by its karma from the previous universe, right, and that one in turn by the previous universe. Now you're looking in terms of linear succession, alright? But think also at the same time, so to speak, that this represents a manifestation of the Mind to itself. But what is it going to manifest, anything else besides the possibilities within it? [PD assents] Which you call karma. [students assent, faint] Are we getting any closer to the notion of mental substance? What do you think Richard?

RP: Actually about this--

BS: Wait, is the manifestation karma? (student laughs)

RP: Everything disappears as soon as you g-- as soon as you step into that.

S: Yeah.

AD (simultaneously, faint): Well--

S: Yeah, I don't see how [student assents] you could say "Are we getting any closer?" (laughter)

AD (amidst laughter): Thank you.

S (amidst laughter): You're welcome. (more laughter, student words)

AD: But anyway, this part come out to you or is it-- is it a little too thick yet, Bert?

S (simultaneously): So-- so then is what-- is what-- is what the body has that(--) each law of karma, in that karma is the law of one individual's own being or a separate center of continuity, that like each one of those would be a possibility which the World-Mind would--

AD (simultaneously): Well, isn't that so? Aren't you, so to speak, actualizing the possibility which is contained within your Overself? Otherwise, would it make any sense to say--

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 26, AD reading]: "Certain thoughts will come naturally to the student's mind at this stage."

AD: When we pointed out three weeks ago when we hit that sentence that there was three or four different parts to this sentence. "Certain thoughts" immediately makes it obvious that we're dealing with stages of development on the way and these stages are archetypal, right? Secondly, we pointed out that the thoughts that come at that particular stage depend upon the archetypal stage that a person is operating at.

LR (simultaneously): That's an analogy.

AD: Huh?

LR: That's an analogy to that sentence, "The rise, abiding, [AD: Yeah.] [S: Yeah.] dissolution…"

AD: Alright. And then the next point we made, you remember?

[9¼ second pause]

S: That the--

AD: Otherwise, don't you see, we would be more or less saying that our evolution is haphazard and left to guess and chance?

S: I don't-- I don't un-- I can't conceive of how anything can be indefinite given that-- that-- well PB also mentions that the cosmos is ordered and that it's a spaced-- like spaced and timed and an ordered universe is a-- is a numbered one, or the nature of that sentence. So how would you-- what would we get (the Mind)?

AD: I don't know-- I don't know what you're talking about.

S: We--

[short pause]

AD: I don't want to discourage you from asking your questions but I want you to try to be a little more precise when you formulate a question. Yeah Kurt.

S (faint): Back to the sentence, "the rise, abiding, dissolutions". He seems to be talking about karma, and with respect to karma there are two options, its rise, abiding, and dissolution, and ideation. Now, he's not saying that these are the same thing.

AD: No, he called them [S simultaneously: (few words inaudible) different (couple words inaudible)] twin functions, they're always simultaneously present.

S: And it seems like the rise, abiding, and dissolution, like this-- this seems to be the process of manifestation, rise, abiding, and dissolution. And it seems to be the process of making an image can we say? I'm trying to relate it to the image-making faculty he uses.

KARMA AS THE MANIFESTATION OF A POSSIBILITY CONTAINED WITHIN THE OVERSELF, WHICH WILL EMPLOY THE TWIN-FUNCTIONS OF IDEATION AND ENERGY TO REALIZE ITSELF

AD: I'm not trying to relate it to that, I'm trying to get to something else. [S simultaneously, faint: Why do I (one word inaudible)] And that was what we were talking about before, just before we got off the track. Do you-- do you mind if I return to this? We spoke of karma, we were speaking of karma, and I like to also use the word 'possibilities'. Because it just becomes another pet word, 'karma,' you know. If I use the word 'power' you look at me askance, you know, alright. If I use the word 'energy' you look at me peculiarly, alright. I hate to depend on pet words all the time because I don't know if we're saying anything, if we're explaining anything. You know how like a robot our mind is, I just gave you the example about that little chick who sees a hawk. And our thinking is the same way, soon as we hear a word we think in a certain way. So we have to try to find different words every now and then. Alright, now 'karma' was a word that I suddenly say, "Let's think of possibilities, ok?" Let's say the Overself has this in mind for you. This archetypal idea that the Overself has is going to be deployed and lived out through a hundred series of lives, alright, so that it can achieve this idea. Alright? And I think somewhere in the Spiritual Crisis PB points out that there is a celestial idea which the Higher Self has that we have to reach out towards. Ok, so you're developing along a certain line to reach that point, alright. Now wouldn't you say that this is the deployment of certain possibilities contained within the World-Mind?

S: Certainly the possibilities have to be principle of development.

AD: Alright, now from our point of view it looks like development, of course from the point of view of the other, it is completely actualized. There's no doubt, you know. Can you see karma as that way?

[short pause]

S: As the actualization of possibility?

AD: Yeah, can you see karma as that?

BS: You mean the possibilities being the energy?

S: Uh-hm.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD (simultaneously): The-- no, the-- the possibility that's going to be realized is going to employ as a means, alright, this twin function, ideation and energy. Only you call it 'karma'.

BS: I see that [one word inaudible]

RP: But that would sort of--

AD: Go ahead, Richard.

RP (simultaneously): Does that sort of imply that the World-Mind would have a purpose in manifesting a particular cosmos?

AD: No.

RP: Ok, good.

AD: No.

RP: I know it doesn't but I mean--

AD: Because if we say that this has a purpose, then what we're saying is that it's working towards it and that, so to speak, the simultaneous view of the entire manifestation isn't to it-- [RP: Ok.] isn't present to it at a single glance.

RP: No but for us it's the divine purpose, it's the ultimate purpose.

AD: Well--

RP: If we can get some idea of the possibilities of being which appear to us, (plus) it's a possibility that's being actualized in a sequence of [three words inaudible] [AD: Yeah.] that would be an ultimate purpose as far as we're concerned.

AD: As far as we're concerned, yeah. Of course I know some people say that God needs us to-- [RP simultaneously: And that would be-- that would be to (like really--)] to get his purpose realized.

RP: Then we'd really have-- that would be the only way we could really understand the nature of karma.

AD: Well that's one way of understanding karma.

KARMA AS POWER OPERATING IN A CERTAIN WAY THAT IS CLOSELY ALLIED WITH CERTAIN IMAGERY

LR: Because when you say the karma is the energy, it would seem that it-- it would be more like the pattern of energy.

AD: Yeah, the pattern, the power. It's a power which is operating in a certain way, [LR simultaneously: Right, so the pattern (couple words inaudible)] alright, and it's very closely associated with certain imagery. [LR assents] Now suppose, suppose we get back to the other point that he-- somebody had wanted to make about the characteristic, the prime characteristic of the World-Mind is its image-making activity. Now, would you like to tie in karma here?

