Wednesday, May 3rd, 1978

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, ALAN BERKOWITZ CLASS NOTES

(TYPED)

MAY 3, 1978

BUDDHISM; SYMBOL

TOPIC: Buddhism

SUBJECT: Symbol

SUBSUBJECTS: KCB, Knowing, Willing, Feeling, Eliade on Symbols, Satori

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Mircea Eliade, "Methodological Remarks on the Study of Religious Symbolism," in The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology, edited by Mircea Eliade, Joseph Kitagawa

• Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy (2 vols.)

DIAGRAMS embedded in these notes:

• FIGURE 1978 0503-1-AB. Aristotle's Four Causes correlated with Last Four Houses of the Metaphysical Chart.

• FIGURE 1978 0503-2-AB. Vesica Picture of Shift.

TYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED HANDWRITTEN NOTES (hence V08). From Alan Notes 02 1977 to 06 1979.PDF.

• All capitalization and punctuation corrected, all abbreviations and one number spelled out.

1978 05/03 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Buddhism; Symbol

[Alan Notes 0503 1978 Begin]

5/3/78

Eliade -- History of Religions -- symbols [Note: See Mircea Eliade, "Methodological Remarks on the Study of Religious Symbolism" in The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology, edited by Mircea Eliade and Joseph Kitagawa, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1959.]

[FIGURE 1978 0503-1-AB. Aristotle's Four Causes correlated with Last Four Houses of the Metaphysical Chart. Facsimile scan from AB class notes.]

1) Knowing -- Fire

2) Willing -- Earth

3) Feeling -- Air -- emotion

4) Knowing -- Water -- externally perceived world

Each of the 3 basic modes (knowing, willing, feeling) is 4-fold.

KCB [Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya]: Knowing, Willing, Feeling --

The states of our reflective consciousness is the manifestation of the working of various spiritual entities which we experience as conflicts, problems, negativity, and which we must resolve.

Something in us is in identity with the symbol which is outside us and attracts us.

Eliade -- seven points about symbols:

Reality speaks through them.

Symbols are existentially sacred and point to a higher real.

Are multivalent.

Are existentially meaningful -- deal with a reality in which you are involved.

The whole sensible image is a symbol of the intelligible projected by our mind.

The moment of symbolic apprehension one temporarily steps out of one's personal (neurotic) standpoint and the impersonal (intellect, alaya) breaks through and is experienced by the real person.

[FIGURE 1978 0503-2-AB. Vesica Picture of Shift. Facsimile scan from AB class notes.]

Satori (breakthrough) is experiencing the world and yourself as a symbol.

[Alan Notes 0503 1978 End]