Friday, July 7th, 1972

CLASS at American Brahman Bookstore, Ithaca, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

July 7, 1972

PB BOOKS; HIDDEN TEACHING

TOPIC: PB Books

SUBJECT: Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga

SUBSUBJECTS: Karmic Seeds, Causation, Perception

CONTENTS:

KARMIC SEEDS

THE PROBLEM OF CAUSE

ASSIGNING CHAPTERS FROM THE HIDDEN TEACHING

THE QUESTION OF FREE WILL

HOW MANY KARMIC SEEDS?

THE YOGACARA POSITION

THE MEANING OF CAUSE

BOOKS / PLAYS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga

• Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)

• William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Lear

• Surendranath Dasgupta, Philosophical Essays

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: II.3

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2025 (V14.1a) on the basis of V14r, with three more passes, updated prefatory matter, footer, and audio file name, Subsubjects, Book List, and TOC/Subheads expanded, Plotinus quotes section added, new notes within transcript, green highlighting removed to make usable for web, new formatting to accord with new conventions. Originally transcribed by Transcription Puppy and YAS in 2020; reformatted by JRM/JF 2020, with TOC/Subheads by JRM. Archival verbatim transcript – V14.1a.

AUDIO FILES: 1972 0707d. [Note 1: In 2024, REP Studio combined files d and e into one file and edited out music that was present on file e. Note 2: Only the last audio file for this class exists; the earlier files are missing.]

1972 07/07 at American Brahman Bookstore

PB Books; Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga

Archival Verbatim Transcript

[Audio File 1972 0707d Begins]

KARMIC SEEDS

S: --start with a distinction while I perceive the world and you perceive the world, but in order for there to be something--

AD: But you perceive a world a little different than I do. Even though it is the same so-called-- underlying our worlds is a common objective stratum, but that common objective stratum gets defined through our cognitional apparatus, right?

S: But if the karmic seed contains both subject and object, [AD: Uh-hm.] that contains you as subject and object as well as me as subject and object.

AD: Yes.

S: Me and my world as well as you and your world.

AD: Yes.

S: And so that karmic seed contains both you and me and everything about you and me.

AD: Yes. Now you have an idea [VM simultaneously: That's the connection.] what the karmic seed is.

AP: Does it-- does it contain-- it doesn't contain--

AD: Well, one minute Anna. Huh? You're not [S simultaneously: Karma's--] quite familiar with what a karmic seed is.

S: Karmic seed's everything. (some laughter)

AD: It would be better if you call it a thought in the Mind of God because that sounds kind of too familiar, karmic seed. And a thought in the Mind of God and, you know, he has that whole view. But that whole view can only be given to us piecemeal. Yes, Anna? Let me refer you again to page 303 on the top of the (Hidden Teaching).

AP: I had a question I didn't bother to ask. It is about-- well, this-- the center of consciousness and when I talk to a person, and when I-- another person I think--

AD: Tell me the question, Anna.

AP: Yeah. With the other person, I'm aware of the other person too.

AD: What are you aware of the other person?

AP (simultaneously): I'm aware-- and I state it. If you-- if you imagine-- if the mother archetype for instance is starting to get activated and it's going to be manifest, it includes the child. Right, it's a mother and child is part of the archetype. And-- but the child has-- is a center of consciousness. Then what brings this to center of consciousness within-- You can't say near each other because I guess this is outside of space and time but still--

AD: Can you tell me what you're saying, can someone tell me what she's saying? I don't follow.

AP: Karmic seed, the karmic seed includes the whole, everything. It doesn't include the center of consciousness. There are many different centers of consciousness. Combine those [couple/three words inaudible] you might [couple words inaudible] You know, why do we share or do we have experience with certain people and not with others? Do you see what--

AD: No, I don't see what you're saying, Anna.

[short pause]

LS: Was that the last sentence, was that the content of your question? Why do we share experience with certain people and not with others?

AP: No I think that it's an experience (from) another person is different than tree and that out-- maybe--

AD: Why? Isn't a tree a center of consciousness?