S (faint): Yeah.

LR (faint): The image.

[students assent, faint]

AD: I must-- I must have had a very exceptional meditation tonight. [short pause] Alright. Let's try this here, a sen-- this paragraph.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "The cosmos, being a thought-formation, can never really disappear anymore than a human idea…"

AD: Let's go down to the last sentence.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "And its own self…"

AD: Who's self?

DB: The World-Mind.

JS (simultaneously): World-Mind's [student assents] self.

[student assents, faint]

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "…as will be shown later, being uniquely eternal and undying, it is inevitable that the world-ideas which have arisen within it are eternal and undying too."

AD: How about that sentence, can we talk about that sentence a little bit?

S: What are the world-ideas?

S (faint): [couple words inaudible]

AD: Well ask them, don't ask me.

S: It sounds like the principles of various universes.

[9¾ second pause]

S: Well ok, ok, the ideas are eternal and undying, ok. I can't-- it can't be the manifestations because they-- they can go.

AD: Alright, then we'll wipe out the content, alright?

S: So what else could be--

AD: So what would be left?

S (simultaneously): And then-- and certainly we can't equate Mind with ideas, the only-- the only thing that-- that could be left would have to be eternal. Or the principle cannot dissolve.

[short pause]

AD: Alright, good for a start [one/two words inaudible]

LS (simultaneously): Can't be the creatures either because they also come and go, right?

AD: Yeah, but they're content, like this body'll be here and then you get another one, alright, just like within this lifetime.

LS (simultaneously): Yeah, is then but-- is there an essence which is also eternal-- an essence of each creature which is-- which is eternal and undying?

AD: Is there an essence to each creature which is eternal and undying?

LS: Yeah, 'cause it seems that we have three orders that we could talk of here, we've got manifest things, which obviously come and go, we've got creatures, about which there's some question, and then we've got certain, I don't know, say, certain ideas which persist, alright. And that-- what does he mean by the world-ideas which are uniquely eternal and undying? Does he mean only that-- that third category of which I can only say I don't even know what it is.

AD (simultaneously): That sounds like a good start.

S: Would you say that the-- these possibilities [couple words inaudible]

AD: Wait. He started off-- Hold on just one minute and continue. [drawing] He says here we have manifested beings [diagram], ok just-- And like your body, my body, ok, you know. [student assents, faint] Then the next thing in the series rising up was what?

LS: Say their essences, souls, I don't know how to--

AD: Anything you want to use.

LS: Well just say something like that.

AD: Essences.

LS: Essences, huh? [AD writing] The essence, yeah, ok.

AD: Soul?

LS (simultaneously): Soul(s). Yeah, that's good.

JS: You want to say [S simultaneously: Huh?] individual essences?

LS: Ok. I mean [AD simultaneously: Now--] whatever it is that reincarnates, alright, that's kind of the sort of order of thing that--

AD (simultaneously): Whatever it is that reincarnates.

LS: Yeah, the order of thing I'm referring to.

AD: Oh good. What is it that reincarnate(s)?

LS: I don't know! (some laughter) But then, alright, then there's a third category above that.

AD: See, he's using the word here quite different than the way PB uses. For PB it's always in the singular, right? Essence. Never uses 'essences'. He (doesn't) equate them, you know, Westerners.

LS (simultaneously): With the Platonist(s).

AD: Yeah, ok? [student assents, faint] What makes a thing to be what it is.

S (very faint): It's like some [couple/three words inaudible]

AD: Alright, what was the third thing?

LS: Well, there seem-- there seems-- there seems a higher category too, which I--

JS: Like the archetypal Ideas?

LS (simultaneously): I don't know how to say it. I don't have a-- I don't have a good word for it.

AD: You're very lucky, then you gotta make one up. Anybody?

S: I thought that the laws which govern the essence, the way the essence is manifested, aren't they higher or--

AD: The laws that govern the manifestation--

S (faint): Of these essences.

[student assents, very faint]

AD: Want to use that?

PD: Well [S simultaneously: (couple words inaudible) is that higher?] principles like memory-- no, you're speaking of principles like memory--

S (simultaneously): Sure not all-- those are (empty).

AD: Well, [couple inaudible PD words simultaneous with AD] look into your own self right now, ok? You get rid of the body-idea, alright? What's there behind it?

S (very faint): [one word inaudible] right?

LS: There's an "I", [JS simultaneously: Something individual.] a soul, a--

AD: Yeah, an [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] "I", a soul, [LS assents] ok? Now, what brings that "I" or soul into being?

JS (very faint): How about the word 'Essence,' capitalize. Is that higher?

AD: What does that mean?

S (faint): Don't know. I don't know.

AD: See because I-- we're trying to understand this sentence, right?

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "And its own self, as will be shown later, being uniquely eternal and undying, it is inevitable that the world-ideas which have arisen within it are eternal and undying too."

AD: And so we're falling back on the old law of correspondence, you know, as above so below? What applies to the macroco-- microcosm applies to the macrocosm. So let's try to work back that way, alright? So we got to the soul. We got to the soul.

LS: Well how about the laws that govern the manifestation of-- of all these things, that's [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Well that's [LR simultaneously: That's karma.] what he said.

LS: Yeah, that's on the higher level.

LR (simultaneously): That's karma.

S: Well, um--

S: 'Cause--

LS (simultaneously): Well karma's just one of them.

LR: [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): But--

LS: Yeah.

S (simultaneously): That's why there's a thing (about/above) that line. How about [S simultaneously: What else are you going to be speaking of karma?] the celestial idea of-- of this "I" or soul that you spoke of before.

S (faint): That's what I (was speaking of), you see.

AD: Would-- [tape break] Would this help, Gary, instead of using this word 'soul' which might frighten some of us, suppose we use the word 'ego,' alright, or 'psyche' or something like that, you know, so that we feel more familiar with it. Ok? Now, what structures that?

S (faint): Karmic tendencies.

S: (You know--)

S (very faint): Samskaras.

AD: Yeah, karmic tendencies.

JS (very faint): Would you--

RP: Samskaras [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Samskaras, tendencies. Well, it seems that we're talking about some pretty abstract things, aren't we?

S (faint): Yeah [couple words inaudible] the intelligible laws governing the manifestation of the universe.

AD: Oh, intelligible law [one word inaudible] [writing] (bit of laughter)

AD/S(?): Intelligible law. (bit of laughter)

AD: [writing] Laws. I don't know if this'll do it, we're getting a lot of air. (some laughter)

S (amidst laughter, very faint): Yeah we are.

AD: [writing] Governing the manifestation.

JS: Yeah, but what does that mean?

S: Yeah, what does it mean?

LR: What do you think, are you equating ego with--

AD (simultaneously): Well, that's what we're going to find out. She said it, you ask her.

