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Paul Brunton's Notebooks: Category 21, Mentalism

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

January 26, 1983

PB PARAS; MENTALISM

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: Mentalism

SUBSUBJECTS: Epistemology, Intuition

CONTENTS:

PB PARAS ABOUT HIS LITERARY WORK

PB PARAS ON MENTALISM

THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE OF MENTALISM

THINKING IS GOVERNED BY THE CATEGORIES, WHEREAS INTUITION IS NOT: IT IS A SILENT, MODELESS, UNCHARACTERIZABLE TRANSMISSION FROM THE MIND

MENTALISM DOES NOT DENY THE EXISTENCE OF THE UNIVERSE

YOUR BODY IS A MENTAL PROJECTION ON THE PART OF THE SOLAR LOGOS

"MIND IS THE POWER TO BE CONSCIOUS, TO THINK, AND TO IMAGINE"

THE MIND DEALS DIRECTLY WITH ITS OBJECTS, WHICH ARE IDEAS

THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF MENTALISM IS DIFFERENT FROM A CONCEPTUAL FORMULATION OF IT

THE IDEA IS THE THING

THE INITIAL ERROR OF MATERIALISM

THINKING IS OTHER THAN BODILY FUNCTIONING, BUT IT CAN BE BASED ON IT

THE WORLD-IDEA GETS PROJECTED THROUGH THE SOUL, WHICH FABRICATES THE PRIMAL IMAGE, WITHIN WHICH YOU ARE SITUATED

IF YOU RECOGNIZE YOU ARE IN A LIVING MIND EVERY MOMENT, YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE WORLD WILL BE DIFFERENT

"WE CANNOT POSSIBLY SEPARATE THE WORLD FROM THE MIND THAT KNOWS IT"

PB ON KANT'S IDEALISM

THE WORLD AS MENTAL

THE VALUE OF INTENSE THINKING ABOUT THE ABSOLUTE

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

Paul Brunton, Notebooks. 16 vols; Vol. 1 entitled Perspectives, published 1984-1988. Some Paul Brunton Notebook paras are, as of 2018, unpublished, and are noted as such.
Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga
Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
William Blake, The Letters of William Blake

NOTES:

See below for information on very misdated MP3 audio files. The correct date for this class is 01/26 1983, a WEDNESDAY, the usual PB classes day. Events Master and the old audio cassette tapes use the correct date. Audio file names, old (2017/prior & new) cross-referenced throughout this transcript.
Unpublished PB paras, even if sourced, should be proofread.

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2018. Reformatted from V11a version by JRM & JF 2019-2020, with Subheads and Table of Contents added by JRM. In 2023, IT reformats again to accord with new conventions, fixes prefatory matter and footer, updates audio file name, fixes minor errors, completes Book List, adds new note within transcript. In 2025, MW expands Subsubjects and alters Subheads to make more accurate. Archival verbatim transcript – V14.1a.

AUDIO FILES: 1983 0126a (formerly 1983 0127a), 1983 0126b (formerly 1983 0209b, 1983 0420b). [Note: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files.]

NEW FILE NAME	OLD FILE NAME
1983 0126a	1983 0127a
1983 0126b	1983 0209b (also 1983 0420b)

Highlight:

1983 01/26 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; Mentalism

Archival verbatim transcript

PB PARAS ABOUT HIS LITERARY WORK

[Audio File 1983 0126a (formerly 1983 0127a) Begins]

RC: --the weekend easier.

S: Uh-hm.

AS: Um, maybe more (hard too).

VM (faint): [couple words inaudible] more.

RC: But there's a few quotes that are in something else that Anthony just wanted to have read that--

S: Do you think they're fundamental?

[short pause with shuffling about]

RC: There's about ten of them I guess, I'll just read them through and then we can start. These are mostly from reflections, um-- PB about himself I guess, his work. First one--

PB [V8, 12:5.245, RC reading]: "My publisher [RC reads: publishers], with motives laudable enough from a commercial viewpoint but reprehensible from a spiritual one, has [RC reads: have] done me a serious disservice in glaringly stressing the sensational elements of my books."

[short pause]

RC: Second one.

PB [V8, 12:3.177, RC reading]: "The work of providing copies of P.B.'s books for local [public] libraries where they are not [yet] available is a constructive one. It is a more effective method of spiritual propagation than costlier methods. [RC adds: And] It breeds good karma."

[students assent, faint]

S: Hm.

[11½ second pause with faint background student talking]

RC: Third one.

PB [V8, 12:3.175, RC reading]: "In the long run and after I have gone from this earth, it is my work which shall vindicate me, for a pioneer achievement like that cannot be hidden."

[short pause]

PB [V8, 12:3.176, RC reading]: "The thoughts phrased in this book may yet enlighten the world and bring about a stranger change than any history has hitherto witnessed."

PB [V8, 12:2.60, RC reading]: "I did not seek to become the formulator of such a unique and priceless message to mankind. Indeed knowing myself in weakness as well as strength, I naturally shrink from seeking such an immense responsibility and would rather have helped and served a worthier man to formulate the message. This is not to say that I underrate its value, its dignity, [RC adds: or] its public prestige. But all my previous attempts [RC reads: efforts] to evade the task having ended in failure, I now positively and affirmatively--no longer reluctantly and hesitantly--step forward to its accomplishment. I do so moreover with tranquil joy, for I am utterly convinced in the deepest recess [RC reads: recesses] of my heart, no less than in the logical thinking of my brain, that the teaching is so greatly needed in our time by those who have sought in vain for [RC adds: a] comprehensive elucidation of the problem of their existence, that I feel the help it will give them constitutes the best possible use of my energies, talents, and days in this incarnation."

[9¾ second pause]

RC: It's another one referring to the published (books/ones).

S (very faint): Ok.

PB, [unpublished, not found, likely from 21v (Red 21), RC reading]: "There is much in these books that I now want to change, to revise the content and rewrite the form."

[short pause]

RC: Comment on that might be worth making. He was reviewing a study guide for the Wisdom when I was there and he came to a different conclusion, that he didn't want to work anymore on the old books, that he wanted to leave them as what they were. And, they were much better than what existed before they were written. But, everything now was geared toward the creative work that was yet to be done and leave the old ones as they were. He said that he once told people that the man who wrote those books was just a distant memory. But now he didn't remember him at all.

