DIAGRAMS FOR 1980 0123
Class
Wednesday, January 23rd, 1980
Verbatim, unedited transcriptClick the series name to view more
CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY
with Anthony Damiani (AD)
January 23, 1980
PB BOOKS; WISDOM OF THE OVERSELF;
"THE WORLD-MIND"
TOPIC: PB Books
SUBJECT: Wisdom of the Overself
SUBSUBJECTS: "The World Mind," Cosmic Soul, Cosmology, Essences, Embodying Soul, Body
CONTENTS:
THE UNIVERSE IS A PRODUCT OF THE VIVIFYING CELESTIAL FIRE OF THE COSMIC SOUL, THE SUBSTANCE OF TAIJASA CONSCIOUSNESS
THE COSMIC SOUL ACTUALIZES THE KARMIC POTENTIALS WITHIN ITSELF, BUT DOES IT RECEIVE THESE FORMS FROM ITS CONTEMPLATION OF NOUS OR DOES IT POSSESS THEM AS PART OF ITS OWN SUBSTANCE?
THE DREAM ANALOGY ILLUSTRATES THE VIEW THAT THE ESSENCE OF THE COSMIC SOUL IS THE SAME AS THE ESSENCE OF THE THOUGHTS IT IS ACTUALIZING
THE WORLD-MIND (INTELLECTUAL-PRINCIPLE) CANNOT EXTERNALIZE ITSELF AS THE COSMOS, BUT THE COSMIC SOUL CAN
THE ESSENCE OF THE COSMIC SOUL REFERS TO ITS OWN INTERIORITY, ITS OWN INWARDNESS, NOT ITS OUTWARD-FACING ASPECT
IF THE ESSENCE OF MAN REFERS TO MAN'S PSYCHE, THEN IT IS FOUND WITHIN THE COSMIC SOUL
FOR THE CHALDEANS AND PLATONISTS, THE SUN IN ITSELF REFERS TO THE UPPER SOLAR WORLD, WHICH IS A REFLECTION OF THE INTELLECTUAL REALM
EVERY EXPERIENCE IS A MANIFESTATION OF ESSENCES COMING FROM THE COSMIC SOUL, AND THROUGH THAT ESSENCE SOME PARTICULAR LESSON OR MEANING IS BEING COMMUNICATED TO YOU
THE GAYATRI IS A PRAYER TO THE CELESTIAL FIRE TO GUIDE US IN UNDERSTANDING THOSE ESSENCES AND MEANINGS FIGURED IN OUR ACTUAL EXPERIENCE
GOD (SECOND QUADRANT) IS THE SECRET BEHIND THE FUNCTIONING OF THE COSMIC SOUL
INHERENT IN THE LIFE ACTIVITY OF THE BODY IS AN INTELLIGENCE THAT GUARANTEES THE PROGRESS OF THE ENTITY LIVING IN THE BODY
YOU HAVE THE IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE OF THESE ESSENCES DIRECTLY IN THE BODY, AND THESE "SUBJECTIVIZE" THE LIGHT OPERATING THROUGH THE BODY
FOR US WHO ARE NOT FUNCTIONING AT THE LEVEL OF SOUL, THE LIGHT HAS TO BECOME SOUL BEFORE IT CAN READ OFF THE ANIMATE—WE'RE STILL IN THE PROCESS OF BECOMING THAT SOUL
THE EXPANSION AND EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS AS IT EVOLVES FROM LOWER TO HIGHER LIFE FORMS IS THE PROCESS OF THE LIGHT BEING SUBJECTIVIZED
HUMAN BEINGS HAVE THE POTENTIALITY OF RISING TO THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THEIR OWN ESSENCE, STONES DO NOT
BECAUSE OF THE INTELLIGENCE INHERENT IN THE COSMIC SOUL, ALL OF ITS PRODUCTIONS HAVE SOME ESSENCE EMBODIED IN IT
WHY IS THERE AN IMMEDIATE PURPOSE TO THE UNIVERSE BUT NO ULTIMATE PURPOSE? PERHAPS BECAUSE IF ALL POSSIBILITIES ARE ALREADY ACTUALIZED IN DIVINE WISDOM, THERE IS NOTHING LEFT FOR IT TO DO
THE LAW OF KARMA APPLIES ONLY TO ENTITIES WITHIN THIS COSMOS, WHICH IS THE PRODUCT OF THE COSMIC SOUL
BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:
Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself
Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)
Plato, Republic
Vyasa, Bhagavad Gita
PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: I.1.7, V.1.2, V.3.6, V.5.3
DIAGRAMS appended to this transcript:
FIGURE IMG_2202-Posterboard Metaphysical Chart.
FIGURE 1980 0123-2-AB. Empyrean, Three Ethereal Worlds, Upper Solar World, Three Material Worlds mapped onto Metaphysical Chart.
FIGURE 1980 0123-3-AB. Universe as Sun's Vast Thought.
Other diagrams referred to are not with this transcript version. [Transcriber note: [diagram] means the speaker is referencing a diagram as he or she is speaking. If someone is drawing or writing, with audible sounds of chalk on a blackboard, I indicate this by [drawing] or [writing].]
NOTE: Wednesday night class, part of Wisdom series 1979-1980.
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, fixes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, adds new notes within transcript, fixes errors/typos, adds three diagrams and references within transcript to these diagrams. In 2024, MW alters Subheads to make more accurate. Archival verbatim transcript – V14.1a.
AUDIO FILES: 1980 0123a, 1980 0123b. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: In 2025, REP Studio cuts random noise and dead air from file a.]
1980 01/23 at Wisdom's Goldenrod
PB Books; Wisdom of the Overself; "The World-Mind"
Archival verbatim transcript
[Audio File 1980 0123a Begins]
AD: --chapter on the World-Mind, the section, sub-section. [26½ second pause] I think we left off on 307, right? [20¾ second pause with faint background student talking] Is that right? Is that where we left off?
S (faint): Oh, 306.
S (simultaneously): The end of 306.
AD (faint): The end of 6. [21¾ second pause] Alright, why don't we start there.
S (very faint): Yeah.
[Transcriber note: I am using The Wisdom of the Overself by Paul Brunton, Rider and Company, London, 1943.]
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "Thus mentalism renders it easier…"
AD: That's where we left off, huh? Bert, is that where we [S simultaneously: Yes.] left off?
AS (faint): I think (that Bert) [three words inaudible]
S: Well we-- I guess-- I think we had worked on paragraph 47 a little bit.
[short pause, flipping of pages]
S (faint): Uh-hm.
S (faint): Uh-hm.
S: Think it's "Thus instead…"
[36½ second pause]
AD: What do you think, why don't you start reading?
AS/S(?) (very faint): (What page?)
AD: "Thus mentalism…"
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "Thus mentalism renders it easier for us to understand three great truths. First, that the universe is God made manifest; second, that God must be immanent in the world just as our own mind is immanent in every one of our thoughts; third, that because it has a mind behind it, the universe cannot be a senseless affair but must possess a consistent meaning. The world is so intimately connected with the World-Mind that it becomes meaningless and unthinkable apart from it."
AD: Well I don't know if we discussed it but if we did-- Go ahead Johanna, start.
JG: We didn't discuss it.
AD: Hm?
JG: We didn't discuss that.
AD: We didn't discuss that. Well you can start anyway.
JG: Yes.
EMD: Can you speak louder please? (bit of laughter)
S: Yeah.
S (very faint): Yeah.
JG: Actually, I have a question to the paragraph before.
AD: Well then, we'll read the paragraph before.
AS: You want to do paragraph before?
AD: Uh-hm.
S (faint): Yes.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "Thus instead of an absentee God we have an everywhere-present one who is the very essence of the world. The cosmos is nothing less than the self-externalization of the World-Mind, which is self-existent and needs no second thing in which to reside, no matter from which to make a universe. Thought in its pure ultimate single essence is the substance of the universe. Those who cannot comprehend this may perhaps do so if they will remember that during one and the same dream, at one and the same moment, they can be immediately conscious of a tiger, a tree and a crowd of people. What is it which has thus manifested itself in all these different figures in this manner? Is it not a single mind, their own?"
THE UNIVERSE IS A PRODUCT OF THE VIVIFYING CELESTIAL FIRE OF THE COSMIC SOUL, THE SUBSTANCE OF TAIJASA CONSCIOUSNESS
JG: My question refers to "Thought in its pure ultimate single essence is the substance of the universe." Thought in its pure ultimate single essence, is that-- does that refer to the cosmic soul here?
AD: Yes. I'm going to take [JG simultaneously: Yes.] that position, yes.
JG: Yeah.
AD: Ok.
JG: Like when the world is squeezed, you know, the distillation of the world would give you the-- its essence, which would be the cosmic soul. If you--
S: Well--
AD: Go ahead, Johanna, don't be bashful, (see).
JG: I was thrown back by the wording, "Thought in its pure ultimate single essence," 'cause there was something higher than the cosmic soul.
AD: Well, give us the other-- your version, sure.
JG (simultaneously): Well-- but-- But before we s-- it's also God is the very essence of the world and God we have understood in this paragraph being the cosmic soul. So that's the same-- this sentence is really the same thing as the other one, just that God is not called God but Thought in its pure ultimate single essence.
[20 second pause]
AD: Would you like to try to interpret it the other way, thinking of-- instead of-- think of it as the World-Mind, the Intellectual-Principle per se?
S (simultaneously): (Ok/Uh-huh).
JG: If we follow that (light) would-- if we follow through with cosmic soul, you know, like World-Mind being cosmic soul, then I would have a hard time doing this, because if the universe is reduced to its roots, so to speak, then you would first-- the first principle you would encounter would be the cosmic soul, that taijasic consciousness.
AD: Yeah.
JG: And then beyond that I would imagine is, if you squeeze a little more, (JG laughs a bit) so to speak, then you would land in the Intellectual-Principle.
AD: Go on. And that would be Thought.
JG: That would be pure Thought--
AD: That would be pure Thought.
JG (simultaneously): --as PB speaks of in-- in "The Unveiling of Reality".
AD (simultaneously): Uh-hm.
[short pause]
JG: But how that can be the substance of the universe, unle-- I don't know which way to go or whether or not it's both ways.
[23¾ second pause]
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "Thought in its pure ultimate single essence is the substance of the universe."
[16¾ second pause]
AD: Well, you know--
CDA: How can essence and substance be describing the same thing?
AD: What do you mean?
S: Uh-hm.
AD: Say it out to them.
CDA: How can essence and substance be describing the same thing?
[short pause]
AD: You might have to elaborate a little because they're wondering.
CDA: Well, the way we've been speaking about matter is that it's something very-- it's opposite than essence, that it's-- matter is the-- the fact of the universe and essence is what we know of the universe.
AD: And do you think that that would apply in this discussion?
CDA: I don't know.
AD: See you would be sneaking in work that we're doing in other classes.
CDA: Yeah but-- [short pause] [one/two words inaudible]
JG (simultaneously): Well how he put essence (well/or) essence what is--
CDA (simultaneously): Was what we know of the universe.
AS: Well, see, he says--
CDA (simultaneously): And it's not in [JG simultaneously: Oh.] the universe.
AS: But he says that essence is the substance [student assents, faint] of the universe 'cause in a previous sentence he says the World-Mind doesn't need any matter. [student assents, very faint] [CDA simultaneously: Well in that-- yeah.] So in his view here it seems that he's saying that the-- the-- it is its own-- it provides its own matter, it itself is the-- the subs-- substance or substratum of the whole universe.
CDA: Of itself.
AS: Of the universe. In fact he says-- yeah, of it-- he says earlier, what does he say, it provi-- it offers the ground for the mani-- the World-Mind, the way he's speaking of it, offers the ground for the manifestation of the karmic forces. So in that sense it must be like the matter or substance for these forces to manifest. Try thinking of it that way.
S (very faint): Oh yeah.
CDA: Can you say that again?
AS: The way he was speaking of the World-Mind or-- in touch with the World-Soul as the-- offering a ground for the manifestation of the universe. It's the ground for these karmic forces to manifest. So maybe in that way it's the substance of the universe. [JG simultaneously: But do you--] Substance meaning the ground, subs-- [one/two words inaudible]
JG (simultaneously): But then what do you do with the essence? Could it [AS simultaneously: The what?] be in fact that both quadrants [Note: Quadrants two and four.] are required here? [Note: See FIGURE IMG_2202-Posterboard Metaphysical Chart appended to this transcript.]