LS (simultaneously): How about an-- how about an example of one of them? (some laughter)

LR: Tony, did you say ego is the essences of the soul?

AD: Yeah, [S: Yeah.] yeah, I'm equating that, sure. Yeah, I don't think of the soul as fondly as you do.

LS (to a student in background): No, just give me an example of what those words mean. What are-- what are the intelligible laws governing the manifestation of the universe, what does that mean?

S (faint): Well, what are the law(s)?

S (simultaneously): One thing, they have to govern-- they have to regulate the way that the ego is structured through its experience.

AD: Alright, what would be a primary law then, one of the-- one or two primary laws that govern the manifestation of this ego?

S (very faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): For instance [three/few words inaudible]

S: Well I see (surprise--)

AD (simultaneously): Huh?

S: [couple words inaudible] (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): That's (what I said). (laughter, students assent)

S: Anything manifested and can't do [S simultaneously: Time?] something in time and space is not really manifested.

AD: Well didn't you say karma before?

S: Yeah.

AD: Alright, karma. Karma? [writing] Alright.

[student assents]

S: Memory?

LR: How about time? I don't know.

S (very faint): Me neither. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): No?

AD: We left that down here [diagram] [S simultaneously: Wait!] somewhere. (AD laughing)

S: (Call it.) (some laughter)

AD: Karma? [S simultaneously: But--] You say karma? Now in what way would karma be an intelligible law that governs manifestation? Let's try to be a little more-- Here's an ego coming into birth, into ma-- alright, and then into manifestation [diagram].

S: Continuity of it?

AD: The continuity?

S: Would be the first part of the law and the second part is the [AD writing] responsibility that's come in on every ego [couple words inaudible]

S: The consciousness.

S (faint): Yeah [one/two words inaudible]

S: So [RP simultaneously: A determination.] self-- self-consciousness.

KARMA AS A TWOFOLD LAW: GENERAL AND SPECIAL

AD (simultaneously): So, you're speaking about the two-- the two [student assents, faint] laws of karma. Aren't you?

S: Uh-hm.

S (faint): Self-- the self-consciousness.

AD (simultaneously): You remember the two laws of karma? [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] On the next page I think he has them somewhere.

RP (simultaneously): That's right in the [JS simultaneously: Yeah.] solution that, (you know--)

[few students at once, few seconds mostly inaudible]

S (simultaneously): The-- the individual, the general and special.

S: The law of continuity.

AD (simultaneously): The general and special law.

S (simultaneously): One--

S: That's right, the two phases.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, JS reading]: "Karma is a twofold law, one being general and the other special. The first is ultimate, and applicable to everything in the universe for it is simply the law of every individual entity's own continuity."

AD: Now, repeat that slowly.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, JS reading]: "Karma is a twofold law, one being general and the other special. The first is ultimate, and applicable to everything in the universe for it is simply the law of every individual entity's own continuity."

AD: And the second one?

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, JS reading]: "The second is immediate, and applicable only to individuals who have attained self-consciousness, thus limiting the start of its operations to human entities. This makes the individual accountable for thoughts and for the deeds born of his thoughts."

AD: Now, how about that, would you say that that's required in order for this [diagram] to operate?

S: Yeah.

AD: Ok. So we got (this--)

LS (simultaneously): It's one of the conditions for-- for these to operate, yeah.

AD (simultaneously): Alright, so-- [S simultaneously: Well I think there are two--] Any other(s)?

S: There are [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] two-- I'm just sort of like, you know, point out there are two important things in that special law: one is self-consciousness and the other is the-- the accountability that comes from when individual has reached that--

AD: Isn't that the definition of ego?

S: Self-consciousness?

S (faint): Yeah, (uh-hm).

S: Yeah.

S: Yeah.

S: (I don't know.)

S: (Who needs--)

S (faint): Yeah.

S (simultaneously): So--

AD: Sure, what separates you from the animal?

S: Ok, we'll put the law if you don't care.

AD: Well, alright, just imagine it's there. Got no room for it.

S (very faint): Yeah (Tony).

S (very faint): I don't think [few faint words inaudible]

JS (simultaneously): What about the categories, like similar and dissimilar?

PD (simultaneously): I think now is-- but if you think of continuity, when you say the continuity of something, there's-- what maintains the continuity of something? It's not just a-- a principle that is going to like maintain the operation of this possibility, just like in(--) PB says (through--) There's something which indicates the init-- initiation of this possibility, so which will bring this e-- this essence into existence.

S (faint): [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Now, now, now, wait a minute, now wait a minute. Read that-- read that part first, the first-- [PD: The first level.] [S simultaneously with PD: The first line.] first part of the-- the notion of karma.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, S reading]: "The first is ultimate, and applicable to everything in the universe for it is simply the law of every individual entity's own continuity."

AD: Now what were you saying?

[short pause]

PD: When we say an individual entity's continuity, in a being's maintaining itself, I see like principles like memory involved; in order to perpetuate a similar [AD: Yeah.] existence, memory's-- memory is essential.

AD: Yeah, I'll agree with that but I didn't follow the point you were getting at.

PD: Well, I'm just saying that karma, there's a multiplicity of laws in that-- in that term then.

AD: Oh sure! [student assents, very faint] That's a fantastic word, 'karma'. That word is so loaded. I'm telling you, you can play-- you can-- (AD laughs a bit) you-- any game you want. Suppose we think about memory for a minute. Can't you see that memory is a special application of this law?

S: Yeah but that's not the whole.

AD: Hm?

S: It's the kinetic aspect.

S: Yeah.

AD (simultaneously): You want to get that quotation from the Wisdom, the kinetic--

S (faint): What quotation?

AD: (Well/No), you don't have a copy of the book.

S (faint): Well--

S: Well I do but I didn't bring it. (bit of laughter)

JS: The one about karma being the kinetic memory?

S (faint): (Vast) kinetic memory.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, read that out loud.

S (faint): What page you in?

KARMA AS THE KINETIC MEMORY OF NATURE THAT IS COUPLED WITH ITS IMAGINATIVE POWER

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 33, JS reading]: "…karma, being the kinetic memory of Nature, is necessarily coupled with the imaginative power of Nature."

AD: Stop there. Say it about a half a dozen times. 'Cause I don't trust you people, you don't read these books. I don't know what you do. [short pause] It must be that that education that you got is the same thing like the hawk. Read it again.

[student assents]

JS: Do you want the sentence before that too?

AD (simultaneously): Yeah-- no, just this sentence.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 33, JS reading]: "…karma, being the kinetic memory of Nature, is necessarily…"

[Audio File 1971 0505a Ends]

[Audio File 1971 0505b Begins]

KARMA IS AN ARCHETYPE BECAUSE IT APPLIES TO EVERYTHING IN THE MANIFESTED UNIVERSE—AN INDIVIDUAL, A COSMOS, A PLANET

AD: This is an archetype. In what way is it an archetype? Well we can apply it to the function of memory, alright, we can apply it to almost every and any incident, so to speak, of the manifested universe. In that sense you mean?