RG: Hm.

[9¾ second pause]

PB [V8, 12:3.120, RC reading]: "I must write sincerely and straightforwardly, or not at all. I must communicate what I find in my own heart, or remain silent. I must draw material out of my own experience, not out of hearsay at second hand, if it is to ring with utter conviction."

[short pause]

PB [V8, 12:5.246, RC reading]: "A shrewd reader will observe, as he courageously travels through these pages, that in [RC reads: that he is] dealing with the remarkable personalities selected for mention, I have offered little of comment and less of criticism. So far as my pen permits me, I would play the part of a descriptive reporter. Very likely, in some later books [RC reads: book] whose date I know not, I shall don the philosophic mantle and ascend the rostrum." [RC leaves out remainder of para: "The aforementioned shrewd reader, if he is inclined to be somewhat critical, may easily retort that in that event it is as well that I do not philosophize excessively now, since by that time I shall be older and therefore wiser. But of this I am not so certain as formerly."]

[short pause]

PB [V8, 12:5.66, RC reading]: "In an age when the armies of materialism appear [RC: That's underlined."…appear] to be everywhere victorious, we must yet cheerfully carry a flag on which the single word Truth is boldly inscribed. For this Godless age will pass, this execrable God-denying epoch is doomed to disappear. Our flag stands as a rallying point for the few pioneers who perceive the inner worth of That for which it stands, and who hear the tramping of invisible armies which will later appear to worship it."

[short pause]

PB [V8, 12:5.136, RC reading]: "Every writer who is [RC reads: was] worth his salt possesses at some time or another [RC reads: other] the ambition to create a single work, a magnum opus which shall be his literary testament to mankind. I, too, have possessed this ambition. The books which I have already written and published were really written to prepare the way and to introduce the present volume."

[short pause]

RG: Hm.

[short pause]

AD: Randy, page 1, back to page 1, the last-- I think the fourth quote, [RC simultaneously: "I didn't seek"--] read the first two lines again, or first three lines.

[1 minute 5½ second pause]

RC: So I guess we start mentalism. [short pause] I imagine these quotes will probably take a lot of (discussing/discussion), unlike the last ones that we were doing. (bit of laughter) [short pause, faint background student talking] But we sh-- we should still try to be very-- very much to the point. (student whispering, laughter)

S (amidst laughter): (Is that in fact?)

RG (simultaneously, amidst laughter): You always have to prove the exception, (don't you).

S: Right? (S laughs)

JB/S(?): Yeah. (more laughter)

DB: And it's a rotten job, right? Somebody has to do it. (bit more laughter)

S: Ok.

S: (Go ahead.)

DB: I-- this question is directed to Anthony. With respect to that quote that you had Randy reread, is it possible to-- it's a real hard question to ask, but is it possible to get some understanding of the responsibilities involved in having the sort of relationship we've all been--

AD: No, I don't think that's important David. I think it's important to recognize what he is saying is: This is scripture. And the imprimatur is available for anyone who is intuitive enough. [DB, faint: Ok.] That's the important part.

[student assents, faint]

[10½ second pause]

PB PARAS ON MENTALISM

PB [V13, 21:4.279, RC reading]: "The tenets expounded in my [book The] Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga are of a kind which become more understandable as they become more familiar. It is really their intellectual strangeness which accounts largely for their apparent absurdity. And this strangeness itself arises because mentalism was originally discovered through mystical experience and has had to be translated into non-mystical intellectual terms."

[22¾ second pause]

RC: That puts one of his quotes for me very much in context. Was it the Hidden Teaching or the Wisdom that he started out say that a philosophy that(--) has to begin with experience? Philosophy that doesn't begin with experience doesn't work out.

S: Wisdom.

[short pause]

RC: So it seems this is very much a part of the experience that he's--

S: Will you read it again?

RC: --beginning with.

PB [V13, 21:4.279, RC reading]: "The tenets expounded in my [book The] Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga are of a kind which become more understandable as they become more familiar. It is really their intellectual strangeness [RC rereads: their intellectual strangeness] which accounts largely for their apparent absurdity. And this strangeness itself arises because mentalism was originally discovered through mystical experience and has had to be translated into non-mystical intellectual terms."

[12¼ second pause]

AH: Randy you're suggesting that the reference to experience-- the experience of mentalism as a-- as a foundation for inquiring into philosophy.

RC: Yes I think so, I think some of the quotes I'll read here in the beginning will-- will bring that out a little more.

[short pause]

PB [V13, 21:4.207, RC reading]: "I have tried to study the nature of the mind and to understand its office in knowing. And the end of all my studies brought me to the sequel that I was compelled to testify to Hume's strange statements:"Nothing is ever really present with the mind but its perceptions. . . . We never really advance a step beyond ourselves. . . . Philosophy informs [RC reads: involves] us that everything which appears to the mind is nothing but a perception, and is interrupted and dependent on the mind, whereas the vulgar confound perceptions and objects, and attribute a distinct, continued existence to the very things [RC emphasis] they feel or see. There is no question of importance whose decision is not comprised in the science of mind; and there is none which can be decided with any certainty before we become acquainted with that.""

[short pause]

RC: Should I read that again?

S: Yeah Randy.

PB [V13, 21:4.207, RC reading]: "I have tried to study the nature of the mind and to understand its office in knowing. And the end of all my studies brought me to the sequel that I was compelled to testify to Hume's strange statements: [RC: Now the rest of this is a quotation from Hume.]"Nothing is ever really present with the mind but its perceptions. . . . We never really advance a step beyond ourselves. . . . Philosophy informs us that everything which appears to the mind is nothing but a perception, and is interrupted and dependent on the mind, whereas the vulgar confound perceptions and objects, and attribute a distinct, continued existence to the very things [RC emphasis] they feel or see. There is no question of importance whose decision is not comprised in the science of mind; and there is none which can be decided with any certainty before we become acquainted with that."" [Note: See also David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, p. 67.]

[16¾ second pause]

PB [V13, 21:4.34, RC reading]: "This doctrine is the spinal column of the whole body of philosophic teaching."

[short pause]

PB [V13, 21:2.32 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #23 RC reading]: "The statement that we can know only our own sensations and that we do not experience the world directly constitutes the very beginning of the doctrine of mentalism."