AS: Well yeah, I think when he says "Thought in its pure ultimate single essence is the substance of the universe", it's like saying that the World-Soul in its active role is the ground for the universe, is concerned, tied up with the universe. But in its inward aspect, [JG simultaneously: That provides the essence or--] it's this pure Thought, like the [JG assents] Mind of the World-Mind the way [JG assents] he speaks of it or pure Thought, like (the) second quadrant [diagram], is the very essence which in its outward aspect becomes the substance.
JG: How can it change into--
AS: No, no, well-- What's form-- what's the essence in one sense or that Thought can become the substratum for the universe. In its outward aspect it's the very ground for the whole universe, the World-Soul.
JG (simultaneously): Why in its out-- why in its outward aspect, why does the Intellectual-Principle have an outward and inward aspect?
AS: No, the World-Soul [JG: Yeah.] had an outward and in-- inward aspect.
AD (simultaneously): That was one of the reasons why we decided [JG simultaneously: Yeah.] to restrict the meaning [AS assents] to the World-Soul.
AS: The Intellectual-Principle (also).
JG: You know what I can see now is that the substance of the universe refers to the fourth quadrant [diagram] and the first part of the sentence to the second quadrant where [one/two words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Well let's read the s-- let's [S simultaneously, faint: No, no.] read the sentence Johanna.
JG: Yeah.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "…God we have [an] everywhere-present one who is the very essence of the world."
AD: Now, do you remember we were speaking about the-- we were speaking about the cosmic soul, alright, and we said that it produced and fabricated the universe, and that the entirety of the universe was a fabrication from within itself, in other words, its own being. [Note: See FIGURE 1980 0123-3-AB, Universe as Sun's Vast Thought, appended to this transcript.] And then we went on to point out that here we would have mentalism because in a sense the product of the cosmic soul has been referred to, you know, like the vivifying celestial fire, the substance of taijasa consciousness, we tried to give it a variety of synonyms so that we can maybe find one that we can grab a handle on. But in the cosmic soul, alright, which is producing the cosmos from within itself, alright, projecting it, externalizing from within itself, then could the universe be anything but the substance of this soul? Alright, that will be one way of putting it. Therefore every body that exists within the soul, the plurality of objects within the soul, would be coming from it. Therefore all of these in essence are that soul. Or that [student assents, faint] substance, whatever we call it. That would be one interpretation. There's another possible interpretation.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "…one who is the very essence of the world."
[short pause]
S: (Go ahead.)
AD: If we think-- if we think of essence in the way that-- if we think of essence in this particular way, essence is an eternal immutable abiding self-identical luminous pure principle, ok. Now if we think of-- if we think of the cosmic soul as an essence, then the entirety of the universe, the entirety of the universe would be manifesting that essence. And then I can go on to say that insofar as this Sun manifests this universe, another Sun will manifest another universe, and each universe would be a manifestation of the essence of that soul or that Sun. It's manifesting that essence. But that essence, if we stick to the definition that we just gave it, self-eternal, you know, and immutable, if we stick to that definition, then we could in a way see that the universe is manifesting that essence but that essence never loses or never gets reduced, never gets diminished in any way. [short pause] That would be another way of interpreting it.
[short pause]
THE COSMIC SOUL ACTUALIZES THE KARMIC POTENTIALS WITHIN ITSELF, BUT DOES IT RECEIVE THESE FORMS FROM ITS CONTEMPLATION OF NOUS OR DOES IT POSSESS THEM AS PART OF ITS OWN SUBSTANCE?
MW: Anthony?
AD: Yes?
MW: Didn't we also have the interpretation where you were taking this essence to be the life of the soul, you know, life as it's present in all the creatures in the universe?
AD: Yes.
MW: And that that was the sense in which it would be essence.
AD: Yes go on Michael, don't-- don't stop.
MW: But I thought in that-- in that interpretation there was still a distinction as far as the life that was coming from the soul and the-- the forms in which that life was being injected into. It wasn't saying that the soul produced the forms that that light was going to be manifesting in.
[short pause]
AD: Go on. You're referring to the quotation from Plotinus, right, where the cosmic soul produces a universe, and that the essence of the cosmic soul would be the variegated individualized or particularized lives. The life principle in each and every one of these lives is coming from the Sun, and that would be the essence of all the creatures within that universe. [Note: Plotinus, V.1.2.] [MW: Right.] Is that what you're referring to? Yes.
MW: That's-- well that's--
AD: Go on.
MW: That's one part of it but the other part of it is trying to understand what the relationship of the-- like for example here where he speaks about the karmic potentials, ok, whether they're-- they're to be subsumed under the notion of that life or made one with it or whether there is a distinction that's still maintained, that the soul doesn't-- doesn't produce or create those karmic potentials. 'Cause he said-- and I guess earlier you said that language, that it doesn't make or it doesn't create the collective karmic potentials but I don't know if it's a ground for the existence.
AD: Continue, go ahead.
[short pause]
MW: Well-- [15¾ second pause] I could understand it saying that it doesn't create the karmic potentials in the sense that the forms that the soul--
AD: Actualizes.
MW: Yeah, the forms that it's going to-- the creatures that it manifests in the world, the forms that they're based on are not produced by the soul but received by the soul. Now, offering the ground for their existence the--
AD (simultaneously): Well, offering the ground for their existence would be tantamount to saying [MW: Well--] that it actualizes them.
MW: Allowing these-- these forms which might be eternal to have an appearance in the world.
AD: Uh-hm. So it actualizes these forms. And by that we mean that it gives them some kind of--
MW (faint): Temporal-spatial existence.
AD: Yeah. Alright so we could think of this cosmic soul as producing and fabricating, making psyches, alright, and psyche is a material thing, right?
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: Go on.
MW: Making psyches. [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Alright, individual minds, whatever. Whatever terminology-- (bit of laughter) What's your point, Michael?
MW: I'm just [one/two words inaudible] the various interpretations as to what the-- It didn't sound like the-- the latter one we were just discussing was quite the same--
S (faint): First two [one/two words inaudible]
AD: Well, then why don't we try to put them all together, alright, and see if anything's left out. Go ahead.
JG: I-- You gave two interpretations and I can't quite see the difference.
S (very faint): Yeah, right.
S (very faint): Three, I thought three. (student laughs)
AD: No, it might be three ways [S simultaneously, faint: No.] of looking at one.
[short pause]
BS: Could I--
S (simultaneously): Well, um, yeah.
AS (simultaneously): The two-- the two in-- I think the two interpretations seems different to me, I-- One, when you say that the World-Soul is the essence of the world in a sense that when we speak about the whole of the world as mental fabrication of the Sun, the World-Soul, the Sun in Aquarius, and the whole world is made up of this taijasa consciousness [JG assents] or the transformation of it. And in that sense that's the very essence of the world. [JG assents] Ok, if you look for the essence of the world you won't find anything but this taijasa consciousness, [JG assents] that's what it is. Or the other interpretation was that by essence you mean eternal essence, you mean, you know like thinking of the World-Soul as this eternal immutable essence and all of the existences which are in the world are manifesting that essence in the-- in the way we spoke about existence being a manifestation of the Ideas or of essences. Manifestation on matter or something like that. That the World-Soul itself was the essence of the world in that sense. Almost more like the idea of the world or paradigm of it. And that the world was a manifestation of that essence. And I don't know if they're really different.
HE: Is that essence in the World-Soul then or is-- It seemed to me from last week that the essence--
AS: Well, that's what I think what Michael was trying to get at, that the-- that by essence he would mean the karmic force that's-- although I don't know, I mean-- or let's not say ess-- let's say there's these karmic potentials and that the World-Mind-- and not that the universe is a manifestation of the World-Soul as an essence but that it's a manifestation of these karmic potentials using the World-Soul as its ground for this manifestation, or the World-Soul provides the life for this manifestation. But not that the World-Soul actually becomes the manifestation in that way. Or not that-- or not that the universe-- or not that these karmic potentials are the World-Soul but that they only get manifested through the World-Soul, through the life of the World-Soul. And that would seem to accord more with the first interpretation that the World-Soul is the essence of the universe insofar as everything that's existent is sort of made up of taijasa conscious or within taijasa consciousness, so that these karmic potentials themselves are not the World-Soul but only get manifest through the operation of the World-Soul.
S: And they come from the World-Mind, they come--
S (very faint): That's right.
AS (simultaneously): Well, that was one way we interpreted it. But then, see, in that view though, in that view it seems like the karmic potentials are the essence, the way we've used the word 'essence', [AD simultaneously: Alright let's--] that the world is a manifestation of those as essence.
THE DREAM ANALOGY ILLUSTRATES THE VIEW THAT THE ESSENCE OF THE COSMIC SOUL IS THE SAME AS THE ESSENCE OF THE THOUGHTS IT IS ACTUALIZING
AD (simultaneously): Alright let's-- let's make it an easier-- let's make an easy picture for ourselves, huh? We take the analogy of a mind or the one he's working with here, a mind that has thoughts, aright, or a dreaming mind. Let's take that as an analogy. Work with that analogy. We conceive of a mind that's dreaming, alright, and that the mind offers itself as the very ground in which these thoughts could get actualized. So that we would be able to say that the very essence of these thoughts is the mind that's thinking them, alright. Go ahead. See if you can carry through with the analogy.
AS: Yeah but that's essence-- if you say that the mind is the very ground of this-- you have a dream. You could say the mind provides the ground for this dream. Ok. Now suppose you also conceive of the ar-- like archetypes, some kind of unmanifested archetypes, some kind of complex or un-- that's going to be manifest--
AD (simultaneously): Well you-- I don't think you have to bring in that, you-- [AS simultaneously: Well, because--] the question would be where do the form of these thoughts come from?
AS: That's what I'm saying, where--
S (simultaneously): Yeah.
S: Yeah.
AS: That's what I'm-- that is what I was trying to get at. [AD, faint: Uh-hm.] The form of the thoughts, would you say that they are originally part of the dreamer's mind or not. If you say they're originally part of the dreamer's mind, [short pause] then you still-- you still seem to need two things in order to have the dream, the-- the form-- well-- two things.
AD: Couldn't you stop there? [AS, very faint: Well--] I mean for the purposes of the analogy couldn't you stop? When you say that these thoughts are an actualization of the very essence of mind, and that if you inquire further what-- as to the origin of the form of thinking, the forms of thought, I mean couldn't we end the analogy by assuming, because we're basing our understanding of this here on the notion of a cosmic soul, not on World-Mind, so couldn't we stop with the statement that the essences which the Sun symbolizes or the cosmic soul symbolizes, alright, get actualized by that cosmic soul and we do not have to trace this karmic potential beyond that point. Couldn't we stop there?
AS: Ok, you say they're part of the original mind substance.
AD: They're part of the original mind substance or [AS simultaneously: Well the dreamer's mind.] part of the cosmic soul.
AS: Yeah, that has a dream.
AD: Could we do that?
AS: Yes.
CDA: That the forms are part of the substance, didn't you say?
AD: Well you remember the-- you remember we use [AS simultaneously, faint: Part of (the substance), part of (the dream).] this analogy. We said something like this now. We want to get some idea of what memory is so we took the case of the individual mind and we said that the functioning of the individual mind, insofar that this functioning when it lapses, that functioning is retrai-- retained as traces in the cosmic soul and that when you recalled something or you-- your memory functions again you bring that up, alright, what you would be bringing up would be the functioning mind itself, not something outside of it. Could we do that?
AS: If you don't trace it any further than that.
AD: I don't trace it any further.
AS: Well, from-- the dream analogy seems to work, (do we--) From-- from a point of view of the dream you couldn't say that the forms which manifested in the dream are other than the dreamer's mind, there wouldn't be anything else in the dream.
AD (faint): Uh-hm.
AS: In fact it would all be within the dreamer's mind. Even what manifested would just be a manifestation of something that was contained latently in the dreamer's mind.
AD: So when he says in the next sentence--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "The cosmos is nothing less than the self-externalization of the World-Mind [AD reads: cosmic soul], which is self-existent and needs no second thing in which to reside, no matter from which to make a universe."
AD: Would that stand?
CDA: Why-- why is 'from' in italics? I mean, could it-- do you know why PB did that?
AD (simultaneously): Well, there the notion of course will be that the cosmic soul doesn't have to pull out something from beyond, let's say, its own extension or its own being or it-- its self-containedness, pull out something from beyond that to make a world.
CDA: So is what you're saying that this universe here that we experience, that both what we experience as essence and forms, I mean and matter, is somehow unified in the cosmic soul?
