Wednesday, February 25th, 1981

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

FEBRUARY 25b, 1981

METAPHYSICAL CHART; SOUL & NATURE

TOPIC: Metaphysical Chart

SUBJECT: Soul & Nature

SUBSUBJECTS: Subtle Physiology, Buddhism, Plotinus, Samkhya, Soul-Nature-Body Connection

CONTENTS:

Matter & Reason-Principles, Intellectual

Third-quadrant body planets, psychical matter

Drops embody reason-principles in subtle matter

Three centers in heart

Vasanas from heart become whole world

Heart organ of spiritual perception

Drops: world of our experience vs. Intelligible World

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

• Iamblichus, Thomas Taylor (tr.), Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: III.3.4, III.5.6, III.8.8, IV.3.10

DIAGRAM appended to this transcript:

• FIGURE IMG_2202-Posterboard Metaphysical Chart.

[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].]

NOTES:

• This is 1981 02/25b, Metaphysical Chart; Soul & Nature Class, and the second entry associated with this date. 1981 02/25a = Metaphysical Chart; Idea of Man Class.

• This class is misdated and is possibly part of WG Class 1981 0415 or 1981 0503; still unclear as of October 2023.

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2022 (V12a) from Audio Files and using V11r as a basis. This V12a also has an appended metaphysical chart which the V11r doesn't have. Originally transcribed by jf 2003 from Audio Cassette Tapes (and included in the Idea of Man series); reformatted by jf 2018. Archival verbatim transcript – V12a.

AUDIO FILES: 1981 0225c (formerly 1981 0225b). [Note 1: "Tape" refers to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: In 2024, REP Studio separates off Kepler class fragment from audio file.]

1981 02/25b at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Metaphysical Chart; Soul & Nature

[Audio File 1981 0225c (formerly 1981 0225b) Begins]

VM: It has less Latin in it (student laughs) than the original.

S: Louder.

AD: Well no Tim, 'cause--

S: They talked about (ignorance).

VM/S(?): Fact that you did it, (period).

S (faint): Uh-hm.

BS: Where is that from?

S: 51. The thing I was struggling with last week was the--

[tape break, faint background student talking, someone whistling, another tape break, pause; 35¼ seconds]

AD: Alright. And the research (shown/on) that because we're right on the verge of discovering what the Nobel Prize winners said can't be found out.

AS: Yeah, you know, he has an interesting thing here.

AD: Go ahead, uh, read it.

AS: This is just a--

S (faint): Oh.

AS: Just a little point, this isn't really a great detail but he says--

S: Where?

Plotinus [III.3.4, AS reading]: "[And] any Reason-Principle may be said to include within itself the Reason-Principle of Matter which therefore it is able to elaborate to its own purposes, either finding it consonant with itself or bestowing upon it the quality which makes it so. The Reason-Principle of an ox does not occur except in connexion with the Matter appropriate to [the] ox-kind. [It must be] by such a process that the transmigration, of which we read (in Plato) takes place…"

AD: Avery, would you do that again?

Plotinus [III.3.4, AS reading]: "[And] any Reason-Principle may be said to include within itself the Reason-Principle of Matter which therefore it is able to elaborate to its own purposes…"

[short pause]

AD: Continue.

AS: Oh.

S (very faint): Let's go.

Plotinus [III.3.4, AS reading]: "…either finding it consonant [AS reads: inconsonant] with itself or bestowing upon it the quality which makes it so. [short pause] [AS: For example--] The Reason-Principle of an ox does not occur except in connexion with the Matter…"

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, I follow. Alright, I think I follow.

[short pause while AD draws]

S (very faint): Again?

LR (faint): Again?

AS (faint): Oh I'm sorry, this is-- this is III.3.4.

[10½ second pause]

TS (faint): [few words inaudible] this is from here.

LR (faint): Well could you write that down?

S (very faint): (What'd) she say?

AS: III.3.4.

S (simultaneously): Huh?

AD: Avery, this what-- this is what he must be talking about [AD indicates on board].

[short pause while AD draws]

AS: You have it in the third quadrant there? Yeah that was that quote [AD simultaneously, faint: (I understand.)] that I read the other day. Remember on Monday we had the quote about well how-- these daemons must come down carrying with them the-- the matter from the Intellectual-Principle.

