Class
Wednesday, January 31st, 1979
Verbatim, unedited transcriptClick the series name to view more
CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY
with Anthony Damiani (AD)
January 31, 1979
PB BOOKS; HIDDEN TEACHING (Chapters 3-4)
TOPIC: PB Books
SUBJECT: Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga (Chapters 3-4)
SUBSUBJECTS: Religion, Mysticism, Philosophy
CONTENTS:
METAPHYSICS VS. PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY AND IMAGINATION
MYSTIC EXPERIENCE
THE LIMITS OF MYSTICISM
OUTGROWING MYSTICISM
PHILOSOPHY AND THE CONSCIOUS QUEST FOR TRUTH
THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRUTH
BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:
Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga
Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself
Haritayana, Swami Ramanananda Saraswathi (tr.), Tripura Rahasya
St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul
Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)
PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: V.3.6
TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2019; reformatted by JRM & JF 2019-2020, with TOC/Subheads by JRM. In 2023, IT updates prefatory matter, footer, and audio file name, completes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, adds new note within transcript, fixes errors/typos. In 2024, MW alters Subheads to make more accurate. In 2025, IT updates audio file markers to match new REP audio. Archival verbatim transcript – V14.1a.
AUDIO FILES: 1979 0131a, 1979 0131b. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: In 2024, REP Studio cuts dead air from file a.]
1979 01/31 at Wisdom's Goldenrod
PB Books; Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga (Chapters 3-4)
Archival verbatim transcript
[Audio File 1979 0131a Begins]
AD: [Note: First word lost in new REP audio.] --(look/book). And, he had inappropriately one night during a party had explained to me this whole thing. And I listened to it and kept it in mind and now I think it's about time he makes good use of it and gives it to you. So, it was a nice presentation, I think you'll enjoy it. And he'll work it up into a problem that, you know, has practically brought about a revolution in modern physics.
VM (faint): That's right.
AD: Alright. In Chapter 3 he discusses "Religious and Mystic Grades".
S (very faint): Yeah.
[12¾ second pause]
AD: And most of you I'm quite sure are familiar with the reli-- religious grade, I think most of you have an understanding and have turned away from it. Not because it was false but perhaps it wasn't fulfilling enough. He does make a remark, he says--
[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 Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 65, AD reading]: "Such men…"
AD: And he's referring I suppose to the Christ or the Buddha.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 65, AD reading]: "Such men have crossed the orbit of our world-fate but rarely. We need not turn them in imagination into super-human beings, as their followers generally do, yet we have to recognize that a deep destiny has allotted an unusual importance to their personal lives and spoken words."
AD: And I felt that maybe it's necessary to common-- comment on that, all we have to do is look at history. And whenever one of these men do come, there is a degree of new civilization that they give birth to or a different orientation. But, we'd like to get onto what we're interested in and that is the bottom paragraph.
METAPHYSICS VS. PHILOSOPHY
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 65, AD reading]: "[For] the final truths of life were remote and abstract. The belonged to the region of philosophy, which term is not here to be confused with metaphysics. [AD adds: For] The latter has come to mean speculation about truth, whereas philosophy is here meant as the verification of truth. [AD adds: And] Such views could not be brought within the reach of immature minds without first throwing them into solid and concrete form."
AD: Now, let's stop here for a moment and see if we understand the distinction that he's making between what he calls metaphysics and what he calls philosophy, one a speculation about truth and the other the verification about truth. Any-- any suggestions, any comment?
S (faint): Not at all.
[13¼ second pause]
S: Well the verification of truth seems like it would have to be something that came to you not just in a conceptual way but something that you lived through that was involved. I think it would involve a total understanding.
AD: Yes, that's good, alright. Good, let's get going. Go ahead, go ahead.
LDS (simultaneously): Yeah, a lot of what Crystal says, that-- that understanding is a kind of certainty, there's a certainty that's carried with that where with metaphysical speculation you have a-- well, different expressions of let's say truth in different traditions but there's never that certainty within a given expression in terms of metaphysics.
AD: What do you think Alan, you raised your hand?
AB: Well, I was thinking now, it's actually a very-- the fact that truth can be verified is actually a very important statement in terms of most modern Western philosophy which came to kind of a relativism where, you know, anything you could say was relative, you know, and there would be many different points of view which would have a cultural or a historical or political validity. Whereas he seems to be saying here that there is a truth which is objective and inde-- independent from us and that we could actually know something about it through philosophy.
[students assent, very faint]
[9¾ second pause]
S: Also it seems like the speculation about truth would, because of its abstract nature, it would take a man more and more away from himself into these, you know-- so far away from himself, but the verification of truth would bring him closer to himself. Because he (merged) that truth it would be experiencing it.
[short pause]
AD: So if someone says that you have a soul, [S: You could--] it could be verified. Otherwise it's not going to be a--
S: (It's what) we meditate. Whereas metaphysical chatter can just go on and on about it, you know, with all kinds of theories.
AD: I think, I think you have a point, that there is speculation about truth and there is the verification of truth. Yeah, and that, although you may be told a hundred thousand and one times that you have a soul, it's only when it caresses you that you know. So, this is the verification that I think he's referring to, that there is an ultimate reality and that there is personal verification of that reality.
RG: Um, but [AD: Sure.] the fixed-- If the appeal there is to an experience, it seems that the-- that's the critique he brings to the mystic grade, [student assents] that the verification that the mystic would find would be experiential and not rational.
S: To go experience rational things?
RG: Yes but I think in his critique of the mystic grade he would say well, the mystic may or may-- may have an experience of reality and he may-- he may then try to say yes, I've had an experience of reality, but how do you know or how does he know whether he has had it. And I think later on he would call for a verification outside of the experience to justify it.
GA: I think you're mixing feeling and experience up. Experience would include feeling or rational cogitation.
RG: Well, I think PB uses the term experience throughout this-- that chapter in terms of what, you know, a penetration in a-- in a meditative state, it doesn't have to be feeling or I mean it's an experience.
AD: Well let's see, if I follow what you're saying Richard, then-- is that experience itself may not be enough of a criteria.
RG: Yeah, I think that's the point he makes. That-- yeah. That it's reason that is the-- is the verifi-- verifying factor and the difference between speculation and the verification is that philosophy seeks to establish all its premises. And there-- therefore doesn't-- isn't speculating about something but seeing it through reason and not through a logical form. [short pause] Not to say that experience isn't part of that but reason is the arbiter.
S (faint): Yeah, that's a good point.
S: Right.
S: Uh-hm.
LDS: I think there though Richard he's implying this notion of insight that he's going to bring in later for this verification, which seems to be beyond even reason. Ultra mystic experience or something like that.
RG: Yeah, I mean--
LDS: That's the only sense I could make of it too because it can't be just a mystical-- mystical.
[short pause]
RG: Yeah. It's a fine line.
AD: Well let's read on, let's see what else he says. [flipping of pages] Uh--
S (faint): What page is (this/it)?
[21¾ second pause, flipping of pages]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 67, AD reading]: "A religion created by a genuinely wise man was therefore always a significant fable, [AD: he says] a tremendous metaphor, whose ultimate purpose was to direct the thought of the masses towards higher ideas and nobler ideals [AD read: ideal], and whose immediate purpose was to inculcate through the appeal to fear and hope some degree of moral responsibility in their personal lives."
AD: I think you will find that he evaluates religions and-- from a philosophic point of view, certainly not from a point of view of any follower of the religion. And then served the purpose of a-- and still now serves a purpose for people that are at a certain level is obvious. And that to take it away from those who need it (would--) well, it would be quite selfish on the part of those who are more advanced. So-- [short pause] He makes the very significant remark around here that, you know--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," pp. 69-70, AD reading]: "The time will come when doubts about [the] truth and value of religion will insistently enter the mind of the more thoughtful man who may want neither the salvation offered by popular religion nor the annihilation offered by orthodox atheism, for he may find the first tawdry and the second terrible. Where then is he to seek? The hidden philosophy is usually beyond his ken and capacity, besides being very hard to find anywhere. And no man may jump the high hurdle between simple religion and subtle philosophy. The feat is beyond his powers. Life is a growth, not a leap. He has to find an intermediate stage which will be more accessible to him. And this he can find in mysticism, which constitutes the second step upwards [AD reads: upward]."
[short pause]
AD: Now, I'd like you to especially keep in mind no man may jump the high hurdle between simple religion and subtle philosophy.
[short pause]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 70, AD reading]: "Mysticism [AD: he says] is a phenomenon which has appeared in all parts of the world and among all religious communities."
AD: And he won't go into the history of it and he set-- set us out the-- the main-- the main outline. And he asks us also at the same time to keep in mind that he's using the term 'mysticism' to cover both through-- throughout this book, yogas-- the yogis and the word 'mystic' is intended to include the yogi also he (said/says). And he goes on to say that--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 70, AD reading]: "…the word yoga has now become as ambiguous in the land of its birth as the word mysticism is in Europe or America. [short pause]
"We may rightly regard mysticism, with its attempt to penetrate beneath the commonplace surface of religion and its search for internally-born satisfactions [rather] than those derived from external rites, as an inevitable phase of the development of the human mind… [AD: Goes on--] This change-over proceeds by slow but sometimes by sudden development from ordinary theistic worship. It can come [AD adds: about] in three ways. In the first case the seeker becomes disappointed with the actual results of religion or disgusted with the ancient hypocrisies which are practiced in its name, or dissatisfied with theological contradictions and conflicts, or disillusioned by the seeming impotence of God to help a war-stricken world."
AD (aside): Oh, that's enough. (bit of laughter)
S (faint): Yes it is.
S: Go ahead.
AD: And, he goes on and says that--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 71, AD reading]: "…he passes through a period of [chilling] doubt and bleak agnosticism, possibly even militant atheism, where he remains anchorless for a time."
AD: I think most of us are familiar with all of this. We passed through some of these stages.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 71, AD reading]: "It is succeeded, however, if he keeps to his further quest, by the interesting discovery that a small minority of men have found it possible to hold a large view of religion--a view which enables them to stand aside from unsatisfying orthodoxy and its sacerdotal organizations and to come closer to the original atmosphere of a religion. He becomes as interested in studying the literature of such a broad view as he was formerly interested in clinging to the narrower one. Then he hears further that a practical method--mystical contemplation--exists whereby he may experience for himself the beauty and peace of an ever-present divine spirit in which formerly he could believe but never knew. All that is asked of him by those who testify to such experience, is that he should experiment with the prerequisite exercises. [AD adds: And] Such promises are attractive to not a few persons in an age which wants definite results."
[short pause]
AD: And then the other possible change-over--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 71, AD reading]: "…through the intensity, ardour and sincerity of his religious aspiration, leading [AD reads: it may lead] him by degrees from the formal repetition and materialistic petition [of conventional verbal prayer] to the spontaneous silent aspiration which matures gently and of its own accord into inward concentration and quietening [AD reads: quieting] of the mind, i.e., meditation."
S: Yeah.
AD: And then a third--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 72, AD reading]: "The third way in which this change may arise [AD reads: come] is through the coloured gate of appreciative receptivity to beauty, whether man-made as in good music or Nature-made as in green landscapes."
AD: And he mentions these three ways as possible indications, possible ways that the human soul comes to change from within itself.
[short pause]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 73, AD reading]: "[AD adds: Now] The basic principle [AD: he says] of all mystical practice is mental abstraction, which may [AD reads: and it might] be illustrated in two ways. Whoever is"lost" in following intently a train of thought or in full surrender to the fancies of reverie becomes less aware of physical conditions and eventually hardly notices them. Thus the cripple nearly forgets his [AD reads: a] deformity, the pedestrian hardly observes [AD reads: observed] the crowds swirling past him [on the sidewalk], the author is almost oblivious of his domestic surroundings, and so on. Such instances show that consciousness may temporarily free itself from its habitual assumption that it is confined to the immediate limits of the physical brain and body. They are signs indicative of [the] larger possibilities of the mind, when released from its universal and overwhelming gravitation toward the physical senses, a gravitation which prevents it from becoming aware of its own non-material nature and which unconsciously converts physical existence into its life-long prison-house."
AD: Well, now he's talking about mysticism. [9½ second pause] And then-- and then he speaks about the variety of numberless methods used by various mystics and yogis to produce and achieve such a state. [9 second pause] Uh--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 74, AD reading]: "The methods used by yogis and mystics [AD reads: by them] vary greatly but they generally consist of following a prescribed course of rigid physical asceticism or worldly renunciation, together with attempts to induce a certain contemplative mood by disciplining during fixed periods the confused drift of thoughts and impressions which make up man's inner existence [AD reads: experience]. … This [AD reads: The] effort is to be repeated every day and the will must exercise itself to gain control over the external wanderings of the mind, over the restless workings of ideas. It is [AD reads: It's] not easy to do this and many novices become disheartened, for the tide of thought surges and subsides in a rebellious manner. The faculty of attention must be so controlled and so made to recede from externals that a state of complete undisturbed abstraction arises. It must then be held as fixedly as a lizard waiting for its prey. This effort may be linked in imagination with the purely religious notion of finding the presence of God, or it may be linked with the purely psychological notion of finding one's real self, or even with the purely magical one of entering an invisible world. Success…"
PSYCHOLOGY AND IMAGINATION
AD: Sure.