AP: No. Yeah that would (correspond), it doesn't--

AD (simultaneously): Well this is an archetype for instance, right? Here's-- [AP assents] here's Nature [diagram], Nature has a memory of everything that's gone on its-- in its domain, alright?

S (very faint): (I think.)

AD: Alright. You're a human being. You have a memory-- a memory of everything that's gone on in your life. You don't have a memory of everything that's gone on in the universe but certainly you have, as far as you're concerned, what's gone on in you. Now, that law, so to speak, is archetypal, it applies at all [AP assents] these different realms. In that sense?

AP: Yeah.

AD: Yeah, sure, you can use it in that sense.

AP: And that-- and that those (are/aren't)--

[tape break]

DB: --say karma as-- as an archetype here-- Well included within that would be all sense-knowledge. [students assent] That would be a-- a particularization within that.

AD: Say it again Dave.

DB: Well, using karma as an archetype, as one of the intelligible laws governing manifestation, then all sense-knowledge would be considered as a-- as a particularization within that. It would-- it would be included within karma.

S (faint): Yeah.

[short pause]

AD: I don't know what you mean, I--

DB: Well, like in this paragraph, "Karma…"--

[tape break]

AD (faint): Just read the next part.

DB: Ok.

THE LAW OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL'S OWN CONTINUITY REFERS TO THE ETERNAL BEDROCK OF YOUR BEING

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, DB reading]: "…and applicable to everything in the universe for it is simply the law of every individual entity's own continuity."

AD: Now-- now what does that mean?

DB: Well, that given any particular manifestation, ok, any-- any unfoldment of possibilities within mind on--

AD: Read the second part of that again. Read [DB simultaneously: Ok.] it out loud.

DB: "Whether…"

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, DB reading]: "The first is ultimate, and applicable to everything in the universe for it is simply the law of every individual entity's own continuity."

DB: Ok.

AD (faint): Individual--

DB: Entity's own continuity. Now, it would seem--

AD (simultaneously): That's ultimate now.

DB: Yeah.

AD: Now what would that be?

DB: Well--

AD: Yeah.

LR: It seems to me that the answer to that's in the first part where he says-- What did he say? What's the very first part of that?

DB: "…one being general and the other…"

LR (simultaneously): No, no.

DB: "The first is ultimate, and applicable to everything in the universe"?

LR: Right.

AD: Yeah, now what does that mean?

LR: Well it would seem that continuity there refers to the individual's almost placement in the-- in the universe. The continuity is continuity of every individual piece fitting-- fitting into the whole.

AD (faint): Read that again.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, DB reading]: "Karma is a twofold law…"

AD: Richard, try, you try, will you? Now, this is a point of such profound importance that I will not answer it.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, DB reading]: "…one…"

AD: Yeah, go ahead, read it.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, DB reading]: "Karma is a twofold law, one being general and the other special. The first is ultimate, and applicable to everything in the universe for it is simply the law of every individual entity's own continuity."

AD: Alright, stop there. [9½ second pause] What happens to words like 'self-realization,' 'enlightenment,' 'illumination,' 'moksha,' 'liberation'? [AD claps and says the following very intensely] Come on, what?!? God!! For three years you're obsessed with liberation, what does that mean? Who could get liberated!? [S simultaneously: (Your ego.)] How could you get liberated!? Liberated from what!? From your own continuity!? [short pause] Did you ever hear a Sage saying "I'm liberated"? Did you ever read it anywhere? Boy, I'm glad I'm going to work tonight.

BS: Yeah.

[short pause]

AD: You sit down and you pray and you meditate. For what? [short pause] Read that again. You want to try? Yeah Bob.

S: Well I-- I wanted to ask a question. When we say that the karma is sort of like the archetype, doesn't seem to-- it just seems to me that-- that doesn't jive with the way I conceive it. In each individual's own continuity, perhaps the individual passing through a series of archetypes, rather-- and that is the law which governs that passing through rather than-- or of being those archetypes themselves.

AD: No, it was just referring, Bob, to karma as-- we can employ it archetypally when we're thinking about the functioning of an individual, a cosmos, a planet, ok? So as soon as we say that this planet has a certain karma, alright, we're thinking archetypally. Actually what we're referring to is the possibilities inherent in its manifestation back and forth, and I'm just trying to get away from that stinking word 'karma'.

JS: Can I try?

AD (simultaneously): Now you try reading that paragraph, you read that sentence. If you take it home and you read it twenty times you'll understand because that-- that's what you're here for. [student assents] [short pause, background student words] Yeah read it out loud, Jenny, would you? Read that law. Read it as though you all have septiles.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, JS reading]: "Karma is a twofold law, one being general and the other special. The first is ultimate, and applicable to everything in the universe for it is simply the law of every individual entity's own continuity."

[short pause]

[tape break]

AD: Read the seconds part, go ahead.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, JS reading]: "The second is immediate, and applicable only to individuals who have attained self-consciousness, thus limiting the start of its operations to human entities. This makes the individual accountable for thoughts and for the deeds born of his thoughts."

AD: Alright now, you've heard it said by someone, I think PB mentions it somewhere and others have mentioned it, that when a person gets "enlightened", quote unquote, that all his past "sins", quote unquote, are forgiven him, quote, ok?

S (very faint): What an example. (laughter)

AD: Alright, so we got rid of the second part of that sentence, let's go back to the first part now. Now what does that first part mean?

LR: The word 'continuity' seems to imply something which is other than the individual, something that is [one word inaudible] something which is a part of the individual and a part of every individual piece and therefore makes every entity attached to every other entity.

AD: No, that-- that's not-- that's not the point. [JS: Well--] You've got to see that what-- what's here is the eternal bedrock of your being. [S, very faint: (That's not true.)] Yeah Bob.

S: Well, it seems to me that karma is that which governs the becoming aspect of [one/two words inaudible] rather (than) the Being aspect would be in this.

AD: Which is really beyond Being, alright. We'll put that-- we'll throw that in for-- Say that again Bob.

S: Well karma governs-- at least it would seem to me that karma governs the becoming aspect, the continuity of that becoming, but I don't know.

PD (simultaneously): But that becoming could never cease.

AD: Becoming could never cease.

JS: He says on the page before that--

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 28, JS reading]: "…that the process of ever-becoming is an eternal one and is the very law of the universe's own being."

AD: Yeah.

JS: And I sort of always equated that with-- with the general karma statement, that the general law of karma was this law of ever-becoming.

AD: Yeah. And within it is this-- the special law. Because [JS assents] within total equilibrium you could have elements of disorder, so to-- so to speak, which are part of that equilibrium. Let's try slowly to go over this. Yeah--

S: Well, what in this [couple/three words inaudible]

AD: What do we come back to, is that what you're asking me?