AD (simultaneously, faint): Principle.

AS: See--

Plotinus [III.5.6, AS reading]: "We are forced to assume that there is a Matter of the Intellectual Order, and that Beings partaking of it are thereby enabled to enter into the lower Matter, the corporeal."

AD (faint): Once more. Yeah.

S (very faint): (Read it.)

Plotinus [III.5.6, AS reading]: "We are forced to assume that there is a Matter of the Intellectual Order…"

AD: Alright, we're saying it's the Mars and Venus [in Cancer and Virgo], the-- which would be almost like the Buddhi of the-- of the Fall Ring, you know, the whole metaphysical chart. [Note: See FIGURE IMG_2202-Posterboard Metaphysical Chart appended to this transcript to follow this discussion.]

AS: Yeah, 'cause he speaks about-- says these Celestials are pure--

Plotinus [III.5.6, AS reading]: "…why should one order [of Celestial] descend to body and another [AS reads: the other] not? The difference implies the existence of some cause or [AS adds: a] medium working upon such as thus descend. [AS adds: And] What would constitute such a medium?

"We are forced to assume [that] there is a Matter of the Intellectual Order, [and] that Beings partaking of it are thereby enabled to enter into the lower Matter, the corporeal."

[9½ second pause]

JC: That Matter I think could be the substrate for orders lower than the second quadrant too. It could be third quadrant, the way it goes into the fourth, rides on the-- with the soul as--

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, but this-- There's something later-- Oh, (snaps fingers) rides on that, yeah. You know, there's something later on, those-- that Sun and Moon forces [tapping on board with chalk], they-- those two-- they must also connect-- be some connection with the Sun and Moon in Libra and Scorpio [diagram].

AD (simultaneously): Yeah I'm looking at the whole fourth Ring, I'm looking at the whole fourth Ring now.

AS: I think Jeff's right, there's--

TS (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible] Sun and Moon.

AS: This-- that there's--

AD (faint): Mars, Venus, [S simultaneously, faint: Yeah.] Moon, and Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Mercury [Body Ring planets].

[18½ second pause]

AS: [couple words inaudible] those drops. It's almost like saying those reason-principles in the third quadrant are actually embedded in this light, this light-matter of the Sun and the Moon almost.

AD: Uh-huh.

AS: And it's like those are the drops that drop down. If we have the whole fourth quadrant suspended from the Sun and Moon there in the third, or even if some other way of conceiving it, that embodied in those-- in that psychic matter, those ver-- like this is the very subtle drops or indestructible drops, somehow that Sun and Moon would embody those reason-principles in this very subtle matter, the psychical matter, light-- some kind of light-matter.

LR: Would they deliver them to the Jupiter and Mercury [diagram] or would they deliver them to the Sun and Moon [diagram]?

AS: To the Sun and Moon, yeah. I don't know.

LR (simultaneously, faint): Is the Sun and Moon part of themself?

S (faint): (We haven't), Linda.

AS: 'Cause, you know, well those would be Ahamkara in the [LR assents] next-- in the next scheme.

LR: It wouldn't go outside of itself to make (the first two).

GA: Yeah and when [AS simultaneously, faint: I don't know, I never (look/looked) at those houses.] those drops melt, that's when the lights appear. I mean they are made of light.

AS: Yeah.

GA (faint): Light and mind.

AS (simultaneously): And that they-- yeah they're made of light and what covers the light is-- they speak-- well they speak about the defilements, the prakritis which are properly part of the fourth quadrant. (I think.)

GA: Yeah. [AS simultaneously, faint: Well (one/two words inaudible)] Well I think it starts like-- See they speak of-- of like tamas, rajas, and sattva but in a very different way than Samkhya. To them those are subtle minds. [AS assents, faint] The tamas, raja, and sattva would be the three subtlest minds after the very subtle minds. And then below that would come the mental constituents. And then below that the elements. So that out of the en-- below the indestructible drop, um, where the white and the red and the red and the white are taking their places, would-- it would be the subtle minds in terms of at first tamas, then rajas, then sattva. [AS assents, very faint] I mean--

AS: That they equate those.