AP: Yes. I don't know. I don't know.

AD: You don't know?

AP: No.

AD: Why, isn't it living? Isn't it a living thing?

AP: Yeah.

AD: Isn't a bug, a Junefly, a moth?

AP: Yes.

[short pause]

S: Can I say-- can't help it.

S: We're not--

AP: But the center of consciousness is not included in the karmic seed.

AD: It's outside the karmic seed?

AP: Isn't it?

AD: Well I didn't think [couple inaudible AP words simultaneous with AD] it could be in or out but we're speaking basically of the reflection of consciousness in the karmic seed, you know, in other words, when I speak about the "I" I'm speaking about a reflected "I," not a real "I."

S (faint): Yeah.

AD (faint): Yeah.

AP: We have spoken about a center of consciousness as a-- there are different points of view.

AD: We have spoken of a center of consciousness as different points of view, yeah.

AP (simultaneously): Yeah, of this-- There are different points of view. What makes-- what makes some people meet and interact and-- I mean what makes-- brings his center of consciousness into the realm of this other center of consciousness?

AD: I didn't hear you. What makes one center--

AP: What brings this center of consciousness into the realm of this other center of consciousness?

AD: You mean why you have relationships with me rather than with someone else?

AP: Yeah.

AD: Well that's all karmic, I mean that's not a question that's appropriate here, honey.

LS: Wouldn't that be part of the karmic seed too?

S (simultaneously): She-- she means something else I think.

S: Hang on [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Well, unless I misunderstand the question, I mean why I have relations with one person rather than another, this is irrelevant to what we're discussing here. That's an entirely different question.

AP: I'm-- I like this.

AD: I mean, you have to forgive me, maybe I don't understand you, but why we are all human beings and why we're caught in this net or this trap and why we all have to work out of it, you can say well in that sense we're all related to one another. Yeah but, I mean, what does that got to do with what-- what we're tying to understand here?

AP: Well, it seem--

S: Say what you mean by everything Anna, when you say everything's included in the karmic seed. I mean it seems like you're saying that something's not, right? Like the centers of consciousness maybe. Is that what you-- I--

S (simultaneously): Yeah.

AP: Right. Not the center of consciousness. I don't really understand. I-- because I don't understand--

AD: But, that's the point, Anna, that if we're following one point up, we should persist in understanding that point and not deviating, going elsewhere.

AP: I was-- I mean I started thinking from what you were saying because I was thinking half about the interaction, or that's part of the karmic seed, maybe the change is a part of the karmic seed. But I'm-- Well, that doesn't seem to-- you know, to answer the--

AD: It doesn't seem to answer the question.

AP: No.

AD: What was the question?

AP: How-- how is the interaction of-- then how do we influence each other?

AD: How we what?

AP: But how can we communicate? How is communication possible?

S: Like how do I influence you and how do you influence me, right? Doesn't PB answer that question?

AD: Don't use that word because that's only going to-- that's only going to throw her off the track. How do I perceive you and how does she perceive me? You can include influence under perception and everything else. How do I perceive you and how do you perceive me? Isn't that the question we were asking?

AP: Yeah.

AD: Ok. And she's not satisfied with the answer.

S: I don't think she wants to make that distinction now.

AD: What distinction?

S: Between-- and I think she does want to make the distinction between influence and perception.

AD: Now look, [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] if you influence me, don't I have to perceive you first?

AP (simultaneously): Yes. Yes. No I don't really want to make a distinction, I-- it's (post facto) and I-- I don't--

AD: But Anna, you see, that is part of the problem here. Part of the problem of why the confusion constantly arises is because you don't stick to one point to the end. But you-- we jump all over the place.

AP: Yeah I tried but I mean it's [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Even if the-- if you say that this-- this is inadequate [AD pointing to something on board], ok I'll buy that. It is inadequate, sure, ok. But I won't buy questions that are irrelevant to this.

JL: Tony?