LR: I-- I had a question about the word-- what-- his use of the word 'psychological' in this chapter, what you just read. [student assents, very faint] And I want you to repeat something. Several times in that chapter he uses the word 'purely psychological' [one/two words inaudible] Also in the Wisdom. And I wasn't sure what it meant in that context.
[12½ second pause]
AD: I suspect he's referring here to not the true self the way they would use self, you know, in philosophy, [S, faint: Yeah.] like the Atma or the soul, but the psychological "I" would probably be (a) combination of all kinds of idiosyncrasies. What do you think, Alan, psychological [one word inaudible] referred to?
S (faint): I don't know.
AB: Well, I was thinking it's possibly a little deeper, like that the mystic's trying to go deeper than the-- the normal waking or ego consciousness. But yet he might not realize say what PB would bring about in the Wisdom to show how the Overself is an aspect of the World-Mind and that it's truly impersonal. In other words the mystic is trying to realize the subjective self, which is higher than the waking consciousness but is still not ultimately the Overself.
LR: But the word 'psychological' is linked to [one word inaudible] It's connected with the word 'notion', like the notion of finding one's real self is purely psychological, I thought that's what he was saying. Just as it's a religious notion to find the presence of God, it's a psychological notion of finding one's real self and a magical one to enter an invisible world, I mean I thought those were the three descriptions.
AD: Well do you think that there's a kind of very impersonal evaluation of what the religions may call the presence of God and what the psychologists would call this true self, you think there's a kind of tongue-in-cheek attitude here? [short pause] Like for instance, [LR: Well--] if I'm psychologically orientated and I sit to meditate and I say I'm going to find my true psychological self, I'm going to find out what I'm all about, alright. That's legitimate. But I think it's tongue-in-cheek, you know, I mean how real is that self that you found now? Psychological self is not--
LR: (Different) every day.
AD: Yeah. And with each, you know, spin of the wheel it gets different problems, it has different responses, so that, you know-- I think (that) he's kind of poking fun at it, I mean personally. Yeah, please. [S: Um--] Just go ahead.
S: I still am a little disappointed. [S, faint: Yeah.] When it said, "This effort may be linked in imagination", my thought was that, well we approach meditation, I mean, well we try to control our minds with whatever thought we use, it's still an image in our imagination. [student assents, very faint] I mean you might do it by trying to find out who am I, trying to feel the presence of God there, and so part of the imagination is like still not-- still the one who's [one/two words inaudible]
[student assents, very faint]
AD: So then even our most intense meditation exercises, whether they're coming from the point of view of psychology or they're coming from the point of view of religion, even the most intense and devotedly practice(d) exercises are all in the realm of the imagination. So chances of finding a real self in the imagination are pretty dim. But you might find a psychological real self. (bit of laughter) You might find the presence of God in the imagination, sure. But it's still in the imagination. Yeah that-- that word 'imagination' is very important because even-- even meditation is carried on in the imagination, very-- very few ever get out of the imagination. [short pause] Um--
LR: See there's another place too where he uses the word [one word inaudible]
[short pause]
LR/S(?) (faint): Well what page is it on?
S (faint): (Page 7.)
S (very faint): Yeah.
S (very faint): Uh-hm, yeah.
S: But--
[short pause]
LR: Well that was trippy.
RG: Well on the next page he talks about the psychological advantages that are gotten.
LR: Oh, psychological technique he describes on the next page, right, that's where it was, and he says-- He's talking about the su-- under the "Summary of Mysticism," on the next page. [short pause] That it's "a psychological technique with seeks to establish direct communication with the spirit". [student assents, faint] See what I mean? "Summary of Mysticism" on page 77.
S (simultaneously): Which paragraph?
AD: Uh-huh.
S: Which paragraph?
BS (simultaneously, faint): [couple words inaudible] pages?
S (faint): 77.
BS: Oh.
[short pause]
S (faint): Yes.
S (faint): Yes.
S: Oh.
AD: Yes I see, yeah, go on.
AB: I think it's also used in distinction for the definition we gave of philosophy before which is verification of an objective truth. The mystic's encounter with truth is still his own experience of truth so it would be psychological, in terms of his psyche. It's not a direct apprehension.
AD: Yes.
AB: Well I'm just saying that's one possible meaning of the way he's using 'psychological'.
AD: Well, I see what you mean, you're saying that the use of the word 'psychological' is like an indication that do what we may, you can't jump out of our own skin, that we're always in the psyche, [AB assents] that all our experience or-- are always of the psyche.
AB: Uh-hm, at least with reference to the mystic, with his experience of a self or a God is in terms of the imagery from his own psyche.
S: Yeah.
AD: So meditation, if one does experience the presence of God it might be presence of something in his own psyche.
S (faint): Is--
S: Is what?
RG (simultaneously): Well I don't know, because he's saying as a psychological technique if it seeks to establish direct communication with the spirit through the channel of interior contemplation, I don't-- I don't-- I don't think he's using the term 'psychological' as a hindrance but more of as an approach. [students assent, faint] More as defining the subj-- subject's act of doing something.
S (faint): Quite the answers.
AB: Yeah but, I didn't mean that it was a hindrance but that he seems to distinguish between a philosophic approach and a psychological technique or approach.
S (very faint): Yeah.
S (very faint): Yeah, he really--
RG: Yeah. But in this summary of mysticism he seems to be, you know, using two-- two lines of thought there in terms of replacing the religious image by a formless divinity and as a psychological technique to establish direct contact, almost to say well in religion one doesn't establish direct contact and it's the psychological avenue that allows for that direct contact to happen.
LR: See I-- yeah I suspect that he was using the word in a very technical way, because most of his words are chosen that way, and so-- well that, for the remainder of the book I think it's kind of important to understand what-- what this realm of the psyche is, if he's using psychological in that respect. (That/But) establishing the communication with one's spirit is a psychological technique, then that's a pretty huge-- And I don't think he's trying to put anything down. I just think that's a-- a pretty large way of using the term 'psychological'. Not generally thought of that way.
S: Go on.
AD (simultaneously): Alright, yeah I can see that, it's a kind of--
S: Uh-hm. Go on.
AD: It's very-- it's a very broad conception of psychology he's working with. Almost reminds us of some of the others who speak about the psychic as, you know, objective and subjective and that-- that it has unknown ramifications.
JG: Tony?
AD: Yeah, go right ahead.
JG: He also makes a remark that's way up front where he speaks about his teacher, that he--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "Beyond Yoga," p. 24, JG reading]: "…respected and revered the Maharishee for his unusual attainment in mental quiet, for few others had so successfully ascended that psychological peak…"
JG: And (when) I first read that and it threw me really off because the way one commonly thinks about psychology is-- is something you better want to get around, you know, you don't want get in there, so that it pointed out to me that if he talks of the Maharshi that way and knowing how much he revered him and that certainly he was a Sage, I-- and calling that attainment one (is) a matter of psychological peak, that really put it way, you know, psychological really expanded. I-- I didn't know what-- I don't know what it means but I know it means a lot more than what it says and-- And that was going to the direction of what Linda is saying.
[short pause]
AD: Well if he give it the highest possible interpretation it would amount to-- I-- if I follow your [JG simultaneously: Yeah.] cue, it would amount to saying that Ramana possessed the strength to be able to resist or-- to resist or to overcome the psychical essences that constituted him regardless of how compulsive they may have been or regardless in what area of expe-- of experience they ramified. I-- I still think that would be-- that would be a minor point.
JG: Ok. A minor point?
AD: Yeah because later on I think you'll become aware that notion of liberation is to be free from the compulsiveness of psychical essences and not to-- not to be able to, you know, force them into any mold or to achieve, you know, skillful control of them but really to be free of them. When you feel an inner compulsion to do something and you see the strength and the power of that inner compulsion, and-- and you can stand aside from it, I don't think you're talking about psychological freedom anymore. I think you've gone beyond psychological freedom. But, oh it's alright, you know, we could interpret, we could have a variety of interpretation. [S simultaneously: Yeah.] Sure, go ahead Crystal.
S (simultaneously): Well I just kind of wanted to make a distinction. For instance Alan said, well, everything the mystic experiences is within his psyche or imagination. Ok, say yes to that but-- I mean maybe it filters through his psyche but are we going to deny that something greater has approached him or taken him up into itself? I mean, you know, just because he interprets it psychologically or however, religiously, isn't to deny the-- the objective part of it, right?
S (faint): Right.
AD: Yes, but look at what happened to it.
[student assent, very faint]
VM: Right.
S: Well what his ego does with it or his conceptual framework is one thing. But that's-- there's still a valid experience perhaps.
AD: Oh I'm not denying that it's a valid experience but look at what he did to it. Suppose that there is something outside the imagination or beyond the imagination which wishes to reveal its presence to you and must do so through the imagination, and simultaneously as it does so it gets interpreted for you. Well by the time that experience is watered down to you through the psychological self, one could have some doubts that this is worth going after.
S (faint): Right.
S: But it seems-- this-- the experience that I'm speaking of is that no matter-- you know, in a matter of-- sometimes you're aware of your own interpretation of an experience you've had is almost--
AD: I wouldn't say aware, you suspect. Because the experience that's given to you and your interpretation are simultaneous. It's very rare where you have the momentary insight to see that your interpretation and the experience are two different things. That itself would be equivalent to a satori.
S: Hm, ak-- what--
AD: All-- all we're trying to do Crystal here is, we're not denying the validity that the psychological self can apprehend or experience some sort of presence of God, alright. And if the same person was not religiously orientated he would say he was experiencing the ghost of a former girlfriend or something. (laughter, student words)
S: Religious?
S: Glamorous. Regardless of the (differentness) of his interpretation it seems that the validity-- validity of the experience will show in other ways, maybe in the effects that it will bring about in his life or in a lasting kind of remembrance for many years of that experience. Like regardless of the ego's treatment of that experience there seems to be other effects that follow. And that you can-- maybe you won't yourself fail to see them but maybe even someone else could see them better, I mean--
S: Good.
AD: Alright let's [S simultaneously: Yeah?] grant that, let's grant that, alright, sure.
RG: Well, I can--
AD (simultaneously): But you see how you're still caught up in that-- it's like a treadmill, it's like a squirrel in a cage, you're still caught up in-- in your own psychology.
S: Yeah.
S: Right.
AD: Go ahead-- go ahead Richard, let's lay a discussion.
RG (simultaneously): But-- but when a yog-- a yogi or a mystic has a-- has a satori, I mean his-- if it's-- whatever it is, I mean it's spoken of as his psychology is wiped out for that-- that moment or whatever. It may come back in later, right? But when-- during that experience isn't there a direct contact with something outside of his psychology?
AD: Yes.
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: Yeah. The danger, the danger here is immediately that the psychology of ourselves is like a wake, you know, that follows a boat when it cuts through the water, immediately enfolds our experience and reinterprets it according to its own, [student assents, faint] let's say, presuppositions. And the value of it is really mostly gone. I'm not denying that we do have these experiences in our psychology and that we do think that there's a real psychological self. I still have the feeling here that he's doing it with tongue-in-cheek, you know? Notice how transient these things are, when a person feels the presence of God, when he feels the higher self and he's still caught in the imagination, his own imagination naturally, his imaginal essence. It's gone, you know, before you know it and all you have is a memory, even a sacred memory, but it's a memory now, it no longer holds on. There isn't something of it that's permanent, that's abiding. And that's why I-- that's my interpretation, you know. [JG simultaneously: But (one/two words inaudible)] Yours is just as valid.
JG: Haven't you-- I don't quite know what to make of this. (some laughter)
AD: Huh?
S (amidst laughter): How did she make?
JG: I don't quite-- (student words, some laughter) He's putting us on or what?
S: Yeah.
S: Yeah. (laughter, student words)
AD: No I don't think it's that bad. (laughter) But perhaps when a mystic says that he feels the presence of God, it might not really be what he thinks it is. Because the area of self-deception for him is enormous without philosophic training. One could believe in a lot of things.
JG (simultaneously): Someone once told me-- A person I met in Switzerland some-- told me that he had experienced the Overself at various times. And he's very sincere. He said after a while it became a bore. (laughter) And, he was not-- he didn't know how to go on anymore, you know, he had good visit.
AD: Do I know who you're talk-- speaking about?