[28 second pause]

PB [V13, 21:4.85, RC reading]: "No man becomes a confirmed mentalist save after many doubts and some lapses, after strenuous reflections extending over [RC adds: many] years, and mystical intuitions manifesting in spite of himself. The strangeness and mystery of this doctrine are too baffling to be overcome either easily or quickly."

[17 second pause]

THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE OF MENTALISM

PB [V13, 21:5.91, RC reading]: "The doctrine of mentalism is understood personally or confirmed practically by an advanced mystical experience, provided [RC adds: that] the experience itself is not misunderstood through over-strong preconceived notions which are brought to it."

[11¾ second pause]

AH: Would you mind doing that one again please?

[short pause]

DB: Alright. Randy? The-- these preconceived notions, would those be religious-- specifically religious or [one word inaudible]

RC: That would seem to be one set, sure. [student assents] Insofar as it has that exclusivity.

S: [one/two words inaudible]

DB (simultaneously): See, I'm not-- I'm not sure I underst-- you know, ha-- know specifically what mystical experience he's speaking about in the first place. And--

RG: But doesn't he mean any preconception? It can be a religious or material-- materialistic.

S: Anything except the right one.

AS/S(?): Right. (bit of laughter)

RG: Which wouldn't [DB simultaneously: Well--] be a preconception then.

S: (You've got) a real one.

S: Yeah.

DB: I still don't understand.

AD: No preconceptions when you enter into that state. If you have one, that's what you're going to come out with.

S: (That, yeah.)

[short pause]

DB: So that-- This is very strange because the understanding that-- that then is delivered, assuming that one can enter the state without the con-- preconceptions is-- [short pause] well-- it's not conceptual, obviously, I mean--

S: Right.

DB: Right? I mean that that understanding is not conceptual?

AH: David?

DB: Yeah?

AH: I-- I think it's possible for-- the conclusion might be that it's possible to have that experience of mind and not-- and not be able to integrate it into one's understanding because of preconceptions.

S: Read it.

S: Can we hear the quote again here?

[short pause]

BS: What's the difference between personally and practically? They both seem to refer to the advanced mystical experience.

AH: I think the truth of-- the truth of mentalism cannot be verified conceptually. It can only be verified in this personal practical experiential way.

BS: But it's (impersonal/in personal) or practical, couldn't it?

S: Uh-hm.

BS: I wonder-- [AH: You think that's--] I just didn't know what the difference was here.

AH: I think, I think it's just two adjectives describing the same situation. If it-- if it's practical it has to be personal and vice versa. I don't know (with these) two adjectives.

RG: But I thought the point of the quote was, is that if you enter into this state of consciousness which is basically non-conceptual and non-temporal, you could have the experience of mentalism in that state. But as soon as you re-enter a conceptual framework, if the conceptual framework is not the proper understanding of mentalism, you'll-- you will not reorient yourself towards the world in a proper mentalistic framework.

[short pause]

BS: But that's the prac-- is that what you mean to thinking-- is meant by the practical aspect, the reorientation towards the (what)?

VM (simultaneously): No, no. No, [RG simultaneously: No.] I think-- I think Dickie's just trying to point out that-- that he feels the main thrust of the-- of the quote, precisely a distinction between practical and personal or--

RG: I don't think it happens.

BS (simultaneously): Once more.

VM: I don't know if it's that critical. (bit of laughter)

RG: What the difference?

BS: Well ok. It's just my question. (bit of laughter)

RC: Well it seems too that you-- he could be-- it could happen either way [student assents] in a sense that you could have had an experience like this and you don't know what to make of it. But you hear somebody speaking of it and you recognize the truth of what he's saying, if he's speaking correctly. In that sense you'd be-- you'd be understanding it personally. You would have that understanding but then you would be able to recognize the truth of a correct formulation. Or you could have-- on the other hand you could have studied previously too, having that experience be precipitated. And you could come to realize that it must be this way. This does make sense. And if you-- and the fortune of a good teacher, then the experience would be a confirmation, a practical confirmation of what you had come to correctly formulate intellectually.

AH/S(?): Yes.

DB: Does that mean that at that point then you would actually know your experience to be mental without ha-- without having to reflect upon it, that given the absence of these conceptions the authenticity of the experience itself could be carried over so that one would actually see the world as mental?

RG: I don't get that that's necessarily implied but you at least would not see the world conceptually wrongly. But I don't know that it implies that you would directly unreflectively always then contemplate the world mentalistically, I don't see that.

S: Yeah.

JA: Randy, what do you think he's talking about when he's talking about an entranced mystical--

RC: A glimpse.

JA: Yeah, could you be more specific, I mean-- Say what do you consider [one/two words inaudible] beginning mystical experience [one/two words inaudible]

AH (simultaneously): Can't hear Jeanne.

[short pause]

JA: I mean what if you were to use exam-- well, the Christian mystics who often had very vivid visions and experiences of the presence-- various (saints/states) or something, would you consider that a beginning [one word inaudible] or an advanced one or-- would you consider ways of looking at that in terms of a mentalistic-- you know, having the-- the seed say of, you know-- the potential, you know, to teach something about mentalism and also the potential to be mis-- misunderstood? And do you think he's referring to something like that? You're being so general that I-- I can't know what you're talking about.

AH: I think that's a very-- I think it's a very good example, let's say a mystic who has a vision. That would be a very good example of the experience with strong preconceptions.

JA: Yes, because they would im-- they'd see it, you know, that they imagine, that they perceive, you know, those form(s), the image of a real person, you know.

AH: And that would be that-- that would be the aspect I think of preconception overlaid upon the genuine insight.

JA: And if you were going to make a distinction in those kind of experiences, would you say that some mystics did understand, you know, the-- the mentalistic basis of it and others didn't? [LD simultaneously: Well I think he--] Seems sort of [one word inaudible]

LD: He talks about it as a mystic, a yogi as having more of a felt experience, it's a felt quality of the world's unreality, whereas the philosopher has integrated this experience also in a reflective way. It's not just a felt, it's a known quality that [JA simultaneously: I think--] accompanies the philosopher whereas the mystic, he seems to say it's more of just a feltness.

JA: Well I-- [S: So--] I-- maybe I'm not sure what you're saying but-- I don't-- I don't think that it's nec-- necessarily true that it would-- could be a felt experience and not be experienced as a mentalistic experience, you know, I mean not-- not be interested in [few words inaudible]

AH: I--

NR (simultaneously): He also talks about mystics who have visions like that and distinguishing from those who know that that is a symbol of-- of their higher self [JA: Right.] and as that being a more philosophic outlook than one who would simply have a vision and not know what they were seeing.