S (very faint): And do we come back.

AD: That's what we're coming back to, isn't it? Now--

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "For being a vast thought and not a vast thing, it is brought into being by the World-Mind out of itself, out of its own mental"substance", and not out of any extraneous stuff such as matter is supposed to be by materialists…"

AD: Alright, now we pick up that sentence again, now let's see if we can see a little more into it.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "[For] being a vast thought and not a vast thing, it is brought into being…"

AD: Brought into being, brought into being, ok, remember that. Evidently we got something big here.

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "…out of itself…."

AD: Evidently World-Mind here is the principle of being.

[student assents, faint]

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "…out of its own mental"substance"…"

AD: And again we're faced with that. Read that second part [student assents, faint] on karma.

[student assents, very faint]

JS: General or the special?

AD: The general.

[students assent, very faint]

UNION WITH THE DIVINE DOESN'T MEAN YOU GET SWALLOWED UP OR ANNIHILATED

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 29, JS reading]: "The first is ultimate, and applicable to everything in the universe for it is simply the law of every individual entity's own continuity."

AD: Own continuity, yeah.

DB: Would this be what Wang Yang-ming calls the principle of Nature?

[short pause]

AD: Yeah but in a very peculiar sense.

DB: Ok.

AD: In Chinese we have to really steer right off of this.

S: So the law of every individual's own continuity lies far-- or lies outside of becoming. So that when we sit down and meditate and we're trying to get rid of the karma that applies to becoming but we don't sit down thinking that we're going to destroy the order of the universe. (S laughing a bit) I mean, is this what you were trying to get at before?

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, I'm trying to get you to be very realistic about this whole path, this whole quest. Alright, because you know that instinct that a lot of people have, union with the Divine, "Why, I get swallowed up, I disappear. Boom! everything's gone." [S simultaneously: But, can I ask--] Like God is some powerful devouring Deity that gobbles up all his devotees. [students assent, very faint] Alright, you want to say?

S (simultaneously): So, so general-- is the general law-- I mean I just-- I just got a chart, is that the prarabdha karma, and that's the karma that remains for the Sage.

AD: The general law?

S: I mean this-- the general law of the continuity of each individual is the karma that remains for the Sage too, it's the prarabdha karma, (isn't it)?

AD: Well--

S: That--

S: [couple words inaudible] what's that?

AD (simultaneously): (Well--) Let's look at it this way. Suppose you become a Sage, alright, you achieve without the use of any means liberation; direct contact, alright, no intermediaries. Alright. Does this mean that you disappear, that you annihilate, that you're dissolved? [student(s) assenting, very faint] What happens? I mean do you go on, does the continuity go on?

S: It's that you are more able to fulfill that continuity.

AD: Yeah.

S: Like able to be it, [AD simultaneously: You understand--] bring it from Being into your life.

AD: Do you understand what the Zen Masters are saying when they saying "There's no sense in putting a head on top of the one you already have"?

S: There's no sense in putting a head on top of the one you already have.

AD (simultaneously): Oh yeah, why wear another one?

S: What about that second law, is this-- does that still operate in the same way or is that--

AD: Well PB I think makes a reference to that, doesn't he? He says the adept is forgiven all his past sins, all his past karma.

S (faint): Yeah.

LS: Yeah, but that second law still has to operate for him or else he'd never be able to help us, how else-- unless he could-- his thoughts could operate causally. But he operates transcending it rather than getting all caught up in it the way we do.

AD: I [PD(?): Yeah.] lost you [S simultaneously: Yeah, but doesn't--] at the beginning, you--

S: No, yeah, how else--

LS (simultaneously): But how else could he help us unless his thoughts were creative and causal?

S: (Sound) good.

RP: He could also get his hand caught in the door.

AD: I'm sorry, I don't follow the point. (laughter)

RP (amidst laughter): That's-- that's-- the proverb is like everyday life still operate.

JS (simultaneously): Yeah but the-- the point of that second law is that he's accountable for his thoughts, [RP: Yeah.] not that they're creative.

RP: Makes it-- how else can he be accountable [AD simultaneously: I don't-- I don't follow you.] if they're never creative?

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

S (very faint): Which it isn't.

VM(?): It's the body that's the same.

JS (simultaneously): [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Unl-- unless I've-- I've, you know, misrepresented what I've been trying to say. [short pause] Say it again Richard.

RP: (No), can be they still could create a s-- create a special karma which has the result-- accidentally do something which might have-- drop a knife on his hand, is that what you're saying?

AD: Yeah.

RP: That's all I meant, the special karma still operates.

S: Like more of the [few words inaudible]

PD (simultaneously): That would be general karma. A tree can get chopped down too (then).

S: Unfortunately, right.

S: Well this second law just says [student assents, faint] he's accountable for thoughts and for deeds part of those thoughts.

RP (simultaneously): Accountable to deeds, right, he drops a knife by accident [S simultaneously: But anybody (one word inaudible)] and he cuts himself.

RG (simultaneously): Every human being.

[couple seconds of background student talking]

AD (simultaneously): Well-- yeah, let's think this one out. Go ahead Richard.

RP: Well that's all I'm saying, that the--

AD: Yeah Tom.

TM: The first is the law of each individual's own continuity. Now, individual. Now they mean like law-- well, ok so like this is-- this just seems to be the thing here, [student assents] for me anyway. I don't, you know-- what is it-- what i-- wha-- what is this individual of the individuality that is continuing, like-- or on what level, like the body, you know, is born so it eventually dies. You know-- you know what I mean?

AD: You're trying to get a definition of individuality?

TM: Yeah, something like that, like-- that's for instance like [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Well that's legitimate, sure. Shall we answer that or continue with you Richard?

A SAGE DOESN'T HAVE THE SENSE OF DOERSHIP BECAUSE THEIR WILL IS IDENTIFIED WITH THE SELF

RP: All I would want to say is that it seems the Sage could still make petty little mistakes, now he may not make big mistakes, and it seems the petty little mistake probably gets answered right away. He doesn't wait ten years, you know.

S: He doesn't make them, they're not a part of his (habit).

RP: [one/two words inaudible]

S: But if you say-- but--

S: But then--

RP: Oh he don't want-- he doesn't--

S: He's really liberated and he no longer acts on behalf of himself, so he-- in the sense that most of us are accountable for all our actions, he's not accountable for any actions done on behalf of himself. Is there a sense in which he stills can say that he's accountable for his action(s)?

VM/S(?): You know, what I don't understand when you talk about a Sage you say "he".

S: When [three/few words inaudible]

[tape break]

AD: --don't run away [S simultaneously: (--paying football.)] from that. I don't want to run away from that but I do want to answer that before we go to the notion of individuality.