GA (simultaneously): These three different stages of subtle minds and the lights that are their appearances like getting fixed, you know, fixed by these (latest--) is the daemonical forms. Then once those are fixed then the drops that move-- then-- then the-- then the mental constituents which are the drops that are the prototype for the actual blood and vital fluids that go through the channels.

AS: They'd actually be in the Nature Mercury [in Pisces] [diagram], they'd be all the way down.

GA: Yeah. Then they start to-- but they-- they're at base-- they actually move through the channels. Whereas the-- the subtle drops don't move, they take up residence in the various places. And they have the nature of sound and light, as they have a certain, well, three, you know-- The channels have a certain vibrational frequency and the drops have a certain vowel or consonant, in other words, 'cause there are certain combinations of vowel and consonants that make up their-- their nature.

AS: It almost seems like you're speaking of three levels of them. You know, [GA simultaneously: Oh yeah.] like the very subtle ones [GA: There are.] would be back like the Sun and Moon in Libra and Scorpio; and they'd-- they'd really be part of that realm, and the Sun and Moon in-- the subtle drops would be like in the Sun and Moon in the next-- Capricorn and Aquarius.

GA (simultaneously): Yeah they say the very-- the very subtle mind-- there's the-- there's a clear light and subtle mind which they say are conjoined for all the incarnations. [AS assents, faint] And then the-- they're the ones that are-- that take up residence in this-- in the indestructible drop in the body at birth. So yeah, I think they'd-- they would probably go all the way back to the (divided).

AD: Yeah, the container. We're talking about just the container.

S (very faint): Oh.

[17 second pause]

TS: There's this one where he speaks about the air-light-sun group and the moon-light-sun group.

AD: Tim, you read it.

Plotinus [IV.3.10, TS reading]: "Just as in the groups air-light-sun and moon-light-sun the members exist simultaneously, though having degrees of primary, secondary, tertiary (i.e. having a logical or causal sequence), so we have Soul eternally unchanging, then graded series like that of fire stretching from primary to ultimate, where the ultimate is conceived as a shadow cast by fire and at once illuminated so that something of the nature of the Forming-Idea (of fire) hovers over the outcast that at first lay in blank obscurity. It is brought under the scheme of reason by the efficacy of [TS adds: the] Soul whose total Being latently holds this rationalizing power. As we know, the Reason-Principles carried in animal seed fashion and shape living Beings into so many universes in the small. For whatsoever touches soul is moulded to the nature of [TS adds: the] soul's own Real-Being."

[15¼ second pause, very faint background student talking]

AD: What page was that, what-- which one was that?

TS: It's IV.3.10.

AD (faint): IV.3.10?

TS: Uh-- There's a number of passages right in here on this.

[1 minute 29¼ second pause, shuffling of papers]

AD (faint): Alright, I think we can call it quits for tonights.

S (faint): Quarter.

AD (faint): (That's nice.) (We/You) know what we have to do next Wednesday.

JC: Anthony? Would there also be like three levels of drops in the heart the same way that there's three levels of the Self in the heart? And in reference to one body you would look at a certain level of-- whether it's the vital in reference to the physical, and the psychic in reference to the astral possibly, or the subjective soul in reference to the--

AD: Yeah. You're speaking of the heart as having (the) three-- being three centers.

JC: Three centers.

AD: The vital, the psychical, [JC, faint: Psychical.] and the spiritual.

JC (faint): The spiritual. Part of the problem of understanding drops might be that there are those levels.

[short pause]

AD: Well even by-- even by an expert practitioner [AD pronounces: practioneer] in meditation, these things are really very difficult. Because even if you put on your glasses while you're meditating you're not going to see clearly. [short pause] I don't know, Jeff. [short pause] (I've noticed/Absolutely) every time they talk about this it's either that, you know, that it's very guarded and they're not going to permit themself, or that a lot of it has been copied from other books and then of course they may not know what they're talking about.

[short pause]

S (faint): (Good try.)

JC: Remember when we read the thing in Ramana about the vasana at the heart blowing up as the whole world? [Note: See WG Class 1981 0314 Physics; Kepler.]

