Class
Wednesday, December 1st, 1971
Verbatim, unedited transcriptCLASS at American Brahman Bookstore, Ithaca, NY
with Anthony Damiani (AD)
December 1, 1971
HINDUISM; ANTAHKARANA
TOPIC: Hinduism
SUBJECT: Antahkarana
SUBSUBJECTS: Metaphysics, Essence and Substance, Samkhya, Vedanta, Witness, Psychology, Vasanas, Anandamaya/Vijnanamaya Koshas, Vedantic Epistemology
CONTENTS:
Two approaches: top down, bottom up
Reading quotes from Affifi on God; quotes from PB on Witness-I
World-Mind as unity and source of subject and object (series)
PB: World-Mind divides itself up into Overselves
At level of manifestation, duality of consciousness (subject) and existence (object)
Consciousness has to operate through sheaths in order for an object to appear
Universe viewed from objective pole as prakriti
Discussion of Samkhya view and Samkhya yoga
Is it possible to speak of relationship between purusha and prakriti?
Jungian studies placed at level of ego and its world
Evolution of ego from primitive unconsciousness to individuality
All Jungian archetypal stages at level of psychology
PB: Overself is as high as you can go
More on evolution of ego from primitivity to individuality to mysticism
Vasanas, Zen sickness
No psychology at level of Witness-I
Man seeks form in causal realm and suffers downfall
Witness-I can go towards Overself or ego
Distinguishing anandamaya and vijnanamaya koshas
Reading D.M. Datta, The Six Way of Knowing, on antahkarana, perception
Antahkarana mediates between undifferenced Self and objective world
Self is always shining, darkness of the mind (antahkarana) brings world into manifestation for you
Detachment an absolute prerequisite for Vedanta; attachment to ideas
Self is directing entity's evolution
Karma: all the possibilities for an individual and the power necessary to accomplish them
Discussion of antahkarana in relation to Divine, Cosmic, Human Intellects
Antahkarana not present in sleep; who knows that you've slept?
BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:
A.E. Affifi, The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid Din-Ibnul 'Arabi
Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself
Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga
Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness
Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom
D.M. Datta, The Six Ways of Knowing: A Critical Study of the Vedanta Theory of Knowledge
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 2022. Archival verbatim transcript – V11a.
AUDIO FILES: 1971 1201a. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: We only have one audio file for this class. It is a little over 2 hours and 3 minutes long but cuts off at 1:59:05.5.]
1971 12/01 at American Brahman Bookstore
Hinduism; Antahkarana
[Audio File 1971 1201a Begins]
AD: --[con]tained within the great one. Ok? [short pause] Now-- We can start all the way down here at the level where we're at, ego and the world [diagram], and try working our way back or we can start up here and work our way down [diagram], alright. So it doesn't really matter which way we start. But, if we were to continue from last week, we pointed out that in this sense here, like the Sufis call that "in its blindness", pure essence, the unity of that essence. And then we s-- well let's read that.
[12¼ second pause]
AD: Would you read that, uh--
S: How?
AD: I think I better put this chart a little (different/differently).
[short pause]
[Transcriber note: I am using The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid Din-Ibnul 'Arabi by A.E. Affifi, Cambridge University Press, London, 1939.]
A.E. Affifi [The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid Din-ibnul Arabi, p. 63, LS reading]: "[The] Self-revelations of the One [(the tajalliyat)] [AD drawing] thus understood, are as follows. When we conceive the One as apart from all possible relations and individualisations, we say that God has revealed Himself in the State of Unity [(al ahadiyyah)] or is in the [LR reads: his] Blindness [(al 'ama)], the state of the Essence. When we regard it in relation to the potential existence of the Phenomenal World, we say that God has revealed Himself in the"state of the Godhead" [(al martabah al ilahiyyah)]. This is also the state of the divine Names. [And] when we regard it in relation to the actual manifestations of the Phenomenal World, we say that God has revealed Himself in the state of lordship [(al rububiyyah)]. If regarded as a universal consciousness containing all intelligible forms of actual and potential existents, we say that Reality revealed itself in the First Intellect and God revealed Himself as the Inward or the Unseen [and we call the state haqiqatu-l haqa'iq (Reality of Realities)]. But if regarded as actually manifest in the Phenomenal World, we say that God has manifested Himself in forms of the external world, and we identify Him with the universal Body [(al jism al kulli)]. When we think of Him as the universal substance which receives all forms, we say that God revealed Himself in Prime Matter…"
[39¼ second pause, flipping of pages]
AD: Alright, and then over here he says the-- you remember the paragraph about--
[Transcriber note: I am using The Wisdom of the Overself by Paul Brunton, Rider and Company, London, 1943.]
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Secret of the I," p. 79, AD reading]: "The first of our thoughts is"I". All other thoughts follow its arisal [AD reads: arising]. [AD adds: But] It does not stand alone…"
AD: And you have to imagine this side, so to speak, coming through there [diagram].
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Secret of the I," p. 79, AD reading]: "It does not stand alone but instantly associates itself with the thought which next follows. And this is the body-thought. [drawing] [Unfortunately] it ends by limiting itself to the body too, which could never have come into existence at all but for its own prior existence. Thus this [AD reads: the] association has degenerated into a bondage of the"I"-thought to the body-thought."
AD: Further on he goes on and says--
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Secret of the I," p. 79, AD reading]: "The"I" unconsciously provides the particular space-time characteristics through which the world must first pass before it can emerge into consciousness."
AD: Now this "I", so to speak, must provide those presuppositions.
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Secret of the I," p. 79, AD reading]: "[Thus] the"I" [veritably] holds as its own thought both the body and then the world outside the body."
AD: Further down, next paragraph.
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Secret of the I," p. 79, AD reading]: "When he discovers that his own personal existence is no less a thought-structure than [that of] his physical surroundings, that everything including himself has an imagined existence, he comes close, very close, to the gate [AD reads: gates] of initiation into a higher world of understanding."
AD: Alright let's-- let's talk a little bit about this now, see if we could-- [short pause] In-- in that quotation that you just read there, would you read the part where He is regarded as universal substance?
[12 second pause with some drawing]
A.E. Affifi [The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid Din-ibnul Arabi, p. 63, LS reading]: "When we think of Him as the universal substance which receives all forms, we say that God revealed Himself in Prime Matter…"
AD: Ok. [10¾ second pause] If we take-- if we take a view of this as the cosmos, alright, and we speak about-- about the cosmos in terms of substantiality, that puts us on this side [diagram], so to speak. Alright? Then it is regarded as the substantial point of view, in other words, capable of taking and receiving any and every quality onto itself.
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
S (faint): I like that.
AD: Now how about the other part, you know, Intellect.
A.E. Affifi [The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid Din-ibnul Arabi, p. 63, LS reading]: "If regarded as a universal consciousness containing all intelligible forms of actual and potential existents, we say that Reality revealed itself in the First Intellect, and God revealed Himself as the Inward or the Unseen…"
AD: Ok. Alright so, what we're going to do is try to understand it somewhat like this. If we look at the World-Mind up here [diagram], splitting in half, so to speak, ok, now we're going to try to understand-- stan-- going to understand it dualistically, so to speak. And we can see that on the one hand, this World-Mind which represents, let's say, the Ideal Archetypal World, alright-- But we're going to try to split apart-- split it apart and speak of it on the one hand as the subject and on the other hand as the object. Now, over here we'd feel more at home, down here, if we speak about it as the subject. [10½ second pause while drawing] I'm making up this diagram as we go along, so any ideas you have, come out with. Now let's-- let's look at-- let's look from here. From the point of view of the intelligence, alright, which is perceiving a world, there has to be, so to speak, something between [drawing] these two [diagram]. Because, if there isn't, so to speak, something that separates these two, you could almost say-- you could imagine them back in their primordial unity, so to speak. So we got to think of something that splits-- splits up the unity of the subject-object relationship which we find over here is, so to speak, one. You got any ideas what would go in there? Maybe I didn't state it right. Well, try now.
VM/S(?): Cognition. Knowing (we'd say).
AD: Cognition? Knowing, ok? And they call that "sheaths". [9¼ second pause] Uh-- [drawing] [S, very faint: Would you say uh--] also, upadhis. What?
S (very faint): Well between-- between purusha and the prakriti, could you say you have-- you have the-- the principle of [one/two words inaudible] You know, 'cause without that-- without that [few words inaudible]
[AD drawing]
S (very faint): I thought he just told you.
[short pause]
S (faint): Somebody presupposed you said-- somebody presupposed you said prakriti.
[short pause]
AD: Let's see, can you understand what Richard just suggested here? If-- if you think of this as a universal consciousness, an immediate universal consciousness, alright, as it is in this case here, huh, where the in-- the intelligible content and the consciousness are one and the same, there's-- there's no separating them at that level, alright. And if you were to consider, well how is manifestation to proceed, how is, so to speak, appearance to take place, you see that you have to, so to speak, bring in between these two, alright, some kind of in-between thing, you know, so to speak-- [short pause while drawing] something, you know, that-- like they say in the myths, something to-- to tear Father away from Mother and then the world is created. [short pause] Well, [drawing] let's look at it this way. Now this purusha or this universal consciousness is graded into a series of I's, let's say, and PB speaks of that.
[28½ second pause, flipping of pages]
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Immortal Overself," p. 115, AD reading]: "The World-Mind apparently breaks itself up into an endless multitude of such higher selves but after it has done so it paradoxically remains as unlimited and as ultimate, as undiminished in its own being as ever. The notion that the Infinite Existence has divided itself up into such units is correct only if we understand first, that this division has not involved any reduction in its essence, and second, that it has not meant any real parting of them from this essence."
[short pause]
AD: Now, an imaginative leap is required here, you know.
S (very faint): Would you read that (again)?
AD: Sure.
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Immortal Overself," p. 115, AD reading]: "The World-Mind apparently breaks itself up into [an] endless multitude of such higher selves…"
AD: Of course, the higher selves he's referring to here is the Overselves. He doesn't use it in the singular though, and he-- he made that very clear, he said, if we say Overselves then people might think of the Overself as separate from one another, and that will be a misunderstanding, ok. If you're going to make the error, make it on the other side, that there's on-- only one Overself rather than they're many, alright. So--
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Immortal Overself," p. 115, AD reading]: "The World-Mind [apparently] breaks itself up into an endless multitude of such higher selves but after it has done so it paradoxically remains as unlimited and as ultimate, as undiminished in its own being as ever [AD reads: as it ever was]. The notion that the Infinite Existence has divided itself up into such units is correct only if we understand first, that this division has not involved any reduction in its essence, and second, that it has not meant any real parting of them from this essence. [AD adds: Now] We can best understand this by remembering what happens in our own mental activity. [Our] innumerable ideas are a kind of division of the mind but do not really involve its exhaustion for the ideas not only arise but must vanish back into it. Although the mind perpetually empties itself into thoughts, it is never less itself, never less its own single presence. Nor are these thoughts separate at any moment from the mind. In the same way, except that it is not affected by the transiency which affects all thoughts, the Overself is not separate from the World-Mind. Every Overself exists in the World-Mind just as different thoughts exist in one and the same human mind. The World-Mind's consciousness may multiply or divide itself a million times but its stuff is not really divisible; [AD emphasizes following phrase] it only appears so."
[short pause]
S (very faint): Tony?