AP (faint whisper): Ok.

AD: Ok?

THE PROBLEM OF CAUSE

JL: Tony? Can I return to the original question that was asked?

AD: Yeah, let's return to the original question.

JL (simultaneously): Ok. When can you-- when can you speak of a cause when you're talking-- or, how can you speak of a cause when you're speaking of the-- the origin of-- of a-- of a percept?

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

S: Uh-hm.

S: Say that again.

JL: How can you speak of a cause when you-- when you're talking about the origin of a percept?

S (very faint): Can't speak of.

AD: The whole point is that there is no cause in the origin of a percept because the universe is presented to you, your universe of experience or the perception of the world for you is presented totally and simultaneously and all at once.

JL: Alright, then I can't say that-- that what you just said is the cause of my perception of what I heard.

[Transcriber note: I am using The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga by Paul Brunton, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1969.]

PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Secret of Space and Time," pp. 302-303, AD reading]: "The mind, by making its images conform to the laws of space and time, anticipates the very form of all its possible experiences of the external world. The images are not produced by experience, but themselves produce our experience."

AD: Now you talk of cause.

JL (faint): You've answered my question.

AD: Hm?

JL: He helps me follow what I present.

VM(?): Right.

AD: You people have been so indoctrinated with that word "cause" that you think you're going to explain things with it, you're not going to explain anything. Yeah, go ahead.

RG: Tony, you-- sort of the same problem of like how-- when you have a thought in your mind and how you perceive the meaning of it or the-- or its intelligibility. How would you-- how would you answer that?

AD: I'm sorry Dickie, try again.

RG: I mean, the question of like how you perceive somebody else's words. I mean you have thoughts that arise in your mind in words that are just as objective as-- as thoughts that arise in another person's mind that you perceive.

S: Right.

S: But it seemed like-- Yes, they would be identical. But I think the-- the sense of the original problem would be, you know, along the lines of, I have a perception of kicking you in the shins and you have a perception of feeling it, you know. The intelligibility isn't, you know, the essential part of it.

RG: Alright, well, let's say you speak and no one else is around and you hear yourself speaking. How does that make it? Isn't it the same thing?

S: That would-- the way you perceive your own body too.

AD: Well look, let's try this. Then what do we mean when we use the word "cause"? [student assents] Ok? Why don't we try that? Ok?

S: Sort of related, I sort of like to get the subject of karmic seeds and how it arises and this whole thing clear in my own mind. Uh--

S (simultaneously): Louder.

S: I'd like to get the subject of karmic seeds clear in my own mind. According to Brunton, according to what we've been saying, alright, the-- the-- our perception of any-- our knowledge of any object only comes from a perception in our mind. And, to sort of explain why we all have the same perception, we're not saying--

AD: Similar, not the same.

S: No, similar perceptions we're saying. We're saying there isn't a-- it is-- it isn't just a creation of our own individual mind. It's a creation of the World-Mind which gives out this karmic seed. Is that a legitimate paraphrase?

AD: Well go on.

S: Ok. So in other words, try and clarify, if we-- if I have a dream and that-- then that just is-- that doesn't come from a karmic seed. Or-- well-- I'm using a cause again. But I mean that-- that doesn't-- that's not a thought of the World-Mind, that's just a thought of my individual mind. Or is it about the World-Mind too?

S: Well then you're saying that you can create things.

S: Well, my individual mind can create dreams but--

S: Individual mind is a thought of the World-Mind.

S (very faint): Oh yeah, say more.

AD: You see now, within that he wants to make a distinction and a separation, alright?

S: Ok. I'm just wondering if he-- if you can do that.

AD: Well it depends, like in terms of metaphysics you cannot make that separation and distinction, ok. In terms of, let's say, psychology you can because psychology deals with individual-- the realm of individual meaning.

S: Yeah well we're talking about like causes and karmic seeds and we're-- what we're saying like, ok, the karmic seed is the cause of like certain perceptions that we all have in common. Or is that sort of what you were saying and like-- well, certain perceptions we have, like we have similar agreements about what they are.