JA: Yeah, that's-- that's ok Nancy, yeah.

RG: But-- excuse me but, I don't-- I-- isn't he talking about the-- a very specific experience?

JA: What?

RG: Isn't he talking about a very specific experience, [JA simultaneously: Well that's what I'm asking.] i.e. the-- i.e. the experience directly of mentalism, neither of visions nor non-visions but the experience of all perception as mental [JA simultaneously: And what--] and as arising in the mind?

JA: And what is that experience?

RG: Is that-- [RC/S(?) simultaneously: What is--] it is that experience, I don't know what you mean. What is it? It's that very experience.

JA (simultaneously): Don't you think that an experien-- that-- yeah, the meaning of that experience could come in various ways.

RG: But I think he's saying that even if you have a vision, even-- if it's not-- it-- you could have an exalted vision and not have an experience of mentalism because you don't-- you experience the vision as--

VM: As self-standing, as real, as--

RG (simultaneously): Self-standing, material, and everything else [VM assents] that goes along with its non-understanding of the men-- of the mentalistic aspect of the thing.

JA: Well I don't-- no, maybe I'm really off the point but I always thought that probably(--) that Tibetan Buddha Yoga was probably understood in a certain mentalistic way.

S (faint): Yeah.

AH: Well they say that the pra-- that practice has to be in the context of-- of mentalism, or else--

JA (simultaneously): So I don't see that that would be, you know-- would necessarily have to be different.

RG: But I don't think the content of the experience is what's crucial, whether it has an image or not, but the interior apprehension and knowledge of the world as mental.

JA: Ok, yeah that's more what I'm getting at.

RC (simultaneously): That's just the world [RG simultaneously: Uh-huh.] and I think it's--

RG: And [S simultaneously: Yeah.] go on.

S: Well--

VM: And the subject [one/two words inaudible]

RC (simultaneously): And I think there's a quote here that'll help.

S: Yeah, please.

RC: "When I say…" Let's-- let's say he's not talking now but he's having an experience, and that this is the utterance of that experience.

PB [V13, 21:5.147, RC reading]: "When I say that I am my own mental existence then I imply [RC adds: that] I am also the whole universe. Nature exists within me, for Nature is but my idea. The world is my creation. This is no empty vagary but the veritable truth, the grandest which ever entered the half-taught mind of men."

VM: It seems important in that quote is to appreciate to the level that he's coming from. He's certainly not speaking from a personality-based, ego-based [student assents] point of view but more from let's say that creative principle of mind which is responsible for the appearance of the world in that personality in-- in the world as well.

RC: Yeah the experience that-- actually utters this, "I am my own mental existence. Nature is but my idea."

LD: Yeah but that almost still seems like a level above the last quote. It-- that seems to relate back to the quote where he speaks about-- to see the world as an idea is one thing but only the Sage can say, "I see the world as my own idea." And that seems to be at that level.

[short pause]

RC: Ok, let's read it over and-- and read a couple more.

[17 second pause]

THINKING IS GOVERNED BY THE CATEGORIES, WHEREAS INTUITION IS NOT: IT IS A SILENT, MODELESS, UNCHARACTERIZABLE TRANSMISSION FROM THE MIND

PB [V13, 21:5.100, RC reading]: "If a materialist would stop to think about this mystery of the ultimate observer and if his thinking faculties were sufficiently sharpened, purified, and made capable of dealing with such an abstract subject, he would lose his materialism and become a mentalist. Let him ask himself who it is that speaks when he speaks about himself, what is this"I," this thing that bears his name? Since that which speaks and that which is spoken of cannot be the same but must be separate, then he would have to admit a further "I" behind the one that speaks about himself. He could go on analysing backwards in a never-ending series in this way. Each time the "I" would seem to have some other "I" to which it was an object and to which it could refer [RC reads: which it could refer to] as the subject. The existence of his ego would be established in relativity, for it would seem he could move infinitely and indefinitely through this mystery of what is meant by "I." This is because the instrument which he is using for such analysis is the logical intellect, which would thus reveal to him its strict limitations.

"Observing these limitations he would then have to ask himself whether or not it were possible to use a subtler instrument, and then mystical metaphysics would tell him: Yes, such a subtler instrument is available--it is your intuition. Cultivate this rightly, shun its counterfeit, subject your feelings to the philosophic discipline, and then practise meditation. You will find that your intuition will lead you back and back to the one element which is the final"I" and which directs every operation of the subconscious functions of the body, and which gives your personality its consciousness of existence. This "I" is non-physical; it is the inmost part of your mind. Understand this and you will necessarily have to give up materialism. You will become a votary of mentalism. Even more, the realization of this truth in actual experience makes you aware that the universe is friendly to you because you are intimately related to it. Your own mind grows out of [the] World-Mind. It is this relation which enables your mental nature to think and to know, [RC adds: enables] your emotional nature to feel, and your physical body to act. Without it you would be dead in the fullest sense of the term. (bit of laughter) Everything inside of you, like everything outside you, changes; but this real Self never changes for it dwells in the kingdom of the World-Mind, the kingdom of heaven which is an everlasting one [RC reads: which is everlasting].

"It is a phenomenal feat to understand Einstein's law of relativity as it applies to the physical world; but, after all, this understanding does not bring peace of mind or strength of life. It is quite another thing to understand the law of relativity as it applies to the inner Self and such understanding does bring these things. Our knowledge of physical relativity has led us to control of the atom, whose reward seems to be the likelihood that we shall destroy ourselves, but our knowledge of spiritual relativity leads us to control of the mind, whose reward is to save ourselves."

[11 second pause]

NR/S(?): It would seem then that any so-called mystical experience, if-- if the intuition is really employed then any experience would be a mentalistic experience but until you get to that final experience [S simultaneously: No, no.] of the "I" can you really experience mentalism.

RC (simultaneously): Yeah I think when you-- when you go back into the "I" for a moment, let-- Louis said that that's true of a Sage. I think in that moment, I don't know if it's legitimate to speak that way, but in that moment he is a Sage, qualitatively for that moment. Because of, you know, inadequate development of the vehicle and so on, that state doesn't last and that's why it's called a glimpse, it's not permanent enlightenment. But to go back into that "I" and see that as the first of all thoughts, the fundamental thought, and that all other thoughts follow it, I think is to live in a-- in an ongoing experience of mentalism.