AD: 194, in this book. Alright so, shall we start again? [20¾ second pause, noises, drawing] Divided up into many higher selves. [11 second pause while drawing] Ok? And he points out that the Overself is identical, it's identical in essence with the World-Mind. It doesn't enjoy the power, the scope of power or the amplitude of the World-Mind, but in essence it's identical with the World-Mind. So, we come back-- here's a cosmos. [drawing] And we say that this cosmos is the World-Mind, alright. And the World-Mind and all that it contains, in other words, the contents of the Archetypal and the Intelligible Ideas which will manifest a universe, alright. Soon as we say that, out it goes. No more the World-Mind. Now we're speaking about a cosmos. We're not speaking about the World-Mind. So-- If you remember, we pointed out, when we said Beyond Being, [drawing/writing] alright, and then we said Being, and then the causal realm and the subtle and the gross. We pointed out that this is the domain of formal manifestation [diagram], this do-- domain of universal manifestation [diagram], and this, so to speak, this is often referred to in His-- Hinduism as-- this here, impure maya [diagram] and this is referred to as pure maya [diagram], but we put that aside now.
Alright so, now, at the third level, as soon as we start speaking about-- about this here [diagram], now we're thinking of [drawing] this Overself or this in here, alright, in relation to manifestation. Now, soon as we say manifestation, we im-- immediately think of a universe that's manifested, a cosmos. Now this-- this cosmos has to be-- has to consist of, let's say, a duality, or we have to consider it in terms of essence and substance or act and potency, in other words, it's in the process of becoming but isn't actualized. Well any of these terms you want to use, it doesn't matter. The point here to remember is that on the one hand you have consciousness, [writing] and on the other hand you have existence. [short pause] In other words, PB's attack in the Hidden Teaching is basically through an analysis of knowledge, alright. And by an analysis of knowledge you-- you, so to speak, reveal the subject. You could just as well, you know, like the Catholics u-- their attack is basically here [diagram], everything participates in existence. And so they-- That would make a lot of sense, that's the Western extroverted attitude, to try to solve the problem from existence rather than from knowledge.
Alright so, over here at this end, if we consider this end now, alright, from the point of view of consciousness, the universe is polarized, so to speak, or [drawing] divided up into half, ok, substance and essence, ok. And we have to, so to smea-- speak, admit of a graded series of hierar-- or a hierarchy of intelligences. You can have the realm of angels, so to speak, of humans, animals, insects. Alright? Yet-- yet we can see that if this consciousness is not delimited in some way or other-- [someone hands AD something] Thank you.
VM (faint): That was from the angels.
AD: Yes.
S (faint): Straight ahead.
S (very faint, possibly part of background): (Those/There's) college kids.
AD: That there would be, so to speak, no possibility of-- of an object. So that there has to intervene, so to speak, something between. And like Richard po-- pointed out, there has to be the means of knowing existent, an existent thing. [student assents, very faint] So in here we put the sheaths, cognitional apparatuses, or, the Vedantins like to call it a determinate systems of concepts. And, when we do, we do something like this. [short pause] We put over here, or we put over here [short pause] the cognitional apparatus, a means of knowing, which so to speak-- let's see if I could do it this way-- [12¼ second pause while drawing] which, so to speak, has to take this all-embracive comprehensive universal intelligence, alright, and like filter it through, so to speak, and pre-- and present you with an object. Now the only thing that could do that would necessarily be some kind of looking glass, you know. Like if you think of a horse, he's got blinkers, he can only see straight ahead. Well in a sense, u-- the universal consciousness which is the substrata of the subject has to be restricted, alright. It has to operate through some means. And these means are the-- are the sheaths or the bodies, the enclosures, the limitations, give it any name you want. Does this-- do you follow this so far?
S (simultaneously): Uh-hm.
S: Uh-hm.
[short pause]
AD: That's a deadly silence. In time for coffee (now).
RP (simultaneously, faint): Well he always-- he always makes that dis-- that point that the universal consciousness isn't consciousness as such, it's only when it goes through one of these sheaths that you-- you would more likely give it the name 'consciousness'. Like passing through the physical, it's what you call awareness, passing through the physical apparatus, the sheath. They call this vritti. Those are the formulas we use.
AD: Ok. Alright now, if this is the "I" which, you know, was spoken of before, when PB spe-- speaks about the Witness-I, we can-- we can see this "I" in two ways, we can see it in a transcendental way, alright, and we can see it in-- in the immanent way. Insofar that the "I", so to speak, flows into the ego structure here, alright, then a world has to appear. Insofar that the-- the "I" returns to its source, alright, then it has to go back into this area [diagram]. [9¼ second pause] This is all relatively very simple to understand. I hope you don't let these throw you off for a while.
Alright now, if we considered the entire universe from this pole [diagram], ok, then you can forget about consciousness, alright, and you can consider this universe as nothing but physical, substance, matter. Although the word 'matter' here shouldn't be confused with the physicist's notion of matter, alright. And that this matter, which is spoken of for instance by the alchemists, you know, and-- and many of the traditions, they refer to it as prakriti under Samkhya, this matter is capable of receiving and taking on all kinds of forms. You might say it's like the imagination. It's virginal insofar that no matter what kind of form is imposed on it, yet it will again take on a new one over and over again.
And a thing to try to keep in mind is, if you apply this to yourself, if you consider your imagine-- imagination to be like a kind of substance upon which you impose images one after the other, if you try to keep in mind that when the image is created, in other words, when the mind modifies itself and becomes the object or let's say envelops the object which it becomes. In other words, when the mind is pleasure or is pain and then dissolves and falls back into this virginal condition, alright, and then let's say it becomes pleasure, another state of mind, grief, sadness, alright, each one of these conditions that the mind, so to speak, becomes-- becomes that object, and then when it breaks off from being that object, that tendency, alright, sinks. In other words, when the mind has a tendency to become, let's say, grief, alright, and then the grief is over and the virginal condition of the imagination returns and then it becomes something else and then something else and always it's becoming something. But in the process of becoming this thing or that thing, alright, when it's no longer this or that thing, then that tendency, that potency to become that thing, sinks back into the mind and this is what the Hindus call vasanas. You follow this? It's really not so abstract. As a matter of fact, it's absolutely concrete.
RP (faint): Is this when you fix up the (concrete)?
S: Yeah. (laughter)
S (faint): Right.
S: Go ahead.
AD: Alright. Put it down now. (laughter)
RP (faint): That's another one. (RP laughs, bit of laughter)
[9½ second pause]
S (faint): Tony?
AD: Yeah Richard.
RP (simultaneously): When you-- when you-- when you cross off like the one half, we're just going to consider everything under the point of view of existent, it's not that you're-- it's just that you're assimilating one side to the other. It's not that you're ignoring it, I mean, it's just that then cognition becomes a species or a part of existence or the being.
AD: Yes, yes.
RP (simultaneously): Like we hear about-- the criticism like of the Scholastics that they ignore epistemology is to mistake it because they include their epistemology in their theory of being.
AD: Yes, that's also true of the Samkhya, isn't it?
RP (faint): Well I guess I don't know (what--)
AD: Well, in Samkhya Yoga, for instance, at this side here, this side here where you have [RP simultaneously: Oh yeah (few words inaudible)] pra-- prakriti, the 24 principles [diagram], you remember? And the-- the second principle of-- is buddhi, [AD hits board with chalk] alright. And they point out that, going all the way down here [diagram], so to speak, each step back, so to speak, alright, the purusha is always mistakenly identified with one of these cognitional norms, alright. So on the one hand, the purusha reflects itself, or let's say there's a re-perception of the purusha in this cognitional realm. And then when the person realizes he is not the physical body and he moves up to the emotional or the intellectual, and then he realizes he's not that, alright, you can almost say like-- You remember the example we use where we say here's a rose, red rose, and here's the crystal, alright. Now here's the crystal, alright, here's the red rose. The other way around. No, we'll use it this way. And the red rose is always reflected in this crystal. But it isn't part of the crystal. The purusha and the material universe are being constantly confused at every level, alright. So, from this point of view you can see that they point out, and as far as Samkhya is concerned I think it's pretty consistent, it points out you can rise up to the level of buddhi and it-- and even then you'll have, so to speak, that-- you'll have that problem with asmita where the ego is identified with one of its adjuncts, the subject is considered as one of the adjuncts, and from there on the person is, so to speak, in a state of ignorance. The pure subject in himself has to be isolated completely as far as they're concerned. But at each level as you rise, so to speak, until you get to buddhi, and when buddhi becomes absolutely sattvic, so to speak, alright, then-- then and then only is it possible to separate and discriminate finally and once and for all. But until that level, alright, for the Samkhya yogis, the whole universe is nothing but a manifestation of substance. And they-- the-- the analogy they use is that Nature is dancing for the purusha, entertaining, enjoying it, you know, making it possible for him to enjoy himself.
RP: That's why they always speak of purusha in a very passive mode, as being solely the Witness.
AD: Yeah, the purusha cannot do anything. This is probably one of the most difficult things in all of Samkhya to understand. If in-- in the Samkhya for instance they say, the soul does nothing, doesn't act. All that acts is Nature. Nature is giving a performance. [student assents, faint] And what-- the criticism that's always made against the Samkhya is, well, if the soul doesn't operate, in the sense has no function, doesn't function in terms of the subject or the knower of knowledge, well then where's the relationship? How do they get related?
S (very faint): [couple words inaudible]
RP (faint): But they really aren't related and they never were. (And that would be that?)
AD: Well this is what Samkhya says. But--
VM (simultaneously, faint): What was the answer to that? I forgot.
RP: The answer was they're not related and never were, and never can be.
VM (faint): You mean purusha and prakriti are not-- not related you say?
RP: Well, yeah, you--
AD: Well, for Samkhya [couple inaudible RP words simultaneously with AD] there are-- there are many, many souls, many I's, ok? [AD hits board with chalk] There's [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] many many I's, alright, and one prakriti, ok, one-- one universal Nature, alright. And they claim that this "I" gets confused with this prakriti. Now what's prakriti? The 24 principles, all the different cognitional apparatuses that you can possibly conceive, alright. Now, you go through this gradual evolutionary scheme of gaining more and more knowledge, which you discover as you go along is really a species of ignorance. Alright? And finally you reach the point where you realize that the subject, the true knower, the "I", cannot be related to the manifestation. There-- there's no possible way of saying, "How do these two get together?" If this is impersonal, impassive, absolute-- absolutely unaffected, uninvolved, ok? well then, what are you-- what are you talking about?
VM (faint): Well it's more correct to say it's the ground rather than related I think, (it's--)
RP (simultaneously): No that--
S (very faint): [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): No.
RP: That would give its-- a relationship, you never know it's a--
VM (simultaneously, faint): That would still (give a/be the) relationship.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah.
RP (simultaneously): Ok it's the ground. You have-- you have two words in the same sentence. There's no relationships whatsoever in the statement.
S: Is that--
S (very faint): It will be?
S (faint): Go ahead.
AD: Yeah.
S (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible]
S: Could you say the same thing psychologically, in that as far as we recognize, that one part of our mind is the subject and the other part of our mind is the-- what the subject is observing.
AD: How could that be, Willie? How could [S simultaneously: Isn't that how we operate though?] one and the same thing be two contradictory things?
S: Isn't that how we operate though?