AD: Uh-hm. And that's why I ask you to use the dream analogy, in the dream analogy mind is that which actualizes the thoughts [CDA assents] and mind is the very substance of those thoughts. Well don't despair, just yell. Go ahead.
S: That doesn't sound-- I can't really accept that interpretation because if that was true then what would be leading you beyond-- I mean if-- if the World-Soul contained everything within it and there was nothing from something beyond it then how could you ever get beyond it? I mean it seems that it-- it seems that would be the end in itself. What's the objection?
AD (simultaneously): The end of what? What it would be the end of?
S: The end of mind, right?
AD: No. No, not at all.
S: But this--
AD: Read the sentence again.
S (faint): "The cosmos…"
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, S reading]: "The cosmos is nothing less [S, faint: Cosmos.] than the self-externa…"
AD (simultaneously): You got the word, huh?
S (very faint): Uh-hm, uh-hm.
S: What?
AD: Go ahead, I'm sorry.
S (simultaneously, very faint): Cosmos.
S (faint): Yeah.
S: Is that the sentence?
AS: Yeah, the world would end. You don't-- you don't have to go any further than the world-- Lisa, you don't have to go any further than the World-Soul to explain the manifested cosmos. Not that there aren't any-- not that the World-Soul is the ultimate principle.
CDA (simultaneously): Ok.
S: But if there's no input from something beyond that [AS simultaneously: Oh but that's--] then what leads you to something beyond that?
AS (simultaneously): We didn't say that.
S: But didn't we say that it was sufficient in itself what that-- that the-- the essence and the form were in it, that you didn't need any input just like in a dream?
AS: The cosmos doesn't need any other in-- well, (I'm going to have to still remember), but from this point of view the cosmos doesn't need any other input than the World-Soul.
S (faint): Ok.
AS: To trace the principle of the cosmos you can trace both at-- in this view you can trace both aspects of the manifest cosmos or all the aspects of it to the World-Soul as a cosmos. But he's not speaking here about the origin of the cos-- of the World-Mind but of the origin of the cosmos.
S: I guess then I'm confusing cosmos with World-Mind the way they interpret World-Soul and--
AS: He says--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "The cosmos is nothing less than the self-externalization of the World-Mind…"
AS: Or which interpret as World-Soul.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "…which is self-existent [and] needs no second thing in which to reside, [AS adds: and] no matter from which to make a universe."
S: I still don't understand what we mean when we say that-- that it even has the forms within it.
AS: What do you mean? Like the dream example.
S: But in the dream example [AS simultaneously: The forms are in the mind.] forms tend to come from something higher.
AS: No but from within the dream wouldn't you say that all of those forms come from the dreamer's-- come from your mind? Do they come from somebody else's mind? They're not the World-Mind, I don't have the same dream you do, so they must be your own forms. They're not-- in essence they're not [S simultaneously: You know.] cosmic experience, I don't have the same dream you do. [S simultaneously: Well there's certain forms that--] You have your own individual-- Yeah.
S: Certain forms in dream that are collective forms, I mean that's certain--
AS (simultaneously): Yeah you're s-- see you're trying to use the argument well, in my dream that's a circle. Now I know the idea of circle doesn't originate in my mind. But for the purposes of this dream it does, it has to be implanted in my mind first before my dreamer can-- the dream mind can get it. So immediately where the forms are coming from is my own-- my mind. The forms, all the forms in the dream were first found-- were first in my mind. But first not-- were prior to that-- prior to being manifested in the dream they had to be in my mind. It couldn't have been outside my mind, otherwise my mind wouldn't have been able to use them to make the dream.
S: But they did come from outside the mind.
AS: You're speaking about ultimately where did-- you know, like the idea of circle or something, where did that ultimately come from. But the cosmos, where did the dream come from? Where did the actual dream come from, the dream characters and so on? Imagine that when you're asleep, you know, you're cut off from the rest of the cosmos, I mean that's not really completely true but imagine your mind is completely cut off and self-contained. It's not having any input from the outside world. [S simultaneously: But that's--] And you're just fabricating a world. Well then where is it going to get it from? It's suddenly going to say wait, I need to go outside myself to get these-- this form for this tree or this form for lion. No, it already has it. And in fact some would say if it doesn't have it you won't have a dream with a lion if you didn't somewhere-- if the mind didn't already have previously the i-- the image of a lion. So whatever's in that dream, thinking of that night's dreaming as just a self-contained unit, the only input is from the mind that's dreaming it. It doesn't go outside it. Imagine you don't have any big dream or, you know, nothing-- it doesn't go into it too far.
S: But imagine that you do have a big dream [AS simultaneously: Oh but that's--] then I can't--
AS: Yeah, yeah, but the thing is that, in that case even when you do it's still through the intermediary of your mind.
S: Ok so--
AS: It's still through your mind.
S: But weren't we saying something more than it's-- it seems that we were saying something more than it's just a channel.
AS: No he's saying here the cosmos never gets out of the World-Soul.
S: Right.
AS: You never get outside it, you never-- Well think. Cosmic-- cosmic mentalism. Cosmos is complete manifestation of the World-Soul, just as your dream is totally within your own individual mind.
S: And so it's inappropriate now to-- to find out what the World-Mind's connection is?
AS (simultaneously): No. No, no, I think he's going to talk about what the World-Mind is. In the next chapter he talk-- and then maybe even here he talks about the inner aspect of the World-Mind but I don't-- I don't think this sentence is referring to that when he says the cosmos is the self-externalization of the World-Mind and doesn't need anything outside of itself.
THE WORLD-MIND (INTELLECTUAL-PRINCIPLE) CANNOT EXTERNALIZE ITSELF AS THE COSMOS, BUT THE COSMIC SOUL CAN
AD: See if we-- if we interpreted chapter 3 the way we did, alright, then consistency would demand that you stay with it, alright, and do not make the World-Mind, so to speak, something which can get externalized. (It's/He's)-- [S: Right.] the World-Mind cannot externalize. It is always an eternal fact or let's say an eternal principle, a pure Hypostasis. It doesn't put on a dress and take off the dress and say "Look at me, now you can't see me, look at me, now you can't see me," that's not-- you're not talking about the Intellectual-Principle. You're talking about the cosmic soul whose function it is to do that. And, here's an example for instance, small quote from Plotinus. He says--
Plotinus [V.5.3, AD reading]: "Zeus [AD adds: or] (Universal Soul) is in this a symbol of him, Zeus who is not content with the contemplation of his father (Kronos, (AD adds: or the) divine Intellect) but looks to that father's father (to Ouranos, the Transcendent) [AD reads: or to the Transcendent One] as what may be called the divine energy working to the establishment of real being."
AD: And this will be another way of saying for instance that the cosmic Sun, alright, the cosmic soul looks up to the Divine Intellect and sometimes even beyond the Divine Intellect to establish real Being in our universe, alright. Now the only way that real Being can be established in our universe is through an appearance, manifestation of these essences, whatever they may be. So in terms-- in terms of the logic of the way-- and the consistency the way we've been carrying on, we would have to say the soul, the cosmic soul-- and you remember we went through quite a bit of [drawing] discussion on that-- that (reading). Our whole epistemology was based on that, the notion of mentalism was based on that. If we give that up, then we're-- we're not-- we're not going to be speaking about mentalism anymore, we're going to be speaking about divine knowledge. Because that would-- to understand the object as it exists in the Divine Intellect is divine knowledge. So, let's go back to [drawing] what we had spoken about, we spoke about this here as the Sun or the cosmic soul [diagram] which produced, projected a universe, manifested a universe, you remember? [student assents, very faint] And that this universe which it manifested was called a vast thought, alright, that was the terminology he used. A vast thought, not a vast thing. [Note: See FIGURE 1980 0123-3-AB, Universe as Sun's Vast Thought, appended to this transcript.] Is that right?
S (faint): Uh-hm.
S: Uh-hm.
THE ESSENCE OF THE COSMIC SOUL REFERS TO ITS OWN INTERIORITY, ITS OWN INWARDNESS, NOT ITS OUTWARD-FACING ASPECT
AD: [drawing] And that this Sun, the substance of [S simultaneously: Yes.] the Sun we referred to as taijasa consciousness or the dreamlike kind of consciousness. We also referred to it as a-- the Platonists refer to this as a celestial vivifying fire. What would that mean, Michael?
MW: It would mean that it's also the light.
AD: It's also the what?
MW: The light.
AD: Yeah. Celestial vivifying fire. Now, this Sun which produces the cosmos, alright, and then when it decides, [drawing] it retracts the cosmos, takes it back into itself. Alright. And part of our discussion was that an object exists here, another object existed here, alright, and that the possibility of knowing that object is because this celestial fire or manas, the light, alright, in the mind goes through the-- that is coincides with the body, then goes out through the orifices, you remember? the eyes, the ears, and envelops the object, alright, and so there is completed-- a completed circuit, alright, and we can say "I know that tree." What we know, of course, is the image of the tree, we never know the tree per se, ok, not in this schema, alright. You remember we did all this. [student assents, very faint] Now if we-- if we're consistent, we have to stay with this. Now he's going to be speaking about how the Sun in itself or the cosmic soul, what kind of an essence it is, if we can use that terminology. We're not speaking about its outward-facing aspect, we're speaking about its own interiority, its own inwardness.
JG: That's what he's speaking of now?
AD: Yeah.
JG: I can't see that Anthony.
AD (simultaneously): I know, I know.
S (faint): Yeah. (Uh-hm.)
AD: That's why in order to-- to explain the universe I don't have to go beyond this point [diagram].
JG: Yeah that-- that I can understand but as soon as I hear the word 'essence' I'm absolutely mystified, I don't--
AS (simultaneously): But when you hear--
AD: Being?
S (simultaneously): Why?
JG: Being, yeah, even if I--
AS: Well I think he just means if-- before we were speaking about the way it is-- the-- the third chapter is "The Birth of the Universe", so he's [student assents, faint] speaking about its activity in the universe, in the manifestation of the universe.
JG: Uh-hm.
AS: And here he's trying to get at what that thing is, what that World-Mind or World-Soul is in itself. Fortunately it's always-- the World-Soul happens to be very intimately connected with the manifestation of the universe. And a description of it will, you know-- will be based upon a description of how it manifests a universe, which seems to be another reason why he-- (just/this is) to say that he's not speaking of the Intellectual-Principle per se. Because that wouldn't have anything to do with the--
AD (simultaneously): Read the sentence, Johanna, now, read the sentence.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "The cosmos [AD: the world] is nothing less than [the] self-externalization of the World-Mind [AD reads: cosmic soul], which is self-existent…"
AD: That [JG assents] is self-existent, that cosmic soul is self-existent. It's not a fly-by-night. What need do I have to go beyond that point now?
JG: In order to explain the world, no [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] you don't have to.
IF THE ESSENCE OF MAN REFERS TO MAN'S PSYCHE, THEN IT IS FOUND WITHIN THE COSMIC SOUL
AD: Alright, then, if that is so, then anything here [diagram], the essence of anything here would be that [diagram]. Now the essence of anything here, ok, [JG: Yeah.] now let's say the essence of anything, what is anything, let's say a man. What's the essence of man? [short pause] This was a point Michael was trying to make.
JG: This la-- I--
AD: Hm? Let's say-- let's say it would be his psyche, alright, that would be the essence of man. Do you have to go outside that realm?
JG: No, not for the psyche.
AD: No, not for the-- not for the essence of man.
S (faint): I guess I'm [one word inaudible]
JG: If you don't understand by essence of man the soul you don't have to leave that--
AD (simultaneously): If-- no, we have to keep in mind this here. If by essence of man we mean his psyche.
JG: Yeah.
S: But is that--
AD: If you mean something more, then you're going to have to go outside.
JG (simultaneously): Yeah. Then you have to go outside. [S, very faint: Right.] But the psyche is within here and stays there.
AD: Uh-hm. Because we pointed [JG simultaneously: And that would--] out that the vivifying fire, [JG: Uh-huh.] you remember the manas principle which coincides with that body and [JG: Yeah.] goes through that body, out through the orifices, alright, again we're speaking about the-- the need to connect or to reintegrate everything back into that cosmic soul. So that when you looked at this diagram very carefully, you would recognize that the knower in you is soul, cosmic soul. That would be the knower in you. That's why we could all know the same thing. Yeah, go ahead Richard.
RG (faint): I don't know what you mean when you say the essence of man is the psyche in that (sentence/sense).
AD: In the same way Proclus spoke about it.
[short pause]
RG (faint): Definitely not the way Plotinus speaks about it.