VM/S(?) (simultaneously): It seemed to be implying though, you have to have an individual if you're going to have special karma. So what are you talking about when you say a Sage [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] as a-- as a [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): I-- I know what you're trying to get at Richard.

LS (simultaneously): Yeah, you can't really understand that word 'accountable' unless you answer that also.

AD/S(?): I (am so proud of you).

RP: That's [few words inaudible] meaning there.

LS (simultaneously): But we're interpreting it as if it's a sort of punishment rather than something that has to do with that individual entity.

AD: Alright so then, why don't we stick to Richard's question? [student assents] Could you repeat it?

S (very faint): Ok.

RP: What question, I didn't have any question, just pointing out--

AD (simultaneously): The statement really, not a question.

RP (simultaneously): Just pointing certain things out. Another like for example is the story told of Pythagoras that he spoke-- he spoke roughly to a-- a disciple and the disciple committed suicide, so that that-- from that point on Pythagoras knew not to speak roughly to disciple(s).

S (very faint): Of course not.

AD: Well--

S (very faint): Plato did [possibly one word inaudible]

AD: Let's-- let's-- [RP simultaneously: Well, yeah it seems to be (a good one).] let's get the question, the statement.

S: The question is, as I asked the question, I don't know if he wants to ask the question, my question is, what does it-- what does it mean to say that an individual is accountable for his own actions and does that have meaning in the case of the Sage?

AD: Ok, let's try Lenny, alright Bob.

S: Well, it seems that the-- being a self-conscious entity he knows what he's doing, and, you know, so this apply-- it would seem to me that it would apply to any self-conscious entity, that being a human being. And-- well, so you were s-- you're-- it's a creative-- in this creative act you're held responsible for things that you have been doing. [S simultaneously: Oh, (but--)] In other words, an animal or something like that has no idea of this, he just goes through. But a self-conscious [student assents] entity would, he's responsible because he [student assents] knows what he's doing.

S: It was supposed to (become--)

RP (simultaneously): I remember the [student assents] story-- the story of Bhagavan when he steps into the bee's hive and (says something), and, you know, (the boss) was there when they all start biting his leg, he says, "Well serves the leg right. What goes--" (laughter, student words) He went and ruined these peoples homes is his psychology. In other words, there was a karma there, like the leg did perform an accident and sort of-- but Ramana was not identifying with the leg but he-- and he-- and he saw the justice of what was happening, the leg deserved to be punished for its-- for its [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): But is that an example of [couple words inaudible] special or the general?

AD (simultaneously): Alright so, we got an i-- we got an i--

RP (simultaneously): There was special karma operating as far as the leg was concerned. (RP laughs a bit) [student assents] As far as his body wants this--

LS (simultaneously): Didn't he also speak [few inaudible student words simultaneous with LS] of taking up the karma of his disciples and that's where his-- that's sort of what crystallizes that cancer that he got?

AD: Bhagavan?

LS: Yeah.

AD: I never heard him say that.

LS: Didn't he talk someplace in Osborne's biography about him taking up the karma of his disciples?

MB: That was-- I remember that somebody said that that [RG(?) simultaneously: It was Osborne, I think.] was why he got it [few words inaudible]

VM (simultaneously): That's a rumor Rob spread.

S: It's probably tropical [student assents] kind of--

S: Tony, remember the story of the-- the Zen master and the fox and-- [RP simultaneously: It's true.] who was turned into a fox because he-- the disciple asked him-- [AD: The difference.] he said if the Sage felt the law of karma and he said "Yes" and he kept coming back [couple/few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): And he had to keep coming back as a fox [RP assents] because he misrepresented the law of karma. Gotta be careful. (some laughter, student words)

S: And he kept-- came to the-- and the fox incarnation he was reinca-- and reincarnated a thousand times or something and then-- and another Zen master was having a class in the woods and he would notice an old man would come to him and he told him the story of how he was-- had been turned into a fox. Anyway the Zen master (experience(d)) with the question [few words inaudible] karmic law.

S (faint): Yeah. Yeah right it was--

DB: That he didn't obscure it.

AD: He did not [student assents] obscure the law of karma.

DB: So would it--

AD: Yeah.

DB (simultaneously): So could you-- could you-- would that imply that someone who was not a Sage is in the process of obscuring karma?

AD: Well, what do you do?

LR (simultaneously): [few words inaudible]

DB: What?

AD: What do you do?

DB: What do I do? The best I can. (laughter, student words)

AD (amidst laughter): No. I mean when you're operating, how you operated, [S simultaneously: From--] isn't it-- isn't it from the basis always of the doership?

DB: Yeah.

AD: You ever see a Sage operate like that, doership, "I'm doing this"?

S: Or else having a question of will.

S (simultaneously, very faint): I see.

S: So--

S: There's no "I" doing anything, there's no--

S (simultaneously): The special law, isn't that obscuring?

AD: Hm?

S: There's no "I".

AD: Wait, wait, go ahead.

S (simultaneously): Insofar as we will, then we receive the consequences, like a [one/two words inaudible] of the will. But it's-- well the-- we've discussed this before, a Sage wills but the will is always in accords with universal law. So the recoil has to be that which the universe of-- which has born him anyway, which is probably [one/two words inaudible] So in a sense viewing him, I'm trying to answer my own question, in a sense viewing him as an individual I suppose you would say that the law is still operating. But insofar as his will is in absolute a-- agreement with the universal will, then it's probably meaningless to speak of individual consequences for his actions.

BS: He would have no will to coincide with the universal will. He just doesn't obscure karma, so therefore it appeals-- [S simultaneously: Ok, yeah.] it appears that he has a will that's [couple words inaudible]

RP (simultaneously): There is no universal will, his will is the universal will.

S: (Come on) Richard.

RP: But it sounds like he doesn't contradict special [one word inaudible] as far as-- but there's no-- the way-- the [AD simultaneously: Isn't--] World-Mind has no reason to be.

AD: Isn't his will identified with the Self?

RP/S(?): No.

RP: He is the agency for the expression of universal will [one/two words inaudible] otherwi--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, isn't-- isn't his will [RP assents] identified with the Self?

RP: Yeah, it's what I mean.

AD: Alright now, the Self that we were talking about, alright, the individual Self that you were referring to, alright Tom let me ask you or Rich-- or Vic, what about your individual Self, could you point it out to me?

S: No.

VM: Well I could point to the body but now that's not really it.

S (faint): That's right.

AD (simultaneously): Is that the individual Self?

VM: I don't think that's the [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): You have to point out to every instant in time to show me the individual Self.

[student assents, very faint]

JS (very faint): [one word inaudible] Soul [one word inaudible]

VM: Are you talking about self with a capital 'S' or a little 's'?

AD: Yeah, yeah, I'm talking about the Self.

VM: Well, if it's capital 'S' I surely can't locate it in time and space and say "Here it is".