JG: Yes. But--
AD (simultaneously): He's a bore. (laughter)
JG (amidst laughter): It's not-- it's not Crystal [one/two words inaudible] (you know)?
AD: Huh?
JG: (Alec) Larson who corresponded--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah I know he's-- [S simultaneously: He's religious?] he's really quite uninformed. (bit of laughter) I'm being polite.
S: Who was all (who/here)?
JG: Yeah. (laughter)
AD: If I could I could say something else and-- [few seconds of background student talking] But he-- he too is one of these superior enlightened beings, bodhisattvas really, that come from a higher plane of existence. (laughter, student words) Actually philosophically he-- philosophically he was really naïve.
S: Wasn't he reported to be the most advanced mystic in Egypt or something?
AD: Well--
JG/S(?): I don't think (so).
S (simultaneously): I'm (5'3").
AD (simultaneously): Mystics [one/two words inaudible] into all kinds of problems.
JG: No I don't know who we were talking about. (laughter)
AD: I think I know who you're referring to. (laughter)
S: Who?
S: Who? (laughter)
[few seconds of laughter, background student talking]
AD: Well let's-- let's read about it.
GA: Anthony? Wasn't the purpose of this section really twofold? If he were speaking like (some) of his previous books, he would really be taking a very different point of view. But here he's objectively speaking about the benefits of mysticism as well as keeping a philosophic point of view and constantly reminding you of its limitation(s).
S: Uh-huh.
AD: That's a very sensible comment. (laughter, student words) Uh--
RG: He can talk first.
AD: Go ahead. Look, it's a nice (kind of) conversation but it's not going to last very long.
LR: I know. (bit of laughter)
AD: Two more weeks, three more weeks. Then we start throwing erasers at each other. (laughter) Go ahead.
LR: Alright, maybe we should just go on with the paragraph.
S (faint): [couple words inaudible] paragraph. (laughter)
LR: I mean that's [S simultaneously: (couple words inaudible) confirm.] all I can say [few words inaudible] (LR laughs, some laughter)
RG: Well let's go on. Let's read it.
AD: Alright, let's read this paragraph, he says--
MYSTIC EXPERIENCE
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 75, AD reading]: "There are certain fugitive and subjective accompaniments of the mystic experience. The religious devotee may see visions of [environing] light, or of the beloved"Spiritual Guide"--whether living or long dead… Other practitioners may fancy themselves floating outside the body or conversing with spirits or receiving commands [AD reads: command] from some angelic being. Although such mental phenomena differ so greatly there are certain factors common to most advanced mystic experiences, such as (a) feelings of serene delight, [of] blessed calm; (b) sensations of the remoteness of physical surroundings; and at rarer intervals (c) ecstatic exaltation above [bodily and personal existence]."
(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1979 0131a Ends; Side 2 Begins)
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 75, AD reading]: "…at an end, that he has entered into union with God or found his own immortal soul. The subtle exquisiteness of this state can only be appreciated by those who have actualized it [in their own being]. Nevertheless the vital sap which feeds the tree of mysticism is drawn up from its roots in feeling alone."
[students assent, faint]
[short pause]
AD: And he goes on to say of course that there are benefits to be derive-- derived from successful practice.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 75, AD reading]: "It would appear [AD: he says] that the curse of Babel came upon men when they first began to think. Their minds are now normally in a state of such continuous motion that the power to rest them adequately has been lost. When the brain is weary of its never-ending thoughts and the heart is tired of its ever-changing moods, when the world tires both and nerves are frayed, our great need of mental rest and inward peace is manifest…"
[short pause]
AD: He goes on and he speaks about this mental quiet was a technique which--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 76, AD reading]: "…was discovered thousands of years ago, yet [AD reads: and it] holds just as true today in this era of mechanical marvels… It still shows man how to let his faculty of attention work for him, and not against him.
"These psychological advantages have nothing to do with the religious side of meditation, although most mystics would deny such a statement. They cannot but do otherwise because their approach is pre-judged, biased and unscientific. Nevertheless the impartial investigator may find for himself that meditation may be practised even by an atheist, let alone an agnostic, and yet the same benefits may be obtained!"
AD: Now what do you do with that?
[short pause]
AH: That kind of puts the earlier discussion in some kind of perspective. He's saying this-- one's personal belief or one's psychology really has very little to do with [short pause] this-- the practice of meditation, or let's say the goal of meditation. The practice may be wrapped up with opinions and preferences but the goal of meditation has very little to do with whether or not one believes or doesn't believe.
[student assents, faint]
AD: So he can go on practicing these things, alright, and in either case the wise thing to be-- would be not to have any opinions about what's going on. I agree with that. Have no opinions…when you're meditating. They're useless. [11 second pause] Uh--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 77, AD reading]: "Such is the second degree in man's ascension to truth. Mysticism might be cryptically described as a mode of life which claims…to bring us nearer to Him [AD reads: God] than do ordinary religious methods; as a view of life which rejects [AD reads: and it rejects] the all-too-human [AD adds: view of] God…"
AD: Then he summarizes a few points that the mystics have in common.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 77, AD reading]: "Mystics hold first that [AD reads: They hold that first] God is not to be located in any particular place, church or temple but that His spirit is everywhere present in Nature and that Nature everywhere abides in it. … Pantheism is therefore the initial note to be sounded. Right thought hallows a place or makes it profane, and real sacredness dwells within the mind alone. Next they hold that…God abides inside the heart of every man as the sun abides in all its myriad rays. He is not merely a physical body alone, as materialists believe, nor a body plus a ghost-like soul which emanates from it after death, [as religionists believe], but he is here and now divine in the very flesh. The heavenly kingdom must be found whilst [AD reads: while] we are [yet] alive, or not at all."
[12½ second pause]
S: Anthony?
AD: Go on.
S: It wasn't clear to me in this paragraph and on the next-- also in this paragraph if he's making a distinction between God and God's spirit. He talks about--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 77, S reading]: "…God is not to be located in any particular place…but [that] His spirit is everywhere present in Nature…"
S: And further down it says-- and then he talks directly, it says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 77, S reading]: "…God abides inside the heart of every man…"
S: And then further he has-- says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," pp. 77-78, S reading]: "…contemplation and meditation with the spirit of God…"
S: Yeah.
S: I couldn't really see if-- if he was making a distinction or not.
[short pause]
AD: You want me to tell you what he's saying, right? (bit of laughter) Why don't you do it?
LR: What-- (some laughter)
AD: Well, what he says is correct, absolutely correct. (bit of laughter)
[students assent, faint]
S: But what is it that he's saying?
AD: Well, read it very carefully and you tell me. [couple/three words inaudible] reading or something?
S: Well, it seemed, I mean, in this quote he's talking about it as God's spirit which is everywhere in Nature and then in the third one also a communion with the spirit of God. But the second one threw me off because he-- he doesn't talk about God's spirit, he just talks about God, the God inside the heart of every man. So then I thought well, it-- there's some distinction here being used that I-- I don't quite understand it or see it.
S: But what is it?
RG: Good.
AD: I'm sorry? Does anyone want to help her? Because I won't.
LR/S(?): I think he's really just talking about if you split more time.
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
S (very faint): Yeah.
RG: Why not?
RG/S(?): He won't help.
[9¼ second pause]
AD: Well nobody wants to help you, I'm afraid that's-- we go on.
RG: Wait a minute, wait a minute.
S: No.
S (very faint): Yeah, that's too bad.
[short pause, bit of laughter]
S (possibly part of background): Yeah?
S: Maybe there's a clue in the rest of that sentence, it says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 77, S reading]: "…God abides inside the heart of every man as the sun abides in all its myriad rays."
S: It's description of a process by which this abiding takes place. Thus you used another rough analogy. The sun is God and the-- the rays are what he-- in that-- the other sentence calls it the spirit, the presence. It's not saying that God as God abi-- abides in the heart of every man but-- Well it does it in the same way that the sun abides in all its myriad rays.
S: Yeah.
RG(?): Wait Alan.
S (very faint): [couple words inaudible]
AD: Any more comments, uh-- uh--
AB (faint): Go ahead.
LR: Richard, that doesn't make any sense.
S (faint): [three/few words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Sure it does.
S (faint): Yeah it (sure) does.
RG (simultaneously): Yeah it does, it's a good point.
LR/S(?) (simultaneously): You know, when you say-- wait-- now wait a minute.
S (faint): You know how hard it is (to answer). (bit of laughter)
LR/S(?): Say it again, (Tina). (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): Hit the instant replay on that one.
VM: Oh. No, it's just a [couple/three words inaudible] (RG laughing)
S (faint): Go ahead.
S: The second part [S simultaneously, faint: Let me try.] of that sentence--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 77, S reading]: "…God abides inside the heart of every man as the sun abides in all its myriad rays."
S: Instead of a-- it's a double-- it's a parallel construction in each part of that sentence. God abides inside your heart just as the sun abides in each of its rays, you're a ray of--
S: Oh ok, [S, faint: Oh.] I didn't-- ok, I misunderstood the meaning.
S (simultaneously): I mean, we're introducing new terminology in World-Mind, Overself and I'm not sure [couple words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Ok, yeah, that I knew. I just misunderstood what you said.
S (very faint): Yeah.
S: It may still be wrong.
S (faint): (Uh-hm.)
RG: Oh but then are you saying that that relates to the term "sprit of God" later on? [S: Um--] And that's why he uses the term "spirit of God" there and that relates to that description you just gave? [S: Um--] That it's the spirit of God as the ray that-- that the commu-- the union is with rather than God?
S: It's got to begin there at least. You can't get to that sun without the ray of it.
S: Ok.
AB (faint): Ok.
S: You can't get to know about God with a capital G as it actually is without first knowing the immediate presence within you, yourself.
S: Is there a distinction between God and his spirit, have we made a distinction here?
AD: Well I think Richard made a nice distinction, right?
RG (simultaneously): Yeah, good.
[student assents, very faint]
MB: Also in the-- in the first sentence that they're talking about there was a spatial-- a use of the spatialization going on. We're talking about the existence of quote "God" in space and he uses the term "the spirit of God"-- mystics call it the spirit of God and-- is everywhere, not necessarily that God is everywhere. That (doesn't necessarily) refer to space of God in one of these(--) sentence.
[short pause]
S: Nature's also God.
AD: Well--
LR(?): (Or/Where) is it?
AD: Yeah. Yeah, probably refers to the universal Life.
S (faint): Yeah.
S: I don't know, maybe this is too simplistic but isn't there something special about the heart. No?
AD (quietly): Yes.
S: Well, that's the one sentence where you can make the distinction between spirit of God and God.
[short pause]
AD: Well I couldn't hear your last remark.
S: Well, Christina brought in full examples, you know [couple words inaudible] when he used the word 'God' instead of "spirit of God" and he used it in conjunction with the word "the heart of man" and I was thinking maybe he's saying something to us because isn't there something special about the heart of man. Maybe why-- that's why he used it, I don't know.
[short pause]
AD: Well what is he saying is special?
S: Well, Ramana says in his books that the heart is the seat of God and I'm not exactly sure but there's something symbolic of-- of the heart. And that's the seat of the self.
[22½ second pause]
AD: Well, it's good to know, let's go on. (bit of laughter)
S: Is it wrong?
AD: No, I didn't say it was wrong.
LDS: Of course.
AD: Go ahead.
LDS: This discussion sounds similar to like what we've talked about in Greek class with the One and Being and also in Meister Eckhart who speaks of the Godhead as distinguished from his Son and the Holy Ghost. And he speaks of-- it seems like PB's speaking here of the God as a-- as a metaphysical absolute.
AD: Yeah well, that's why I wanted to go on, I mean, I didn't think that this would be the place. You know, it's just mildly referred to. And we're going to o-- expand this into a-- a whole commentary. (some laughter, student words) Let's go on with more of the summary.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 78, AD reading]: "Silent aspiration [thus] replaces mechanical recitation. The fourth tenet is as obnoxious to official religion as the last, for it declares that the stories, events, incidents and sayings, which in their totality constitute a holy scripture, are merely a mixture [AD reads: mix] of imagined allegories and actual happenings, a literary concoction whereby mystical truths are cleverly conveyed through the medium of symbolic myth, legendary personification and true historic fact; [AD adds: and] that the twentieth century indeed could quite justifiably write its new Bibles, its new Qurans, its new Vedas afresh if it wished… Mystics hold, fifthly, [AD adds: And finally the mystics hold] that their practices ultimately lead to the development of supernormal faculties and extraordinary mental powers or even strange physical ones, either as the gift of God's grace or as the consequence of their own efforts.
"[AD adds: Now] It will be plain that when mystical ecstasy is strong it must logically lead a man to regard himself as a bearer of divinity and in extreme cases as Deity itself. Thus a renowned Muhammedan Sufi mystic explained to the astonished people of Baghdad…"I am God!" Unfortunately the Caliph thought otherwise (laughter) and punished his impiety with Neronian tortures…"
S (amidst laughter): Yeah.