AD: Do you?
S: Well if I think a thought, yeah. Who sees the thought or who knows the thought?
AD: Well, if you are perceiving a thought, evidently the one who's perceiving the thought and the thought are two different things.
S: Yeah. But it's me.
AD: No, it's not you.
S (faint): Ok.
S: Oh that's the same relationship, or the same lack of relationship. (bit of laughter) Is that what you're saying?
S (faint): Thank you.
AD: Yeah, it's the same problem (that) comes up in the Vedanta, the Vedanta handles it three different ways. (bit of laughter)
[short pause]
DB (very faint): Willie? Isn't-- or aren't-- aren't the purushas presupposed when considering prakriti? So aren't the-- isn't purusha presupposed when you're considering prakriti?
AD: Purusha presupposed? [S, faint: Yes.] They're just taken for granted. This-- this is the way the Samkhyas operate: there are selves and there is a universe, alright. That's the way they start out. That's what they postulate, that's what they go by. In other words, if you become liberated, the universe goes on, it doesn't cease to exist for others. So they postulate, they postulate that this "I", alright, among many I's, has an eternal existence just like this matter or this prakriti or this Nature has an eternal existence. You-- you'll never find in any-- outside of the Christian religion, you'll never find that the "I" is ever created. They don't know what you're talking about.
DB (faint): Well, I-- I wasn't trying to say that, I'm just trying to understand how there-- how there isn't any possibility of relationship between the purusha and prakriti, you know.
AD: But we just went through that, Dave.
DB (faint): I know and I didn't understand it.
S (simultaneously): Can you do it again?
AD: Do it again?
S: Do it again.
AD: Ok.
S (simultaneously, very faint): Uh-hm.
AD: This calls for a vasana. (some laughter)
S (very faint): [one/two words inaudible]
AD: Huh? No, I gotta keep my throat wet.
RP: Well that's almost-- see, they don't say it 'cause it's a logical problem (when) you have things of two different categories, and it's impossible to put a relation between those like in the West the mind-body problem.
DB (faint): I'm sorry Richard, I couldn't hear you.
AD: Say-- say it loud.
RP (simultaneously): Essentially you have two-- two things of-- two different categories, logical categories. And therefore they can't be related, just purely logically, without having to go through the argument. You can't make a sentence. It's like saying (manacle) of a tree.
DB: Right.
RP (simultaneously): You can't make any sentence of it that will-- that can relate to two dissimilar objects.
DB (faint): But can-- but, conceptually speaking, how could you consider prakriti without presupposing purusha?
RP: Well, it's like saying, how could you consider illusions without presupposing reality, because you-- you know, every time you see an illusion you're presupposing reality because you think there's a certain reality there. But what's the relationship between illusions and reality?
[short pause]
AD: Isn't that the same fundamental problem in the-- in the Vedanta too? You have the ultimately Real-- you have the ultimately Real, alright, and you have a manifested universe, a universe that appears. How do you relate them?
[short pause]
S (very faint): Well--
S (faint): I'm confused between the concept of asmita and the other point of view of there being no relationship. Is asmita just the point of view of going up to the 24 principles and then when you get to the top and you say that there really is no relationship? Like you speak of Sage after his liberation like, you know, turns around and takes a look and he really doesn't see that any error was ever there in-- in this case? From the point of view of down here going up we have to talk about a mistaken identification?
AD: Yeah, from here-- If-- if, for instance, we start off at the level where we are identified with the body, alright, you say "I am" and then you point to your body, "This is me," alright. And then through very careful analysis you realize that the body is a thought in the mind, alright, and has to be distinct from the mind. Alright, now, there's a kind of liberation from the body-idea, even if it's only at a theoretical level, alright, but it's-- it's an awareness insofar-- insofar that you've understood this theoretically. You understand, for instance, that you're freed from the body in a state of deep sleep. This is not theoretical, you experience this every night, but in terms of the consciousness with which you operate in wakeful-- on a wakeful level.
Alright, now, you think you are the mind, ok, and you say, well, the body is an idea in the mind. And then you introspect and you meditate and you very carefully watch the states, the internal states. You finally get a release from the mind, so to speak, you get a satori or you get some kind of rel-- inner illumination where you see the mind as an object distinct from the self that perceives that object. And that occasionally happens for instance when we gave the example where a man wakes up in the middle of the night, you know, and he's in a hotel and he says, "Where am I, who am I?" you know. See, in that instant [AD snaps fingers] the subject, so to speak, alright, sh-- shines right through and shows that he isn't those things. Now this-- there's this immediate identification with that body and mind and now he says "Ah, that's me," ok. This may be all subconsciously but it's going on all the time. Alright, there's a-- there is again a release from identification with the mind.
But at all these levels the point is that there's this subtle identification with that level. So you're subtly identified with the body. When you're released from that, alright, now (you/you're) subtly identified with the mind, alright. At each-- at each of these various levels of identification, they refer to this as asmita, a false assimilation of the-- of the knower of knowledge with that vehicle, whatever that vehicle may be. Alright?
But, we're not discussing that, what we are discussing is that if ultimate consciousness, if the purusha, ultimately speaking, is consciousness pure per se, alright, which is no object, which is no thing, which you can't, so to speak, understand how-- how in any way we can speak of it as the knower because no matter what goes on, it is unconcerned, unrelated to it. There's no connection to it. This is what we're speaking about. They try to come over-- cover it over with-- with that, you know, they try to say [writing] well this is what's going on all the time, a false identification. But how could that be?
S (faint): Yeah, that's what I--
AD: Well this is the problem, sure, it's the problem, this is the criticism that they make about Samkhya, basic criticism, that it seems that we have two utterly heterogeneous things here and we're asked to relate them, alright, and we can't. [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] Like for instance, if you postulate that the body and the mind are different, then you'll never, you know-- you never bring them together.
RP: But they point out that there's this vehicle in the Vedanta where you have appearance and reality.
AD: I'm sorry, Richard.
RP: But he pointed out the criticism particularly made against the Vedanta which has on the one hand reality, on the other hand appearance.
AD: Yeah. Yeah, the same problem seems to reappear at various levels, you know.
RP: It's the problem of duality.
S (faint): Well--
AD: Yeah, Bert.
BS (faint): You seem to be talking of purusha and prakriti as cosmological principles. I thought that's where we were I mean in here.
AD (very faint): (Yeah/No).
BS: Then how can we then relate purusha as pure con-- to pure consciousness which would be essence?
AD: Well isn't--
RP (simultaneously, faint): But all-- all cosmology takes place within prakriti.
AD: You see, that's true Bert. If we start down here, in other words, if we start down here [drawing] in the world, alright, where the ego and the world are in opposition to one another, alright, this-- the conflict seems inevitable. If we start up here [diagram], for instance, there is no conflict.
RP (faint): There's also no world.
AD: Huh?
RP (faint): There's also no world.
AD: Yeah. Alright, there's no conflict here [diagram], and even up to here [diagram] there's no conflict. Here's where the conflict comes. We have the World-Mind, alright. The World-Mind, Universal Consciousness, contains within itself and is identical with its contents. That-- those contents are the world, alright. Also, you can say it's identical with the various purushas too, ok. So here you have the I's, [drawing] alright, and here you have the world. And you can say-- you can say this here. The World-Mind contains both of them, alright, within itself in-- in a-- in the-- in the simplest-- the utter-- utter simplicity that it-- we can possibly conceive it. The only distinction we could make between these two in the World-Mind is a logical distinction, not an existential distinction. You follow what I'm saying? Alright, so if we come down this way we have no problem. Ok? Then you can see that this, so to speak, this part becomes the essence [diagram] and this part becomes the substance [diagram]. You speak of this as the world of matter [diagram] and you speak of this as the consciousness which understands that world [diagram]. There's no problem here. It's when you start down here [AD hits board with chalk] that the problem is. That's why PB starts down here, he starts with the Hidden Teaching. Here's "I" and there's not-I. How do we get together?
S (faint): Well isn't there a problem in terms of what separates them when you're coming down?
S (very faint): Yeah.
[short pause]
AD: Well, what do you mean by "what", (Janet/Jenny)?
S: Well starting--
AD: You mean you want to understand the mechanism of how this separation or duality takes place.
S: I'm not sure if 'mechanism' is the right word.
AD (faint): Well-- I don't care, use your own words (honestly). I get mine at Five 'n Ten, I don't know where you get yours. (laughter)
S: [couple words inaudible] (more laughter) Well you started out in [S simultaneously, faint: Change them.] this original unity [AD: Uh-hm.] where the only distinction between subject and object that can be made is a logical one and there's no real distinction. And then sort of all of a sudden, you know, here's a subject, here's an object, I'm sitting here looking at your stool. That seems to me real distinction. And-- from this place where-- where they're-- where they are one, you know, what is it that-- that comes between them and separates?
AD: Alright, we can say that somewhere in here [diagram], ok, the term that they use is maya. Somewhere in there [diagram]. I-- I don't want to go into that right now. Maya is going to take about umpteen kalpas. (AD laughs a bit, bit of laughter) But don't think of maya the way, you know, the Ne-- Neo-Vedantists talk about, maya-- maya is something divine, you know. Let's ignore that just for a little while, let's-- let's go on. Alright so, here's this-- here's this one world, [drawing] so to speak, that now we can speak about, alright, and over here we postulated that there's the Witness-self here which is immanent in the ego, alright. Ok. Now, if we bring ourselves down to the lowest level, the ego and the world, ok, if we bring ourselves down to this level here, and we start trying to understand ourselves in relation down here, I think we would have to get into a considerable amount of psychology and physiology, alright. And so over here would be appropriate, for instance, our studies in Jung, ok. It would be appropriate there to understand how the ego, so to speak, has to go-- has to grow insofar that it's in the world. And as we know, these two are simultaneously presented, when the ego is born its world is born with it, ok, and this ego grows in the world, so to speak, it brings into itself the imagery of the world and these-- these images provide, let's say, some kind of ladder for it to grow.
The images, let's say, for instance, that operate, we would have to consider-- let me start by saying we would have to consider first on the one hand we'd have to consider the growth of the ego on the basis of ontogenetics and on the basis of phylogenetics; in other words, in terms as an individual and in terms as a member of a race. And we would have to, for instance, when we talk of the ego, we'd say well, in the early stages, the ego's development, so to speak, let's say it goes through the stage where the instincts are not separated, where there-- there is no ego-consciousness, you know, there's no separation of-- of the ego from the world and gradually there comes into operation this principle of separation. And you remember what that principle was? It's a-- it's a very insignificant thing--consciousness. You start saying, "I am not this, I'm not that," you start making choices, alright. So, the ego then goes through that primitive phase, for instance, where it participates in a very mysterious way with the clan or the race. And you don't have no individuals so to speak of, you got a group individual, a mass individual, a collective individual. And, if you go back in history for instance, you see that very clearly. The further back you go, the more and more the individual disappears and then finally he's not available at all and all you have is masses or herds of people. And every now and then someone stands out, you know, and you know he's an individual. You follow what I'm trying to do?
S (very faint): Yeah.