AD: Well, let me ask you this then, Vic. When you refer to yourself, alright, what self are you referring to? Are you refal-- are you referring to the empirical psychological ego?

VM: Well most of the time, yeah, most of the time [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Now if you're referring-- if you're referring to the empirical psychological ego, we'll have to fall back either on the physical body, [VM assents] the mental, or the emotional, right?

VM (faint): Right, right.

AD: Now, these things have no consciousness.

VM: Well the consciousness-- they're sort of illuminated by a consciousness above or below (this).

AD (simultaneously): Well then who is this Self you're talking about? Is it-- is it the thoughts, is it the emotion, is it the body?

VM: Well that's the question I try to answer when I'm saying "Who am I?" And I can't. Can't seem like I really answer(ed) it.

AD: Now, you have a Self and I have a Self.

S (very faint): Ok.

S (very faint): Ok.

AD: Ok?

VM: We're not using "self" in the-- in the sense that-- we're not--

AD (simultaneously): With a capital 'S', with a capital 'S'!

VM (simultaneously): Not-- not like Jung uses is but say like Bhagavan uses it, the Se--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, like Bhagavan uses it, alright. You have a Self, right? [VM: Right.] I mean be-- otherwise, this whole panorama, ok, thoughts, emotions, feelings are absolutely meaningless. In themselves they're dead. There's nothing there. You can't say of-- of a thought that it's self-conscious.

VM/S(?) (faint): Ok.

AD: Alright now, your Self and my Self--they're the same?

VM: Well-- (some laughter) I mean maybe we're trying to [couple/three words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): They're different?

VM: --but I certainly don't feel like that.

AD: Come on Kurt, you were bi-- you were so fond of Mookerji, he was talking about this Self of knowledge. Are you going to try applying some categories to that Self?

S: [couple words inaudible]

S (very faint): That's impossible.

S: (It isn't categorizable.)

AD: Alright? What this individual you're talking about?

S: That's the question. (some laughter)

RP/VM(?) (amidst laughter): He's asking you. [three/few words inaudible] (laughter)

AD: What individual is he talking about?

S (faint): Who knows?

S (faint): [few words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): Well what was his question?

S: That's the-- yeah that's the question.

S (faint): No.

AD: Now look--

VM: Is this the one that has the continuity that we're talking about?

S (very faint): Yeah, uh-hm.

S: Yeah, right.

PD: Yeah, just about. (some laughter)

VM (amidst laughter): Is this the one that reincarnates [three/few words inaudible] and reborn?

PD (simultaneously): Did you just disappear right out of the wor-- the world?

S: They're right Tony.

AD: I'm sorry, [S simultaneously: Tony-- Tony--] well I can't hear five at a time. Yeah?

PD: You walk right out of this world.

S (very faint): Yes you do. (laughter, student words)

PD (amidst laughter): Bhagavan is-- isn't subject in its-- the Self of Bhagavan isn't subject to continuity and change.

S: Breathe.

PD: We're not speaking in the same world anymore.

AD: Well start again, Paul.

PD: That the Self, in the sense of Bhagavan, cannot at all be subject to-- to any l-- laws. It's-- it's the ground.

[tape break]

AD: The Self is not subject to any laws, it is the ground for these laws.

PD: Yeah, and [S: Alright.] so-- you're running [one word inaudible] (around me).

AD (simultaneously): And-- and then what about-- what about this idea over here--

PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 27, AD reading]: "And its own self, as will be shown later [AD adds: on], being uniquely eternal and undying, it is inevitable that the world-ideas which have arisen within it are eternal and undying, too."

AD: What about that? [14 second pause] But you just said I walked out of the world.

PD: No. [10¼ second pause] (And), I can't (handle everything).

BS: Would you say something like what the-- [S simultaneously: Well that's like (one word inaudible)] the self, small 's' or capital, do-- 's' doesn't really matter because all the attributes we normally attribute to [S: Small 's'.] small 's' are really attributes we should be giving to something else, but it's not the Self, it's what we call the ego, and maybe that's what PB means by self-consciousness here.

[short pause]

S: Well, to say--

S (simultaneously): I'm fine, (and/are) you?

BS (simultaneously): No, I'm sorry about the last part.

VM (faint): I lost the question (right there).

AD: You lost the question?

VM: Ok well I-- are you trying to say what is the Self but it seems to me that the Self as I understand it is kind of another one of these attributeless sort of absolute kind of things that [couple words inaudible] that you realize but you can't really talk about, I mean your aim to realize but you can't really speak (about it).

AD (simultaneously): But in order for this Self to manifest, it has to manifest through certain laws.

VM (simultaneously): It manifests itself through a personal-- well--

AD: Now, are these laws disjunct?

VM: No, I mean that-- nothing would make sense then, there's the continuity coming [few words inaudible]

AD: Yeah.

S: Well, [JS: Yeah.] to say--

VM: The continuity of my own existence like from lifetime to lifetime, when I go to sleep, when I get up.

AD: Yeah. Go on.

VM: I don't know where to go.

S: Tony?

S: Go ahead.

AD: Yeah Dave.

S (simultaneously): When you talk about, when you talk about individuality, seems that--

[tape break]

AD: --have to bring in, we have to bring in something about this notion of individuality because certainly we're-- we all claim to have it, even when we, you know, get rid of the whole empirical organism, which is basically-- Yeah.

RP: Oh. Just one little point. Is one of-- when he talks about the world-ideas and the self is one of them. Is that the point you're trying to make? [S, faint: (Well--)] And-- and the Sage is then a-- an incarnation of a world-idea, divine idea.

[couple students at once, few words inaudible]

VM (simultaneously): But so that you are though Richard, what-- I mean why aren't you [student assents] just as equally a-- as much an incarnation of the world-idea?

S (faint): Should be, uh-hm.

S: [couple/three words inaudible] (bit of laughter)

JS: [couple words inaudible]

HOW COULD THE TOTALITY OF THE MIND OPERATE IN YOU AND THE TOTALITY OF THE MIND OPERATE IN ME? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "SUBSTANCE"?

AD (simultaneously): Well Vic, let me try to put it to you this way. The example we used before, alright, about the imagining the pinhead and the city. The total act of the mind is required in both of them, [student assents] alright. Now, the idea that has to somehow be communicated here is that you are totally involved in that pinhead, you are totally involved in that city, alright, and you are totally involved in anything else that the mind imagines. Alright, now I too imagine the pinhead and the city and the total mind is involved in that act and in the other act and in the other act, alright, and yet we can speak about your mind, alright, being utterly distinct from my mind. Now how could that be, how could a totality of the mind operate in you and the totality of the mind operate in me?

S (faint): Well then how could you say that they're distinct?

S: Why not?