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: Alright.
S (faint): Somehow.
AD: Now-- If you must say it, say it under your breath. (laughter) [short pause with faint background student talking] Any-- any remarks on these passages that we quickly and briefly-- [12¼ second pause] Alright then.
THE LIMITS OF MYSTICISM
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 81, AD reading]: "Thus will the seeker one day arrive at the wall which limits the range of mysticism. He will see that whatever good it can do, there is much that it cannot do yet wrongly claims to do. He will see further that the social value of historic mysticism is as little as its individual value is great and therefore it cannot constitute a complete solution of the problem of human existence, or offer a complete panacea for the malady of human suffering. He will turn in disgust or disillusionment from the veiled exploitation of their [AD reads: its] followers' ignorance… [AD: Going on.] He will ask why it is that such harmful charlatanries and gross superstitions have clouded the sky of mysticism's history."
AD: And if you want to read an interesting history read the history of mysticism. You know, like for instance the history of utopian movements, something like that, you know. (bit of laughter)
RG: Why does that have to do with mysticism?
S: Yeah.
AB: Because if mysticism is essentially subjective then you must look to the mystic for the source of, you know, the truth, because he's the one that's experiencing it and you're not.
RG (simultaneously): No, what does that have to do with utopian movements?
AD: Hm?
RG: What does that have to do with utopian movements?
AD: Oh no I-- [S simultaneously: It's just an analogy.] I thought of utopian movement because most of them were sta-- you know, started by mystics.
RG: Oh, right.
AD: You know, and-- [short pause] But I think the point that Alan was making was quite appropriate, that you have to look up to them as (they're/their) authorities. And they would not subject themselves to the discipline of reason.
[short pause]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," pp. 81-82, AD reading]: "There is something lacking in it. [AD: And he's referring here to mysticism.] That missing element is precisely the same as the missing element in religion. The one makes its direct appeal to emotional faith; the other to emotional experience. Neither makes an appeal to the criterion of [AD adds: the] highest truth. Both lack a rational foundation and even glory in their [AD reads: this] lack. For him who breathes the rarefied atmosphere of truth no charlatanry, no superstition and no exploitation can ever be possible. He will not permit self-deception to touch him and will certainly never knowingly deceive others. The variations and contradictions of mystical experience necessarily indicate that ultimate truth must lie beyond its province. For there must be one such truth of life, not two or more. The ethical failures of mystics and occultists must be attributed to their personal failures to discover and realize this supreme truth, and to their dependence on an unstable and uncertain source of inspiration, viz., feeling, which is notoriously changeable no matter how exalted it becomes temporarily by contemplation. Their intellectual difficulties are the logical result of their disdain of logic and of their inner opposition to tested rational processes in preference to debatable intuitive ones. It is clear that he who seeks the highest must one day make up his mind to travel farther than mysticism, however useful and necessary a stage of his onward journey it has been, and must always remain [AD repeats with emphasis: always remain]."
EC: Anthony?
AD: Yes, please.
EC: There are some exceptions to that, like a Ramana, he didn't-- he didn't-- I guess a philosophic mystic, he didn't ever formally study philosophy but he was more than a mystic in the sense that PB's talking about.
AD: Well wouldn't you-- will you assume that, what you know of him, assuming, you know, that you read his life and are acquainted with it, wouldn't you assume that he went through all that training, that he already had it all?
EC: Oh yes but I-- that's what I'm saying. But we're talking about this particular life and that man-- this man, this life, the formal-- there are exceptions in this life like a Ramana that they don't need any formal training or study to be a philosophic mystic.
AD: I remember in one of the conversations that Ramana was having with the English gentleman, Captain-- I forgot his name.
S: Chadwick?
S: Uh-hm.
S: Chadwick?
AD: Chadwick, [S: Major.] yeah, who-- Chadwick had made the remark, well you know, why am I putting myself through all this rational discourse and understanding? He says after all, you know, it's really all unnecessary when you're liberated. And Ramana told him, "You go right ahead and go on putting it-- putting yourself through the paces and when you get liberated, then you won't have to worry about it but for now you got to go through with it." So the-- I assumed automatically that Ramana meant that everyone goes through this who reaches that level. And it may be in this particular life it didn't seem as though he was familiar with it, but, you know, when you read his commentaries for instance in the-- on the Tripura, you're amazed at the strength and the depth of penetration of his understanding, someone who never studied the Tripura, no? [Note: See Swami Ramanananda Saraswati (tr.), Tripura Rahasya.] So I'm inclined to say they've gone through it. And it's like-- it's like vasanas, all those studies, they're like vasanas. They constitute this natural understanding. I don't know, you-- remember Sunday when we were looking at these films, I think there was one film, Sid, that was really-- to me it was really worth the whole show. There was this little child that was held up-- [AD claps once] [students assent] You know? (bit of laughter) A little child, you know, it's so spontaneous, adoration, veneration. Well, I'd hate to count how many lives it took to bring us to that.
S: Yeah.
S (faint): Yeah.
S: But [few words inaudible] (not really). Ramana isn't really the mystic that we're speaking of here, I mean, it seems there's a slant in this book and that a certain point is made to certain readers.
AD: I think you have to recall that PB had criticized himself for making these remarks.
S: Ok, just say that it's-- that for people who--
S (faint): [couple/three words inaudible]
AD: I'm sorry, would you repeat that louder? (bit of laughter)
S: I just wanted to hear it said.
AD: Oh, Ramana is not a mystic.
S: No.
S: Ok. (bit of laughter)
AD: Of course not. PB even referred to him as one or two of the great Mahatmas that we've had. And I think Ramana and the Dalai Lama is the only pictures he has in his file. And, Shankara on the wall. (some laughter)
S: What?
S: What?
AD: That's it, you know. I mean that's how many Mahatmas that are-- he says that are [one word inaudible] But he does point out something here that's very important, now, remember we're coming from the point of view of a mystic. You're not coming from the point of view of a philosopher, alright. And by philosopher here is like he has said previously someone who has verified the truth. So we're coming from the point of view of a mystic and there are shortcomings in mysticism. Let me recommend that you take a trip to a bookstore where they sell books on mysticism. (laughter)
MW: Where?
AD: And every book (laughter) will be the ultimate-- the ultimate dogma and the ultimate annunciation of truth, you know, every book written by a mystic. [10 second pause] How about this here--
OUTGROWING MYSTICISM
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 82, AD reading]: "The inability to obtain satisfactory and convincing answers to such questions as fullness of experience and love of knowledge will eventually arouse must lead the thoughtful enquiring mystic who has not settled down into [AD adds: a] smug self-laudation or conservative quiescence, to a wilderness where he will walk in lonely bafflement for a time, just as once he may have walked into [AD reads: in] the wilderness of doubt, despair and scepticism when he emerged from the self-contradictions of [AD reads: and] dogmatic religion."
AD: Now I know most of us are of the opinion that when we get to that mystical state where we have and go through the experiences of mysticism, where our soul is lifted up and as a flame, you know, it adores and worships God and goes through months of this and then it comes back and it has to settle for the ordinary life. And this you're going to find one of the most gruesome, cruel, grueling aspects of this whole development that you go through. And if a phil-- if a philosopher does not come in and step in, you're in for a real rough time. I recommend Saint John, you know, of the Cross, the Dark Night of the Soul. Most mystics know about this. And most of them don't learn. It is the most difficult thing of all, once you have been blown up to such, you know, proportions, to come down and settle down and accept the fact that you're a human being again. It's almost impossible. It's better to stay insane and go on thinking you're God. (bit of laughter) [short pause] Alright, going on.
S (faint): [one word inaudible] (fortune type of thing).
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 82, AD reading]: "The operation of reversing gear, from surrender to mystical feeling to sharp self-criticism by reason, for a man who has driven for years in the former, is neither easy nor quick to make. Some time-lag will be needed for its accomplishment and the principle of gradualness will hold good here."
AD: And I-- I think many of us are acquainted with the fact, I know I am, that when someone has mystical experience I just back away. How can you tell God anything? I have to wait, you know. [one/two words inaudible] takes over, congeals into a nice solid mass of black dirty iron, then I can talk to him. (laughter)
[short pause]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," pp. 82-83, AD reading]: "Yet the frontier will remain closed to him unless he perseveres with his [AD reads: a] solitary journey and refuse to be held back by old habit or other opinion. The courage which is required from him now is not less than [that] which he needed in that [AD reads: the] earlier momentous escape from religion or agnosticism to mysticism."
AD: So, here we're beginning to get a picture of a real life process is-- it's a extraordinarily vivid life process that, when you go through the second grade of mysticism, there's no-- I mean there's no markers, you know, I mean it-- you aren't given like, you know, a (valet) which tells you you will go through this experience for two days, next time another experience for one week, a month later you will go through it and then you will be graduated and you're all finished. It doesn't work like that. They-- there are different phases and they happen discordantly, you know, they-- there's no ordered succession of experience of it, you know. So, you may find yourself in heaven one day and the other place another day. Yet-- yet when all is said and done, probably the most agonizing aspect about it all is that it's always in terms of your feelings that you understand. You don't understand with anything else. It's your feelings that say well I had the presence of God or I experienced the presence of God. And, if you're self-critical, you're a little cautious about what your feelings say because most of us already know how often our feelings have been wrong. So we can't take that as a guarantee. Alright, so he goes on, the mystic--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 83, AD reading]: "The elementary position of all religious and mystical systems becomes clear, therefore, when they are co-ordinated in the larger conceptions of philosophy. Whatever of truth they contain is but the symbolic translation of subtle philosophic tenets. The pious confections of a humanized God afford useful pabulum for common folk; the peaceful reveries of meditation are benedictions to more evolved minds; but to both of these classes the caviar-like food of a moral, emotional or intellectual elite is inevitably cold and unattractive."
AD: At the bottom of a previous page, he-- he quotes the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral saying publicly something like this.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," pp. 80-81, AD reading]: "…"As for repudiating obsolete dogmas, it is very difficult. We have no right to offend these little ones that believe. . . . It is perfectly hopeless to try to compose a creed which will satisfy both a learned scholar and his kitchenmaid.""
AD: So-- We go on.
[short pause]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 83, AD reading]: "So the mystic whose motto is"Excelsior!" must suffer and struggle, even amidst the frequent if fitful interludes of contemplative peace [which he has now attained]. The moment will arrive when he will stand at the very gate of the frontier itself. A few more paces and he may stride across it. Beyond lies a new land, vastly mysterious and hardly trodden. It is the region of the third degree, the empire of the supreme wisdom open to man. Yet he will not know how close he is to it unless a guide now appears to make the revelation and to escort him farther. The guide may be an ancient one and [AD adds: so] speak to him across the generations… Or he may be a living one to speak to him face to face. The first is a chart which may take him slowly some of the way while the second will take him quicker and farther. But once the new journey has begun and the frontier lies behind him, he will never again know the meaning of complacent rest or selfish ease."
AD: We have Tuesday and Thursday off, we could put a class in. (laughter)
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Religious and Mystic Grades," p. 83, AD reading]: "For the new acolyte of the Absolute must now struggle incessantly, first towards his own final position [and] then for the beneficent liberation of others, under the authoritative command of a superior power--TRUTH!"
AD: Well we want to go through these things quickly because I think you'll enjoy them much more when you read them by yourself. This is very enjoyable reading, I mean there's nothing here that you really can-- But we could discuss it, you know, in a friendly way, do you have any questions or any comments? I'd like to hear your comments. What do you think? You know, do you think? Let me hear it.
S (simultaneously): Uh-huh. (bit of laughter)
S: Tower of Babel.
AD: Hm?
AB: If you think it's the Tower of Babel like [one word inaudible] (some laughter)
JC: I'd like to ask, in this discussion of mysticism here, do you think he's primarily limiting it to the function of the imagination, the purification of the imagination, and that's why he refers it as the--
AD (simultaneously): Oh no, not at all.
JC: --remaining on the level of feeling?
AD: No, not at all.
JC: So you say--
AD (simultaneously): No, you can't-- it's not a legitimate thing to restrict mystical experience to [JC simultaneously: Just--] only what's in the imagination.
JC: Right. Ok.
AD: Because it's even more difficult when you're out of the imagination. (AD laughing) And more likely to be misinterpreted.
JC: So, you-- would you say he's including the experience of psychic essences outside of the imagination in this as well?
AD (simultaneously): Oh yes, sure. Mystical experience goes quite high, quite far. It includes a tremendous experience of that-- to speak about. I really--
[short pause]
JC: Well, I would ask then, if a mystic can penetrate to that level, I don't understand the value of a-- a conceptual self-criticism of one's experiences. I think if he-- if he had penetrated beyond imagination, I don't understand how experience of the psychic essences wouldn't deliver immediately an understanding(--/.)