AD: No, not the way Plotinus spoke about--
(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1980 0123a Ends; Side 2 Begins)
FOR THE CHALDEANS AND PLATONISTS, THE SUN IN ITSELF REFERS TO THE UPPER SOLAR WORLD, WHICH IS A REFLECTION OF THE INTELLECTUAL REALM
AD: We spoke about it last Friday. Remember the way we spoke about it last Friday? We pointed out that in the divided line when Plato speaks about-- that after you have gone through the three phases, you've reached the reasoning, the rational principle, and now you're ready to leap into the Intelligible Realm and you contemplate the Sun in itself, but not in a foreign seat, but the Sun in itself, the way it is in itself, [Note: See Plato, Republic, Book VII.] and we brought out that the-- for the Platonists and the Chaldeans this referred to the fact that they're speaking about the upper solar world. Now that's the Sun we're speaking about here. Don't confuse it with the sensible Sun. That's the Sun which is, so to speak, the universe comes out of and goes back into. That is a self-existent. That is not the physical Sun here, which is not even-- not even a hole in space.
S: You said something before and I didn't quite catch it about the Sun-- this Sun looking up to the-- somewhere higher and giving the cosmos real being? I don't know if I'm repeating it right.
AD: Yeah well, see, I'm going to have to take you off the beaten path over here a little bit. That's just what I was telling Richard.
S: I just didn't--
[Note: See FIGURE 1980 0123-2-AB, Empyrean, Three Ethereal Worlds, Upper Solar World, Three Material Worlds mapped onto Metaphysical Chart, appended to this transcript for the following.]
AD: There's a scheme or-- there's a different kind of scheme than the one you know about from normal-- what do you call it, normal education? (bit of laughter) The Platonists had this kind of arrangement. [drawing] Down here is the One [diagram] and over here is the Intellectual-Principle [diagram]. And over here they put three ethereal worlds [diagram], ok. Then over here between 10 and 11, alright, they call this the upper solar world [diagram]. [short pause while drawing/writing] And then over here they put the three material worlds [diagram]. By that they mean the inerratic sphere, ok, the stars, the realm of the inerratic sphere, then the planetary system, ok, alright, and then finally the sublunary system, alright. And these they refer to as the three material worlds, alright.
Now in the divided line you go beyond these three positions and you start contemplating the soul, the cosmic Sun, and they say only after you've gone beyond this position can you contemplate the Sun as it is in itself. That's like saying you contemplate cosmic soul as it is in itself and you know that this cosmic soul is the cause of everything that occurs in the three ethereal worlds. Now this is the cosmic Sun that I'm-- I keep talking about over here as the cause of our material universe. So don't confuse it with the sensible Sun, although in the beginning it's alright, you know. Anything-- a handle, any kind of a handle so that you can climb up. You ever climb up a mountain? You've got no steps or no rope or nothing and anything you can hold onto. Then when you get to a certain point and you can start climbing, you climb. Alright now I'm changing your positions. We're not talking about the Sun here [drawing] in this planetary system [diagram]. We're not talking about that sensible Sun when I say that the soul fabricates the universe, we're talking about this upper solar world which is a reflection of the Intellectual. Ok? This is the Chaldean system, the Platonic system. So when you're here [diagram], alright, you know that this is a direct reflection of the Intellectual World. And this is where all the confusion is coming from. Insofar that in PB these two concepts [AD indicates on diagram] are united and not distinguished or differentiated.
S: Which two?
S (simultaneously): Ok, and that's what you're trying to do now.
AD (simultaneously): That's what I'm trying to do now.
S: And, when we think we're looking to the Intellectual-Principle in fact we're really-- ok.
AD: Now, consequently, when he says--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "…we have [an] everywhere-present one who is the very essence of the world."
AD: That's this one here [diagram].
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "The cosmos is nothing less than the self-externalization of the World-Mind, which is self-existent…"
AD: Now you can say this is [drawing] the self-externalization of the World-Mind. Alright, if you want to you could do that. But it will be more correct to say that this is an externalization of the cosmic soul and this cosmic soul contemplates the Intellectual-Principle or let's say reflects in itself and then produces because of the contemplation [AD indicates on diagram] of the higher, it produces the lower.
S: Right and it would have to be contemplating this second quadrant in order [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] to produce this at all because that's [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] where it gets--
AD: That's where it gets the Ideas, [S simultaneously: Yeah.] in other words what Michael was referring to as the forms. Ultimately the form of man, the essence of man, the higher essence of man would come from here [diagram]. But certainly the essence of man is also here [diagram], if you think of the entirety of his psyche, alright, it would come from here.
S: In the cosmic soul's contemplation of the Intellectual, what is the-- I don't know if this is the right way of saying it, what's the common ground that allows it to contemplate the Ideas, to have connection with-- see them?
AD: I don't understand your question.
S: If-- this might be discussed in the next chapter so it might not be appropriate to ask it now except that if the Intellectual-Principle is aloof from manifestation and the cosmic soul is the principle that manifests, what is it that allows the cosmic soul to see the Ideas in the World-Mind?
AD: Oh, that's too advanced right now. We'll wait till we get to that. Alright Johanna? Now let's go back to where we started, ok? Continue. You have to remember I don't enjoy doing this because, well, (deny prince). But I think that you'll eventually see that this would have to be done to make sense of the whole. Alright let's-- let's start where we started now and go through that.
AS: Go through it again?
S: Uh-hm.
[short pause]
EVERY EXPERIENCE IS A MANIFESTATION OF ESSENCES COMING FROM THE COSMIC SOUL, AND THROUGH THAT ESSENCE SOME PARTICULAR LESSON OR MEANING IS BEING COMMUNICATED TO YOU
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "Thus mentalism renders it easier for us to understand three great truths. First, that the universe is God made manifest; second, that God must be immanent in the world just as our own mind is immanent in every one of our [AS adds: own] thoughts; third, that because it has a mind behind it, the universe cannot be a senseless affair but must possess a consistent meaning. The world is so intimately connected with the World-Mind that it becomes meaningless and unthinkable apart from it."
AD: Now you can discuss this directly or indirectly. Discuss it directly first.
S (faint): I--
S (faint): Ok.
S (faint): (Uh-hm.)
AS: Yeah. When he speaks about the universe here then, he means everything below the Sun that we were speaking of, if we use the World-Soul (analysis), if we say the God here is the World-Soul.
[16 second pause]
S (faint): Uh-hm.
AS: Go ahead.
S: Yeah.
AS: This-- the analogy seems-- I mean it seems like you could even speak of those three material worlds as the cosmos that he's speaking of. And the World-Soul is that Sun. There's-- I mean it seems to fit to do it that way. And all these things you would say about it, the universe is God made manifest, so you would say that everything in the cosmos, in the twelfth house there [diagram], in the m-- those three material worlds is a manifestation of the taijasa consciousness. In fact it is those reason-principles or that taijasa consciousness made manifest. It's the obverse-- even the way we spoke about the material world as the obverse side of the functioning of the mind or of the taijasa consciousness, we spoke about them as obverse sides so in that sense the universe is the obverse side of the World-Soul or the World-Soul made manifest.
AD (simultaneously): Or just like for instance saying that your thoughts are manifestations of your mind.
AS (simultaneously): My mind, yeah.
AD: The mind as an essence cannot be revealed except [AS simultaneously: As a thought.] in this-- in this fashion, you know, that it must [AS simultaneously: As a thought.] become form, alright, it must in some way or another be associated with a-- it must be brought into existence through its association with matter.
AS: And then you'd say it's immanent in the world.
AD: Well can--
AS: And then--
AD (simultaneously): (It couldn't) be missing in any part of the world.
AS: And in fact I think he even went so far and you mentioned before that in fact it's that World-Soul which is the very-- is the knower of the world even through us, knows the world through us, [student assents, very faint] or we know-- know the world through it. [short pause] Then he says--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "…the universe cannot be a senseless affair but must possess a consistent meaning."
AD: Unless the-- the author is senseless.
AS: But that seems to say that the-- the World-Soul is the essence of the universe in the sense of essence the way we used it before. I mean, the intelligibility of the universe comes from the World-Soul, but not the matter [few words inaudible]
CDA: Are you making matter a separate thing now?
AS: No.
AD: Can't hear you, [CDA simultaneously: Oh, ok.] louder!
AS: No I'm saying that, um-- [short pause] Let's see, well, it becomes me-- I think maybe he means literally.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "The world is so intimately connected with the World-Mind that it becomes meaningless and unthinkable apart from it." (RG laughs a bit)
AS: I mean, I-- I don't know if you-- you might interpret that literally, that if the World-Mind does withdraw from the cosmos, then the cosmos is unthinkable, what remains if any-- he would say nothing remains. But if the World-Mind were to cease its activity or withdraw, what-- the world would be unthinkable. You weren't taking that literally, were you?
AD: I'm taking it literally.
AS: Well then that-- that seems to be what he means. (AD laughs a bit) What's left is un-- is [student assents] what we said is unthinkable. [couple/three words inaudible] But, I think-- well-- it seemed like the meaning--
AD: You know the nice thing about this passage is, if you did experience the alienation from the world, (and I'm/I'm not) sure most of us at one time felt as though the world was utterly foreign and despicable and all that, it might remove that feeling of aloneness and alienation, that you're always in the world with God. So a very practical way of looking at it would be in that way and then we could recognize that almost the entirety of all the circumstances thrown at you is really a higher version of school, you know, you-- In other words those experiences, events, circumstances, objects, since each and every one of them in a variety of ways is hovered over by an essence, that through that essence there is some particular lesson or meaning being communicated to you, providing that the psyche that you are operating with is orientated to receive such an essence.
AS: Yeah but, again, I think I follow--
AD (simultaneously): You follow what I said?
AS: Yeah.
AD: (One minute.) You follow what I said?
S: No.
S (faint): It's that--
S (faint): I didn't follow.
AD: Alright. We'll try again. We're saying that the cosmos is a production of the cosmic soul. Everything in the cosmos is a manifestation of that cosmic soul. Therefore every thing, every object, every event, every experience is in a sense the manifestation of essences coming from that cosmic soul. Let's take an example, you have a child, alright. There's something about the child that you love, alright, it's your child, it-- Leaving that aside, alright, but through that experience of love, alright, there's the recognition, first of all you've immaterialized the entity by loving it, alright. But there's the recognition there's an-- there's a value, an essence inculcated or figured in that entity(,) which is reaching you through your apprehension of it. In other words you're grasping whatever the object is. And remember the way you have to grasp it. Remember mentalism points out that this object as it is in itself exists in this kind of twilight consciousness which we call taijasa consciousness. When the seed-forms travel through this entity, goes to the brain, alright, vivifies the entire body so wakeful consciousness takes place, that consciousness or that celestial vivifying fire or manas or whatever you want to call it, goes out through the orifices, grasps the object. So that means that you can have an intuition of the object but the intuition of the object that you have and the object are two distinct things, [S: Uh-hm.] right?
S: Yeah.
AD: Now in that object there's embodied an essence. Ok? Something about the child that is essentially immaterial, divine or whatever you want to say. But you can't grasp that directly but only through your intuition, alright, and you make a picture of it in your mind. And so you know that this embodies some kind of essence. Now if you make-- if you intuit that, alright, then that means that there's coming into your cognising ability an understanding, an essence, a meaning. You follow that?
S (faint): I think so.
AD: That means that you're assimilating an essence which is coming from the cosmic soul.
S (faint): Oh.
THE GAYATRI IS A PRAYER TO THE CELESTIAL FIRE TO GUIDE US IN UNDERSTANDING THOSE ESSENCES AND MEANINGS FIGURED IN OUR ACTUAL EXPERIENCE
AD: And if you apply this indiscriminately to all your circumstances, to all your experiences, then you can see that there's constantly being fed into you, alright, by this, you know-- You know what the Gayatri is, don't you? You've been saying it for years? You remember the Gayatri? You want to say it out loud?
S: You want me to say it?
AD: Anyone, I don't care.
S: "Let us adore the supremacy of that divine sun, the god-head…" [Note: This is a free translation by Sir William Jones, 1807.]
[AD drawing]
S: That's the Sun that we're praying to, yeah.
AD: Go on.
S: "…who illuminates all, [AD: Uh-hm. (AD points out on diagram)] who recreates all…"
AD: It's the celestial fire. It fabricates everything in this universe.
S: "…from whom all proceed…"
AD: From whom everything in the universe proceeds.
S: "…to whom all must return…"
AD: To whom all must return.