AD: Well even there, even there I wouldn't use that the World-Mind causes.

S: Uh-hm.

AD: Even there I wouldn't use it.

S: What would you say?

AD: Arises, appears, manifests.

S (very faint): (Show me.)

S: You want to say that. (laughter)

AD: But that's the whole point, that the word "cause" keeps taking you away! You think that there's some kind of necessity involved, in which case liberation would be impossible!

S (faint): (Ow.)

S: (Cause.) (student laughs)

AD: That's the way I understand cause, that necessity is implied.

S: Necessity [few inaudible student words simultaneous with S] for the manifestation to [one/two words inaudible]

AD: The word "cause" is another word for necessity.

S: Ok.

AD: Alright, soon as you use that, boom, it's a closed universe. How do I get out?

S: I-- that's not your problem.

AD: Well, before you take me away, let's go back.

S (simultaneously): Ok, sorry.

AD: I think maybe we ought to define what we mean by cause before we can-- instead of continuing this way. [student assents] Now is it nec-- is it necessary or is it contingent?

S: Cause--

AD: Is it-- is it temporal or logical?

S: Well, I think it can be necessary and still-- and still logical. In other words, it must manifest in this way. But-- but one could think of the manifestation--

AD: Look, let me ask you this here, here's a series [drawing] of notes, ok? tones, in certain sequence, alright? I listen to the sequence of notes. There is nothing physically and in terms of acoustics, alright, there that provides me with the significance I give to it in terms of a melodic line.

S (simultaneously): Ok. Ok.

AD: Alright? Does this cause the melody to arise in me?

S: No. No.

AD: But if I don't hear it, I don't hear the melody and I can't impose on it back.

S: Ok, it's synchronous.

AD: What does that mean?

S: It means they're both conditioned by the same unity. Like I-- you perceive the meaning, ok. You perceive the intelligibility of the melodic line and you hear the notes.

S: That's still putting it in terms of the cause though. [student assents] That's still a-- in terms of a need for interpretation of your mind.

S: Beg pardon?

S: That still puts it in terms of a mode, of a need for a-- an interpretation of your mind. You're saying-- you're saying-- I mean you say it's synchronous or, you know--

AD: Let me give you--

S: In a sense you're saying it's caused by a unity and--

AD: Thanks Dave, but let me give him an example, ok? [student assents] There are people that are known as deaf, tonally deaf. In other words, if a cat runs over a piano, alright, they hear the same sequence of tones like I would hear, ok? [student assents] Now if you play a melodic line, they hear the same sequence of tones that I would hear, but they don't hear no melody, to them it's just a collection of nonsense, and to me it will be loaded with significance. Where's the cause? Is it in the sequence of the physical acoustic phenomena?

S: No, no, I wouldn't say it was.

AD: Well then what do we mean by cause? [short pause] Did that phenomena cause me to hear [S: No.] a melodic line [S: No.] and didn't cause him? But it's the same phenomena for both of us. So it's not cause, right.

S: I would speak of the cause as principial, as-- as the unity of the manifestation of the melodic line and the perceiving of the meaning, in other words--

AD: Yeah, tell what the meaning is, sure.

S (simultaneously): Ok, in English. Ok, you percei-- you hear the melodic line and a meaning is also perceived, ok. Some other guy hears notes and he doesn't. Um--

[short pause]

AD: You see, [S simultaneously: (There's not--) wait.] if it's all necessity then we can't speak of cause, right?

S: Yeah, (which again--)

AD: If it's a contingent thing, then we can't speak of cause. So if we say the karmic seed causes this universe?

S: Suppose we say the karmic seed contains the universe.

AD: Ah, but that's a better description, isn't it? Isn't it?

S: Now I would say yeah.