AH: Randy that-- that notion of relativity is a-- I think I understood that as, you can't establish the true "I" or the basis of the "I" like intellectually. That would lead to an infinite regress of the "I". I mean just by [RC simultaneously: Exactly.] the definition of the laws of logic you would always be left with another "I" to-- to analyze. And that's-- that puts the-- the notion of "I" or ego on an absolutely relativistic foundation. [RC assents] And in order to penetrate that it has to be done by intuition.

RC: Yes. And he talks about cultivating this intuition by shun-- shunning its counterfeit, subjecting your feelings to the discipline and practicing meditation, which will lead you back to the "I", "which directs every operation of all the subconscious functions and which gives your personality its consciousness and existence."

AH: What do you think that means? I mean the actual transition from-- from the subtleties of logical discrimination to the intuition of the "I", what do you think that means? Is that-- is that the c-- the cessation of thought? What are some other ways of speaking about that? The-- apparently it's two very different modes that are being discussed, one's counterfeit and one isn't, one's logical, one isn't.

RG: Well you answered your own question Andrew, right, I mean it's some form of the cessation of thought, right? In one you're in a conceptual framework and the other you're not.

AH: You think that's what he means by intuition, Dickie?

RG: In terms of moving from logical understanding to the ex-- the intuition then you have to stop thinking.

AD: Well what [AH simultaneously: Excuse me.] I think Andrew wants to know is what is the definition of logical thinking. And what is the definition of intuition.

S: Yeah.

AH: Yes, that's really what I was looking for.

AD: How would you define logical thinking?

RG: [few words inaudible]

AD: It would have to be constrained by the categories, right?

VM: Right. Threefold relationships.

AD: Threefold relationship.

VM: Space and time.

AD: And the-- and the intellect wants to operate with that. How does intuition operate?

RG: Without any of that.

AD: Yeah, it's modeless, silent [RG: Direct.] communication or transmission. And if it's modeless and silence, it can be quite difficult to understand what an intuition is telling you.

[short pause]

RC: He does say here though that--

AD (simultaneously): You can see that. You can perceive that.

AH: I'm sorry, Anthony.

AD: You can perceive that the intellect is limited in its operation, that it's constrained to operate the way it does, when you're functioning intuitively, that it is the very nature of the intellect and it cannot be otherwise. Now sometimes the intellect itself could perceive that and recognizes its limitations.

AH: The intellect can recognize its own limitation?

AD: Uh-huh. Reason can recognize how far it can go and no further. But, from the point of view of intuition, you can perceive those limitations.

AH: Is that a distinction that--

AD (simultaneously): You can see, you can actually see that as long as you think, you must, so to speak, abide or be governed by the categories. Intuition has no categories. We said: it is silent, modeless, uncharacterizable transmission from the mind.

AH: Does intuition always have to be translated through the intellect?

AD: Well, if you want to communicate it [AH simultaneously: Ok.] to someone.

AH: To communicate it to oneself does it has to be translated?

AD: If by oneself you mean the ego.

S: Touché.

S: Uh-hm.

AD: Let's go on.

S: [one/two words inaudible]

RG: I think Nancy mentioned-- [one word inaudible] again it's bothering me that any mystical experience-- any mystical experience could be thought of as-- should be thought of as an experience of mentalism and I don't-- I don't--

VM: I don't believe that.

RG: I don't [AD simultaneously: No this--] believe that. Otherwise all the--

AD: No that's not quite true.

RG: I mean be-- because we've made a big point that when a mystic comes out of a mystical experience he's still confronted--

AD: Mystical experience he's talking about there is the experience of Mind.

S: Right.

RG: It's of a different order.

AD: Yeah. You experience Mind. That's the mystical experience he come-- that he's talking about but-- I think you're referring to the previous quote. If there's any strong attachment to any sectarian view, when you come out that's exactly how you're going to interpret it. That's why philosophy must place itself outside of any traditional religion. It-- it cannot and should not restrain itself by any of the dogmas, you know. You're not permitted. If you go into the Mind, and I'm speaking about Mind, if you go into that, without any preconceptions, when you come out, you will recognize the mentalness of everything. But, if you already, so to speak, have-- let's say like Saint John who was a very advanced and also had the experience. When he came out, the first few times it was always interpreted according to the Catholic theology. It took a lot of doing before he recognized it was mentalistic in nature. And it took a lot of more doing to keep it very properly. (some laughter) That's all.

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 0126a (formerly 1983 0127a) Ends; Side 2 begins)

MENTALISM DOES NOT DENY THE EXISTENCE OF THE UNIVERSE

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #11, RC reading]: "[Mentalism does not deny the existence of the natural universe. It denies the materialistic view of that universe.] It refuses to attribute to matter a creative power [RC adds: which is] to be found only in life, [RC adds: or] an intelligent consciousness [RC adds: which is] to be found only in mind."

[short pause]

S (faint): Can you read that again please (Randy)?

AD: I don't know Randy, maybe Santayana did have a head start on PB but he sure was left behind in the dust.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #11, RC reading]: "Mentalism does not deny the existence of the natural universe. It denies the materialistic view of that universe. It refuses to attribute to matter a creative power [RC adds: which is] to be found only in life, [RC adds: or] an intelligent consciousness [RC adds: which is] to be found only in mind."

[13 second pause]

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #12, RC reading]: "We do not bring out the old arguments for the acceptance of an inner Reality [RC adds: in order] to persuade anyone to drop his faith in the reality of the world without."

[16¼ second pause]

PB [unpublished, 21b-exp.0 (10v/48/37), RC reading]: "Mentalism affirms the fundamental character of Mind."

RC: And this one was with a capital M.

[short pause]

DB: Well, at this point mentalism is no longer epistemological.

[14¾ second pause]

YOUR BODY IS A MENTAL PROJECTION ON THE PART OF THE SOLAR LOGOS

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #42, RC reading]: "Mentalism teaches that it is our thought activity which brings the whole world into our consciousness, and that when this thought activity comes to an end, the world also comes to an end, for us. [RC: Underlined.] It teaches that there is no other object than the thought itself."