AD: Ok so, you can see that down at this level there's a psychological development which includes phylogenetic and ontogenetic development. And when you start studying for instance, if you go through the various studies, the various phases-- for instance, if you take Neumann's book on The History and the Origins of Consciousness, [Note: Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness.] you can see what he's speaking about is down here [diagram]. It's got nothing to do with what we're talking about up there [diagram]. I don't care what their pretences are. You follow this? If you can follow this, this gives you a very very neat thumbnail sketch, so to speak, as to where we can place the various divisions that we made. In other words, we put Jung over here [diagram], remember, we put PB's teaching here [diagram] and Vedanta here [diagram] and Neo-Platonism [diagram], alright. And the Jungian teachings are going to be basically concerned with, and I think they have tremendous value, in helping us understand [drawing] the development of the ego, the processes that are involved, the psychology that's involved. [9 second pause] Alright now, what's peculiar here of course is, if you tackle this problem here, here's an ego which goes through, let's say, development of his consciousness through certain archetypal stages, ok. At the same time, this ego never lets go, never lets go, and always, so to speak, included (him) under that notion is the sheaths, the upadhis, or the cognitional apparatus, or the determinate system of concepts he has to operate with. Now see, see if you can keep this in mind, because it's-- it's a really important point. No matter how far he develops in terms of archetypal stages in consciousness, alright, it always remains in psychology. You follow this point? It always remains there. It is only, so to speak, when the-- he traces back these determinate system of concepts that he gets out of his psychology. The so-- the problems in psychology are never resolved in psychology. They always transcend psychology.
VM (faint): Tony, when you speak of psychology are you talking about the subtle level or-- Would that also be where you put the antahkarana and all the [one word inaudible] (transits)?
AD: Well since you brought it up, where would you put the antahkarana in this sketch? Give a guess, don't be bashful.
VM (faint): Well, I'd put it somewhere between the hidden observer and the ego actually, much closer to the ego than to the hidden observer.
AD: In other words, in between these two [diagram].
VM (simultaneously, faint): (Somehow) he projects the ego, (I mean--)
AD: Yeah, like he says over here. He says the "I" is the presupposition-- [13 second pause, flipping of pages] I don't know, where was it?
[10¼ second pause, flipping of pages]
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Secret of the I," p. 79, AD reading]: "The"I" unconsciously provides the particular space-time characteristics through which the world must first pass before it can emerge into consciousness."
AD: Well now, if the "I" provides, so to speak, these possibilities, alright, we would have to say that the heart is somewhere here [diagram], ok, in between, alright. Now, he also-- PB also makes the remark, he says that once a person has a mystical experience, so to speak, he realizes the center of his being is in the heart. But he says a further experience shows that it completely transcends the physical body altogether. Well if it transcends completely the physical body [drawing] then what happens? You find that that's the "I". But of course, of course, you wouldn't be able to see the cosmos. You see the point here? You can only see that much of the cosmos through which your ego, let's say, functions, through which this antahkarana functions.
VM (faint): Yeah you contacted the Overself, not the World-Mind.
AD: I'm sorry?
VM (faint): Is that an equivalent statement?
AD: I'm sorry?
VM (simultaneously, faint): You're making contact with the Overself and not the World-Mind, is that an equivalent statement to what you just said?
AD: It contacts the Overself?
VM (simultaneously, faint): You're making contact with the Overself as opposed to the World-Mind. Is that an equivalent statement or [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, insofar that you can identify with the Overself, and I think he makes this remark, you can look it up, he says, this is as high as we can go. We can go up as far as the Overself but no further. And he points out, he says that it is through philosophy that we can learn of this relationship, but we cannot transcend this relationship. I think that's very important so maybe we ought to read that. [11 second pause, flipping of pages] Alright, this is on page 193 in this book.
Paul Brunton [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Immortal Overself," p. 115, AD reading]: "What is meant when it is said that the Overself is man's higher individuality must now be explained. We know that the World-Mind must be everywhere, yet it is certainly not everywhere to the personal consciousness. There must be a point-instant in space-time perception where the latter can meet it. In most mystical experience such a point is first felt to exist within the heart. But the World-Mind cannot be confined within such a limited perception. And later mystical experience always transcends this centre within the heart and largely detaches the consciousness from the body altogether. Yet the finite self can never bring the World-Mind in its fullness within this experience simply because finitude would itself [AD reads: itself would] merge and vanish while trying to do so. This mystical meeting-point, the Overself, represents the utmost extent to which the finite self can consciously share in the ultimate existence. It is that fragment of God which dwells in and yet environs man, a fragment which has all the quality and grandeur of God but not all the amplitude and power [of God]. The difference between the World-Mind and [AD adds: the] Overself is only one of scope and degree, not one of kind, for they are both essentially the same"stuff". We may climb as high as this highest self but not beyond it. Thus our personal life is a phase of the Overself's life. The latter's [AD reads: And the Overself's] existence in its turn is a phase of the World-Mind's existence. [AD adds: And] Through this chain of relations the little self has an everlasting kinship with the cosmic one. It can become aware through philosophy of this kinship but it cannot transcend the relation itself."
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
S (very faint): (If you) use the Samkhya scheme of purusha and the 24 principles--
AD: I can't hear you.
S (faint): If you use that Samkhya scheme of purusha and the 24 principles of prakriti, couldn't you say that the highest level where it would be appropriate to speak of an "I" having experience or cognition through the antahkarana because really it would be universal?
S (very faint): (No.)
S (very faint): See I'm kind of at the highest level of asmita, aware through the Overself [couple words inaudible]
AD: You want to use the Samkhya Yoga and say that the highest level of experience that you can have--
S (very faint): Well, the highest level where from the other point of view, you know, speaking in terms of duality and in terms of-- like (and in) a knowing subject (will/would) be the antahkarana because beyond that you would have further [S, very faint: And then a--] universal intelligence, a lot of forms let's say.
AD: And your question was? [short pause] What was your question A-- Andrea?
S (very faint): Well I'm trying to clarify this notion of "I", and, like, if we speak of the "I" and kind of-- kind of, you know, correlate it with the purusha, you couldn't relate it to anything which-- which it knows, that--
AD: Tell me what was your question, don't-- don't--
S (simultaneously, very faint): Well I'm just (seeing--) yeah well I'm trying to clarify. Because if you think of "I" as purusha you couldn't relate it, and so-- like is it-- would it be right to say that the highest level where we could speak of the "I" relating or "I" knowing in a Samkhya scheme would be-- would be the antahkarana?
AD: Even when, for instance, the Samkhya speaks about the supermental levels? Hm? You remember the classifications that they have of samadhi? Not that simple.
S: Tony, well (how come--)
AD: Yeah.
S: This is kind of a related question. You were saying psychology has to transcend the determinant system of concepts. Does that mean that psychology extends up to the realm of the Overself?
AD: No. Quite the reverse. Well evidently that's not clear then.
S: Yeah, it's not.
AD: Ok.
S: Right, uh-hm.
AD: Yeah. Ok, let's-- go ahead.
S (simultaneously): I mean on your system of-- of five, you know, Beyond Being and-- [AD simultaneously: We point--] well I was trying to relate it to that.
AD (simultaneously): This is-- this is the Witness-I [diagram] that wes-- we just quoted from PB, ok, which is immanent in the ego, ok? In other words, when I say it's immanent in the ego, this "I", so to speak, identifies itself with this ego and all that we might include under that. Alright? And now this Witness-I which is associated or identified with this bodily "I", so to speak, alright, and now the world appears, ok? Alright, let's see if we follow this. Now, the development of this ego takes place in the world. Alright? And that development takes place basically psychologically.
Alright, now let's see what we mean by that. If, for instance, you were born eighteen kalpas ago and you were very primitive and you lived in a stone age, you know, and you went around cooking dinosaurs or something, ok. Then after many lifetimes of that you became a little wiser, a little more mature, and you don't identify-- every now and then you get a kind of feeling that you're really not a member of the group but somehow you're a little different from the others, alright. In other words, that "I" is springing to life little by little, ok? But you still have to go, so to speak, you still have to develop psychologically, in other words, you have to establish more and more yourself as an individual at this level, at the ego level. In other words, instead of participating in the same values that the whole of the traditional people, the bunch that you're living with, alright, you little by little start isolating yourself, alright, so you're some sort of crackpot, you're an artist, alright, you want to paint buffaloes, (bit of laughter) alright, and you're in the cave painting buffalo. (laughter) They start saying "This guy is some kind of a nut," you know, alright. (laughter) And then after you had your full of that now you want to be a shaman that-- you know, now you want to be a witch-doctor. But you see, in each of these things, so to speak, you're developing a kind of individual growth psychologically whereas the others are all satisfied to remain, so to speak, going in to work at nine and coming home at five. (laughter, AD laughs) Alright? But that's no longer enough. You see, you're developing psychologically, ok? [VM: Right.]
Now, you suddenly realize, let's say that you begin to face temporality, conditionality, you know you're going to die, that no matter how unique you become as a psychological individual, that's it, you know, it comes to an end. Alright, so now you start be-- experiencing anxiety, phobias, you know, fear and all that. And fear is one of the greatest provocators. It forces you to develop. Right Len? It's the one goad that's always behind you, you know, like the devil with his pitchfork, "Get going," you know. Alright, so you realize, "Wait a minute, I've been developing this way, you know, and I see that there's no-- no matter how great, how famous, I can be emperor of the world, alright, I'm faced with the-- with my nullity, the fact that tomorrow I won't be." And now you turn around. You reach the utmost limit of your psychological development. You know that no matter how much you develop on that plane, the solution, so to speak, doesn't lie there. You turn around, you start saying "Let me go back, let me see where I came from." So you-- you start operating with thought, you start trying to control thought, alright. Well as soon as you do that, you're trying to get out of the psychological realm. Right? It seems psychologically you can't develop any further. Alright? So there's-- there's an actual split, so to speak, here [diagram].
(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1971 1201a Ends; Side 2 Begins)
AD: --(girl) might not appear, alright, and it's like living in (a/the) crystal palace. There's absolute doubt about everything. That's almost like a psychotic state. That's your last psychological problem if you're working your way back out of the ego. Somewhere on November the ninth or somewhere around that time, or off some of the South Sea Islands there's these millions of worms that come up to the surface and the ocean looks like one churning mass of worms, ok. They just all rise up to the surface of the ocean and if you look at the ocean at that time, it looks like one sea bed of worms, ok. Now, if it was possible to imagine something like that. [drawing] These unconscious tendencies which are pouring-- (some laughter)
S (faint): It can wait, Tony.
AD: I hate to be so dramatic. (some laughter) But if they're pouring out into you, you know, you enjoy them. (laughter)
S: (Something right at the nose.) (bit of laughter)
AD: You enjoy them [S simultaneously, faint: (couple words inaudible) right.] when they come out, you know, when they come out you enjoy them as states of consciousness. You remember the quotation we read from Patanjali and Eliade. [Note: See Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Ch. 1, "The Subconscious".] And these are the states that we enjoy, you say "Ah, this tendency comes into manifestation, I'm enjoying this state of consciousness, that one comes into manifestation, I don't like it," ok. But on this side [diagram], on this side, before they come into actuality, before they're actually, so to speak, manifested over here [diagram], alright, this side here, it's like one mass of sentiency. Alright? And there's no distinction, no distinctions operate. You feel absolutely like a rudderless ship. No direction, no orientation is possible. That's what I mean when I say you'll feel a kind of psychosis taking place. And that-- and that-- of-- to get stuck here is real Zen sickness, you know, what they speak of as Zen s-- that's really-- the-- the teacher really has to kick you there, get you out one way or other, you know. Either get on this side or get on that side. But where-- where these vasanas come into operation, alright. So the psychological problems have to be here [diagram], don't they? But if they are here [drawing] that means it's when the "I" is identified with the ego. Certainly you can't speak of psychology beyond that point.