AD (simultaneously): Well mystical experience goes beyond psychic essences, alright? Now, if they go beyond psychic essences and let's say they go into realms that we can't even think about, you know, you would say-- you would assume automatically therefore that they are understood.
JC: No, I would think that the understanding would be delivered with the experience.
AD: Well, why do you think so?
JC: Well, from our studies we've talked about the reason of rational they-- region of rational cogitation, like on the divided line, spent time on that. And I would think that an actual contact at that level which is beyond the imagination would deliver the understanding of what was being experienced. [short pause] Because knowledge is supposed to be one with-- you know, those principles are supposed to be causally productive as well as knowing, knowing what they're doing in the very doing. So that's why I would have thought that a-- a contact at that level would deliver knowledge with the experience and--
MW: Jeffrey?
JC: Yes?
MW: Maybe-- maybe the point here is that-- maybe that experience of let's say experiencing dianoia or whatever, the experience itself may have that real knowledge in it but like Tony was saying well the interpretation of that experience, it's like how much of it you kind of retain in your-- you know, your more ordinary self is where the misinterpretations come.
JC: Ok, I can see that.
MW: Who knows?
JC: You're s-- and that's a purification of the imagination basically, right? The lower components of the personality.
AD (simultaneously): Well, Jeff, very simply wouldn't you say that if you graduated and-- out of this world and you went to another world that you would be like a newborn babe in the other world? Perhaps a very old one here but like new in the other one. And you have [JC assents] to go through, you know, a whole phase of understanding and orientation. You know, even like Ramana when he had this liberating experiences and for years, it took him three, four years just to be able to-- be able to integrate the outer and the inner. [S: Yeah.] It took him three to four years, imagine what it would take any one of us. And after assuming that that's possible, and that he's capable of functioning on other planes of existence he would have to get acquainted and find his way over there. [student assents, faint] He's not born into it with a complete knowledge of what's going on. [short pause] I think you have the idea that once you're released from the imagination or (you've confronting) beyond the imagination that automatically all knowledge is yours.
JC: Whatever you would know, you know, whatever aspect of that--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, but everything that you know is related to the Earth that you left behind and-- (AD laughing) [S: Well--] [S: Yeah.] and you're in another place.
JC: Right. Well, I could see what you're saying, also I could see what Michael was saying about if you had to-- you know, you had that experience and then you're back in the physical consciousness, to translate those experiences and try to, you know-- it would take a long time for them to transform your everyday life as well.
AD: I think you notice also that very often when they do go through that, what we'd call the Jivanmukti, you know, you'll notice that most of them, oh, for about six, seven years disappear. Are you aware of them?
JC: Yes [couple words inaudible]
PHILOSOPHY AND THE CONSCIOUS QUEST FOR TRUTH
AD (simultaneously): Well I guess it takes them a little time to get familiar with it too. [short pause] The journey to infinity starts, yes, that's true. Of course the way it's being written here it sounds like it would be the end once we get out. But later on I think you'll see that it's the beginning of the journey. What we call our goal is the beginning of the journey. [short pause]
Let's-- let's read on, the next chapter, "The Hidden Philosophy of India". Now of course-- well, there's always been this notion that there are men or a group of men and that there is a true knowledge, a knowledge, a secret knowledge which these men that appear at various times, you know, in history, like subterranean group of people, every now and then they pop up and then they disappear. But, let's say the Rosicrucians appear about fourteenth century for a few years and then all of a sudden they disappear. And there's a flood of literature and there's all kinds of Rosicrucian societies (AD laughing) but they're gone. This has happened again and again. So, there arises the suspicion that there are such people who do know what's going on, and that they do have something about the truth, and that they do not give it out willingly to anyone, except that he proves himself over a period and a long period of time. And he refers to this as the hidden philosophy of India. [short pause] Let's look at it, um-- The very second page he says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 86, AD reading]: "[But] let nobody think that philosophy is something to be chosen by a man when it so pleases him; on the contrary, it chooses him!"
[58¾ second pause, flipping of pages]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," pp. 87-88, AD reading]: "[Thus] we arrive at the little-known truth that the ordinary man's criticism that philosophical reflection is utterly useless and that the points at issue with which philosophers struggle are meaningless and trivial [AD adds: this] is itself the outcome of philosophical [AD reads: philosophic] reflection! He is using the same method which the philosophers use, albeit crudely. The barrenness of practical results and the lack of settled conclusions of which he complains in philosophy are partly due to the fact that philosophers are much more cautious in approach, much less hasty in procedure, much more clear-seeing in mentality to be willing to arrive at the premature judgments which please him. Even the very wording of his own criticism itself constitutes a conclusion reached by generalized logical thinking upon given facts--which is precisely the method used by philosophy. …
"It is an oft-heard plaint [AD reads: And another often heard complaint is] that philosophy will not fill the kitchen larder." (bit of laughter)
S: What?
AD: This is a universal complaint. (laughter)
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 88, AD reading]: "People nowadays say,"Let us put our economic house in order, or our political house in order, and then we shall have time to philosophize." The old Romans said very much the same thing in their proverb: "First one must live, then one may philosophize.""
AD: But by that time he's dead. (laughter, student words)
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 88, AD reading]: "Every man is perfectly free, therefore, to ignore the stupendous problem which life silently sets [him] and nobody will care to reproach him for neglecting it. [AD adds: And] Twentieth-century existence is difficult enough…"
AD: Without getting into philosophy. I'm sorry I'm not reading it, somebody else read. (AD laughing, laughter, student words) I like the next paragraph where he says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 89, AD reading]: "The particular plaint that it is easier for a rich man to indulge in this study than a poor man, and for a free man than an enslaved one, is certainly true. But the law of compensation starts working here and renders it easier for a poor man to practise philosophy than for a rich one!" (laughter)
AD: I really like that one. (laughter) That encouraged me greatly.
MW: Yeah. (laughter)
[11¾ second pause, flipping of pages]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," pp. 89-90, AD reading]: "If none of us then can escape being a philosopher, why should it seem a puerile request to ask that [AD reads: what] we learn to philosophize correctly, consciously, systematically and with open eyes instead of faultily, sleepily and blindly; in short, to be a real philosopher and not a drifting fool? Our endeavour to deny the supremacy of such generalized directed thought by ignoring it will always be in vain. It cannot be a stupid nor a useless pursuit, but rather an indispensable one which would have us lift the whole of our life-activity from the level of groping effort to that of a deliberate one. Life presents us with its own educational curriculum in the shape of painful and pleasurable experiences, but the conscious quest of [AD read: for] truth is an item which we must ourselves insert."
[short pause]
AD: Go ahead, yeah.
S: Tony? When you say that the-- "the conscious quest of truth is an item which we must ourselves insert", and then before you put--
[Audio File 1979 0131a Ends]
[Audio File 1979 0131b Begins]
AD: --talking philosophy. They say next time it comes around knocking, I'll [student assents] open. [short pause] You-- [S: Yeah.] you don't see the point?
S: No I do but--
AD: Oh. (bit of laughter)
S: It's-- is it that deliberate-- the deliberate effort [AD: Oh yeah.] that he speaks about, that that is what--
AD: Yeah you--
S: That's what we can do.
AD: Many people came here from Timbuktu. (laughter) They say "What am I doing here?" Then when they found out they said "Let me get out of here." (laughter) Some try to find other reasons why you should be here. Those come too. But sooner or later you-- you come to a point where you see that you actually must insert this very conscious and deliberate will into the whole procedure. It's not going to happen haphazardly. Only in the beginning you're given that encouragement, you know, you have the enthusiasm, you're inflated, you're on the Quest, big deal. (bit of laughter) "God is going to be so pleased." (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): Well if (it) overwhelmed, let me help you. (more laughter, student words)
AD: Then that begins to wear off, you know. And then you're faced with your ugly self all over again. (some laughter) Not the ugly American, the ugly self, that part of you that says "No, I don't want to-- I don't want to have anything to do with this." And the other part of you of course disagrees, the very part that brought you here. And then the inevitable conflict takes places. And PB makes it very clear in a few of his writings that there's no way out of this except through a struggle. No one, except an avatar, and that excludes all of us, no one is excluded from this conflict, the struggle for the Overs-- through the lower self is something that each one must go through. And you remember last week we were speaking about don't expect and wait for this glorious revolution to take place inside of you and it will seize the control over your government and then you'll be able to study without resistance (laughter) and everything will ju-- It never will happen, you remember we spoke about that? (bit of laughter)
S (faint): Yeah.
S (faint): Oh yeah.
S (faint): (So--)
S (simultaneously): But you-- you've said before that it's very often that you can-- you can actually have an experience and not know it, that--
AD: Well not understand it.
S: Not understand it.
AD: Not understand it.
S: And, could that be--
AD: If you say that you had the experience, then you know.
S (simultaneously): No alright. Yeah but-- (bit of laughter)
S (faint): You know.
S: Right. (S laughs)
AD: Alright. (laughter)
S: Ok but-- Right but the-- if you're with a Sage, obviously something is--
AD: Well the Sage doesn't have an experience.
S: No, no, but I mean when you're in the presence of a Sage or something, very often like he's like doing something to you, like a lot of stuff being changed inside that you don't necessarily have any understanding-- understanding of and like you said it may take years for that [AD: Yeah.] understanding to come and maybe-- maybe it won't, is that-- is that related in some way to philosophy choosing you? I mean some way you really-- you're given a spark and the unfoldment of it, you sort of have a choice in whether you follow it through. But that initial spark is--
AD: I would be inclined to say that you earned it through past efforts, you earned the right to come into contact with a Sage. But it's also well-known fact that you can reach even the summit of Being and slide all the way down too. [S, faint: Right.] So, the efforts you've done on-- you've done in the past, I mean don't rest on your laurels…but go on. And most people have that habit of making what is, you know, a rest area, you know, you stop temporarily, (laughter) you can't make it a home. (AD laughing, laughter)
DR (amidst laughter): (Uh-hm), they-- they think they're home.
AD: They don't want to move anymore. Well, sometimes of course they're entitled to do so, maybe earned the right to do so. But I like that part and makes a lot of sense, "the conscious quest of truth is an item which we ourselves must insert". After all if you do want to drive your own vehicle, your car, if you do want to take conscious control and have something to say about your evolution then you have to step in. And the refusal to do so is like to, yes, advance, but like in the slow way that the mass or the races of mankind will. Eventually in the fullness of time they'll reach that culmination too. [S: Yeah.] But how many times you want to get burned?
S: Yes, that means kind of this is emphasized, that when it says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 90, S reading]: "The thoughts that are habitual lead to their consequences in action."
S: It's like, you know, every day you have these thoughts that if (I had it) you follow and let-- and let run their course, and it's like the conscious aspect of this quest is to insert itself in this [one word inaudible] problem [AD: Uh-huh.] and change it or stop it, you know.
AD: Yes, well that's-- that's quite true, you actually have to deliberately step in.
S: It's so hard because it--
AD: It's not hard. (some laughter) It's not hard. It depends on how much you've been, you know, hurt, you know? But--
S: How much you've been (burned)(./?)
AD: Yeah, how much you've been hurt. You know like, let's say you're obsessed with negative thoughts quite a bit, you know. Well when they really bother you, they get to a point where you can't live no more, then you'll do [student assents] something about them. Otherwise they'll just go on their way. But by the time you get around to doing something about it, it may be too late. So it's a good idea to consciously look at them and stop them. But in order to stop negative thoughts that means that you have to consciously insert yourself into the stream of thinking, say this, I don't want that, I want, alright. So you have to actually step in and drive your own car, and not let general traffic take it where it will.
S: But it's not [S simultaneously: Anthony--] only in those-- in the places of extreme negativity and [couple words inaudible] like--
AD (simultaneously): Oh that was just an example, that was just an example.
S (simultaneously): Yes. I mean that's an extreme example, but it's like--
AD: Oh no, that's a common example. (laughter, student words)
S: But it also is an extreme example because not everybody spends every waking moment that negative.