AD: Isn't-- isn't it a kind of Aristotelian bias to say that "A" [S, very faint: Yeah.] can only be "A" and not "B"?

VM: Well it certainly seems like you're pushing it up against that. (bit of laughter)

[student assents, very faint]

AD: Well--

AP: Tony?

AD: Yeah.

AP: That those laws, I'm coming back to what-- with the archetypes, could like individuality be an archetype? [AD, faint: Uh-hm.] That would-- would-- like that would explain how it could-- would ex-- the bod--

AD (simultaneously): Well if it does-- if you do say it's an archetype, would it help you to try to understand what we're faced with here? Basically we're faced with the meaning of substance. [student assents, very faint] Aren't we? [student assents, very faint] Aren't we faced here with the meaning of substance? [student assents, very faint] [passionately] When I say the substance of my mind is involved in this creation of a pinhead, the substance, the totality of my mind is involved in the creation of the city I imagine, what does substance mean now?

S (very faint): Right, uh-hm.

S: Question of substance is the same as the question of Self.

AD: Hm?

S: Are you saying that the question of substance is basically the same as the question of Self?

[student assents, very faint]

S (very faint, possibly part of background): Maybe not (for being) [one word inaudible]

AD: Thank you.

S: Because it's that which is-- to which it is revealed, that's--

AD (simultaneously): Alright.

S: Somehow it's the static part of the relation.

[students assent, very faint]

S: Static [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): All our categories are quite inadequate here, Vic, and at the very most I gotta do like they do in Japan and China, you know, the [VM simultaneously: He's got nowhere to stand.] language has no syntax, you've got to learn to see the meaning even though it's not there, and on top of that I have Chinese importations, well-- Not all languages are built like ours. For instance, in Hinduism, it isn't that you get old, but you go to old-ness. Is that right-- (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): That seems to be right.

AD: Oh, the Hindus.

[JS assents]

VM: I missed the connection and I suppose it's partly because I (missed part--)

AD (simultaneously): Well the connection I'm trying to make here is the same diversity that you will find in all these languages, alright, like the way the Japanese speak and the way is spoken Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek, and you will see that there are a half a dozen different approaches. In Sanskrit they do not say "I am getting old." They say "I am going towards old-ness." Now notice the entirely different approach here.

S: Subjectivity's (rooted to the) tradition rather than to the person.

AD: You see? Would you like to undertake a really interesting study? See the way different people think in different cultures and your hair will stand on your head and you will come over and say to me, "My mind, the totality of my mind, is in the creation of that pinhead. And the totality is also beyond that creation." I'm just trying to worm into that meaning of substance, alright. Yeah Bob.

S: Well PB talks about the-- and-- the individual as being a diffraction of the World-Mind, of being diffracted into millions of individual entities, and so from that it would follow that if World-Mind would be the substance of the individual, in other word--

S (faint): Yeah.

S: Yeah.

AD: Yeah. Yeah, and the only thing we have to keep in mind, of course, is that the individual never transcends that relationship nor does he ever have or express the power that's inherent in the World-Mind.

S: Yeah, and it-- it's just that this beginningless series from time immemorial in the past to, you know, ad infinitum just continues on but that individual's always--

S (very faint): Right.

AD: Now-- I have to end now but now-- I know it seems like a waste of time but if you get one thing out of tonight, ask yourself questions like "What is self-realization?" See if it means anything in the face of these kind of laws you're trying to understand. 'Liberation,' 'illumination,' 'moksha,' ok? Any word you want to use. See what kind of meaning you can come up with.

S (very faint): Well, that's not easy.

AD: Yeah.

DOES THE SECOND LAW OF KARMA APPLY ONLY TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE SENSE OF "MINENESS?"

MW: Well I get the impression that-- that the self is just something which-- or that the individuality is just something which takes some set of tendencies, emotions, feelings, the body, whatever, and says "mine, they're mine," and that-- that this-- this individual self as it were is-- is creating this special karmic law-- second law of karma because he's just saying that the things that happen to him-- he's-- he's saying "They're happening to me." And if-- if there wasn't this-- this thing that called feelings, thoughts, etc, "mine", then-- then there really isn't any special law of karma operating, at least-- I mean it's only other people who are going to say "him", you know, but as regards-- well, that there's just nothing that takes this set of thoughts and that and says "mine" to them if--

AD: You know how big that word 'mine' is?

[students assent, very faint]

S (faint): Tony, is it--

AD: Did you ever stop to think about it?

MW: Well yeah, it's what's involved in this whole class, just figuring out what 'mine' is.

[student assents, very faint]

AD: M-i-n-e? Mine-ness?

MW: Yeah, m-i-n-e.

AD: You get rid of that, it might be quite a surprise because [MW simultaneously: Well--] that's all-- that's all they're trying to do is to get rid of this notion of [MW simultaneously: Yeah, that's all.] doership, of mineness.

MW: Well that's what I'm saying but I'm saying that-- that if you got rid of it, I don't see how there's any special law of karma operating because there isn't anyone to say, [student assents, faint] like, you know, if-- if it was your karma to have a--

AD: There wouldn't be anyone to say there "It was me."

[student assents]

MW (simultaneously): Right.

S (faint): But is that true, is that true?

AD (simultaneously): Well, isn't that what Richard pointed out when he's-- when this--

RP: Yeah with-- like with the leg.

AD: When he stepped in there [students assent] it-- No?

S: The idea that's coming up, is it-- are we trying to say that-- that a Sage is not subject to the special law of karma, because that's--

AD (simultaneously): Do you think so?

S: I can see that it would-- that-- that it would-- would operate and I could see that it wouldn't, I could see that-- that it's almost--

AD: Would that be the special law of karma if he puts his door in the-- accidentally in a doorway and gets it smashed?

MW: It's only [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with MW] us who are going to say the [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait. [S simultaneously: Well what I'm try--] Would that be a special law?

S (simultaneously): --what I'm trying to say is that it seems [S simultaneously: Well--] to [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Please answer the question.

S: Ok, ok, start over. Ask it-- ask it--

AD (simultaneously): Puts his door-- he puts his finger in the doorway, it gets smashed. Is this a special law of karma?

S: Yes.

AD: It is?

S: Isn't it?

AD: Ok. Class is over. (bit of laughter)

S: Yeah.

AD: What do you think Richard?

RP: It ain't happening [S simultaneously: Which--] to him.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: What?

RP (simultaneously): No one did it-- nothing's happening to him.

S (simultaneously): General law of karma.

S (faint): That's the way [couple/three words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Nothing happened to him, there's no "him" there.

RP (simultaneously): Didn't happen to him, he's not there. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): Yeah, but you say there was--

RP(?): But you (can/can't)--

[tape break]

[10½ seconds of background student talking]

AD: I keep turning.

S (possibly part of background): I don't know what's going on.

[Audio File 1971 0505b Ends]