S: "…whom we invoke…"
AD: Whom we invoke, Him [AD points out on diagram].
S: "…to direct our understandings aright…"
AD: To guide us to understanding those essences, those meanings, those significations which are embodied or figured in the actual experience, circumstance, event, object, etc, person.
S (faint whisper): Yeah.
S: So through-- through these emanations of the Sun or these objects or whatever you want to call it, that's how we learn--
AD: That's figured in that.
S: Right.
AD: Essences coming right from this cosmic soul. So naturally there would be an illumination, an instructing taking place as you take in something. So when you hear or see a beautiful work of art, something's come into you. Of course you're not conscious enough to recognize the essence [student assents, faint] because that would require-- that will require like a purgation of the intellect, you know, and an ability to separate the essences from the objects that embody the essence. And then you'd be a poet, you'd be living in this ethereal world. And when every now and then someone reminds you to cook dinner or something you'll get annoyed. Whereas-- (bit of laughter) whereas it's this-- it's these very essences that we're assimilating, so you don't have to be a great explorer, a great inventor, a great scientist, these things are always coming into you. [S: And that's why--] Always. Housewife, sweeper, ditch digger, long shore, painter, artist, whatever, they're always coming into you. It's our awareness and our attitude, am I grasping what the significance is that's coming in. That's why I want to translate this chapter this way because it's much more meaningful if I go from here [diagram] to here [diagram] than from here [diagram] to here [diagram].
JG: Anthony? I have to be stubborn about those essences, I-- I always refer essences to the Intellectual Realm.
AD: Yes, that's where they come from ultimately. [student assents] They-- [JG: Well--] another way of saying it would be to say that essences are the thoughts of God, alright, and God has an infinite number of thoughts. [JG simultaneously: We speak about (the/them)--] Don't try to count them into [JG simultaneously: Yeah.] twelve. Alright? Now all these thoughts, there's a variety and a hierarchy among thoughts themselves. [JG assents, faint] Some are lower in the scale of being, some are higher in the scale of being. But all of them together we would call Being. Alright? So, you have to remember a word like 'essence' could hide a multitude of sins and you have to really understand how the word is being used, just like when they use the word 'karma', you know, it could mean anything. You got to draw out the meaning from the context in which it's being used.
JG: So in this particular sen-- in this particular context it's the thoughts of God? Or-- yeah.
AD (simultaneously): Well, the thoughts of the cosmic soul.
JG: The cosmic soul.
AD (simultaneously): Now ultimately we'll be able to trace that--
JG: Can trace those further up.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, even higher.
JG: Yeah.
AD: That was the point Michael was trying [JG simultaneously: Yeah.] to make but I didn't want to get into that.
JG: Yes.
AD: Right now I'm satisfied if we could see that insofar that the cosmic soul, alright, has produced this cosmos, and embedded in each and every circumstance, event, situation, person and entity, etc, are these essences or thoughts of God, alright, then when you see this object or you experience love for this person, alright, you may be experiencing let's say an essence, alright. And that's what you love in the person, alright, but then of course you have to be preoccupied with feeding the baby and clothing it and all that, alright. (bit of laughter) But, it-- that's what you find significant and that's what is communicated to you. Because you know it can't be just a flesh and blood and bones, that doesn't make the person. Otherwise you'd go around loving cows and sheeps and corpses and everything else. (bit of laughter)
S (faint): Sometimes (I think) [one/two words inaudible]
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
S (very faint): Yeah.
MW/S(?) (very faint): Now I forgot the word [three/few words inaudible]
AD: So then if we translated it this way I think it would be quite easy to see--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "First, that the universe is God made manifest…"
AD: And this is not only metaphorical, it can be experienced.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "…second, that God must be immanent in the world…"
AD: And this again is not metaphor, this is actual. And some people of course have had experiences, whether in numinous dreams or in momentary instance in their life where they recognize a great value and then all of a sudden the habitual functioning of the mind with its tendency and its lapsing always towards the sensual deprives you of that. And--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "…third, that because it has a mind behind it, [AD: or the cosmic soul behind it] the universe cannot be a senseless affair but must possess a [consistent] meaning."
JG: A consistent (meaning).
AD (simultaneously): Again, here-- here you see, it must possess a meaning, but don't humanize this meaning. That-- that's where the danger will come in. Because to you meaning is something that would be the result of the enti-- totality of meanings, experiences that you have acquired. And you would project this outwardly and say this is what something means for-- for me. But we're speaking about the cosmic soul. And so the meaning that the universe may have for the cosmic soul would absolutely minimize what you call your meaning of the universe, I mean it may-- your meaning may be absolutely-- absolute fiction, alright. So you have to watch that.
JG: And it's consistent because the-- the cosmic soul is self-exi--
S: (What) did you say?
S (very faint): Uh-hm. Uh-hm.
S (faint): Yes.
JG: Yes.
S (very faint): Very good.
AD: Well, I don't think I'd be able to understand in what way it's consistent. Alright, let's read the next paragraph.
S: Could I meddle?
AD: Hm? Yeah, sure, go right ahead. Yes, go ahead.
S (faint): I thought when you said that meaning came from the fifth house [diagram] it wasn't (in other words) in the cosmic soul. Would you repeat that again?
AD: We just pointed out that ultimately essences will be derived from the Intellectual-Principle, but we won't go that high right now. [short pause] And we first have to see them here [diagram], getting translated as this cosmos before we talk about them over here [diagram]. As-- let me put it this way, Christine. The essences as they exist in themselves, alright, are meaningless to us. It's only as they get embodied in the world and we get the experience of them as embodied and then we differentiate them from their embodiment that gradually we begin to get a feeling of what essences are. They cannot be directly grasped in the Intellectual Realm. The whole purpose of life would be ultimately to lead a person to the realm of, you know, God's wisdom or his understanding. And that's a gradual process which takes place as we journey through the cosmos.
S: But they are-- they are embodied though, I mean that's not--
AD: Yes they're embodied, sure.
S (faint): In the-- in the--
AD: Yeah, like for instance if I speak about your essence, your essence, alright, is a necessary factor in constituting your existence. Because if that essence wasn't constitutive of your existence, alright, then there would be no meaning at all to your life or to anyone's life. But they do get embodied, they have to have matter, alright, and that matter is the principle of your existence, the two of you will come together.
S (very faint): Right.
S (faint): Before you stated (that essence was) eleventh house [diagram] and that [AD simultaneously: Well--] would have it.
S (faint): Right.
AD: Yeah, it's been my preoccupation for years. The eleventh house is a mystery. You notice-- did you feel upset day before yesterday when the Sun went into Aquarius? Any of you notice [S, faint: Yeah.] uneasiness, experience uneasiness?
S (faint): No.
S (faint): Ok, maybe I did.
AD: Huh?
AS: Well Anthony [one/two words inaudible]
S (simultaneously, faint): [one/two words inaudible] (until/till) you said that.
S (simultaneously): (It's) going through Aquarius every day. (laughter) I mean Lenny told--
S (amidst laughter): What was that?
S (simultaneously, faint): It's going on every-- every day.
AS (simultaneously): (Now I) have to distinguish that (idea) [three/few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): I'm sorry?
S: Yes.
S (simultaneously): I said it's going on every day. (S laughs)
S: Right. (bit of laughter)
[few seconds of very faint background student talking]
AD: Well no objectively, objectively. You see, in [S simultaneously: Would you--] this case here [AD taps on diagram/board], in the-- in this case that we just mentioned when the Sun goes into Aquarius, Aquarius always expresses a certain hostility to life. But that's if we think of life-- that's if we think of life as a routine which has been fixed, you see. If you think of-- if you think of the way we ordinarily think of life it's pretty shallow. It's got a repetitious routine, it repeats itself, you know, constantly. And Aquarius, eleventh house is the fourteen lokas. [Note: See FIGURE IMG_2202-Posterboard Metaphysical Chart appended to this transcript.] And so you get a premonition, alright, you get a premonition there that life isn't this constant rerun of stills which is, you know, more or less what you can expect tomorrow or the day after, in Aquarius you get a feeling that that's not exactly the way it is, alright. That's because you have the seven lokas there. And that means that life has to gradually be transformed from one level of reference to another to another to another. So life finds that kind of hostile. You know, life likes to go along grooves, nice patterns, you know, don't make waves. (AD laughs a bit) Aquarius makes waves. (AD laughs) Alright, let's return to paragraph.
S: Having my children be always so irritable. (S laughs) My two Aquarian children. (bit of laughter)
AS (faint): Well that's great. Tell them not to be quiet.
S (very faint): [couple/three words inaudible] (bit of laughter)
S (faint): What did he say?
S (faint): He said tell them not to be quiet.
GOD (SECOND QUADRANT) IS THE SECRET BEHIND THE FUNCTIONING OF THE COSMIC SOUL
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "The universe expresses infinite intelligence and possesses meaning precisely because it is a manifestation of infinite mind. The presence of World-Mind invests the whole world-process with sense and sanity. We may translate this into the statement that God is the secret and original source of the universal mental and biological activity…"
AD: Alright, now let me stop there, let me show you the way I would read this, alright?
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "The universe [AD reads: It] expresses infinite intelligence and possesses meaning precisely because it is a manifestation of infinite mind [AD read: cosmic soul]. The presence of World-Mind [AD reads: cosmic soul] invests the whole world-process with sense and sanity. We may translate this into the statement that God is the secret…"
AD: Now God here would be the secret behind cosmic soul.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "…God is the secret and original source of [AD emphasis]…"
AD: This mental universe and the biological activity through which it expresses itself.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AD reading]: "…the basis and the bed-rock of the whole world-experience."
S: So God there wouldn't be the cosmic soul but the secret behind it?
AD: No, God would be there this here [diagram].
S (faint): Yeah. That one.
AD: Second quadrant. Because that's what's behind that [diagram]. You remember we said that if this is the upper solar world [diagram] and it reflects the empyrium [Note: 'empyrean' in diagram], then this [diagram] is behind its activity. So God would be behind, so to speak, the functioning of the cosmic soul.
[10 second pause]
AD: Continue.
AS: You want to read the next paragraph?
AD: I think so.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "We earlier found that the whole universe is alive and mental."
AD: Right? Isn't that right Michael? Alive and mental. [MW, very faint: Alive.] Alright so you see, the term "celestial vivifying fire", [AD snaps fingers] you know, is the two of them, it's mental, it's living. Although you should-- you shouldn't hypostatize 'living' here or life. Because that might be a co-- a construct. Life might be a construct, ok? It isn't a pure principle of life like it would be here [AD indicates on diagram]. So maybe it could be made, fabricated. Alright.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "But if we understand the implications of the unconscious, we must add that the whole universe is also conscious."
JG: The implication being that in the unconscious is the consciousness? What--
S (faint): Yeah, I don't get that.
S (very faint): Ok.
JG: Then what?
AD: Well, what are the implications of the unconscious? In other words, if we think of the unconscious in the sense of the creation of the various life-forms, alright, and the activity which is expressed in their instinctual nature, then one would have to submit to the fact that the unconscious is really not so unconscious, [JG simultaneously: Conscious, yes, that's what I'm (one word inaudible)] that we're really unconscious and that is quite conscious.
JG: That the unconscious reveals the presence of the quite conscious intelligence.
AD: Yes, purpose-- [student assents, faint] purposeful activity, all these things. [short pause] We call anything unconscious which hasn't got ego-consciousness, yeah. And somebody someday will write a treatise on that. [13¼ second pause] Yeah, (now) go on.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 182, AS reading]: "One fundamental error which is often made by those who approach this subject, whether they do it as materialists or religionists, is to picture consciousness only in an anthropomorphic form. They cannot get away from the view which limits the activity of awareness only to the way in which we humans think, know, feel and experience things. Even if mind be denuded of consciousness as man knows it this is not to say [that] it is denuded of consciousness as it itself knows it. We must give up this anthropocentric definition. We must make a sharp distinction between mind as human awareness and as pure awareness."
[short pause]
AD: I think we could skip these paragraphs, we go to the next page. "If we can appreciate this…", go (on/ahead).
INHERENT IN THE LIFE ACTIVITY OF THE BODY IS AN INTELLIGENCE THAT GUARANTEES THE PROGRESS OF THE ENTITY LIVING IN THE BODY
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 183, AS reading]: "If we can appreciate this, we can proceed further and comprehend that the fortunes of living creatures are not left like straws to drift in the wind. Evolution is guaranteed because some fragment of the cosmic mind is itself the life-force which strives upward through all the muffling veils of the four kingdoms of Nature, a striving to attain self-maturity which is inherent in every finite form from that of a so-called dead mineral to that of a living man. Consciousness too develops along with the life-force, attaining conscious sensation in the lower animals, conscious thinking, that is intellect in the higher animal and lower human stages, and spiritual self-knowledge that is insight in the higher human stage. [AS adds: And] Therefore we need not fear that the cosmic purpose in its creatures is doomed to final failure."