S: Yeah [couple words inaudible]
LS (simultaneously): But beyond that point is realization? Or there's a whole bunch of other stuff, right?
AD: Get behind that point and I'd call you realized. But, there is more because after-- with the Witness-self then you have to work, so to speak, towards identification with the--
LS (simultaneously): And that's not-- you couldn't call that psychology anymore, at least not the way we use the word 'psychology', right?
AD (simultaneously): Yeah. You couldn't possibly call-- This Witness-I, [drawing] for instance, has no psychological problems. Won't exist for it, everything, everything--
LS (simultaneously): Yeah, ok, so we-- when we use the word 'psychology' we're talking about psychology that's all-- all written by doctors, you know, [AD simultaneously: Yes, alright.] psychological problems. [AD: Yeah.] But the word 'psychology' is used in other ways, too.
AD: I-- I think that would be illegitimate. Because this state is a-- is a state of peace that passes understanding. How could you possibly speak of psychology? I mean if you're in this state, alright, and somebody is nailing you to a wooden stake, you know, alright, and somebody comes along, "Who did it?" "He did it." There's no problem here, this is-- this is where it's possible to say, "I'm resigned to whatever is, and if I could change it I won't." You can't say it in a psychological state. Psycho-- psych-- psychologically speaking, something bad happens you want to change it. But at this state you won't change anything. [AD hits board with chalk] Now in this state of course there has to be-- di-- oh-- like we said, when this-- [drawing] when we speak about this Witness-I there's a transcendent state insofar that it wants to operate and identify with the Overself, but there's this state here where insofar it wants to identify with the ego. We pointed out that the causal realm, for instance, of which we're speaking of now, alright, is where man had his true fall because in the causal realm is where man seeks form. Once he seeks form, alright, he's thrown out of the Paradise or Eden. Once he goes this way [diagram], then he's looking for, so to speak, identification with the Overself. This is the transcendent aspect of the Witness-self [diagram], alright, and this-- this is the immanent aspect [diagram]. Now how about your psychology, you-- you clarifying?
S (simultaneously): Yeah. I'm getting a clear-- well, I guess it stemmed back from that discussion we had about Ramana-- Ramana and the psychological pea. (S laughs) Wish I could remember it.
AD (simultaneously): Well, ignore that, ignore that. [S simultaneously: Yeah, I understand here, yeah.] Listen to what I'm doing now. Now--
S (simultaneously): I understand it.
AD: Very often-- You know, PB made a remark that if he had the choi-- if he had the abi-- time and patience, he probably would revise some of his books.
S: Is that-- is that experience of knowing the Witness-I, is that realization of the personal soul?
AD: Yeah, you could amount-- you could equate it with that, sure.
RP (faint): I have-- I have a-- [AD simultaneously: Yeah Richard.] this is a technical question I'm experiencing in Samkhya. When you use the word 'causal', you use it as for the anandamaya kosha or the vijnanamaya kosha?
[short pause]
AD: Well, when they [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] speak of the anandamaya kosha, you know, the-- the Body of Bliss, this is the way I look at it.
RP: No 'cause-- I think the way you were just using it right now is vijnanamaya kosha.
S (very faint): Oh yeah.
AD: Vijnanamaya kosha?
RP (faint): The way you were just using it now in that master (schema).
AD: But wouldn't that-- wouldn't that be that way [diagram]?
RP: Looking down.
AD: Yeah, [RP simultaneously: Ok.] whereas anandamaya would be that way [diagram].
RP: But you-- then would you use the word 'causal' (to put) both of them together?
AD: Yeah, the same way Iambl--
RP (simultaneously): Two aspects of causal?
AD: Ia-- Iamblichus does the same thing and Plotinus does the same thing.
RP (simultaneously): Well, so do Theosophists use the word 'causal' for that.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah. You see actually, actually for instance, we say the World-Mind and the Overself, ok, and we say that the Overself contains all these possibilities which are going to manifest, alright. Let's say, oh, [drawing] let's say a thousand different possibilities, alright. Now, all these so to speak combined altogether as the-- as the Overself knows all these possibilities within itself, is bliss. And they-- they refer to it-- it's so close to the Overself that they refer to it as the Body of Bliss, alright. But whereas as soon as we start speaking about the vijnanamaya, you know right away you're going into form, alright, because--
RP (simultaneously): Oh but-- but an (abstract) form, I mean--
AD (simultaneously): Abstract form.
RP (simultaneously): That's [one word inaudible] borderline, [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] it's hard to think (of/about)--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, that's-- that's the regulative reason that, for instance, Kant might use, alright. Here, all these together, ok, all the possibilities that are inherent in the Overself, let's say that the Overself presides over a thousand lives and the sum of all these lives it has within itself like it's brooding over them, although that's not right, but it enjoys-- it enjoys the-- the net result, the extraction of wisdom from all this experience and they refer to it as the Body of Bliss because it's so close to the Overself, alright. But then there's a slight division where they starts speaking about the vijnanamaya as though this thousand [drawing] has already now been broken up into time sequence.
RP (simultaneously): I know-- I know what it's-- I know what it's saying. The vijnanamaya is-- is it subject to corruption and abomination, is that--
AD: Yeah, yeah.
RP (simultaneously): And the other one is considered (an extent) unity?
AD: Yeah.
RP (very faint): Ok.
AD: So in other words you see that the anandamaya seems to be pointing up, ok, [RP assents, faint] and the vijnanamaya seems to be pointing down. Always there's this dualistic--
RP: As opposed--
AD: Always. It's always out working, right?
RP: It's the third-- it's one, two, and the one in the middle.
S (very faint): Right.
AD: Yeah. [short pause] Alright, I think-- I think now if you try to understand here, you try to grasp something about where Jung speaks psychology and where he's not speaking psychology. If you-- if you keep this in mind, you'll see that this man who claims not to have any metaphysical pretensions has got an enormous amount of them. But he keeps them to himself or hides them under a lot of psychological language. Let's see, there was some-- [12¼ second pause, shuffling about] Mark-- [S, faint: (Hm?)] We con-- we'll continue with the diagram. Ok. [drawing] And in this world is your ego and the world. [student assents, very faint] Over here is the "I" immanent in that ego [diagram]. And we said that somewhere out here is the-- the heart center [diagram], ok. Person identifies with that. Now, I'd like to ask if you can conceive now, if you conceive of the-- we take this little part here [diagram], alright, and we conceive of it in a Samkhya Yoga way or we can conceive it in a Jungian fashion, alright. We'll leave out the Vedantic way for a little while. Is all this-- is this too obscure for-- for you people? Are you following any of it? [22¼ second pause] You see, essentially what I'm trying to do is work up some kind of diagram, and that's why I'm asking if you got ideas to offer them, where we can more or less locate diagrammatically, you know, schematically just about what area we're working in when we're doing anything. You know what I mean? If you have a picture you can say, well-- Here, for instance, [drawing] PB explains this here. Would you like to try that? Would you-- would you like to try to break up a sentence like that and see how many different levels you're operating with at one time? [writing] 'I', 'see', 'tree'. Would you like to try that? Like for instance this is existence, [drawing/writing] you know, sheaths, subject. Would you like to try? Come on.
S (very faint): (Go ahead Dave.)
S (very faint): Go ahead.
S (faint): You just did it (Dave).
AD: Oh, that's just-- that's-- that's not the detail. I always like details.
S: Hm.
AD: Alright, do you wa--
RP: Actually, the one you didn't circle is that big important one, how does the particular inter-- interact with the universal, that 'a'. (some laughter)
DB (very faint): Richard? I'm sorry.
S (faint): Is that--
AD (simultaneously): Is-- is it-- isn't that-- [drawing] (laughter) Huh? (laughter)
RP: Well, so is 'see', so is 'tree'.
S (faint): (I should) [couple words inaudible]
AD: Alright, here's the ego, here's the world, let's try this here, let's break down the ego, the components of the ego, ok, and see what comes out of there. Now the Samkhya system, alright, we start out with the Samkhya system, they got buddhi [AD hits board with chalk], alright. Now, we work with the Samkhyas, alright? Remember any of them?
RP: You want to go down the list?
S: It's ahamkara.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, down the list.
RP (simultaneously, faint): Ahamkara, manas. Manas [couple/three words inaudible]
AD: What was that?
RP: That's the way I can figure out. I thought ahamkara was still above manas.
AD: Alright, let's say antahkarana, ok? [short pause while writing] Alright? Now-- For those of you who are not too familiar we'll read s-- some excerpts from what the Hindus say the mind is, and I think I have a few here. [short pause] It's amazing.
LS (very faint): What do you got there?
VM (very faint): (Here we go.)
S: No [one word inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Snow.
AD: Neither.
S: Right.
AD: That's because I don't go to work tonight. (AD laughs)
S (faint): Lock the door, there's eighteen inches of snow.
S (very faint): Wow.
AD: Alright, let me read this here now. We-- we have the antahkarana and we said it-- it was constituted by certitude, [writing] doubt, self-re-- self-consciousness or reference to an "I" and remembrance or the field of citta.
[20 second pause]
[Transcriber note: I am using The Six Ways of Knowing: A Critical Study of the Vedanta Theory of Knowledge by D.M. Datta, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, 1960.]
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 61, AD reading]: "The senses, [therefore], act as the vehicle of the movement of the antahkarana…"
AD: Use the word 'mind' if you get upset, alright. Better still, 'attention'. Attention I think would be much more precise.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 61, AD reading]: "The senses, therefore, act as the vehicle of the movement of the antahkarana towards the object. On reaching the object the antahkarana is identified with it, just as the water, going out of a tank through a drain to a tub, assumes the form of the tub on reaching it. But the mere fact of [AD adds: the] antahkarana assuming the form of the object does not explain the [AD emphasizes following word] knowledge of the object."
AD: Now make sure you remember that part. The Vedantists will insist on it, that antahkarana is unconscious. It doesn't know anything. Just like when the mind, so to speak, becomes a state of grief, the mind does not know that grief. It's the subject that knows that grief, ok?
[short pause]
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 62, AD reading]: "…we note that the mind is said to go out like a material object. We have already found that the mind, [as antahkarana or manas], is regarded by almost all Indian thinkers [AD emphasizes rest of this sentence] as a natural [AD reads: material] object, only of a subtler type; and that the Vedantins consider it to be also finite in dimension; the movement of the mind is thus not to be regarded as metaphorical, but actual. In Western philosophy the mental was formerly regarded as opposed to the spatial, and movement of the mind in space was regarded as a direct contradiction."
AD: Now, people like Russell of course think that they're modern.
LS/S(?) (faint): No that'd be Whitehead.
AD: Hm? Oh you remember Russell speaking about neutrals. But here the Hindus are saying now look, this antahkarana flows out, ok. It flows out and grasps the object, alright. Now the object, so to speak, is made of a substance, alright, of which the mind is made, in other words, the tanmatras here. This substance, alright, and the mind are made of the same substance but this is coarser than what the mind is made out of. So Russell isn't so modern. [short pause] Anyway, a little bit more.