AD: Notice the very particular way that Samkhya defines cause, right? And the Vedanta. And they're very, very careful about how they use that word "cause." [9½ second pause]

Well alright. We had enough of that. I think we've begun-- I think we have an idea now the way these question comes-- keeps coming back over and over again. How do we perceive the object? What is the explanation for the perception of the object? And I think by now it should be obvious that we don't know, right? That we're really a little shaky about it when we have to explain it.

S: Can-- but you can explain it.

AD: Hm?

S: It is explicable. It happens, there it is, and I don't--

AD: Can you prove that logically?

S: Um-- (laughter)

ASSIGNING CHAPTERS FROM THE HIDDEN TEACHING

AD: Why don't we [S simultaneously: Oh yeah.] do this here, look, why-- why don't we do something like this. Beginning with chapter "The Revelation of Relativity." Ok, why don't we do this, why don't we each assign, alright, there's about five chapters: "From Thing to Thought," "The Revelation--" starting with "Relativity," "From Thing to Thought," "Secret of Space and Time," "Magic of Mind," and "The Downfall of Materialism." Why don't we do this? Why don't we outline [S simultaneously: Sounds like (couple words inaudible)] one chapter each, five volunteers.

S: Ok.

AD: You're not going to get this book any other way. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's simple, because if Shankara stayed away from it, he had good reasons. Guenon stays away from it, he's got good reasons. It's intricate. This is what I refer to very often as the dirty details. You know my dislike for these grandiose statements. "Well, the object is a modification of the subject," blah, blah, blah. Ok, fine. (laughter) Now give me the details. Why don't we do that, huh? [S simultaneously: Well if we want to.] Get this settled once and for all, what the Hidden Teaching is, how it leads you, how he follows a series of questions and answers, how he pushes aside certain questions and says these cannot be answered right now. We can answer these questions, then when we answer these then we can pick these up and answer them, and see that railroad track that he builds and that you must follow. And you have no choice, once you follow that you've got to go into a super individual reasoning. Why don't we do that? Because there's no sense me explaining it. Two months from now you'll have the same trouble, unless you do it yourself. How about five volunteers? Bob? What chapter?

S: "Thing to Thought" I guess.

AD: Which one?

S: "Thing to Thought."

AD: "Thing to Thought." Ok. Who else? Yeah Myra?

MB: I don't know which chapter I want but--

AD: Well pick one that you like, the interest should be-- You're too busy fixing your roof, right?

VM: I'm torn. You went through "Relativity"?

AD: Yeah, you could summarize that quickly.

VM: Well, ok [couple words inaudible]

S: But those [couple words inaudible]

AD: Yeah, I was helping you there.

S: Yeah.

VM: I'm looking at--

AD: Alright, try again.

VM: When do you want to start, Tony? Are you going to have a schedule like, you know, one chapter a week or what?

AD: No, no, we do the whole chapter-- we do the whole thing in one class. (some laughter)

S: (Something at) work next Friday.

S (very faint): No.

AD: No (Myra). (laughter) Look, we try to put the whole thing on the board at one time, get a snapshot view of the Hidden Teaching. The most important thing about the Hidden Teaching, anyone who's noticed, is the very careful way he asks the question, answers the question. That's the most important thing about the whole book. If you cannot follow that sequence, the ordering of the question, you missed the whole point in the Hidden Teaching. Before you could know something you gotta understand how you could know it, alright, so the "how" is going to determine the "why". Alright? He very carefully follows that one through. Alright, how about--

MB: I'll take "The Magic of the Mind."

AD: You'll take "The Magic of the Mind"? Ok, so we got "The Magic of the Mind," "Relativity," and "From Thing to Thought." Two other chapters left. Yeah Dave?

S: "Secret of Space and Time."

AD: "Secret of Space and Time"? Ok. So that leaves us one more.

S: What's left?

AD: Hm?

S: "Downfall" [one word inaudible]

S (simultaneously): "Downfall of Materialism."

AD: "Downfall"-- (laughter) You want to take that?

S: Yeah.

AD: Alright. [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] Look, try to make it very brief, in outline form, so if we have to write it on the board we could write the whole outline of one chapter right on the board.