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
AD (faint): Well let's discuss this paragraph.
S: No I-- the-- when-- when he says the "fragment of cosmic mind is itself the life-force", that's one part. And then he says "Consciousness too develops along with the life-force, attaining conscious sensation" etc. So could you say that those two relate respectively to the eleventh and fifth houses, would you say that?
BS (faint): I (didn't/couldn't) hear the question, sorry.
S: The question is, when he speaks of the "fragment of cosmic mind is itself the life-force", and then he further down--
AD: Well let's stop there.
S: Ok.
AD: Instead of answering your question let's see if we could understand it.
S: I mean I was-- I was really confused over this paragraph, but after this discussion I'm wondering if this fragment of the cosmic mind which is reaching up, is that part of-- does that come from the eleventh house?
S: Yeah.
S: That's comes from the eleventh house and that's that-- that's what's driving upwards--
AS: Well-- but wait, we [S simultaneously: I--] said that the-- the fragment of the cosmic mind which is the life-force, it seems like we said that that is-- the life of this universe is given by that World-Soul. And the life, every-- every living being, every living entity lives by the soul entire, just by this World-Soul. So that-- that's the life within us is given by that World-Soul, that fragment of the life-force. In fact, that fragment of the life, I-- I don't want to-- and wouldn't-- wouldn't he be saying that the life that's within you is given to you by the World-Soul? Is a fragment of the World-Soul, I mean I don't mean--
S: Yeah.
AS: Even to call it fragment, [S simultaneously: Yeah, I highly--] insofar as it's through-- it's through the form of an individual it's a fragment.
JG: So what--
S (faint): Yeah.
S: Well you-- you-- you can go ahead, I'm not really--
AD: No let's stay with this, let's stay with this.
S: Yeah no, I know.
AS (very faint): [couple words inaudible]
JG: That seems to be the case though, I mean what he's saying seems to be the case, what we have talked-- you know, in line with what we have talked to.
AS: Uh-hm.
AD: Well what are we-- what are we really saying here?
JG: That the cosmic--
AD: We're saying that the life in the body [S: Yeah.] is something which belongs to the cosmic soul.
JG (simultaneously): To the cosmic, yeah, yes.
AD: But if we already assume that the cosmic soul and the essences it contains, alright, and this consistency of-- and universality of its knowledge, then that life activity which your body participates in and which is ultimately derived from this cosmic soul, then inherent in that very life activity of the body there's a certain intelligence [JG: Uh-hm.] which guarantees the-- the progress of this entity or whatever we want to call the entity that lives in that body. [short pause] Now we have to of course recognize the fact that the body, in spite of this being 1980, that the body has processes, physiological processes that are utterly beyond our comprehension, utterly, I mean their-- their intelligence, their functioning, the revelation of the way the psyche adapts itself or resists or does what it-- whatever it does, how it incorporates habits and they become stylized modes of its own being, when we think of all these things and we begin to say that this life which has its origin in the cosmic soul, alright, is that very principle which is going to lead us on and upward.
JG: I was wondering about the upward or that point to-- and especially through the four king-- kingdoms of Nature. Upwards, would that be towards the cos-- the cosmic soul is contemplating the Intellectual? So there is no other choice then from what it's made [AD simultaneously: Well what would--] of the cosmic soul also to striving for--
AD (simultaneously): What would be upward, what would the meaning of upwardness be?
S (simultaneously): Yeah.
AD: Huh?
JG: (Too/To) involved with that(--/.)
AD (simultaneously): More and more-- [S simultaneously: Yeah.] more--
JG (simultaneously): Towards the end more-- towards the Intellectual-Principle.
AD: But why are you running so fast?
JG: Is that too fast?
AD: Of course that's too fast. [S: I'll go(--/.)] Make a [JG simultaneously: I thought because the--] leap and a bound and you're in the Intellectual. How about first reaching the cosmic soul?
JG: Oh I was speaking from the point of view of the cosmic soul.
AS (simultaneously): Of-- of [couple words inaudible] No but, he's saying even-- these fragment-- it seems like you're saying that the fragments of this cosmic soul which is this life-force within each individual is striving to attain union back with that cosmic soul which is-- originally it was part of, to recognize its unity with that. And then you would see that [JG simultaneously, faint: Oh, oh. Oh, oh.] your life isn't your life, it's the cosmic soul's life. [CDA: So (one/two words inaudible)] And if that's so then that would (be) [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): In Hinduism they call that life which is imparted to the body, they call that spanda, [S: What?] which is an activity of the cosmic soul or Atma.
S: Spanda?
JG: The-- that--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah. The activity of the entirety that's invested in the physiological processes in the body, etc. Do you remember I think Robert had made a remark that when he put up PB's books he-- there was a whole section just on the body? [student assents, faint] [short pause] At any rate, in that body there's this activity of the cosmic soul, this life principle which is invested in-- in that functioning. So it will ultimately and eventually lead you back to the cosmic soul.
S: Yeah.
AD: It couldn't do that while you were an amoeba. It couldn't do that while you were a weasel. Couldn't do that while you were a snake. (AD laughs a bit) Alright?
CDA: So if this-- this force that's leading us back, is that the in-- the intelligence of the Sun that's in the body or does-- do you-- do you have to bring in individual soul and--
AD (simultaneously): Well we said it was the life. No, don't bring in individual soul.
CDA: Ok, ok.
AD (simultaneously): Don't bring it in yet.
CDA: Well that's what I was asking, you can-- you could say--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah. You know, deus ex machina, you're short something, let me get it from outside?
CDA: So you-- the-- that-- the body knows. [AD simultaneously: (Go ahead.)] The intelligence in the body that's from the Sun knows that it is somehow separated from it and thus there's a--
AD: I wouldn't say that it knows it's separated, I would say it knows no such thing.
CDA: Well then what is this-- what is this that makes it want to return? Didn't you say that?
AD: No, it doesn't want to return, it never left.
S (very faint): Yeah.
CDA: Well what is this striving for-- what is this leading upwards?
AD: Ah. What is this leading upwards. That's the question. Perhaps it's making a palatial mansion. And once it gets sufficiently organized and structuralized, then the soul could live in it.
CDA: Can you--
AD: No.
S (very faint): Awww.
CDA: What's making a palatial mansion, the body?
S (simultaneously): The life-force, right?
AD: This cosmic [S simultaneously: The body.] soul! [CDA simultaneously: Cosmic soul--] It's making a house for you to live in.
CDA: Yes.
AD: Until the house is made, alright, that soul isn't going to be able to do anything, anything too much. But once that body is organized and mind and-- then we could speak about this consciousness, alright, he speaks about it here, "Consciousness too develops along with the life-force…" Now if you can think of the body, and if you think of its organization and its functioning, alright, and it-- you add to that that there would be some kind of light of the soul presiding in that body, [CDA: Ok.] that it will be developing along with the psychic-- with-- which is being formulated, [CDA: Ok.] alright. But we may be premature, maybe the soul doesn't inhabit that body until it's ready for it. I'm sure you've seen many people who have a body but there's practically no soul to talk of.
S (very faint): Yes.
JG: (And so) you made a remark.
S: Hm.
S (faint): Yeah.
S (faint): Yeah.
JG: I can't see how the Overself-- that the Overself here, consciousness too develops-- can develop.
AD: Well no, it's not--
[Audio File 1980 0123a Ends]
[Audio File 1980 0123b Begins]
JC: --Sun's constantly showing, it gradually develops an organ.
AD: The essences are transmitted to that light, yeah.
JC: Through that light.
AD: Or through that light? Or to the light?
JC (simultaneously, faint): Well, (either way). To the light.
AD: To the light.
JC (simultaneously): Well to the light from the second quadrant.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah. No, no, no.
AS (simultaneously): No, from the Sun's acti-- this--
YOU HAVE THE IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE OF THESE ESSENCES DIRECTLY IN THE BODY, AND THESE "SUBJECTIVIZE" THE LIGHT OPERATING THROUGH THE BODY
AD (simultaneously): Don't-- From the very activity of the Sun, that is, the body that it made for you. Now the very body that was made for-- for this (light), alright, this body would be constituted of a variety of essences. [JC assents, very faint] And these are s-- to use your term, subjectivizing that light. It's almost like that psyche, that body is giving birth to this soul, not the real soul but pseudo-soul, ok, this (light).
JC: So you're saying that light assimilates the essences through shining on the cosmic soul's production.
AD: Yes, that fir-- Your most immediate, and I'm using a romantic term here, your most immediate environment is your body.
JG: Why is that romantic? (some laughter)
AD: And to.
AS (simultaneously): Romantic in the technical sense. (bit of laughter)
AD: To.
S (very faint): [couple/three words inaudible] (CDA laughs)
AS (faint): Technical sense only. (bit of laughter)
JG: To you?
S (faint): [one/two words inaudible] right. (bit of laughter)
S (very faint, possibly part of background): To use (the pen).
S (faint, possibly part of background): Thank you Bert.
AD: Let's read some more things, would you now? (bit of laughter)
JG: I--
AS: Sorry, I (thought) but--
JG: Child, yes, would-- could you go (JG laughs a bit) over what we have covered in the past five minutes once more? (bit of laughter)
AS: You mean with Jeffrey?
JG (simultaneously): Because it's absolutely-- it's new for me.
AS: With Jeffrey?
JG: Yes with Jeffrey and [one word inaudible]
AS (simultaneously): Well Jeffrey could review it [few words inaudible]
JG (simultaneously): The idea-idea of the (light/life) being almost generated out of the body.
AS: Intelligibility of the life-force.
JG: Yeah and that's--
AS: Gets intelligized.
JG: And also what the four kingdoms of Nature are I don't really know.
AS: Four king-- Well, animal, vegetable, mineral and [JG, possibly part of background: Oh thank you.] those guys. (bit of laughter)
S (faint whisper, possibly part of background): The consciousness.
S (very faint): Four types.
S (very faint, possibly part of background): That's stealing.
S (very faint, possibly part of background): [couple/few words inaudible]
AS: He's stealing. Well that was easy Johanna.
S (faint): Yeah. (laughter)
AS: I don't know, did you want to go over the thing--
JG: Yes, could now--
AS: Did you want to do it Jeff?
JC (simultaneously, faint): [couple/three words inaudible] (do it), yeah.
AS: Do you want to do it?
JC: Well-- well I really-- I still asking the question 'cause I don't-- it's time to do it.
AS (simultaneously): Well, I-- I think-- well we said that the World-Soul-- it's-- the World-Soul transmits these essences to the body, [JC simultaneously: (couple/three words inaudible) because (couple words inaudible)] [S simultaneously with AS and JC: The body.] to the vehicles. It-- but in doing so it's utilizing these essences, it's almost like these essences are getting existentialized [JC: Right.] through the functioning of the World-Soul. Now imagine your Overself gives off some light, this light, originally from--
JG (simultaneously): But the body itself is constituted of essences, right?
AS: Constituted by the World-Soul. It's a-- it's a-- it's an e-- it's manifestation of the essences.
JG: Uh-huh.
AS: Right, now if-- the light from your soul is in conjunction with the functioning of this body. This body [couple words inaudible] there's life forces in it and so the essences [JG assents] are embodied in it. If the light from your soul is in conjunction with that body, then what it's going to do is assimilate the essences, you know, as-- as this life-force, as you're getting-- as you're knowing-- as these functions of knowledge, sensation and so on go on in the body, almost like saying that the-- that light which is present will assimilate the essences of those experiences. And as it assimilates those essences, it's almost like getting the light itself, the consciousness itself is getting built up.
S (very faint): Yeah.
EC: Avery?
JG: Well you introduced [BS: Slower.] something from the second quadrant and [AS simultaneously: No.] Anthony didn't do that.
AS: No, how did I?
JG: Did-- [BS simultaneously: You said Overself.] did he do it or you said (Over--) (JG laughs)
AS: Well, we're saying it's--
CDA (simultaneously): He said a light from the Overself.
AS: Well it's not the Overself per se.
EC: Avery, would you clarify one point for me a little?
AS: Well--
EC (simultaneously): When you said that World-Soul builds the essences of the body, does that mean the mind in the body?