[11¼ second pause]

AD: How would you explain that if you can go into Nirvikalpa samadhi, your body will persist and doesn't get dissolved? [short pause] I mean it doesn't get retracted, right?

S (faint): Yeah.

AH: Wait a minute, the body-- doesn't the body--

VM (simultaneously): But he says "for us". For the man in Nirvikalpa samadhi the body is retracted. But--

AD: In other words, Vic, if you went into Nirvikalpa I won't see you no more?

VM: No, I said for us, for the subject in [S simultaneously: Right (one/two words inaudible) right.] Nirvikalpa samadhi it's a body-free state. (student laughs) But, you'll have your own perception of my body if that great day ever came.

AD: Well then there wasn't a complete withdrawal of your body into the Nirvikalpa state.

VM: No, I thought, I thought Andy [note: VM means Randy] mentioned, underlining was "for us".

AD (simultaneously): Well I'm just trying to understand the statement, if the statement is saying that Nirvikalpa means a withdrawal of the projections.

S: Can you read it again?

RC: Underlined.

AH: Yes the whole--

VM (simultaneously): I thought the whole emphasis in that quote was the personal element, our thinking brings our world into existence and [one word inaudible] when our thinking stops, the world for us stops, that says nothing about what happens to someone outside or the body's physical, let's say, reality in the cosmic soul's creation.

S: Yeah.

AH: Yeah, it [DB/S(?) simultaneously: (Well/What)--] seems the body would be retained [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AH] in the World-Mind's thought. The whole-- but the notion of it being my body [S: The image?] is-- is withdrawn. It's notion that's-- of its being a body in any sense distinct from the rest of the universe.

RC: And any-- any image that that body was for me goes away.

AD (simultaneously): No longer is.

RC: What you see isn't the same body I saw. I mean it's not the same--

AD (simultaneously): Yes, but the-- the point I think that Andrew covered was that it still remains for the World-Mind.

S: That's right.

AD: And that's why you don't disappear, although there are occasions when Sages have been known to disappear. They'll go up in a blaze of light and you don't see them no more. But, speaking from a point of view of philosophy, alright, I think you'll see why this could ver-- very well be answered if you think of the Solar Logos as that which fabricates the body which the soul is going to use in order to perceive a world. But the soul can withdraw from that.

VM: The individual s-- the individual soul can withdraw [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] from the cosmic production, yes.

RG: And we have the same question when we go to sleep also. It's the same problem [couple words inaudible] [student assents] doesn't have to.

AD: But then, of course, you could also answer that your body, which is fabricated by the Solar Logos, is also a mental projection on the part of the Solar Logos.

RG: Right. And as an idea within its Mind and that persists.

AD: Yeah. We're just rounding out some points.

RG: Uh-hm.

AD: Alright Randy.

"MIND IS THE POWER TO BE CONSCIOUS, TO THINK, AND TO IMAGINE"

PB [V13, 21:2.128 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #17, RC reading]: "What is Mind?"

RC: Capital M.

AD: Stop. (some laughter) Say it again.

PB [V13, 21:2.128 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #17, RC reading]: "What is Mind? It is that in us which thinks, which is aware, and which knows."

[23 second pause with some background student talking, laughter]

RG (possibly part of background): Right [couple words inaudible] Ok?

RC: This one gets its accidental M from being at the beginning of the sentence but--

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #18, RC reading]: "Mind is the power to be conscious, to think, and to imagine. [RC leaves out: It is not the fleshly brain.]"

LR: What was that?

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #18, RC reading]: "Mind is the power to be conscious, to think, and to imagine. [RC leaves out: It is not the fleshly brain.]"

[20½ second pause]

AH: Is there a distinction there between mind and thinking? Like in a sense that mind is the potential or the power behind thought? Is that implied?

[15½ second pause]

RG/S(?): Yeah, I would agree you can't-- shouldn't equate mind with thinking. [students assent, faint] Right? The thinking arises from mind. You're not going to equate it regardless.

S: Are those three different levels there, [S: (Yes.)] power to be conscious, to think, and to imagine or-- I mean could you s--

VM: Yeah I cou-- I could see it that way.

S: Yeah?

VM: Sure like, let's say the power to th-- or the power to be conscious [S simultaneously: Conscious.] might be the-- let's say the highest level.

S: Right.

VM: The power to think might be the reasoning soul.

S: Right, the triple s-- that's what I was thinking, yeah.

VM (simultaneously): Right, right. And the power to imagine would be the-- the lowest soul.

S (simultaneously): Yeah.

LD: Can you read it again?

RC: The second one?

LD: The o-- the one [S simultaneously: Whereas mind is--] we are discussing here.

S: No.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #18, RC reading]: "Mind is the power to be conscious, to think, and to imagine. [RC leaves out: It is not the fleshly brain.]"

[short pause]

BS: Do you [S simultaneously: Saturn Jupiter Mercury?] think he means Mind with a capital L-- M actually? Because it would seem to me if so, the power to think would be to construct the universe and our participation in [one/two words inaudible]

AH: Yes but Bert, if that was so then what would be the difference between mind and consciousness?

BS: Excuse me?

AH: I mean if that's the level of mind that he's speaking of, you wouldn't be able to hold a distinction between mind being the power for consciousness. They'd be the same at that level. So I-- that's confusing.

RG (simultaneously): Well but, where is he bringing in consciousness?

AH: Well he said mind is the power--

S: To be conscious.

AH: To be conscious, to think, or to imagine.

AD: And to imagine.

AH (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible] I'm sorry?

AD: And.

PD: Well it's threefold.

AD: Yeah.

S: Yeah.

AD: Well naturally.

AH: And Bert was asking if that's Big Mind or little mind.

AD: Well you decide.

BS: Well I vote for the Big Mind.

S: Right.

RG/S(?) (faint): Right.

AD: The Saturn, the Jupiter, the Mercury. The three-- the tripart division of mind or soul. [student assents, very faint] [short pause] Can be conscious, can think, and imagine.

AH: What's the difference between principle of consciousness and mind?

AD: That will be above it, wouldn't it.

AH: Yes.

AD: That would be Universal Mind. To think: that would be the rational part of soul. To imagine: that-- that would be the sublunary. So it's very comprehensive definition, it-- it doesn't, you know-- pushes aside the tri-part division, doesn't s-- doesn't say anything about a tri-part division but there it is. Go ahead.