S: One or all five?

AD: No, one on the board, then we turn the board around the second, then we erase the third and put it on the third, alright? See if you could make an outline. In other words, we'll see if we can make an outline of those five chapters which are crucial.

Now, there's-- there's one thing I'd like to ask you, those-- those of you who want to write some. Pull out the questions. Outline the questions and the whole chapter is in your lap. Ok? I think you'll see something else too, that the object that they were talking about here, ok, that you were trying to talk about here, Samkhya for instance defines that object, it defines itself. Well it doesn't define itself unless when we say "it" we're including the apparatus of the cognition that it operates with, ok. But, see, the Vedanta wouldn't buy that. Because for them, the existence of the universe is total. It's an object of experience for this greater consciousness. So it has an eternal persistence. Alright? So each point of view, so to speak, they're operating from different points of view. It isn't that there's really a contradiction, it's just that different ang-- we're studying it from a different angle. Alright, who else has a silly question? Om? Oh good. Oh. Go ahead, Om.

THE QUESTION OF FREE WILL

OG: If everything is in the karmic seed, my personal idiosyncrasies are also there in the karmic seed and then there is the question of free will.

S (very faint): Who said (that)?

AD (intensely): Free will for who?

OG: For me.

AD (intensely): How could the will be free?

OG: Say a bit more. How can I say that I come to the bookstore and I should go to the bookstore [couple/three words inaudible] there?

AD (simultaneously): Well, that's a euphemism. Go ahead, it makes you happy, say it. (laughter) How could the will be free? It's only the Self that's free, the will isn't free!

S (faint, possibly part of background): You'd know.

OG: But then don't-- don't stick on words. My question is this and my question was that like--

AD: Well if I tried to answer your question I wouldn't be able to. Because anything in this universe is conditioned by the mere fact of being in the universe. The only thing that isn't is the Self, that's the only thing that I know of is free.

OG: So then why I am this-- made responsible for certain things and-- Like karma, they say that--

AD: Oh, details that'll take a long time to answer. But certainly if you didn't feel that you were responsible for the-- for the decisions that you make you'd get into a lot of trouble. Let's not go into that. That-- that's in psychology. [student assents] I mean really silly questions, you know, come on.

S: Not counting (mine).

HOW MANY KARMIC SEEDS?

S (simultaneously): How many karmic seeds?

S (simultaneously, faint): [couple words inaudible]

AD: How many karmic seeds? (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): [few words inaudible]

S: Right.

S: Hm, that's a good question.

SP: Yeah, if time is contained within the karmic seed and so there's a series of events and there's a temporal process, what--

AD (simultaneously): Well wouldn't that depend on the subject of consciousness how many karmic seeds?

SP: Yeah.

AD: Ok, that's answered. (laughter)

S: But, that's ok.

S (faint): (Why?)

AD: Why, for the World-Mind, how many karmic seeds would there be?

S: 19.

AD: One, right? Boom. (bit of laughter) I imagine as you go down the hierarchy, there'd be a little more. And then when you get down to our level they're billions.

THE YOGACARA POSITION

S: At the beginning you-- maybe I just misunderstood what we were reading all the way back at the beginning of the Yogacara School [couple words inaudible] And they held a belief that the thought of the object creates the object.

AD: Well then, alright, go ahead.

S: You'd (see it that--)

AD: There's no object separate from the cognition of the object.

S: From the cognition of the object.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, right.

S: If it's--

AD: Hm?

S: Then what exists?

AD: For them?

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: Well it's the mind and its tendencies.

[short pause]

S: It--

S: I can reconcile in my own mind the idea that unless I think of an object I can't know the object and therefore this object has no (meaning) for me. But I still feel that even if I don't know of a mountain that-- out in Colorado that mountain still exists.

AD: Yes. This is what Shankara would say. But I think we're getting off the point, the point being here that the Buddhists would say that that mountain independent of the cognition of it has no existence. That is knowing, ok, and that which is known coincide. You can't show me that you can infer something besides that knowing.