AD: Yeah.

JC: That vasana contains the whole cosmic circuit. [student assents, faint] To speak of it as a drop is like maybe the way it appears in reference to a lower functioning, but in itself it seems like it's-- it's very complex and it's vast.

AD: Yeah, the drop.

JC: Yeah.

AD: Yeah.

JC: I mean if it contains the whole universe.

AD: Yeah. That's why they call the heart the gnostic and the-- the spiritual organ, gnostic organ of man. The mind is organ of thinking. But-- but the heart is the organ of spiritual perception, it is through the heart that he perceives the spiritual world. And, it must be in the heart that he must-- he finds these so-called seed-thoughts coming down and which contain the whole of the Intelligible World. But, if I follow you, if I follow this description, alright, that's not really the Intelligible World.

[short pause]

AS: And I don't see how that could be.

AD (simultaneously): Because the Intelligible World is quite different than what-- what you see when you-- gets exfoliated out into the universe and superimposes itself on the universe, the Intelligible World is very, very different.

JC: But where was the Intelligible World that (we're/would) imply in the notion [AD simultaneously: Uh-hm.] of a drop?

AD: Well you see, that's the distinction that I have difficulty. Alright, those-- an insight into those drops, and the best that I understand does not deliver us the Intelligible World but deliver us in germinal form the world that we're going to experience. Naturally in a sense that would mean that a spiritual seer could have, you know, foreknowledge by the-- by looking at-- at those drops. But, when we speak about going inside oneself, you know, and getting into the Intelligible World, one first has to reach his Higher Self before (you/he) can get a view of the Intelligible World. And, that's a different ballgame altogether.

JC: I don't know that the drops they're speaking of in the heart go beyond the psychic.

AD: I know.

JC: The-- the other, deeper level we're not talking about that.

AD: I know.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

GA: Yeah they don't, in terms of-- even in terms of the preparation stages for realization, the-- the drops are only used in meditation on the-- on the imagination level. They-- they use them to prepare, [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] you know, for a re-descent, but they're not used in terms of the wisdom cognizing (that).

AD: No, that's above it. One first has to reach the soul, the Intellectual soul, before you start talking about wisdom-consciousness. Wisdom-consciousness is the soul in the Nous. And (we're/he) talking about something which is all below that.

GA (faint): Right.

AD: That's--

AS (simultaneously): The thing that-- the thing that I-- actually that's not very specific but there's also the one, you know, where he talks about every grade of Life is of Thought? [Note: See Plotinus, Enneads, III.8.8: "Thus every Life is of this order; it is an Intellection."]

AD (simultaneously, faint): Yeah, I remember the passage. I know the passage.

S: But--

AD: But there again you would be speaking about the drops coming or, you know, the condensation of [AS simultaneously: Yeah, that's a-- but--] the taijasa consciousness into drops.

AS: Yeah.

AD (faint): Go home, go home. Go.

LR/S(?): (Is it/This) late in the day?

AS: Yeah.

AD: I have a late night yet.

AS: Oh yeah?

AD: (I) [couple words inaudible]

AS (faint): Oh yeah, right. (Maybe) [couple/three words inaudible]

AD: You know any-- any other books on daemonlogy, or any different [one word inaudible] None?

DB (faint): Is it pos-- I-- I'd be willing to go through Blavatsky. I think (that's/it's) [couple words inaudible]

AD (groaning) : Ohhh.

TS: Iamblichus?

AS: Iamblichus?

AD (simultaneously): You think the Buddhists are confused, [AS simultaneously: There is-- wait the--] you don't know what confusion is till you hit Blavatsky.

S (simultaneously, faint): (That's not true.)

AS: Wasn't there something in (there)?

LR: Synesius?

AS: There was a little maybe.

S (faint): Yeah, Iamblichus.

AS: Yeah I think (it/there) was something in Iamblichus.

AD: Iamblichus?

AS: There might have been [one word inaudible] (in there).

AD (simultaneously, faint): Ok. I can look like I--

S (very faint): (Hm?)

S (faint): You what?

[Audio File 1981 0225c (formerly 1981 0225b) Ends]