AD: It builds the body.
AS (simultaneously): Bol-- builds the body from the essences.
EC (simultaneously, faint): [couple/three words inaudible] mind.
AD (simultaneously): According to essences.
AS: And the mind.
S (very faint): (Uh-hm.)
EC (faint): And the mind.
AS (simultaneously): Yeah, the way we speak [S simultaneously: And mind.] of the mental. [EC: So that--] Yes body means bo-- physical and mental bodies.
EC (faint): So that the--
AS (simultaneously): The World-Soul--
EC (faint): The Overself has it in another way [couple words inaudible]
AS: That's a-- we're leaving that out, the [EC simultaneously, faint: Ok, alright.] World-Soul builds the physical and mental bodies.
AD: If we took a very practical example, alright, if you think of any organ in your body, there would be certain prototype functions going on, alright. Like if you think of the circulation of the blood, if you think of the roundness of the head, all these things are forms, alright, they're essences. So when the Sun builds something, it builds it according to these essences. So that you have the immediate experience of these essences directly in the body. Now because of our preoccupation with our body's relation to the external world or bioloti-- biological adaptation to the world, we're preoccupied with that and we'll get essences out there first, alright. But the immediate environment of that light is first the body. Because the body is the very organ of knowledge through which that soul is going to know the outside world.
BS (very faint): To me it is.
JC: But I-- but I observe--
AD: So those very essences which went into the constitution of the body are determining that light's understanding.
FOR US WHO ARE NOT FUNCTIONING AT THE LEVEL OF SOUL, THE LIGHT HAS TO BECOME SOUL BEFORE IT CAN READ OFF THE ANIMATE—WE'RE STILL IN THE PROCESS OF BECOMING THAT SOUL
JC: What I have trouble seeing is that sounds like what you're saying, if I see enough wagon wheels, eventually my mind will get intelligized with a cert-- that light will get intelligized with the [one/two words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Would recognize [AS simultaneously: Well--] (the first) form, the form of the circle [SC simultaneously: And I'm--] comes prior.
JC: Ok. But, I thought that inherent in that light principally was the form of the circle.
AD: Yes but that's because you-- you keep thinking of Saturn in the second quadrant. [Note: See FIGURE IMG_2202-Posterboard Metaphysical Chart appended to this transcript.]
JC: Really?
AD: Yeah.
JC: Who is it? Go ahead.
AD: Where all the forms are.
JC: I mean I thought the rational essence in the eleventh held-- had those forms in a way appropriate to it and that that was the light that we were speaking of.
AD (simultaneously): Well it (reveals/deals) with those forms in the eleventh what's in the-- in the twelfth, yes.
JC: But that seeing a lot of circles, what that does is leaves an impression in the vehicles that I work with such that that idea of circle can become--
AD (simultaneously): Jeff I know where you're coming from. You're coming from the point of view of Plotinus who points out that when the soul fabricates the animate, it reads off the animate the forms that are impressed on the animate, alright? [Note: See Plotinus, I.1.7.] [JC, very faint: Yeah, right.] That's where you're coming from. I'm trying to tell you it isn't so for us. Ok? Alright? Where-- I'm not Plotinus, alright? I'm not reading from there.
JC: Well-- in other words you're saying that the way we experience this process--
AD (simultaneously): That light-- No. The way it is is that light has to become soul before it can read off the animate and we're still in the process of becoming that soul.
S (faint): Why?
AD: If I can ultimately conjoin to the Saturn in Leo--
JC: But I-- am I in the process of becoming that soul because the vehicles have not differentiated enough and not-- there hasn't been enough experience to accumulate a refinement in the vehicles such that they can respond more directly to essences, is that the development--
AD: Yeah. Ok.
JC: --that has to--
AD: Yeah. See that's what I mean when I say you people have seven-league boots.
S (very faint): Maybe (six).
AD: You always take one gigantic step and you're always in the fifth house.
JC: Well, better not step [one word inaudible]
AD: Now that's alright for Plotinus to say the soul reads directly off the animate the intelligibles, the forms, alright. That's because he was all soul. I mean that man functioned from the level of soul, not from the level of personality. But we who are developing that light, ok, it's almost like a-- it's-- as I tried to point out, this-- in your moments of romantic endeavour when you recognize that there's something in you that's alone and isolated and it seems to be using the body as a watchtower to look out upon everything and then to withdraw back in itself, see, that's not Overself. That's-- that's a very intimate conversation we could have with ourselves knowing that we are that, you know, it surveys everything and then could retreat back into this watchtower. I'm talking about that, see. [JC: But that--] I'm going to run to the Overself.
JC: The Overself (life/light) is neither objective or subjective. It's indifferent.
AD (simultaneously): No, (it's in) terms of meanings.
JC: This light is what's really the subjective fire.
AD: Yes, we can say that that's our beginning subjectivity, beginning (form).
JC: Well not true subjectivity but--
AD: Not true, not true. But nonetheless, alright, [JC simultaneously, faint: But you (one/two words inaudible)] if that light did not have some place in this material world within which to reside, it could never have this experience necessary for it to return (of) back to the source. So the experiences will guarantee that through the assimilation of essences, whether indirectly like externally, you know, the world external, or more directly, like when we experience the functioning of our own body, that would be the assimilation of this intelligence. Now you could see also in a simple way in astrology for instance when we say that the various planet-- planets in their spheres fabricate different parts of the body, you know, and they're related, Venus to the kidney system and the Sun to the heart and Jupiter to (the stomach), alright. Right there you can see this enormous intelligence embodied, figured in these existential personality that you are. Ok? You're experiencing those essences right directly in that way. Of course for us it's all unconscious. Until we get sick.
BS (faint): So intellect in the higher animal or human stages would be a-- a reflection of that insight?
AD: Again?
BS: He speaks of, second stage--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 183, BS reading]: "…[BS adds: the] intellect in [the] higher animal and lower human stages…"
AD: Yeah that-- what about that?
BS (faint): It's some kind of-- it was a reflection of that insight, is it some kind of conceptual mode? Is it--
AD: In your reflective processes there is this functioning being projected into those reflective processes.
CDA/S(?) (faint): What functioning?
AD: The-- the functioning that's inherited in the human body because it is a fabrication of these planetary spheres or this intermediary, alright, that that very functioning gets reflected in our thinking processes. And so that guarantees this process. Now lower animals don't have reflective processes or very minimal, you know. The lower down the scale you go, the less reflection you find. So the higher you go up the scale, alright, the more reflection you'll find and when you reach the level of man you'll find that he is really a very reflective being and this reflection that's going on, you would ask yourself well then, you know, why is God reflecting himself in a hundred billion creatures, what's the sense in all that? He doesn't need a duplication. Alright, why? That's the question you have to ask yourself. And then you would see it would be to form this light of the soul, to form it, to subjectivize it, and one begins to feel more and more that he is an individual soul.
CDA: What do you mean when you say form, form it?
AD: Who forms it?
CDA: No, when you-- when you said to form the soul, to subjectivize it. I understand when you say it's a-- I think I understand when you say subjectivize it but when you say form it--
AD: Subjectivize it, use that word, never mind form it. Subjectivize it.
CDA: Is this--
PC (simultaneously): Is that what Plotinus is referring to when he says "Our way is to teach our Soul"? [Note: Plotinus, V.3.6, seventh para.]
AD: No that's only part of it. You have to go way beyond that too. When Plotinus says that he says almost something like this, you better learn the doctrine from one end to the other so that you can tell your soul what to do. And that's why even, you remember, the Dalai Lama insisted that the understanding of the doctrine is an absolute necessity and that blessing you on the head isn't going to get you there. You must understand the doctrine so that you know what to do. [11 second pause] Alright we have a few more minutes. "Anyone can see how…" I'm sorry I'm making this so personal but we're getting to a level where you're going to-- you know you reach a point in understanding where you're going to be held accountable for your understanding.
S (very faint): Right.
JG: Has that come? (laughter)
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: You answer that for yourself. Otherwise, otherwise, if a person does acquire a certain amount of this knowledge and doesn't put it to use, it turns against him.
THE EXPANSION AND EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS AS IT EVOLVES FROM LOWER TO HIGHER LIFE FORMS IS THE PROCESS OF THE LIGHT BEING SUBJECTIVIZED
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 183, AD reading]: "Anyone can see how, if we take the kingdom of living creatures alone, consciousness slowly expands…"
AD: Alright? I-- I use the terminology that this light is being subjectivized.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 183, AD reading]: "…consciousness slowly expands…"
JG: I still don't understand that, I don't know whether or not we want to--
AD: You still don't understand?
JG: No I don't, I'm-- right now I'm-- may-- maybe-- maybe you should go on.
AD (simultaneously): Well take it in-- yeah, take it into your meditation. Take it into your meditation.
JG: Yeah.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 183, AD reading]: "…consciousness slowly expands as it evolves from the lowest coral insect to the higher mammals, [but] this is only a fragment--although one of the most important fragments--of what the universal evolution entails. If the more…"
AD: Universal evolution here of course is obvious that everything in this cosmos that the cosmic soul has fabricated, alright, everything in it is evolving. And that's why I told you Aquarius is so uncomfortable. Because Aquarius is the sign that indicates the seven levels, you remember, the seven lokas. And that means that life hits the first loka, it routinizes itself, has certain habits, thinks it's now got everything settled, alright, and it's catapulted into the second level where new acquisitions, new trainings, new disciplines. So Aquarius always symbolizes-- like life says "Wait a minute, I don't want to go to the next step, I'm comfortable the way things are." And you feel that very strongly, you know, when you watch the Sun go into that. And there's seven levels that you have to traverse. And that means not only individuals but everything within this cosmos. Everything within the cosmos has to go through these seven levels.
S (faint): Till we find my daughter [one/two words inaudible] [AD simultaneously: Huh?] and Aquarius would be the spirit that this is all there is. The end of it? She wants to know that she shouldn't [one/two words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Well you better tell her right away there's much more.
S: I know.
AD: Tell her we're at the bottom of the ladder, we've got to go up. Can't go down any more.
AS/S(?) (very faint): Incredible.
S (very faint): Yeah, right.
S (faint): It is different.
S (very faint): Right.
AD: Yes. It's best to let them know. This way they could think about it.
S (very faint): Yeah.
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: I'm sorry, I don't know where I was now.
S (faint): [few words inaudible]
AS (simultaneously): "If more-- if the more reflective and advanced…"
AD: You read. Read it.
HUMAN BEINGS HAVE THE POTENTIALITY OF RISING TO THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THEIR OWN ESSENCE, STONES DO NOT
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 183, AS reading]: "If the more reflective and more advanced scientists say that we cannot rightly leave out the mineral, the metal and the plant whose rudimentary consciousness stands at the base of this movement, philosophy adds"nor the sage who stands at its summit". The mind-essence is as much present in a piece of stone as in an animated human being. [But] whereas the stone cannot rise to the consciousness of its own essence, the human being has always the potentiality of doing so."
AD: So if we discuss this passage, the mind-essence is as much present in a piece of stone. Now instead of call-- instead of thinking in this blank way, mind-essence, think of [S: Excuse me, I'm--] this here, alright, any-- anything produced by that, [S, faint: Uh-hm.] alright, contains in some way or another this essence of the soul, alright. But you notice, there's no-- it's very noticeable here that because of the lack of a sufficiently evolved animal organism, [S: Uh-hm.] it's not possible for the stone to become aware of its-- of the essence of its own body or its own being, exis-- existence. But it is so in the case of a human body which is highly evolved. So, if you-- if we look at it that way then we can see, the stone cannot rise to the consciousness of its own essence even though it has that essence, alright. The human being has always the potentiality of doing so.