NR: And are these [RC simultaneously: Yeah I like this.] divisions known in the experience of mentalism or are they--

AD: I'm sorry?

NR: Are these three divisions known in the experience?

AD (simultaneously): These experiences are known if you study real hard, Nancy. (bit of laughter) Study real hard. Meditate real hard.

NR: But we said you can only reason to a certain point, then you--

AD: Yeah, you reason to that point, then we'll discuss it from there. (bit of laughter)

NR: Ok.

S: I see.

WY: He mentions these three things together but they seem like they're in a hierarchy too. In order to be able to think you have to be conscious, to be able to imagine you have to think. 'Cause in the imagination there is a-- an organized projection which is a-- [AD simultaneously: And you're thinking.] there's always an order to it.

AD/S(?) (faint): Uh-hm, yeah.

[10¾ second pause]

THE MIND DEALS DIRECTLY WITH ITS OBJECTS, WHICH ARE IDEAS

RC: This one is like a koan. Maybe it's not a koan but it's a very terse philosophical statement.

PB [V13, 21:2.13 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #43, RC reading]: "The mind deals directly with its objects and not through the intermediary working of ideas for the ideas are its only objects."

[couple students, three/few faint inaudible words]

S: One more time please?

PB [V13, 21:2.13 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #43, RC reading]: "The mind deals directly with its objects [and] not through the intermediary working of ideas for the ideas are its only objects."

AD: Paint it on the walls. (bit of laughter)

AH: He absolutely erased the distinction between mind and matter. (bit of laughter) [one/two inaudible student words simultaneous with AH] The matter is-- there's no intermediary, you know. There's no matter. Objects of mind are its ideas.

S: Can you read it again once more?

HE(?) (very faint): Yeah once more.

[students assent, faint]

[9½ second pause]

DB: It would seem--

AD: I told you, you never know the sensible world.

VM: Yep.

DB: Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that.

VM(?) (faint): You never know the (sense/sensible) [one/two words inaudible]

DB: Um--

RG: It's an idea.

DB: Well, from the-- from-- (some laughter, student words) From-- [VM simultaneously: As sensible.] from the point of view of the Solar Logos, leave-- leaving out now [one/two words inaudible] from its perspective, can-- I mean, is it that there really isn't a distinction between the world that it contemplates and the world that it, so to speak, projects forth?

AD (simultaneously): No. No, only verbal.

[student assents, faint]

DB: So that-- Of course that changes the character of the universe you live in.

AD: It's only verbal. [RG/S(?), faint: That distinction.] For the Solar Logos, you are a thought, you're not a sensible object. Just like if you were awake when you were sleeping, the dream would be just a thought.

RC: And you don't have to think about (me) because you'd only [one word inaudible] (that/what) you're gonna come in contact with is this ideation.

AD: I told you, we're going to have to form a society or Friends of the Ideas. (laughter)

THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF MENTALISM IS DIFFERENT FROM A CONCEPTUAL FORMULATION OF IT

[short pause after laughter subsides]

JL: Anthony, I have a question. Is-- The doctrine of mentalism is a type of reasoned philosophy. Is-- [short pause] is there the same kind of confirmation, that is to say, distinction within the experience of mentalism that would give a certain qualitativeness to it, making-- making you know that it is mental?

AD: I'm sorry John.

JL: Well, we come-- we come to the idea of mentalism through a kind of reasoning, ok. That is to say, we arrive at the-- you know, by-- by reasoning on our experience we arrive at the idea that our experience is mental. Does-- does the experience let's say of a mystical nature also deliver that but in a more direct way?

AD: Yeah. As a matter of fact you may have difficulty putting-- putting them together. The direct experience of mentalism and your conceptual formulation, you may have difficulty in, you know, conjoining them.

JL: Well, my question kind of is sort of compounded around that problem. I mean, is there a difference between the two?

AD: Oh yes, there's a difference, you just-- you just said what the dis-- One you said was a direct experience. One an experience of identity, the mentalness of things and yourself. And the other was a formulation of that in terms of symbols.

JL: Yeah but could the-- could the experience of that unity-- does it necessarily--

AD: Of what unity?

JL: Hm?

AD: Of what unity?

JL: Of that mystical unity.

AD: Alright.

JL: Does that-- that experience of the mystical unity nece-- nec-- necessitate the conclusion that--

AD: No, it doesn't nece-- necessitate a formulation.

JL: Ok. Alright then.

AD: The formulation is for others.

JL: [very faint] Ok.

[23 second pause]

AD: As a matter of fact you may come up with the result of saying, if you have the experience you come up with the result, and you say, "It's so different from what I've been studying!" There's a qualitative difference, real difference when you understand a thing let's say conceptually or through the ideas and when you experience it direct. In one case it's like reading the menu, in the other case it's eating the food.

[students assent] (bit of laughter)

S (faint): It's baked [one/two words inaudible]

VM: (Something/Simply) looks good on (here/me).

S (faint): (Right/Yeah). (bit of laughter)

S: Safer than me.

RC (simultaneously): This isn't what I ordered, it doesn't look right. (some laughter)

[short pause]

PB [unpublished, 21z-wm.0 (10v/15/94), RC reading]: "There are two kinds of experienced ideas, those which are truly factual, and those which are merely fanciful."

[short pause]

AH: Could you give an example of each kind?

RC: The world and most of my thoughts about it.

AH/S(?): Right.

AH: The world being a real one.

RC: Yeah.

S: But the world is your thought of it too.

RC: Most of my thoughts. Two kinds of experienced ideas.

AH: So a real idea is an idea in the World-Mind? And fanciful ones are ones that I have about it or personal idea.

RC (simultaneously): Well at least they are based in the imaginative power of the ego, where everything gets related to my personal-- personal likes and dislikes.

AH: Insofar as it's personal it's fanciful. Would you go that far?

RC: I think I would in a very strict sense 'cause you probably know how Coleridge used the difference between imagination and fancy, and in that sense I would.

AH: With or without opium. (laughter)

[short pause]

RC: But fancy depended on the bringing-- bringing in the memory. The ego's based, body-based memory, the organic biological memory. [21¾ second pause] (Remember he) says we experience both of them. [16 second pause] This one doesn't really come in sequence but I just saw it again, I-- I liked it so-- It's humorous [one/two words inaudible]

PB [V13, 21:1.89, RC reading]: "If the blood, bone, and flesh of the human brain secrete thought then the wood and [S simultaneously: Where's Herbie?] string of a violin secrete music." (laughter, students assent)

S (faint): Well yeah, it's the same (sort of) [one word inaudible]

S: Hm.