AD: I [couple words inaudible] (laughter) I mean, you should be at the Center. (laughter, student words)
S: What I was trying to say was that the common everyday train of thought, you know, over the, you know, the groceries and the weather and all that, I mean-- (laughter) I'm sorry, never mind. (S laughs, laughter)
AD: Yes, it is inane.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 90, AD reading]: "A man who has never asked fundamental questions, who has never worked out a reasoned attitude of his own, will find himself gripped by doubt or darkness when the first big crisis of his life occurs. On the other hand, he who has mastered true philosophy will be quietly ready [in all situations, all eventualities]. The lack of predetermined principles leads unwary man to acts detrimental not only to his own well-being but also to [that of] others. And yet the man of the world is impatient with philosophers! … But the attitude of a [AD reads: the] jazz-minded age is,"Why should we fret our foreheads with such problems?" (AD laughs, laughter, student words) Most of the men and women of our time prefer the crude chatter which passes for conversation and they are satisfied to slip from cradle to grave with both eyes closed." (some laughter)
AD: That's good. (laughter) Sleep-walkers.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," pp. 90-91, AD reading]: "These intellectual incapables (laughter) have little use for a climb to the mountain-tops of thought and a soliloquy in that rarer atmosphere. In the average person's imagination the subject is a dry, dead and barren tree, [a] monotonous [and] colourless weaving of thoughts."
S: Anthony?
AD: And then-- yeah.
S (faint): Go ahead.
S: Is that, in the last paragraph there and he put [one word inaudible] kind of put (two--/to.) Who is it that in fact--
AD: Who is it that--
S (faint): Is (at the) [three/few words inaudible]
AD: Why don't you ask these questions when we're in the thick of a philosophic discussion?
S: Oh no they're very practical because, I mean, how do you get yourself to do it?
S (faint): Yeah.
S: Yeah.
JG: That's a second question. (some laughter)
S: Yeah.
JG: Who and how you do that. (laughter)
RG: May as well throw why in there. (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): Yeah, yeah.
AD: I didn't hear the second question, I heard there was another one but let me hear it.
JG: How-- she said how do we get in. First she asked who's getting in.
AD: No she-- the first-- her question was who's this "who" that inserts--
JG (simultaneously): Yes. Yes and then [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] she said (that/I) was very practical because how do I get in there.
AD: How do you get in? In where?
JG: How do you get yourself doing it? That--
AD: Oh, oh. Well, in some of the classes we-- we go into that, you know, we have nice discussions about that. Like for instance, what was it, V.1.6 [Note: Plotinus, Enneads, V.3.6, "Our way is to teach our soul how the Intellectual-Principle exercises self-vision…"] where Plotinus says, that according to our teachings we instruct the soul, we tell the soul, alright. [RG: Yeah.] But you very conveniently forget these passages, right?
S: No, I read the passage but I didn't understand it at the time.
AD: At the time you didn't understand it? Well why do you ask the question now, (AD laughing, laughter) why didn't you ask it then?
S: I did. I understand (differently). (some laughter)
S (faint): V.3.6.
AD: V.3.6, correction. (some laughter) How are you going to find out who this "who" is that inserts a very conscious drive, you know, very conscious choice into the stream of life unless you do it? Do you think that (this view) can be understood with concepts?
S: Well, I mean you told that to me once before, you could, but I--
AD: But you won't do it!
S: Remembering to do it too.
S: Yeah, but who is it that remembers to do it?
AD (simultaneously): I'm s-- remembering to do it? It's already too late!
S (faint): Don't understand.
S (faint): Hm?
AD: Well, we-- we couldn't possibly stop now because the answer there that would be provided by most of the philosophers is that the soul has a plurality of parts, and that dependent upon which part is identified with which or which you're identified with, that's where the answer will come from. And that the-- the soul per se or the so-called individual does have something to say in these matters even to the point, which has been pointed out to us in a few passages, where the soul, where you-- you actually have to correct the soul.
S (faint): What's the "you"?
S: What corrects the soul?
AD: You'd like me to answer that, wouldn't you?
S (simultaneously): Yeah, yeah.
AD: Well why don't you go home and bang your head against the wall, keep asking who's this "you". "Who am I, who am I?" (some laughter) And you'll get the answer, I promise you.
S: Right now?
S (faint): Yeah. (bit of laughter)
[couple seconds of background student talking]
AD: Who is this "I" that directs the soul? Well, you take a guess.
S (very faint): But now it brings in (Plotinus).
RG: But then the question (would be intuitive).
AD (simultaneously): Who would this "I" be?
MB: Can-- So wait. Can the person that wants to know this, I mean can the person that asks this question who is it also, you know, begin to ask the other questions that he's recommended?
AD: But isn't it obvious that who's asking the question is the one who's involved? So the one who's asking the question is the "I" that's being referred to. Well he keeps kind-- he keeps turning it into a concept. I mean she, I'm sorry. (bit of laughter)
MB (faint): That's what ends up happening.
AD: Yeah.
MB: When you start turning around, I mean the one that wants to know--"You mean you're Samantha?" you know.
S (faint): [couple words inaudible]
S (very faint): [one/two word inaudible]
S (faint): It's that easy.
S: It's not, it's not easy. (bit of laughter)
AD: I'm sorry, go ahead.
S: It's not that easy.
AD: Never was, never was.
S: Well you just said it was five minutes ago. (laughter, student words)
AD: That was a different question when she's asking who was this "I".
S: But she's also putting it--
AD (simultaneously): The only-- the only way this can be understood is by the doing, not by the conceptualizing.
S: Right. Because, yeah, she's also putting an addendum onto it, who is it [AD simultaneously: Isn't it absurd to you that--] and how do you--
AD: Yes but when you-- when you come to me let's say and we're talking and you say, "Well all this negativity, alright, has to stop," and I say "Well why don't you go ahead and stop it?" And then suppose you remark, "But who's this"I" that's going to stop it?" Don't you think I have the right to walk away?
S: Uh-hm.
S (faint): Yeah.
S: Uh-hm.
S: You need alarm clock setting every five minutes to be-- to be conscious of thought(s). (some laughter)
[students assent, very faint]
S: Go ahead.
MB: It's like saying who's going to (happen) when I go out to lunch, you know, something like that. You know, I know I'm-- I know I'm about to go out to lunch so better find [few words inaudible] (laughter)
S: Well--
S: [three/few words inaudible]
AD: Alright, we'll see when we get into philosophy if these questions will persist. Alright, sure. (laughter)
S: You kind of answered the question how do you do it before. And lots of time when just like my negative thoughts and I-- it becomes so painful that something in you just decides not to do it anymore, I mean it just-- it's not-- [student assents] the sense of pain makes you do something else.
S: No but that's-- I mean I-- (was) in practical pain that's what it comes down to, I mean the inefficiency of the will and it's the only way [S simultaneously: Yeah but what--] it gets the will-- will doing what you-- what you want it to do (is/it's) the only way through pain and suffering.
S: Ok but if it's, I mean [couple words inaudible] how it is.
S (simultaneously): (And he takes it) to the point where something makes a choice then, I mean-- and after-- after it's done you can see what it was that's--
S: Oh yeah, but there must be some other way it seems to me.
KD (simultaneously): Yeah Tina--
S: Well--
RG: [one/two words inaudible] the soul, Alan.
KD (simultaneously): Tina remember--
RG: I mean--
KD (simultaneously): Tina, remember what he-- what Tony said last week about being totally present at the time. I think PB gives some hints in here. Like through constant meditation, these situations, you know, present themselves constantly, you know, in life, like you'll be in a situation, all of a sudden you'll-- you'll get really angry and you'll blow everything. And then five minutes later, you know, you realize that you didn't want to act that way. And the problem is is that you're not totally there, you know, when that situation happens. All of a sudden there's only part of you and you react. [students assent] And, last week he was saying that, you know, if all of you is right there in the situation, then chances are that you won't react automatically.
S: Yeah.
[student assents, very faint]
S: So how [S simultaneously: Well--] do you get all of you there? (bit of laughter)
S (amidst laughter, very faint): [few words inaudible]
HS: Go to lunch. (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): Oh.
S (amidst laughter): Herbie (you're here).
[few seconds of laughter, background student talking]
RG/S(?) (amidst laughter): (Until) you're fed up.
KD (simultaneously): I think, I think-- (more laughter) I think you'd be-- I don't know, he kind of-- he kind of answered that in this chapter by saying that the only way that it happens is by-- is by meditation. I don't think there's anything that you can do-- you know, that-- I think that's what meditation does, that is slows down the-- it slows down the mind so that the chance of you not reacting automatically increases the more you meditate. Because, you know, like if you meditate a lot all the time, what happens is during the day the frequency or the-- the number of times that you automatically stop and don't get caught up in that incessant activity, that increases. And--
JG (simultaneously): Sure, you have less time for it. (laughter, student words)
KD: But, [RG: It's true. (RG laughs)] I-- I think it just is-- I mean from what-- from what he says, I think it's just such an incredibly difficult tension of the mind that you have to-- that you have to do, you know, and-- and I agree, I agree with you Pat, I don't think it's easy at all.
S: No. [couple words inaudible]
KD (simultaneously): I think it's incredibly difficult. The amount of energy that it takes to-- to stop, you know, to [S, faint: Yeah.] not go with this flow of complete negativity that's going one hundred miles an hour, you have to-- (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): Anthony [couple words inaudible]
RG/S(?) (simultaneously, amidst laughter): You-- yeah, finally. (laughter)
KD: I know, I have [couple/three words inaudible] you know, I-- I have, you know-- it's just incredibly difficult. I would rather-- I would rather run a hundred mile marathon than-- you know, it's like lifting a thousand-pound barbells to have the energy to-- I'm serious. (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): You know(./?)
KD (amidst laughter): Really, you know, when he said this-- this-- like this paragraph really-- really-- really stopped me dead when he said that-- [AD simultaneously: Not quite.] when he said the last-- (more laughter)
AD (amidst laughter): Read the paragraph. (laughter)
KD (amidst laughter): It's the paragraph--
AD (amidst laughter): What stopped you dead?
KD (amidst laughter): He said-- he said that-- he said--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 90, KD reading]: "The lack of predetermined principles leads unwary man to acts detrimental not only to his own well-being but also to that of others."
S: Let (him/me) read it.
KD: He says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 90, KD reading]: "A man who has never asked fundamental questions…"
KD: Well you know when I read this four years ago I said well of course we've all asked the fundamental questions and we know where we're at because we know what's right, we know (when--) [one/two words inaudible] this beauty, you know. And that's a lot of b.s., you know [couple/few words inaudible] (laughter) because you don't act that way, you know, like-- like 99.999 percent of me doesn't act that way at all and, to have the ability to-- to slow this instinctual being down and to-- and to say--
AD (simultaneously): But, but you have some predetermined principles, don't [KD simultaneously: What?] you? Like for instance you won't steal, right? So [KD simultaneously: No!] someone throws a thousand dollars down in front of you and tries to tempt you, your predetermined principles will just make it obvious, that's it, I'm not going to touch it, I'm-- So, [KD simultaneously: Yeah.] you know how to react in that case. (You don't need that.)
KD (simultaneously): Ok, I don't succumb to-- to 879 of the one thousand sins maybe. (laughter, student words) But my whole life can be-- can be-- can be ruined by the-- by the thirty-five-- 350 sins. (laughter, student words) What I'm (saying--)
S (amidst laughter): Then you're in.
S (amidst laughter): No.
AD: No but you can--
KD: What I'm saying, what I'm saying is it's just-- it's really incredibly hard to stay-- to say, dammit, I-- you know, I-- I don't believe in-- in hurting people or getting angry let's say and that's just what I hold for a principle. And you reason it out and do it…and then you try to act on it. (laughter)
S (laughing): Yeah.
AD: Then you have to what?
KD: And then you try to act on it, you know.
AD: Oh, alright.
KD: Ok now-- now that's what I would think would be a-- one of these reason-princ-- what do you call it--
RG: Conscious principle.
KD: A conscious predetermined principle that comes from above, you know, instinctively, intuitively I know that it's right, you know, not-- not to get angry and not to, let's say, get in a fight with somebody. (KD laughs, some laughter)
AD: So you find that [KD: But--] you can't hold onto it then. It takes a few tries. [student assents, very faint] It takes-- takes some time, yes. But you can hold on to your principles while you're trying. There's no need to let them go. If you thought them out and you know that this is precisely [KD: Yes.] the truth of the matter, and that even though you can't live up to it there's no reason why you can't keep trying. After all, the way he says, you don't fail until you stop. And as long as you keep trying there's always the chance that you might succeed and that you will.
KD: Yes, but you multiply that by, you know, how many thousands of instances of automatic instinctual behavior, and I don't mean just, you know, negative things, anger is, you know, is an obvious example. But the automatic responses, you know, like, I consider my machine, you know, one hundred percent automation. There's very little, (bit of laughter) you know, conscious--
AD (simultaneously): But then you are-- you are aware [KD simultaneously: Hm?] that you're trying to uncondition your mind.
KD: Yeah.
AD: You're trying to free it from the conditioned responses that it operates with. And in order to do so (was) very precisely clearly and transparently see the-- what you call the, you know, reflexes and your automatisms that the mind operates with and break it down. [student assents, faint] I mean it's not going to be accomplished overnight but it can be accomplished once you understand what it is that you set yourself down to do. Yeah, I'm--
AB: I was just going to say I think there's a danger in the conversation because although it's very true how hard it is, if one becomes preoccupied with the difficulties and-- then there's a giving in to the very thing that's making it hard. It's like the caterpillar, you know, we talked about it's hard to understand how he walks. And then he can't. Somewhere in all of our lives we're able to do it so you just refer to that and try and do it again.