BECAUSE OF THE INTELLIGENCE INHERENT IN THE COSMIC SOUL, ALL OF ITS PRODUCTIONS HAVE SOME ESSENCE EMBODIED IN IT
S (very faint): Yeah.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 183, AD reading]: "The intelligence in control of evolutionary processes can come only from a fundamentally mental basis underlying those processes. All this explains why biologists discover an amazing intelligence at work in the intricate formation and orderly maintenance of living organisms. It also explains why physicists find an extraordinary sagacious behaviour in the energies they investigate and why Nature reflects a rational functioning throughout its vast domain. We may detect not only the intelligent system at the base of Nature but, in the graceful forms taken by mineral…"
AD: Etc, ok? So, in this paragraph it's obvious I think he's leading us back to the intelligence inherent in that cosmic soul that none of its productions can be, so to speak, without some essence being embodied in it. It can't produce except some essence is embodied. It's not like these modern authors or composers who just put anything together and call it a-- an art work, alright, it's not like that. It's not possible for the cosmic soul to produce something without embodying or figuring in that embodiment an essence. And I think it's beginning to dawn on you that consequently that the significance of our experience in the world we live in is so vast that we can't even comprehend it yet. First we would have difficulty in understanding essences because there's a predetermination or a prefiguration in the very way our body-mind is constructed that we can assimilate only some essences and not any essences. And secondly you can't go about looking for essences because they're not anywhere. So, don't waste your time doing it that way, ok. But the point that I'm trying to get across here is I think you're beginning to see that if there is a kind of prefiguration in our body-mind complex, and by that I mean that it's-- it's a gathering of certain essences and not any essence, alright, then these determine or predetermine us or let's say incline us towards the assimilation of some essences and not of others, alright. So one person let's say will assimilate essences through music, another person through art, another person through cooking. The variety is, you know, infinite. Ok?
S: (Oh no), it makes me feel better.
AD: Oh sure. (bit of laughter)
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: Yeah, after a while when you do a lot of cooking you begin to feel like an alchemist, you're putting various substances together, you know, mixing them up. (AD laughing a bit) Don't you get that from cooking?
S (faint): Oh yeah. (RG laughs)
JG: Do you?
S (simultaneously, faint): No.
AD: I'm only trying to encourage the housewives to continue. (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): They could do better. (more laughter)
S (amidst laughter, faint): I see it right here in the book.
AD: Well I don't know, I used to watch PB cooking, he used to do it with such relish I used to want to join him. "(Ok), wait, wait." (laughter) And mess everything up! (AD laughing) [short pause with faint background student words] How about the next paragraph, anything in particular? [short pause] If we turn to the following para-- paragraph, at the very end he says--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 184, AD reading]: "The [Bhagavad] Gita rightly points out that those men are on the lowest level who regard the world as devoid of significance [AD reads: essences] and without a superior cause."
AD: Now you-- I'm not using the word 'significances' because you will read into that some kind of conceptual meaning and I want you to try to read into it a kind of feltness, that the world has a felt meaning, a felt essence that can be experienced. Now naturally it's obvious that a person who feels that there's no significance in the world, alright, he hasn't apprehended, he hasn't comprehended the least about his living.
S (very faint, possibly part of background): [couple/three words inaudible]
[short pause]
MW/S(?): (And--)
WHY IS THERE AN IMMEDIATE PURPOSE TO THE UNIVERSE BUT NO ULTIMATE PURPOSE? PERHAPS BECAUSE IF ALL POSSIBILITIES ARE ALREADY ACTUALIZED IN DIVINE WISDOM, THERE IS NOTHING LEFT FOR IT TO DO
AD: Alright. We skip a paragraph, we go to the next one and we get into metaphysics again or some-- Avery would you? "These problems…"
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 184, AS reading]: "These problems are intractable unless we first understand that the universe is not brought into existence, that it is not created, and that it arises because it must. The World-Mind must obey the everlasting law of its own being and periodically manifest or reabsorb the world-image."
AD: Again, I would read "cosmic soul", not "World-Mind".
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 184, AS reading]: "What is this inner necessity which so compels it to do so? It is karma, the ultimate and eternal law governing the perpetual movement of its own activity and consequently governing the rhythm of universal existence and non-existence. This however is not a law set up from outside, for there is nothing outside World-Mind. Its inner necessity is beginningless and endless because the World-Mind itself is a beginningless and endless force. Hence the question why the world was brought into existence is one which we put only so long as we do not know what the world really is. When we understand that it arises in obedience to the general law of karma, that it is a perpetual self-reproduction appearing intermittently in cosmic cycles, that it has never had a beginning or will ever have an ending, we see that there can be no ultimate purpose in it but only an immediate one."
AD: Alright, let's stop here. [student assents, very faint] [20¾ second pause] Well, you can let the time silently slip away. (laughter) And no essence will be assimilated. (bit more laughter)
CDA: What does he mean by that there's no ultimate purpose?
[short pause]
AD: She wants to know what does he mean by ultimate purpose, there's no ultimate purpose.
S: I think ultimate would imply-- (it) imply reaching somewhere or getting somewhere whereas that again has no beginning, it's not approaching any end.
AD: It's good, huh? If it has [AS simultaneously: Yeah but--] no beginning and no end there's can't be any goal it's going towards! (AD laughing)
AS: It's not satisfac-- it's not as satisfying (as--)
CDA (simultaneously): But there's purpose. There's purpose to it.
AD: Hm?
CDA: You know, I-- yeah it's definitely--
AD: She's not happy with that, she wants some more.
[short pause]
S: Maybe there's no ultimate purpose in that there's no goal it's going to but that there's an immediate purpose in that there's an assimilation of essences constantly going on. That could be the immediate purpose.
AD: Yes he says that's the immediate purpose. Suppose we use the reverse, alright. Suppose we do it backwards. Suppose we say that if everything has been totally accomplished, then there would be no purpose to what it's doing.
CDA/S(?): Hm.
AD (faint): Ok?
S (faint): Uh-hm.
S (faint): We all (want to compare).
S: Yeah.
AD: That right. (some laughter) Now, he's not satisfied, we have to get some more out.
S: (Coffee/Coffin). (bit of laughter)
AD: I mean, that's a possibility. I'm not saying it is so but if all possibilities (CDA laughs) have been actualized in the wisdom of the Divine, alright, if all possibilities have been actualized then to speak of a goal or a purpose would be meaningless. Like the Infinite has something to reach out to and say "I gotta get this done." It wouldn't be Infinite if it was something that it had yet to do. Alright, that would be another possibly way. Any other suggestions, ideas?
[17¼ second pause]
CDA: Well could you mean that it's-- that the law of karma is-- reside-- does reside in the fifth house and that the-- [AD simultaneously: You-- you're really (one/two words inaudible) (AD laughs)] the manifestation--
AD: What do you mean it resides in the fifth house? (laughter)
CDA: (The station) of the law of karma.
AD: Yeah, the law.
CDA: Law.
AD: As far as I understand it resides everywhere, as I have found out.
S (very faint): (Yeah, right.)
CDA (simultaneously): Well-- (RG laughs)
S (faint): Yeah.
S: He says that it doesn't reside outside of itself though. He says there's no [one word inaudible] law set up from outside.
CDA: Well, what I meant to ask was that-- that manifestation is only the immediate representation of the law of karma and that the real-- the real-- something more real resides somewhere else than-- than there. Could it mean that?
AD: It might. [22½ second pause] But what was the first law of karma?
AS: The law of every individual's own continuity.
AD: Louder, [AS simultaneously: (Adjusts--)] they can't hear.
S (faint): Little bit louder.
AS: The law of every individual's own continuity, that [JG simultaneously, faint: (It inherits) the characteristics.] it adjusts the effects-- it had to inherit the characteristics of its own previous existence and so adjusts effects to cause.
AD: To cause.
AS: But, um--
[10¼ second pause]
AD: Would this-- would this [AS simultaneously, faint: It can't--] apply to-- would this apply to the World-Mind?
AS: You mean to the Intellectual-Principle?
AD: Yeah.
AS: It seems to refer more to the psych-- the [AD: It would seem--] planetary spheres, the production of the planetary spheres or necessity.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, it would seem to me that it applies to the-- it would-- it would apply to [AS, faint: Six planets.] cosmic soul but not to World-Mind.
AS: Oh yeah.
PD: Did you skip the paragraph on the previous page where he spoke about karma, the--
AS: Probably.
JG (faint): What page (is) it?
PD: Here--
THE LAW OF KARMA APPLIES ONLY TO ENTITIES WITHIN THIS COSMOS, WHICH IS THE PRODUCT OF THE COSMIC SOUL
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 184, PD reading]: "It is an [PD reads: The] eternal law which tends to adjust the individual operation [PD reads: operations] to the universal operation. [AS assents] It works for the universe as a whole to keep its innumerable units in harmony with its own integral balance."
AS: Yeah.
PD: That whole par-- that [AD/S(?) simultaneously: Uh-hm.] paragraph there is kind of--
AD: But go ahead read it, keep reading.
S (very faint): Yeah, please.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The World-Mind," p. 184, PD reading]: "It works for the universe as a whole to keep its innumerable units in harmony with its own integral balance. Retribution merely falls inside this activity as a small concentric circle falls inside a larger one. The results [PD reads: result] of each individual's existence, his heritage of thought and action have to be controlled so that they shall in the end obey the larger regularity of the cosmos itself. Every part is bound to the whole. Everything thus tends [PD reads: tends thus] to ultimate rightness. It is indeed comforting to perceive that the universe has such significant equilibrium as its secret core."
AD (faint): Yeah.
AS/S(?): Yeah.
[short pause]
PD: So in that sense karma's pertaining to the individual operation or individual centers of consciousness adjusting to the universal flow or harmony, and to speak of it above that level, [S: (Would it/Wouldn't)--] what's adjusting to what.
AD: Yeah. So then, so then this law of karma, alright, like we would have to put it in this realm [diagram]. If we think of the cosmic soul as producing, fabricating all these objects, then withdrawing them. Now in the process, let's say it withdraws and certain-- a certain inequilibrium, alright, had resided in various parts of this universe, but upon withdrawal of the universe those unresolved disequilibriums will have to be resolved in the next manifestation of that universe, alright. In other words what we're saying, every and any entity that exists within this cosmic soul is what is being put through the law of karma. Because if it inherits the ac-- its previous activity, alright, the effects of that previous activity, this is of course very important, the Buddhists take advantage of it and that's part of the, you know-- part of their studies as to put into operation certain causes that are going to produce a certain effect in your consciousness so that you could direct your evolution and growth to the level of Bodhisattvahood, alright. So understanding that, understanding that law of karma they could employ these spiritual practices for very specific ends.
But if we go back to the point you're making and I think this is very significant, we can see that when we're speaking about the law of karma we have to restrict ourselves to this cosmos which is the product, so to speak, of the cosmic soul, whether we think of it in this version here [diagram] or whether we think of it in this version here [diagram]. This is where the law of karma is operative. This is where, so to speak, the adjustments are being made, where the soul is evolving, it's getting subjectivized, and when the soul reaches a certain level of subjectivity and understanding, it operates in accordance with this principle [AD indicates on diagram]. When it reaches that there is no need for karma to be, you know, employed anymore because it will simply do and carry out, so to speak, the-- from the realm of Ideas, alright, what its role or its function here is. But prior to that, it-- since it does not know what its role or what the-- the purpose of the manifest-- manifested universe that he's operating within, he might introduce disequilibrium or wrongness or things like that and they have to be adjusted. And until that point where he reaches this kind of self-consciousness, alright, law of karma is in operation. Beyond that point it's not in operation, it doesn't mean anything anymore. There's no law of karma here [Note: second quadrant] unless we use the word 'karma' to mean power now. That will be something else. Alright? Yeah, go ahead.
S (very faint): Go ahead.
AD: Well, go ahead.
AS: That seems to also go with the point made before about this thing about the development of consciousness. Ins-- as long as or up until the point where the consciousness is freed from its being built up through these essences-- to its association with these bodies, then the consciousness-- that kind of consciousness being associated with those bodies is subject to the same laws, the same universal manifestation that they are. You know, the fact that these bodies are a part of this cosmic manifestation or the soul's manifestation and subject to-- to the workings of the planetary spheres and the Sun's manifestation, then the conscious-- that kind of a conscious entity would be also to the degree that it's conjoined with those bodies.
AD: So then we would be saying [AS simultaneously: When it is freed from that--] something like this, this cosmic production has a certain design behind it or pattern which the soul is producing. And because a certain individuality is attributed or attributable to the plurality of it-- individuals here, they're free to do the wrong things. And consequently the-- a readjustment must take place within this realm. And so the law of karma would be applicable in this realm. So anything that is operating with a body or through a body, alright, is subject to this law of karma.
AS: But only-- only to the extent to which-- I don't know if this is the right way to say it, would you say to the extent to which he is still involved in that process or still identified with that process.
AD (simultaneously): Mind-body, yeah. As long as he's involved with it. Mind-body. Alright. Well we can call it quits now. Next page is I think a little more metaphysical so if you want to go over them carefully, slowly, next week we'll go over them.
[Audio File 1980 0123b Ends]
1980 01/23 V14.1a: CLASS: PB Books; Wisdom; World-Mind. Copyright 2023 Wisdom's Goldenrod p. iii