S: Ok, there's no existence for the individual [AD: Uh-hm.] (who's not here).

[12½ second pause]

S: Yes, (that'll cost you).

AD: It's almost like they're two different points of view that are operating here, ok. You get the feeling that the Buddhist position is trying to answer the question from the-- the consciousness at the dream level.

S: Yes. That's not strong enough for me.

AD: Hm?

S: That's not strong enough for me, 'cause I was also thinking of if the mind creates the object, then how come I can think it-- sit here with a thought of something and that object is not going to miraculously appear?

S: But your mind isn't strong enough.

S (simultaneously): (It's a theory.) It's a theory. (student laughs)

S (faint): Not strong enough.

S: Good.

S: Pretty good.

S: We're not saying the mind creates the object, saying that the mi-- the cognition of the object and what is presented in that-- to cognition are inseparable. [AD: And--] You're not talking about creation.

AD: So what is is. That's period, alright? And [student assents] no possibility that you can intrude upon what is.

S: You can't create your own cup of tea.

AD (simultaneously): Uh-hm. And again for these people, Om would come up with the same question, where's my free will? If there isn't a mind, how the hell could there be a will?

[couple seconds of music]

THE MEANING OF CAUSE

OG: Just before you gave him the analogy about when it-- when you give cause, that someone there is-- there are certain notes. And in-- for a certain person (just) a nonsense of jumble, jumble of nonsense. But [couple words inaudible] another person, he's using certain melodic feelings. And you say that those notes are not because of those feelings or that anger, they're rising out of the nonsense feeling. But, for the individual who's experiencing, for him those-- arisal of those notes are because of his feelings, arisal of his feelings, isn't it so? Wouldn't you say so?

AD: Well why didn't they arouse the feelings in the other fellow?

OG: I think for the individual person, we can say that were those-- bringing of those notes as a cause of those feelings.

AD: Well the point that we were trying to make here Om, if cause is necessity then it should arise for everyone. [S, very faint: Ok.] In other words if I go up a hill and I jump off I get killed, and if you go up there, you jump off, you get killed. That's necessity, there's no two ways about it. Alright? Now I can use the word "cause" in a sense-- you know, in a non-ambiguous way. I gotta know what you mean by the word "cause" before you-- I can start using it.

OG: Ok, so the cause is always defined from a certain closed framework.

AD: Of course!

OG: And then if those-- somebody who makes that statement has to stand out of it and like-- Cause is a relation between a closed space, a closed frame of reference, a closed world, whatever. I don't know how to put it right.

S (faint): You can try once more.

AD: I-- maybe Vic will clarify that when he talks about relativity for instance.

VM: This is my [one word inaudible] (bit of laughter) One of the things that I think I see in your-- requested in your questioning is you're trying to take this very sort of Newtonian idea of cause and effect. You know, like the three laws of, essentially, Newton's mechanics. You take the idea of cause from that realm and try and apply it to all other realms and it breaks down. I mean you can say of necessity that when I thrown a ball, given that gravity, you know, operates, a ball has mass, so on and so forth, if I throw it up in the air-- forget the air, if I throw it away from the magnetic field, the Earth's field, it's going to pull it back in. Now you can speak of cause as necess-- there's necessity involved. But then if you speak about notes on a piano and so on, see that's really not a proper use of the word "cause," I mean you're stretching the definition beyond its viable limits in a sense. And I think that's what Tony keeps harping about is in our conditioning. [one/two words inaudible] I have it too. Quite obvious all the time to me I have it. You really stretch this word beyond where it should be used. Unless you're very clear I guess in-- You say well now I'm using it in the sense of parinama or something like that, then you, you know, shouldn't even talk about those things.

AD: Well, they have a very beautiful-- Plotinus has a very beautiful tirade against these people who think the stars cause events in our life. [Note: See Plotinus, II.3, "Are the Stars Causes?"] Like it causes you to be a villain and you to be a saint and the other one to be a holy man, and he harps on that. And as a matter of fact I was forced to witness that when I went to see King Lear. Edmund speaks about that too, both sides. But that word "cause" really should be inquired into and you'll be surprised what misunderstanding comes out of it.