S (faint): Yeah.
EC: It's like Lisa asking [S, faint: (Oh yeah.)] Kathy by the question, how do you do it, and Lisa already knows the answer 'cause she's doing it all the time in terms of her artwork. She knows the discipline, the concentration (laughter) and heartache that goes into her artwork and it's the same thing. It's the exact same thing applied in that-- in that other area, that will that goes into that area. We do know it, it's using [S simultaneously: Yeah but--] it, the practice of using it.
S: But that, I mean-- don't get any ideas [one/two words inaudible] (laughter)
EC: No but [S simultaneously: Well I--] we see-- we see the result, that doesn't come from nothing.
S (simultaneously): You see the result of like, you know, once every six months.
S (faint): Well I--
S (faint): I'll take it. (bit of laughter)
S: And it-- it's really, you know, artist, writer, whatever, I mean it's still a problem. If I could put the will into my work that I'd like to daily, that-- you know, I wouldn't have any questions or any problems but it comes up-- You know, it's like a little bit and then it seems like you completely fall apart and you can't-- and it's really painful to see something running you around where you're used to seeing-- like you had some control and then you don't any longer. And you have to wait and somehow it seems like-- sometimes it seems like Grace, all of a sudden you get it together again and there you are working and then you lose it.
AD: Well that wasn't Grace, that was the results of your effort.
[students assent, faint]
EC(?) (very faint): Anthony?
S: But it doesn't come very much.
S: Uh-huh.
KD (simultaneously): See I think he's talking about a whole-- a whole different state of being, like one where you're completely outside almost the flow of circumstances and events, that state of mind, to be so alert that you are like prepared for the next moment, that you, you know, meet it-- meet it completely fresh is like a totally-- that's maybe having-- having [one/two words inaudible] different times. (KD laughs a bit) [student assents] And it's like, it's like the difference between night and day, it's like the-- you know, it's a very-- where you're alert, where all your senses are there.
S: Actually remember, PB says somewhere that if you want to change a bad habit you hold the ideal in front of you. So instead of [KD assents] dwelling on the-- you know, on how hard it is and how, you know, impossible the goal is, you drop that, you know, your fears about, you know, not being able to make it and do it and just keep holding the image and what it is that you want to be and that you are working towards in front of you [one word inaudible] all the time.
S: Uh-hm.
KD: I think that's what he means by the-- having the determined-- the conscious, the de-- the determined principles of action in front of you.
S: I think it's easier.
S: Seems like that brings [S simultaneously: Yeah.] up a point that we haven't really touched on yet and that is, you can know what you have to do and somehow not have the courage to do it. You can see that you ought to discipline yourself in a certain way. It's no longer a mystery what needs to be done. But there's something in you that wants to continue your old habit more than you want to change. And it seems as though when that happens, (we're/you're) damned if we do and damned if we don't. You're going to suffer either way and there seems to be no way out. And yet, there's also that problem of-- Tony mentioned before, that after a while you may find it too late to change even though the suffering is finally acute enough to make you change.
AD: It will inevitably make you change. But I think what-- I think the key here is what Kathleen was asking about last week and that was something to this nature that, is it possible, is it possible that with very intense thought, you know, very concentrated and intense thought, is it possible to eventually lift yourself up by your own bootstraps, get out of a certain mode of being which you find detrimental, which you'll find so completely conditioning all your responses and your spontaneity that now it's outlived its usefulness, is it possible to break that and is it thought that will help you break out of it. [S, faint: Uh-hm.] I think she was on this last week and, if I were to answer that I would say truthfully, yes, you can, through very intense concentrative thought and aspiration. In other words behind that thought there has to be a certain aspiration that you must succeed, alright. And that it will do it for you. I can't give you a time table. But I know it will happen, I have no question.
KD (simultaneously): I-- yeah I think it's-- Oh go ahead.
S: I was--
KD: I think if you're-- if you're totally behind that, like I remember when PB was here. Like the change in my own consciousness, you know, like being around him, I was so good at making-- making tea, you know, like all of you had to be there, all of me had to be there and the change in mentality was so-- was so completely different because every ounce of desire was towards being totally conscious and alert. And I-- I think that's what you're talking about, that like complete, you know, concentration on-- on the moment where all of you is behind the desire to be right there, be totally conscious.
AD (simultaneously): Well, if you did it then why can't you do it now?
KD: What?
AD: If you did it then, why can't you do it now? If you can put your best foot forward out to him, why can't you do it for yourself?
[short pause]
S (faint): Yeah.
S (faint): Yeah.
KD: I can tell you why but I don't want to say it out loud! (laughter)
AD: Well, perhaps it's that you do not honor yourself enough.
KD: Oh. (KD laughs a bit)
AD: Your self. And that when we do, and we stop paying homage to the external, the alien, the stranger, that we will consider more highly our own self, then perhaps we will put our best foot forward. But certainly these things are not accomplished overnight and he says very clearly life is a growth, it's not a leap. No one all of a sudden becomes 18 feet tall. Yeah go ahead Andrew, sure.
AH: I would like to ask a question about this state of attentative-- attention or attentativeness. What is it that's being attended to? Is it the external circumstances that we are presented with? Or is it rather attention being paid to the subjective side of the experience?
AD: It's introspective. You're attending to your own inner self. The external circumstances, they usually manage to take care of themselves, you know? So that if you're inwardly attentative, the outer circumstances are usually met with quite adequately, you know. Remember the story I told you about Suzuki, we were having this conference and every one of the professors around this table is alert and wide-eyed and properly dressed and attired and completely at attention, you know. And Suzuki looked as though he was half-asleep listening to everybody. The windows were open. The wind came through. He put his hand on his papers and all the other teachers, all their papers were flying everywhere [couple/three words inaudible] (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): They were flying!
AD: They were attending to the external and he was concentrating inwardly. But it prepared him for what-- whatever the eventuality was. So he just responded naturally, spontaneously. Whereas I would say the others, because of their external attention, you know, their attention, the libido externalized so completely and focused somewhere on some thing, and the lack of the flexibility to move it around, that when the occasion came for it to be used, it was already decided that they were going to keep down their appearances and not the papers. No it-- introspective awareness is-- is a source to one's own inner self, is the source of his liberation. It's not by attending externals that we're going to be liberated.
AH: It's a [S: Uh-hm.] fundamental stage, this-- you're saying this is a practice, (to/can) be looked at as a practice. Like, psychologically speaking, part of the personality watches the other part of the personality? Or-- I mean who is it-- who is attending to what?
S: This (wall).
RG/S(?) (simultaneously): He's back to the same thing. (some laughter, student words)
AD: Come [RG simultaneously: Go make-- go make (dinner right now).] Saturday three o'clock, and we'll discuss that first.
S: What'd he say?
AD: We'll get into it in quite some detail. [short pause with faint background student talking] Alright let's--
JG (simultaneously): But in the meantime your point is that by trying we will find out. [AD simultaneously: Well--] No, I mean-- you know, because it could very well be that the ego just sneaks up or what we call the ego just complacently sneaks up from behind and says, "Oh, why don't we first find a (couple) of words," you know, [AD: Yeah.] I mean to put it very bluntly.
AD: Yeah.
JG: When someone really (asks/asked) who is it--
AD: Yeah, you actually do exteriorize yourself completely almost in your concepts rather than take the reality of your existence. And it comes back to that story about the bird, you know, who was sitting on the fence and wondering whether it could fly. As long as it wonders it'll never find out. It must actually do so, it must actually jump off the fence and see if it goes up or goes down.
KD: But doesn't-- you get-- it's like putting a one-- centipede, you know, with a thousand legs, you don't know what-- I mean Andrew's question's really valid, I mean what do you do with what you got?
AD (simultaneously): I'm sorry? I'm sorry they uh-- I didn't hear you.
KD (simultaneously): What do you do-- what do you do with what you got, and here you got a-- you know, you're concentrating on a situation, you're saying I'm-- I'm right on top of it, I'm right here, you know, and-- and like-- and then--
AD (simultaneously): And it keeps slipping away.
KD (simultaneously): --and then-- and then before you know it, even be-- even before that, underlying that total concentration and, you know, supposed being on top of the situation, you have gotten sucked into this interplay between my unconscious and that external world. And that's where it seems, you know, there's this connection between mine uc-- my unconscious [three/few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): But like see I can't help it if you're not born a Buddha!
KD: Well wait a minute, you know, how--
AD (simultaneously): But there's hope. (laughter)
KD: Yeah. Yeah but, you know-- Oh yeah, I believe it, I mean you're very-- (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): [one/two words inaudible] Kathleen--
KD: You know-- you know, don't give me this short path trip Tony, no really. (laughter)
AD (simultaneously, amidst laughter): No [couple words inaudible] anything about [one/two words inaudible]
KD (simultaneously, amidst laughter): No. That does not answer it [couple/three words inaudible, possibly another student] (more laughter)
AD: You're complaining about the difficulty.
KD: No, that's not answering it, I don't really [S simultaneously: No.] accept that.
AD: Go ahead uh--
S: Sure.
S: You were talking about the bird sitting on the fence who won't know about flying if he doesn't get off and fly. Since Tina posed the question, I think we've been addressing the issue of thinking that we can't insert a conscious-- an ability to insert a conscious quest for truth in our life. And yes, there is a way to deal with that, perhaps as Devon said, by holding an image of the ideal before us. But what about the question of inertia, which is another aspect? What if the bird just can't get off the tree? (laughter)
AD/S(?) (amidst laughter): (You really want this dead) bird.
S (simultaneously, amidst laughter): Not-- not because-- not because it's afraid but because it just doesn't want to. It knows that it should but it just doesn't want to. That's a different question.
S: Such a bad bird.
AH: Perhaps the bird thinks he's going to live forever, you know. (laughter)
AD (amidst laughter): Hold on, look here, I think I know what you're interested in [one word inaudible]
JC/S(?): (Touché.)
S (simultaneously): I mean is it just prodding that solves the problem of inertia?
AD: Does prodding?
S: Yeah.
AD: Alright, I think we should go on prodding. [students assent] Well, there'll be a certain difficulty, yes, can't be helped, there's certain hereditary chains that bind us to our past, we can't help that. But one shouldn't take them as final. I don't, I don't-- I really don't understand that, why one should take any situation that he finds himself as something final and that he can't change it.
S (faint): Uh-hm.
S (faint): Ok.
S: Well, what do you mean Anthony when you say, "Better hurry up before it's too late." I mean how do you know if it's too late? (some laughter)
AD: It's already too late, don't worry about it. (laughter, student words) It should have happened yesterday. Uh--
S: So it seems like the idea that it's too late can be the story that gets you off that bent. (some laughter) And those are the people that believe in an eternal hell. They-- this may be a very primitive concept but it can really motivate you. (laughter)
AD: It may-- it may motivate you, yes, that might motivate you if you think that this is hell that you're in. But most people don't think they're in hell. Remember the story about Shiva and his spouse and he says "I'm going to go down and see what these creatures are so in love with down there that they won't come up." So he was reborn as a pig, a sow, and he's-- he had little pigs and he was very contented and Shiva was waiting, come on, get back up here, and she wouldn't let go, she was very happy with the little pigs and the big pig and the [one word inaudible] pig [couple/three words inaudible] (laughter, student assents) So finally he had to send down a-- you know, a bolt of lightening, kill it, and then she came back up. So some people do feel comfortable here.
S: Yeah but I don't know if this is true or not but several people I know, Guenon says this and there are people [couple words inaudible] that say if you continually misuse what you're given or (let) a spiritual opportunity through inertia, you will give-- you will-- they won't say go to hell but they will talk about-- I believe Guenon talks about being absorbed into primal matter. I don't know what that means but it's scary enough to-- (laughter)
AD (amidst laughter): [few words inaudible] (laughter, student words)
S: It may be necessary to believe in some-- something terrible happening to you, even though you don't understand it just because you love that, even if it's not ultimately true.
JG: (Thinks) the cat.
S: Yeah, the camel.
S: Right [one/two words inaudible] (the camel), yeah. (some laughter)
S (simultaneously): The what?
S (faint): The camel?
S (faint): Kind of (a version of) why.
MW (faint): The camel.
S (faint): What is (that)?
[few students at once, few words mostly inaudible]
AD: But I don't see why those men should be so-- I mean they have a (breach). I don't think they've gone to eternal hell either. [S: Yeah.] Oh let's read about the philosophy of truth, that might encourage us to keep trying. (bit of laughter)
S: Yeah.