[12 second pause]
LS: That substance that the object is made of, that's what they call the tanmatras or is that what--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, tanmatras, yeah. Which I've been avoiding because I haven't been able to put it in a language that's suitable. There are no ideas in Western philosophy that are similar. There is not even words to express these things or-- Until I can find a way to say them in my kind of English, I don't think we'll understand, all I could do is give you the Sanskrit, or give you the way the-- Richard, you made an attempt once, you remember when you were speaking about the different shapes of matter, triangular, corpuscular, ok? And that there-- this-- these elemental substances, so to speak, depending upon the proportions in which they are mixed, you get fire, earth, air, and water, ok. That's about the closest analogy I have right now but I still have to say it a little differently. I have to say it for two reasons, first of all because I think it will be-- it would be extraordinarily useful in understanding the chart, you know, astrologically, like we did Monday with the three kinds of-- three kinds of fire, you know, sattva gu-- rajas and tamas. I have to do that for that reason if for no other. [short pause] Alright. Now, as you can see, the antahkarana, [drawing] here's the buddhi and here's the purusha [diagram], ok. And, if you want to, you can say there is like a decree-- an increasing density taking place as you go down in the scale, ok, and that as you go up the scale there's a decreasing density. Now, postulated, so to speak, postulated between purusha, alright, and the objective world there's the antahkarana and-- maybe one of the ways of trying to understand the antahkarana is the way he puts it here.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 70, AD reading]: "We are [thus] forced to conclude that images can be classed neither with the purely psychical…"
AD: That is, the Self now, not psychical in the way we use it. We cannot put the images in thi-- in thi- on this level.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 70, AD reading]: "…nor with the purely physical such as tables and trees [AD reads: such as the actual table]."
AD: Alright? So these images seem to hover somewhere in between these two realms, alright.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 70, AD reading]: "We must place them midway between the two. In other words, we are to recognize that between the purely psychical [AD: That is, between the self, the subject.] and the purely objective [AD: That is, the physical.] there is a region that partakes partially of the nature of both, though it can be wholly identified with neither. This intermediate region extends, as it were, across the gulf that otherwise seems to separate the mental from the physical--the self from the not-self--and renders the whole of existence from the psychical [AD adds: or spiritual] to the physical continuous. The antahkarana with all its modifications might be considered as belonging to this region. From the standpoint of Vedantic metaphysics, the antahkarana is but the subject in its objective attitude…"
AD (paraphrasing rest of sentence from book): You might say it's like the lapse of the pure Self out of undifferentiated totality, alright, into this polluted state.
LR: Then it would have some kind of consciousness it would seem, no?
S (very faint): No, it's a vehicle.
AD: Honey, now you're taking it with the Virgo clip. They're just trying to give you a feeling of what this antahkarana is. Here's this pure undifferentiated Self, ok. Here's the hard physical world, so to speak. In between, this realm of the antahkarana, alright. When a person, for instance, meditates, he refines, he sharpens the mind. The attention becomes, so to speak, like when you take a blade and you keep sharpening, stropping it, alright, it cuts, so to speak, finer and finer. The same way, when you meditate and your mind becomes more and more acute, alright, a person comes and talks to you, you know what he's going to say. There's no miraculous powers. It's understanding what's going on. The a-- your antahkarana, so to speak, has become so subtle, alright, you can envelop that person, and you come-- you draw back the mind and you know what he wanted, you know what that state that he's experiencing is about. I'm trying to give you some of the rationale behind a lot of the so-called yogi siddhas, yogic powers, alright. And that's one of the very first things that appears as soon as you have any-- any success in meditation. Right away you know what that person alongside you is thinking. And sometimes it can be pretty uncomfortable. (laughter)
S (very faint): Yes.
S (very faint): Yeah.
S (very faint): Yeah.
AD: Or especially if you're a target for hostility and hatred. Didn't you bring some coffee?
LS: Yeah, [S simultaneously: So--] blue cup.
S (simultaneously): In the blue cup.
AD: Oh. What an antahkarana I got! (AD laughing) Yeah Randy.
RC: I don't-- I don't know if this would be the time to go into that-- into this, but whenever I started thinking in terms of what you were just saying about, you know, having a feeling for what's going on in somebody else's mind, what they're thinking about you and you're a target for hostility and things like that, is it-- isn't this still just projecting?
RP: Depends who's doing it.
AD: Yeah, it does depend on who's doing it. When I start answering your questions before you ask them, this is-- you can call it projection. [short pause] How-- how about your experience with PB, anybody? You know like, who was it, Goldberg said he wondered what PB would look like with his glasses off and PB took his glasses off. (laughter) You don't remember that? Or like when Om-- who was it, Om wanted him to go to Geneva and PB came down, he says "Let's go to Geneva."
S (very faint whisper): Oh yeah.
S (faint): Yeah.
S: [few words inaudible]
S: Yeah.
AD: What do you think is the basis of telepathy? Some kind of magic or synchronicity?
RP: I wanted to give-- I wanted to give PB a ride in my car so he says "Well, let's go." He goes downstairs and walks right to the car. (laughter)
AD: Sure, it's quite a feat to know when you're projecting and when you're not. But, haven't you felt sometimes when you're meditating and you're trying to control the mind, don't you feel like almost taking your hands out and choking it and say "Stay still!!" (some laughter) Hm, have you ever had that experience? (some laughter)
S (amidst laughter, faint): Yeah [couple words inaudible] (more laughter)
AD: "I won't!"
RP: It's-- but, it's ha-- is it-- it's hard to relate to the Samkhya thing and the Vedanta, they're like miles apart. Samkhya is so extremely close to your actual experience, you know. Like when you say-- the antahkarana [couple words inaudible] Vedantic(--) you can't say the antahkarana goes out anywhere or moves across space, it creates space. What's the space it moves?
AD: It creates-- I'm sorry, it creates your psychological space.
RP: Well, what's the-- what's the space it moves through? What space?
AD: Who's space would that be?
RP: You couldn't call the World-Mind's (idea) taking up any space whatsoever.
AD: Well, let's put it this way, suppose you're a character in one of your dreams, ok, character A in the dream.
RP (faint): Uh-hm.
AD: Who's space are you moving around in? As a dream [one/two inaudible RP words simultaneous with AD] character you have your own psychological attributes, right?
RP (faint): The character in the dream that-- oh I see, so you're in [couple words inaudible]
S (very faint): (Such as) [one/two words inaudible]
RP: Yeah, it makes it-- it makes it a condition of manifestation.
AD: Yeah.
RP (faint): Structure of buddhi.
RP/S(?) (faint): Well do it.
AD: Then we start speaking about the Human Intellect, the Cosmic Intellect, you know, and the Universal Intellect.
S: Right.
AD: Right away we're stuck with what they call Cit-Sakti.
RP (simultaneously): I see. So it's space as a possibility (of/for) manifestation.
AD: --station.
RP: Yeah. And the antahkarana makes that possibility actual by filling it up.
AD: Alright, you can think, for instance, of a pinpoint of light which immediately multiplies and proliferates, so to speak, into a perfect sphere, everywhere that the light can go, alright, so all of a sudden there's thi-- this whole sphere created, you know. In a sense you can look at it that way. But, essentially we're trying to understand which in many ways, you know, we have to use the categories of the phenomenal world to understand what lies beyond the actual phenomena so, always we're-- we have to make this imaginative leap, you know, like almost transcend our thinking. [12 second pause] They don't-- they don't claim by the way to answer all the questions, the Vedantists. They do-- they don't make that claim. But they try to show that out of all the possible answers that are available which they consider, you know, to be the ones that are most workable. Now for instance you said-- in the Samkhya Yoga when we pointed out that we cannot conceive of the relationship between the purusha and the prakriti, in the Vedanta, you know, you see the way they handle it in three levels. On the one hand, the ajatavada, you know, there's no creation, what are you talking about, ok. On another level there's the emanation theory, you know, and on the other level there's the theory of evolution, alright. So when a person first gets into the Vedanta they give him the evolutionary theory, you know. And then after a while they, you know, show him simultaneous creation. And then after a while they wipe them all away. There's no possibility of any relationship at all. And, you know, this is the ajatavada theory, no creation. There's no one to be liberated, alright. [one/two words inaudible]
RP (simultaneously, faint): [few words inaudible]
AD: Yeah like, you know, [couple inaudible RP words simultaneous with AD] the Gods made the world, you know.
RP (faint): That's emanation.
AD: And Shankara makes this very clear, he says "There is no need for you to know how the universe started, or why." The only thing that the scriptures are concerned about is that you achieve liberation. Any theory will do, they don't care. (some laughter) That's actually their feelings about it, you know.
RP: [couple/three words inaudible] (bit of laughter)
[10¾ second pause, flipping of pages]
AD: Sometimes PB hints at it, for instance, you know, when he says that the One exists in and utterly for Itself. And then immediately speeds on and doesn't spend too much time there. Because for the Westerners, that would be, you know, inconceivable. You know what Radhakrishnan says, he says "You mean to say all our work here is for nothing?" (AD laughs, some laughter)
RP (amidst laughter, very faint): [one word inaudible] (What's that) [one/two words inaudible]
AD: Well one other quote I wanted to read to give you a feeling for what they mean by the antahkarana. [short pause] Now--
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 132, AD reading]: "The condition of the perception of an object…"
AD: And this object could be anything, remember, it could be an internal state of the mind or it could be a table and a chair.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 132, AD reading]: "The condition of the perception of an object, as we have seen, is that an identity should be established between the object and the antahkarana, which assumes the form of the object. Now, while in [AD adds: the] external perception the object is something other than the antahkarana and [AD adds: the] antahkarana has to go out to the object and assume its form, in the case of internal perception the object is identical with the antahkarana itself (since pleasure…)…"
AD: Or (pain), you know, these are states, so to speak, or qualities of the antahkarana [AD hits board with chalk], but they are not conscious, alright.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 132, AD reading]: "…and consequently the antahkarana that is already identical with the object, which is its own self, has not to go out to any foreign object through a sense. [AD: Or any senses.] It is therefore a limiting case of the ordinary process of perception--a case in which the antahkarana-vritti and the object are one and the same."
AD: I'm going to-- I-- I'm going to pound this into you. If you-- if you can see this, you've got a tremendous handle on the Vedanta.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, p. 132, AD reading]: "Perceptual consciousness, as we have seen, is not regarded by the Advaitins…to be a result of the interaction of a sense and its object."
AD: Get that straight. The Hidden Teaching, page 303, top line: our experience comes from the image, the image does not come from our experience.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, pp. 132-133, AD reading]: "Perceptual consciousness, as we have seen, is not regarded by the Advaitins…to be a result of the interaction of a sense and its object. According to the Advaitins immediacy is but the ever-perfect light of the self, as reflected against the inert antahkarana. Just as the solar light is only revealed by being reflected against a dark background and cannot be said to be generated by that contact, so the light of the self also is only revealed through the antahkarana as the [AD emphasizes following word] background and cannot therefore be said to be generated by any interaction. [And] just as the particular shape and form that the background possesses become revealed through the solar rays, so the object whose form the antahkarana takes is revealed through the light of the [cit or the] self. This form may be the impress of a foreign object [AD adds: on the antahkarana], or may be the form of the antahkarana itself, according as the object is external or internal--but that makes no difference to the question of immediacy. When the object lighted by the self is a state of [AD adds: the] antahkarana itself…the object is described by the Advaitins as being [kevala-saksibhasya] (i.e. illuminated or revealed by the witnessing self alone)."
