Sunday, June 2nd, 1974

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, ALAN BERKOWITZ CLASS NOTES

(TYPED)

JUNE 2, 1974

HINDUISM; SAMKHYA

TOPIC: Hinduism

SUBJECT: Samkhya

SUBSUBJECTS: Pramanas, Bhutas, Evolution

TYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2023

NOTES:

• RETYPED HANDWRITTEN NOTES (hence V08). From Alan Notes 3 1973 to 1975 psyche and soul.PDF.

• All capitalization and punctuation corrected, abbreviations spelled out.

1974 06/02 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Hinduism; Samkhya

[Alan Notes 1974 0602 Begin]

6/2/74 Samkhya

Start with pain -- escape how?

Pramanas - means of knowledge. Experience is the felt result of imperceptible, subtle principles. Must analyze experience with pramanas:

1) Perception - pratyaksha

2) Inference - anumana or smriti

3) Valid testimony - shruti or sabda

[1, 2, 3] within thought. Establish reality of principles -- not experience of them.

1) Perception - indirect sense knowledge -- genera(l) and specific.

Requires 'fitness' of object and subject to take place.

2) Inference -- knowledge derived from previous knowledge of a characteristic mark (linga) and that in which it inheres (lingam).

Can move from cause to effect and reverse -- depends on perception and memory -- is a reflection on it.

Inference by analogy -- used on 'higher' levels where empirical knowledge and reason won't work -- reason itself is a mark for something. 'Indirect inference'.

Inference -- pramana for revealing that which is unperceivable.

3) Valid testimony -- not inferable or perceivable. Comes in when reason has been exhausted. Perception is through vritti -- not prajna, 'direct' experience.

Evolution:

Inference of bhutas: 4 'beings of objects' (qualities or categories necessary for experience)

1) earth -- stability within experience -- perceived objects -- minerals -- earth

2) water -- change within experience -- imagined objects -- vegetative soul, plant -- earth and water

3) fire -- self-mobility, purposiveness -- animal -- fire, water, earth

Dream -- fluidity of image = water, stability of image = earth, purposiveness of dream = fire. Irrational soul.

4) Air -- organization within dream -- meaning -- relatedness, intelligibility of dream. Intelligence of man. Rational soul -- higher animals and man. Belongs to unconscious of subject having fear -- guiding force and meaning of archetype under dream.

Fire is not in the individual plant, but in the soul of Nature. Plant looks to sun because it seeks fire.

5) Something in man is beyond these four -- yet he has all four. Man can create. Can eliminate the compulsiveness of fire. Can draw out meaning. Ether -- link between manifest and unmanifest. Principles of engineering are unmanifest in beaver building of dam and manifest to man. 1) Air is schemata. 2) Ether is symbolic -- points beyond. 3) Is grasped directly in manas. Manifest thing points to something unknown -- ether is the meaning.

5) symbolic consciousness

4) apperceptive consciousness

3) intentional consciousness

2) instinct

1) identity with body

[In reference to 1-5 above]: Higher include lower.

All bhutas are established in perception and reflection on it.

[Alan Notes 1974 0602 End]