VM: Besides, there are levels of causal. You know, aside from this cause that I was talking about, which is a very mechanistic cause, I mean, I've heard people refer to efficient cause, essential cause, or something like that. Is it worth it for us to take some time and try to talk about the level?

AD (simultaneously): Well, the Aristotelian four causes, is that what you're referring to?

VM: I guess so, I--

AD: That's a distinction within it but why not add also what Samkhya talks about this, [VM simultaneously: Ok, a fifth, definitely.] non-causal and causal.

VM: Sure.

AD: Or for instance also try to make this distinction, that when-- that in the individual realm, in the realm of psychology we can speak of cause. But go above that realm and "cause" becomes a meaningless word.

VM: Even in the individual realm of psychology I don't-- I don't like to use cause the way I would in physics. I mean like I have an anima, you have an anima, mine causes me, if you want to use cause, in some sense to do or feel one thing and yours causes another, and from that sense, it's not that necessary sort of cause, you know. You might sublimate yours or you might transform it, that energy, in an entirely different way. So--

AD: Yeah, you could-- we could put it that way. Another way to look at it is that the word "cause" is really let's say abstracted from the objective or the external world, which mankind keeps thinking is the only real world.

VM: Right.

AD: It's, you know, an importation from that external. And we use it even-- we try to apply it in the inner world and we find out it collapses. Does this fantasy image cause that fantasy image? What kind of nonsense are we talking? Well for instance if you have in terms of higher mathematics the axioms that determine, you know, how you're going to prove a certain proposition, and then you work it out, does that cause it? Well what kind of nonsense are we-- You see the way that word gets into our vocabulary, then permeates our understanding, pollutes everything in our brain, and then we want to understand-- we have trouble understanding philosophy.

VM: So maybe for a sort of an anti-pollution campaign, (some laughter) you can spend some time on this-- with cause. Or the levels of it. Maybe you don't think it's worth it but on the other hand it seems to always come up.

S (faint): Yeah that's right.

AD: Ok. Let's look into that word "cause."

VM: I mean-- I know you spent one whole night on it in Samkhya, at least I think you did.

AD: Yes.

VM: So, big audience.

AD: You know, I think most of you are aware, in astrology as soon as you hear that word "this caused that," your hair stands up, you know. You mean Jupiter caused me to trip out there and fall and break my knee? (AD laughing, laughter) Absurd!

VM: See I always get that problem, I-- occasionally I let slip something about astrology when I'm speaking to scientists and they go off on a rampage, you see, because they want the--

AD: Just--

VM: --make a [one/two words inaudible] trip, you know.

AD: You triggered (it).

VM: [few words inaudible] Well [couple words inaudible] squared law, this and that, you know. (laughter) And I just give up. [couple words inaudible] hard thing to deal with that whole mentality, I can't fight that. I can barely fight it myself. (laughter)

AD: Alright, we could pick up cause. I'll-- I'll see if I could-- Does anybody-- there's a very good reference in Dasgupta's Philosophic Essays. Who has that, you? Somebody have that book? Philosophic Essays, Dasgupta? [Note: See Surendranath Dasgupta, Philosophical Essays.] Well, anybody has it there's a couple pages there that are a gold mine. The Samkhya version of cause, which is-- even their notion [of] time space causality they throw out the window. What do they say about it?

RG (faint): They said it's the effective cause manifesting itself.

S: Yeah.

AD: That's the same as Proclus. Alright. Alright, so suppose we do that, ok? We'll outline the chapters? If you want to talk to me during the week, I'll be glad to show you how to outline that. Get the Hidden Teaching over with. [short pause] Anymore worthwhile silly questions, you don't-- just hang them up on a wall [few words inaudible]

S: That way they're (cold).

[Audio File 1972 0707d Ends]