AD: I'm going to bug you, you gotta-- you gotta listen to that again. That whole thing that's underlined.
S: Uh--
S (faint): Uh-hm.
S (very faint): Yeah.
D.M. Datta [The Six Ways of Knowing, pp. 132-133, LS reading]: "Now, while in external perception the object is something other than the antahkarana and antahkarana has to go out to the object and assume its form, in the case of internal perception the object is identical with the antahkarana itself (since pleasure, [LS adds: and pain] etc. are but states [LS adds: or qualities] of antahkarana), and consequently the antahkarana that is already identical with the object, which is its own self, has not to go out to any foreign object through a sense. It is therefore a limiting case of the ordinary process of perception--a case in which the antahkarana-vritti and the object are one and the same.
"Perceptual consciousness, as we have seen, is not regarded by the Advaitins…to be a result of the interaction of a sense and its object. According to the Advaitins immediacy is but the ever-perfect light of the self, as reflected against the inert antahkarana. Just as the solar light is only revealed by being reflected against a dark background and cannot be said to be generated by that contact, so the light of the self also is only revealed through the antahkarana as the background and cannot therefore be said to be generated by any interaction. And just as the particular shape and form that the background possesses become revealed through the solar rays, so the object whose form the antahkarana takes is revealed through the light of the cit or the self. This form may be the impress of a foreign object [LS adds: on the antahkarana], or may be the form of the antahkarana itself, according as [LS reads: to] the object is [LR reads: as] external or internal--but that makes no difference to the question of immediacy."
[short pause]
S (very faint): Ok.
AD: Alright, let's-- let's hit that now, let's try to understand. If I can give you an analogy, let's say that this (room) perfectly lit up, everything is very bright, you know, the Self, alright, shining brightly away. You can't see nothing. You're blind. Now, the antahkarana has to come, so to speak, between you and the Self and, so to speak, dim the light. I'm giving you the reverse analogy. I'm reversing the analogy, alright. And this antahkarana, so to speak, by dimming the light or blackening out the light somewhat, the objects stand out. If you ever look at the Sun when it's very bright, you can't see anything, alright. But let a cloud come by and all of a sudden that cloud is lit up, alright. In a similar way, the Self is always shining, its consciousness, so to speak, perpetually, eternally, ubiquitously, any other adjectives you can think of, always is, and it's the darkness of the mind, so to speak, alright, the darkness of the mind that brings this world into manifestation for you. Yeah.
MW (faint): I think that's what PB was saying in his-- the chapter on dream, "A Study in Dreams" in the Wisdom, 'cause he says function of the body is to provide limitations so that it shuts out everything except certain specific things and this focuses and sharpens our awareness.
AD: Yeah, like nichrome wire, right? It offers resistance, and so it lights up. Yeah Dave, go ahead.
DB (faint): Is that why detachment is always said to be a fundamental characteristic that has to be developed for someone, you know, who still has [couple words inaudible]
AD: Well you want to let us into your world? (bit of laughter)
DB (faint): Well, insofar as it relates to the internal objects of-- of the mind, you know, the states of pleasure, pain, that are more or less-- I mean, it seems sort of fundamentally thought of as being "I".
AD: Yeah, you can say that but that-- you have to remember, [writing] that's the prime requisite in order to-- to study the Vedanta, dispassion, detachment. Prime requisite. No one could study this-- this doctrine unless they become detached. [DB/S(?) simultaneously, very faint: And you're--] How could a-- you know, if a cannibal who loves to cook people and eat them, you know, how could he study the Vedanta? (laughter) Detachment is absolutely necessary. The more the better.
DB (faint): And so this detachment is kind of (spinning/spitting) at that, I don't know, tendency of the antahkarana?
AD: Yes. Yeah. It's an absolute requisite. [student assents, very faint] Your generation has a lot of it, you know. But you got to remember, possessions could also be ideas, and they're more subtle. You could be attached to this here, you could say "Ah, this is a beautiful antique chair" and then somebody comes along and breaks it, you know and, "Alright." But if somebody comes along and fights your ideas, wow, watch out, you'll burn him. Go ahead, Dave.
DB (faint): Well, I'm just trying to see like-- like where-- to exactly what this attachment is to.
S (very faint): [three/few words inaudible]
S (very faint): But, yeah, yeah.
AD: It varies. It varies. The saint is attached to his holiness, the drunk to his alcohol, the artist to his painting, everyone has his attachment. It varies. It's a fluid concept, you know, up [DB assents, faint] and down.
DB (faint): But, is it-- isn't it-- see, I'm seeing it in terms of, like where the drunk would be attached to his alcohol because there's an internal feeling of well-being or whatever--
AD: Ecstasy, you know.
DB: Yeah, that-- that results from association. [short pause] And that would-- that would more or less take place in the antahkarana.
AD: That part is emphasized, right? There's an emphasis on that part. [short pause] Yeah, Linda?
LR: My question I'm afraid is a regression but-- (bit of laughter) From this description of the antahkarana, I'm-- I can see it as something which takes on forms but has no knowledge and it takes the light of the Self to acknowledge the form which the antahkarana take(s).
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
S (very faint): Yeah.
LR: Well then-- but-- (on) the same hand it seems that the antahkarana has a mind of itself.
S (very faint): No.
LR: It seemed. I mean this is-- this is illusion obviously [one/two words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, go on.
LR: But I'm trying to understand what that means, that it seems to have a mind of itself. I mean, where does the direction of the antahkarana come from when it's not a conscious direction? Do you understand the question?
AD: Well what do you think Linda?
LR: Obviously it's unconscious. That's as far as I've gotten.
AD: Yeah, you get a feeling that the Self more or less is directing the whole show.
S (very faint): Yeah.
LR: But it's a lesser-- it's not a-- it doesn't seem to be an aware Self, I mean it's a-- is there-- I guess, is there a grade or name for that part which-- In other words, often it seems that there's a force directing the antahkarana which is apart from the Self which sees the form the antahkarana is taking.
AD: Well, let me see if I follow you. There seems to be a force that's directing the antahkarana, alright.
LR: Which seems to have an-- a-- an-- (well) what do you call it-- an independent-- which seems to be separate from the Self which is aware of those forms.
AD: Ok, now what do you think that is? If we say that the antahkarana, alright, [drawing] symbolically, alright, or actually or literally, any way you want to look at it, if we say that that represents the totality of all that you have experienced, it's a mechanism, alright.
LR: So that the answer lies in some kind of vasana, right?
AD: Yeah. But also, you have to go back further--which vasanas, so to speak, are permitted to appear and which are not permitted to appear?
LR: Well--
AD: Your question--
LR (simultaneously): And you get into kar-- if--
AD: Your question is very good, sure, because this takes you back a step further. [LR, faint: Well then--] Here, [AD hits board with chalk] for instance, let's say that this represents as he puts it the congenital idiocy with which you're born, the history of all your past lives, all that you've done, ok. Now you have certain tendencies that are very strong and others which aren't so strong. Let's say at one time you were a cow but now you're born as a human being, certainly you're not going to go out and eat grass. (bit of laughter) The vasanas that operate have to be human vasanas, alright. Alright, if we take this, so to speak, antahkarana, alright, and we-- and, let's say that the-- this operates very strongly, the remembrance, ok, in regard to one particular instinct, and let's use the sex instinct, alright, and this [diagram] is kind of weakened, ok, and there's certitude about the enjoyment that operates here [diagram], ok, and a person is ve-- be-- develops a kind of self-consciousness in this [diagram], alright. Now what starts happening is, as we pointed out over and over again, after a while the vasanas, so to speak, or the tendency to perpetually engage in this kind of activity starts weakening. For some unknown reason a person feels he's had it, he's through with it. It seems as though this [drawing] has become so conscious, you know, because of the-- with-- the projections that are always going on, it's become so conscious that it's almost like ripped up from the bottom, you know, from the unconscious and brought up into consciousness. But this in the meantime has provided a tremendous amount of relationship with all kinds of people, you know, all kinds of situations, alright, and it's provoked a wider awareness, let's say. And you get the feeling that [drawing] this guy behind [diagram], you know, operating the whole scene, you know.
LR (simultaneously): Yeah.
AD: And when it releases or when, so to speak, you begin to feel that you are not that, you're not that function, you stop identifying with a function, you know. Ok? Then what happens? It floats up to the surface, you disengage yourself from it, alright, and you start saying but that's--
LR (simultaneously): So we're now getting back into a discussion of karma maybe, right?
AD: Huh?
LR: I mean if you keep taking the steps backwards, you're just getting to-- the reason-- the reason for this seemingly unconsciously directed activity of the antahkarana is that certain vasanas come up and the certain ones depend on the certain karma which is operating.
AD (simultaneously): Uh-hm.
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: But can you see also in a-- in another way how this karma, so to speak--
LR: Is directed.
AD: Yeah. Let's [LR simultaneously, very faint: Uh-hm.] look at it this way, it's the power, the power of this Self. [LR assents, very faint] Alright? And, when we say karma, we-- we're almost in a way saying that all the possibilities that are within this center of consciousness are being exfoliated, played out, alright, and all-- all that experience is gathered and brought into the Self. You get a feeling that karma sometimes-- sometimes represents for the individual center all the possibilities and the power necessary to accomplish them as inherent. Of course this is another way of looking at karma, a much more general way. Yeah Bob, Randy.
RC: Would you say that the antahkarana would be a-- a light in relation to the Divine and Cosmic Intellect and a-- I mean a mirror in relation to the Divine and Cosmic Intellect and a light in relation to the soul?
AD: No. The antahkarana is unconscious, it's dead, it's insentient, it's material.
RC: I don't see what in that would require it to be conscious though. Only the soul is--
AD (simultaneously): This is what-- this is-- this is what's conscious, [student assents, faint] the purusha, and a ray of light. Look of it-- look at it-- look at it as a ray of light that lights that up. This is what is called the Intellect [diagram], the Divine Intellect in man which is uncreated.
RC: Well then setting it up that way, the antahkarana would not have to be a conscious state. It would just be the soul that would have to be conscious.
AD: What was that?
RC: Well if you said that the antahkaranta-- if the antahkarana--
AD (simultaneously): Well what-- what do you mean the soul would have to be conscious?
RC: Well the soul is the one perceiving the light which is cast by the antahkarana.
AD: What's the soul? You know, [couple inaudible RC words simultaneous with AD] I mean where did it come in from?
RC: Well, the antahkarana-- well, it would have an inner perception. That inner perception is the antahkarana, or the form of the inner perception is the antahkarana. In external perception, the antahkarana assumes the form of that object, but it is not the object. So it seems to me that that object whose form that it assumes is an idea in the mind of the next Intellect.
AD: Is in-- is an idea in what?
RC: It would be say an idea in the-- in the next higher Intellect. It would be a-- say an image in-- in the Cosmic Intellect that the antahkarana would mirror but not be.
AD: I don't follow the second part at all, Randy, I'm sorry. We got to go through it again.
RC: Ok, in an external perception, the antahkarana goes out and assumes the form of an already existing object, (but) it is not that object. So where does that object whose form it assumes come from?
AD: Where is-- where is that object?