S: We already do.
S: Chip--
AD: Perhaps we concentrate too much on the negative, perhaps we don't think of the positive side of this, [S: Yeah.] you know, what the goal is, when you get there what it's like, what some of the fruits of this might be. And maybe that would encourage us, not to be bothered by anything, I mean even just that is worth it.
S: That's true.
[students assent, faint]
[short pause]
THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRUTH
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 93, AD reading]: "The world-wide error which has jumbled personal fancy with philosophy or opinionative theology with metaphysics makes it necessary to utter the warning that the philosophy of truth as revealed in India must not be confused with such philosophical speculation on truth. If half-philosophy and pseudo-philosophy have now run their course and [AD adds: have] been dismissed, then the way is left open for true philosophy."
[11¾ second pause]
AD: And this paragraph here, what do you think of it? Any remarks, any--
RG: Yeah, I think this was part of what we were talking about before, the difference between speculation and verification in that the-- a real philosophy looks to that spir-- looks directly at the given and doesn't assume anything about it or tries not to, while a speculative philosophy starts really anywhere it wants to and can soar out of the realm of existence very easily.
[18 second pause]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 94, AD reading]: "Many famous metaphysicians have exhausted their ingenuity in imagining, for instance, a hypothetical Noumenon, Substance, Spirit, Absolute, [etc.], underlying the world-appearance, but the philosophy of truth does not permit either its exponents or its students to seek a single fancy nor accept it without enquiry as true."
[13½ second pause]
AD: Do you think such an approach is possible?
[9½ second pause]
S: Hm?
AD: Is it possible to start without any presupposition and dogmas?
S: I was going to say a given [RG simultaneously: No.] fact is filtered through-- a given fact is filtered through personal psyche, you know, so that--
AD: Yeah, it sounds that already you understand that it's-- you know, no dogmas of any kind are acceptable.
[15¾ second pause]
RG: But, I don't think it's really possible, but I think that's why we have this book.
AD: Come on.
RG (simultaneously): Because without the book we couldn't do it. I mean we couldn't really start. I mean unless you qualified yourself with the seven principles that he talks about in the philosophical discipline, you can't do it, 'cause [student assents, faint] those are a prerequisite to doing that. And, it seems we need a roadmap and we've studied books written by people who have done it, so we can at least follow it in a reasonable manner. But I don't think one unless, you know, they qualified themselves could.
[short pause]
AD: Well of course there's always this interesting thing about a book like this or, you know, a book written by a person who's-- who's heading right towards Jivanmukti or, you know, is that you can almost-- it's almost like he's allowing you or permitting you to share his development as he's going through it, alright, and you could participate in that kind of a-- even if it's a very remote. But still it's a very real participation in the development of someone who's reaching Sagehood or-- 'Cause I-- I'm not trying to deny the value of the book, it was written before he had reached the Jivanmukti stage but he was heading directly towards (it/him). And so there was always that feeling that I want to get on this train with him, you know, and go, alright. Yeah--
RG: I mean I think once you follow the reasoning you can reproduce it and at a con-- you know, but I--
AD: You can--
RG: You can-- you can reproduce the understanding, you know, in your own cognition or try to, it's a roadmap, but I-- I mean I don't see how it could be done without that roadmap.
AD: Well he does refer to it as a-- a revelation of reason somewhere, I forgot where.
RG (simultaneously): Yeah, revealed r-- yeah. [S simultaneously: Reasoning.] Revealed reason.
AD: Reasoned revelation.
RG: Revelation, yeah.
AD (quietly): Yeah I like that, reasoned revelation.
RG: It's in the preface to the Wisdom.
AD: So he goes, he says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 97, AD reading]: "We have seen [AD reads: We see how] the approach to truth arranges itself in a graded series, and have followed it to the end of its second phase. This is in accord with the ancient Indian teaching, which postulates three stages of evolution through which the mind of man must pass, three progressive attitudes towards life. The first is religion and is based on faith, the second, mysticism, is controlled by feeling and the third, philosophy (which is inclusive of science), is disciplined by reason. Nor can it be otherwise for man's understanding of the world must necessarily grow parallel to his mental capacity [AD reads: mental activity]. His outlook is invariably and inevitably limited by the degree of his intelligence. Hence it is impossible for all men to answer life's queries in the same way."
AD: Now how about that, does that strike a responsive chord in you? What do you think? If you're not thinking tonight we better not take-- I better take advantage of this opportunity. (bit of laughter) Huh? [S simultaneously: Well it reminds--] I hear someone?
S: It reminds me of-- I don't know if it's appropriate to bring this in but, I mean doing-- doing the divided line how there-- there is a mental faculty to-- for each level of reality. And it seems, I mean, kind of corresponds to that in that depending on--
(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1979 0131b Ends; Side 2 Begins)
S: --and so on.
AD: So you would equate like what he's saying here, these three grades you would equate with the divided line, like the perception of shadows, the sensing is at the lowest, alright, then the rational, the middle, and the intuitive at the highest. And of course-- I mean, I don't know how many lives, you might have to stretch a hundred lives across that before [student assents] one traverses that divided line. Yeah that's a good analogy, you know, it takes many, many lives before one reaches a point where he wants to get into rational cogitation and has had enough sense experience [S simultaneously: Yeah, I don't know if the--] to justify that.
S: --if these stages directly correspond to the different levels but-- but the correlation is-- I can see, you know, I see that-- you know, that a man must understand the world with the faculty that he can.
S: Uh-hm.
AD: And that there would be a correspondence between what's within him and what's out there.
S (simultaneously): And what he sees.
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: So that (what--)
S: And understands.
AD: You know, a number of people would be looking at the same object and they all understand it differently. Consequently they all come to the conclusion that there's no one truth, there's only a variety or a lot of truths. Yeah. And so relativity becomes common today and everybo-- ever-- everyone says everything's relative. They don't know that they just wiped out what they said.
S (faint): Yeah.
S (faint): 2+2. (laughter)
AD: Alright.
[short pause]
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," pp. 97-98, AD reading]: "…The Philosophy of Truth; whilst [AD reads: while] above them the figure of Minerva's owl is solemnly staring at us. For this peculiar bird becomes active when the shades of night are falling and it clearly sees varied objects where man sees only sable darkness.
"But who has ever heard of such an unlabelled philosophy? We have [AD reads: We've] heard of German [philosophy], Greek [philosophy], Indian [philosophy]; we remember as from a remote past some of the world's most unintelligible volumes written by the world's most intelligent men, (AD laughing, laughter) marring our student says with tormenting emotions of confusion, despair and final bafflement… [AD: Yeah. (some laughter)]
"There exist a few, however, who have thoroughly explored the twilit lands of religion, mysticism and metaphysics and not merely coasted along their shores, who know also what science can say about the world, and who possess no such pessimism. Their initial wonder has waxed into the desire to know and this again into the passion to understand, and that finally into the search after reality."
AD: Let's repeat this.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 98, AD reading]: "…who know also what science can say about the world, and who possess no such pessimism. Their initial wonder has waxed into the desire to know and this again into the passion to understand, and that finally into the search after reality. They feel that this all-engrossing search which has driven them onward and upward, reacts in response to something that is. An inextinguishable hope lures them. For what they have had half believed with religion, fully felt with mysticism, rationally suspected with science and speculatively argued with metaphysics is that some ultimate essence exists as the true nature of things and men, that this essence, being ever and everywhere present, bestows the highest possible significance on the universe, and consequently the first and highest human duty is personally to know it."
AD (with emphasis): The first and highest human duty is not the kitchen larder, but personally to know this essence.
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 98, AD reading]: "But they perceive that before it can be finally and certainly known in any way, it must first be intellectually and speculatively known for what it is and certainly for what it is not. [Hence] they realize the need of a fitting philosophy--not the philosophy of this or that school, person or country, but solely the philosophy of truth. Such a philosophy, if discovered, would act as an indispensable map with which the explorer could then set out to discover [the] truth for himself."
AD: Now, the next part of course I think we're all acquainted where he says--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 99, AD reading]: "It is the bold declaration that the hope of a few has been converted, at frequent [Note: Other editions have"infrequent".] intervals however, into the tested realization of uncommon individuals, and that whatever the public archives of world-thought may say, both the unwritten and written records of India indicate that the truth which the West deems unattainable has already been attained by such individuals in the past and may even now be attained by those who prize it enough to pay its high cost."
[13¾ second pause]
AD: Now, he goes on and he says that this secret doctrine of India-- India--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 99, AD reading]: "…was the traditional possession of a few initiates who formed a closed exclusive circle and who guarded it with great care as being the acme of all their country's wisdom…"
AD: This is probably why the Dalai Lama wanted to know if we studied Theosophy. You know in Theosophy they have this-- they make this claim that among their teachers are these realized adepts who has-- who have realized the consciousness which coincides with the extent of our galaxy. And that this consciousness of these adepts or Sages has been discovering, revealing, storing away this fountain of wisdom which they passed on to those that are-- have reached a certain level where they can be initiated. Now, these are to some legends, to others gospel truth. These are decisions though each one has to find-- make for themself, if there is such a thing (as the) brothers of men who are the real government of the world, perhaps not the way we understand government, and who do have a knowledge, and this knowledge does not permit them of course to interfere in human destiny or human will, except-- except Superman. (bit of laughter, student words)
S: Except who?
S: Super--
S (faint): Superman.
RG: Huh.
[9½ second pause with faint background student talking, bit of laughter]
AD: Then again, if we go down to the next para-- paragraph he points out that although many of these doctrines have been written--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," p. 100, AD reading]: "Self-styled and self-deceived representatives appeared in public later and turned the few echoes of pure philosophy which they [had] heard into religious scholasticism in some cases or into theological mysticism in others. … [AD: But he points out--] However, erroneous interpretations invariably result in their being read without the proper personal elucidation by a competent teacher which is indispensable.
"It is therefore to be expected that several of the explanations which are being given in these chapters may be denied as unauthentic by most of the learned scholars of present-day India or abused as perversions by the generality of her conventional mystics and yogis or denounced as atheistic by the majority [of her religious authorities]. … [AD: He goes on to say--] Both silent texts and living voices which have informed our writing are mostly Indian, supplemented by some Tibetan documents and a personal Mongolian esoteric instruction. A million men may gainsay the tenability of the tenets unfolded here but none can gainsay the fact that they [AD reads: there] are Indian tenets, albeit little-known, without twisting the most authoritative ancient documents to suit their mediocre minds."
AB: Anthony?
AD: Yeah.
AB: From our own studies we know that you-- you could find this hidden philosophy that he's talking about also in other traditions, as in we decided the Neo-- the Platonic traditions. But (the/do)--
AD: That's destroyed.
AB: So the-- he's-- he's referring to it in terms of the Indian tradition here because it's still living, is that what you're saying?
AD: Yeah. Yeah, a tradition has to be alive in order for it to be transmitted. So as long as the mystery schools existed, the initiations were carried on. [AB assents] Once those schools closed down, if you remember Plotinus himself tried to go to India [AB assents] to get initiated. And he was-- he didn't make it because the armies were turned back and so he had to return to Rome. But-- but generally it has to be a living tradition. [short pause] At any rate, he does point out that--
PB [The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, "The Hidden Philosophy of India," pp. 101-102, AD reading]: "Whoever cares to rummage through them may find for himself numerous indications of a guarded teaching which was hidden from all save [AD reads: except] those who could fulfil certain difficult conditions [AD: And they are difficult.] and who possessed certain rare qualifications of character and capacity, as well as constant references to the fact that full knowledge could [AD reads: can] only be obtained personally from a competent teacher. Such verification may be found not only in the ancient rule that initiated Brahmins who revealed their knowledge to unqualified outsiders were liable to be punished, but [in] the English translations now available of [AD adds: such] Sanskrit texts…
"With these statements we may match the following words of the Buddha, taken from The Saddharma Pundarika:
"Superior men of wise understanding guard the doctrine, guard the mystery, and do not reveal it. . . . That knowledge is difficult to understand; the simple, if hearing it suddenly, would be perplexed. . . . I speak according to their reach and capacity; by means of different significances [AD reads: significance] I accommodate my doctrine (to them)."
AD: So here now we're getting into this notion of a special esoteric teaching, the doctrine, some of the requirements that are going to be handed-- you know, some of the requirements that will be necessary. You don't have to have them, you know, to perfection but it's enough that you know about them. Next week we'll try to finish two more chapters so that we can get on with the text, ok?
S: "Philosophical Discipline" and "The Worship of Words"?
AD: Yeah.
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
S (faint): Yeah.
[Audio File 1979 0131b Ends]
1979 01/31 V14.1a: CLASS: PB Books; Hidden Teaching (Chapters 3-4). Copyright 2023 Wisdom's Goldenrod p. ii