RC: Right, what would be the-- the immediate source of that object whose form it assumes? It-- it wouldn't be the Intellect that operates directly with the antahkarana.
AD: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The mind goes out to the object, alright, it assumes the form of that object.
RC: Right, but it is not that object like it is [one word inaudible]
AD: It is not that object, ok.
RC: Right. Whereas in internal perception it is that (object).
AD: It is the state, yeah.
RC: So it seems that the object whose form it was assuming would be an object which in-- well an idea or an object, which in relation to the Human Intellect (would) [one/two words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): What do you mean the Human Intellect, now tell me what you mean by that.
RC: Well I'm almost saying the Human Intellect and the antahkarana would be the same now, basically. Or that the antahkarana (is/as) the sum total of the modes of mind relegated to the Human Intellect, in the sense that the experience of the soul would be the light of the soul.
AD: Well--
RC: The light [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): I don't know what you mean by soul.
RC: Well when we went through the three Intellects a few weeks ago, [AD simultaneously: Uh-hm.] Divine Intellect which was, what was it--
AD: The Universal Intellect, the Cosmic [RC: Divine Intellect, Light (couple words inaudible)] Intellect, and the Human Intellect, [RC assents] ok? Now, in-- do you know what I meant by the Human Intellect there?
RC: I have a feeling for it.
AD: That's this thing here [AD indicates on diagram]. That's a ray from the Overself, that's a ray from this central Sun [diagram]. That's the Intellect.
RC: Well, this Human Intellect I understood it.
AD (simultaneously): Capitalized.
RC: Ok, now when-- when we break it up, we theoretically break Intellect up into these three modes that we've said it operated in, the Divine, the Cosmic, and the Human.
AD: Uh-hm.
RC: And we say that the Human Intellect--
AD (simultaneously): We didn't break it up, we made distinctions within it.
RC: Ok, when we made distinctions within it. And we say that the Human Intellect was a mirror in relation to the Cosmic Intellect.
AD: Yes.
RC: So it seems that that's the function that the antahkarana is performing when it goes out and assumes the form of an object that it is not. It's a mirror of the Cosmic Intellect.
AD: It's a mirror of the Cosmic--
RC (simultaneously): It seems to be mirroring the Cosmic Intellect. It is-- it is not that image, and yet it's the means by which the person, soul, whatever, operating through the antahkarana perceives that-- that idea, that object. Like I'm not talking about material objects or anything that's objective to the perceiver.
AD (simultaneously): No, I'm trying to place what you're saying, you know. [10 second pause] Well Randy I have to disagree with that, you see, because that would be like turning the antahkarana into a conscious entity of some kind.
RC: Ok well, when we look at-- when we talk about the world going on when we go to sleep, we say it doesn't exist for us but it goes on. So we say, alright, then these images are not images that we project but they're images in the World-Mind. We say that we experience a common world--
AD: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait I-- see I-- and maybe I think I see what--
RC (faint): Yeah.
AD: When the antahkarana goes out and envelops an object, alright, [RC, very faint: Uh-hm.] what is this object?
S (faint): [one word inaudible]
RC: I would say that it would have to be an image in the World-Mind rather than a personal image.
AD: Well what would this object be then if it's an image in the World-Mind?
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
AD: That's the point.
RC: That's (completely) different question.
AD (simultaneously): That's the point, that's the point. (some laughter)
RC: But just-- I was just trying to distinguish what the antahkarana actually is in relation to terms we've been using.
AD: Well, for instance, if you were to vary that antahkarana, let's say you were to conceive of an insect or some center of consciousness other than yours going out to envelop that object, it certainly would not come up with the same kind of object you come up. So that we have to-- we have to consider, so to speak, that the-- the essence of what makes this object to be what it is will certainly vary according to the people or the centers of consciousness that are operating to apprehend it. When we try to understand what that object is in itself without any perceiver, in other words, as a content or an intelligible content of the World-Mind, now you have to be careful. [RC simultaneously, faint: Ok but--] It's no longer an object.
RC: Instead of going to that let me operate in a-- in a relativistic framework from the point of view that I'm operating through an antahkarana. So from my point of view, one I'm at now, I want to know, within that frame of reference, what the antahkarana is. Now the-- the three major terms that I have to deal with the operation of mind, then this Divine Intellect, Cosmic Intellect, and Human Intellect. The-- the link up in these two things is like when we say when we go to sleep, though the world-image doesn't go on for us, the world-image goes on. Why? Because it's not an image-- it's not just an image in a-- in my mind [AD: Uh-hm.] but it's an image in the World-Mind, which tends to--
AD: Well the Intellect doesn't get shut off just because you go to sleep, Intellect capitalized.
RC (simultaneously): Oh not that it get-- not that it get shut off but that--
AD: It's not shut off, not at all.
RC (simultaneously): Right that's-- that's not what I'm saying, but I don't-- when I go to sleep I don't perceive in the same way that I perceive right now.
AD: But aren't you aware of the fact that there are no objects?
RC: Well we went through this once before and I don't know anything about what I-- when I sleep.
AD: Well how do you know that you don't know anything!?
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
RC: When I think about it I get a blank.
AD: Well, then you know that there was a blank, don't you!!?
RP (very faint): It's like having your money in a (bank).
RC (faint): But when I-- (laughter)
S: (I'd go to sleep) [one word inaudible] tonight.
AD (simultaneously): Don't you see, because there's an absence of objects you think that there's no knowledge but an absence of knowledge shows that there wasn't any.
RC: But this is a thing with memory again, there's lots of things I used to know that [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Memory? Memory of what? If you have a memory of something it's something you experienced, isn't it?
RC: Right.
AD: Well then how could you have an experience of nothing?
RC: Well there are lots of times when I try to remember something that I have known or will know again in the future, I [AD simultaneously: Wait a minute.] come up with a blank.
AD: Louder?
RC (simultaneously): Ok. There are-- there are many times that there's something that I'm trying to remember that I used to know, and that (biology) [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): But look, look, that's not the principle Randy, [S simultaneously, very faint: Yeah but--] that's not the principle at all. You're bringing in (lacolana) that are really unrelated to the principle. (bit of laughter)
S (faint): Oh, yeah but--
AD: You know what I mean? The-- the principle doesn't hold, suppose a hypnotist gets a hold of you, he makes you remember.
RC: Yeah [couple words inaudible]
AD (intensely): What's the point, you know. [RC simultaneously: Like (couple words inaudible)] The point here is this here, the point to remember is this here, that when you're in a state of deep sleep, alright, and you say "I have no memory of anything"--that's precisely the memory that's correct!!
RC: Ok, that could be but I can't say that. I don't know that. [few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously, intensely): But you know it by saying it! How else would you know that you don't know!? You think that you can't have knowledge of absence!?
RC: No, I don't think that. [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously, intensely): Well that's what you're saying.
RC: I'm trying to be very careful in not saying (that when) I--
AD (simultaneously): Alright, here's this light shining, alright, here's-- here's the Atma light shining, [drawing] ok, just imagine it shining like this, ok. Now, at this level here let's say you have dream consciousness, ok, and at this level here you have wakeful consciousness [diagram]. Ok?
RC: Yeah.
AD: Now that light is shining. You're not sleeping no more, ok. I mean you're not awake no more so we cross this out. There's no object there, there's no contents, [writing] there's no A, B, or C, ok. But, there's contents over here, Z, X, and Y, you say "Ah, now I remember my dream, ok." We wipe this out, ok?
RC (faint): And then the antahkarana goes--
AD: The light is still shining, the light is still shining but there's nothing in here. [drawing] So you wake up and you say, "I don't remember anything." But what do you expect to remember!? (bit of laughter)
RC: Well, I'll concede you all this because it's not-- that's not the point that I'm trying to get at, like-- I guess from there I would say ok, when that dream remembering falls away is that when I cease to function through the antahkarana?
AD: I'm sorry?
RC: I guess to-- to put that together with the point that I'm trying to get at, is it when that-- when I go beyond the dream level, beyond these things that I could remember, is that when I go beyond the point of functioning through the antahkarana?
S (very faint): No.
RP (very faint): (Yes.)
AD: Alright, you try Richard.
RP: Does antahkarana include remembrance? Do you have a remembrance of being deeply asleep?
RC: No. I don't have a remembrance of being asleep.
RP (simultaneously): That's why he's hit-- beating that point!
RC: No, I mean I don't have a remembrance of being asleep.
RP: You don't remember the dark? The dark?
RC: No. I have no remembrance.
S: But that's [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with S] gathering all knowledge. (laughter)
LS: You just dream all night?
RC: No, but--
LS: Well then what-- what [RP simultaneously: Are you sure about that?] happens when you're not dreaming?
RP: Are you sure-- you have certitude about that, that you have no memory? That's because you have [one/two words inaudible] (laughter)
AD: Look, don't you see-- don't you see how obvious it is, Randy? The fact-- don't you see how obvious it is? You have no remembrance of it.
RC: Right.
AD (intensely): That is a remembrance.
RP: And you have certitude about that fact.
AD: And you know it!
LS: See, the categories that you discuss sleep in are antahkarana categories.
RC: Yeah but there seems to be-- the reason I can't discuss it seems to me because the antahkarana can't reach it.
S: Doubt.
LR (faint): [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): The antahkarana can't-- (laughter) No, the antahkarana can't reach it. That's pre-- that's true, the antahkarana can't reach it because it's not there, right?
RC: But remembrance tries to function with nothing there.
AD (simultaneously): Alright? But then who is it that knows it?
RC: I don't know.
AD: Ahh. (some laughter)
S: Who's that "I" who doesn't know?
RC (faint): That's not (available).
AD (simultaneously): Alright. So you're finding out what real knowledge is, this is the guy that knows [drawing] everything [diagram].
RC: Sure but I want to know how to get to him, I mean-- (laughter)
S (amidst laughter, faint): [couple words inaudible]
AD: Got a lot of company. We're all trying.
RC: Like--
S: Oh boy. (S laughing)
RC: See, that-- (more laughter)
AD: You can't remember him by the way. (AD laughs)
S (faint): (Why not?)
S: Don't think [couple words inaudible] I'm on a (railroad). (AD laughs, laughter)
RC (faint): Then what would be the difference between-- I don't see why-- seeing the way you just described the way the antahkarana functions, it seems to me that it definitely mirrors the Cosmic Intellect. That seems to me the--
AD (simultaneously): The way the antahkarana functions--
RC: The way the antahkarana functions it seems to me that it definitely has one function by which it mirrors the Cosmic Intellect which is when it assumes the form of this object which it is not.
AD: Well I can't see-- If-- if let's say this is the antahkarana in here [diagram], ok, I can't see how you can see that. Let's say [drawing] that there's an object here and an object here and the mind flows out, alright, and envelops that object. Now how do you-- how do you say that this reflects the Intellect?
[tape speeds up]
S: Can I restate his question? [couple words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): But-- but (we're going to) have to say that. But to say it assumes the form of some other object (is like) trying to say it assumes the form of an object.
AD/S(?): It assumes the form of an object, yeah.
[tape speeds up even more for couple seconds, then goes silent; last few seconds untranscribable due to speed]
[Audio File 1971 1201a Ends]
1971 12/01 V11a: CLASS: Hinduism; Antahkarana. Copyright 2022 Wisdom's Goldenrod p. i