S: Well-- oh yeah.

[15¼ second pause with background student whispering]

THE IDEA IS THE THING

PB [V13, 21:1.115, RC reading]: "The scientist's error begins when he assumes [RC adds: that] there is a gulf between the idea and the thing. For it is only his assumption. The experience of the thing and the idea of it are not two sunderable entities. If they were, we should register them as such. But actually we don't; we find that they form a unit of experience, a unit in consciousness."

[20¾ second pause]

HE: I'm a little bit confused about that one, di-- Sometimes we seem to speak as though we don't know the thing and one of the things about mentalism is that you never know anything out there except the thought [RC assents] and now here there seems to be a thing [one word inaudible] it's not exactly the same as the idea, they're somehow linked. Is the thing the-- the world-thought behind the idea that we have of it, is that what you'd say here?

RC (simultaneously): I think this is where we're caught up with those two different kinds of ideas [HE assents] that we experience.

HE: When he says "thing" here he means cosmically produced.

RC: Yeah, the World-Mind's ideation that's [HE assents] a stimulus to our own reaction ideation. (I think) it seems that we do experience both simultaneously, but usually-- well, maybe it varies with different people, but there usually is a difference in intensity between which-- which of those two experiences are most-- more intense for the individual person. That one person might actually experience much more vividly the ideas, (the) personally generated ideas about the thing, and totally disregard-- not want to be contradicted by any more input from the thing, whereas other people might-- you know, their-- their inward activity might be just a little murmur that is very firmly over-ruled by the thing.

[short pause]

LD: But wasn't he also just saying-- I don't know, maybe I have to hear it again, that the thought is primary and that a material thing is only inference and [RC: That it's material.] it's secondary, it's inference and there-- that's all it is. The thought [RC simultaneously: Yeah, its materiality--] is primary and that's all we know. [RC: Yeah, its materiality--] And anything outside that is just-- you're making a-- a copy of [RC assents] that thought and saying that exists out there.

RC: Yeah. Its materiality, its externality, and its separateness are all inferred.

LD: And we could do without that he says.

RC: Right.

LD: Elsewhere.

S (very faint): That's right.

S: (very faint): Yeah.

S (very faint, possibly same S as above): That's right.

RC: Yeah we can. But the fact that it's present to the mind is not inferred.

LD: Right.

RC: And I think in most of our experience, we can see both of those factors as present to the mind.

LD: Both what factors, just-- [RC simultaneously: The stimulus--] the inference and the thought?

RC: Yeah, the stimulus and the images we find ourselves overlaying on top of it. Both the sensible and the conjecture part of the life.

[short pause]

S: Could you read it again?

S (faint): Yeah, can-- read it again.

RC: Where'd it go?

[couple seconds of faint background student talking]

[short pause]

RG: Yeah, I only think he's talking about one thought there, I don't see the personal thought, he's talking about the thought of the world as not different than something outside it and there's nothing underneath that. There's no tree other than the tree maybe that you guys-- you perceive. [RC assents] [VM simultaneously: Yeah I mean--] I mean that's where the mis-- the scientist's mistake is.

VM (simultaneously): Right. I-- the way I understand it I guess is quite harmonious with Dickie's view and that is that objects don't have any self-standing nature, that's just another way of phrasing it. That they don't stand outside the mind and exist in a kind of pristine way ready to be, let's say, interacted with the mind, but that in fact the only thing the mind there experiences are its own thoughts which have no other basis than in the mind.

LR: But he says the experience of the thing, not the thing.

RG: No he says the-- [VM: Well--] the thought of the thing and the thing are [VM assents] not sunderable, not there (anyway).

VM (simultaneously): I think he's trying to keep them together.

AD: The idea [S simultaneously: What he's saying is--] is the thing [couple/three words inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): Yeah. Right, the idea is the--

AD/S(?): Exactly.

VM: I don't think he's trying to address-- [S simultaneously: You said (one word inaudible)] address any, [RG simultaneously: He said they're not sunderable.] let's say, ontic realities.

S: That's right.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

AH: It's the basis-- the basis of the thing is in no sense its materiality.

JB (faint): I don't agree with your [one word inaudible]

S (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible]

LD: Yeah, the idea and the experience are one unit. The experience doesn't originate from an outside object.

JB: But that doesn't say "yea" or "nay" to the existence of the outside object, only that the [RG simultaneously: Correct.] experience and the idea are unsunderable. You have derived from that that there is no thing and that's not confirmed by this quote.

S: There's no (functional) object.

LD (simultaneously): No but that's an-- an inferred--

VM: But no, that's an implication.

LD (simultaneously): That's an assumption on your part which [RC simultaneously: It is(./?)] really, you know, might not hold ground.

AH: I think-- I think the implication is that there's no quarrel with the existence of things, but a-- but as to how they exist is the issue. And they exist-- and I hate to use the word but, you know, exist inherently in their-- [student assents, faint] their own right. They exist in mind. [short pause] They don't have objective-- they don't have objective basis. [short pause] There's like-- there's not a tree apart from the one that is known (in--)

VM (faint): Yeah. I would buy that.

S: Well--

RG: And it's not that-- and I agree with Jonathan, in this quote you only can assume that your experience of it-- in your experience you can't find it, but there's no claim here whether it is or isn't, just that co-- from-- from a conscious point of view you can't know.

VM: But he-- he certainly established in earlier quotes that the only thing you ever experience are your own thoughts so to try and arrive at, in experience anyway, some self-standing object in any kind of truly objective sense is impossible.

S: Right.

VM: So, if you're using existence in that way it does deny the existence.

RC: Therefore--

JB (simultaneously): Because you can't prove it.

VM/S(?): Yeah.

RC: The quote seems to be addressing itself to the error of assuming that there's any gulf between an idea or a thing.

S: Right.

LD: Uh-hm.

S: Right. Goes back to the quote--

RC (simultaneously): And if you work with that assumption of-- he's saying that that's where the error begins.

[short pause]

AH: So this quote could be interpreted as things not having any existence.

LR (faint): No, no.

AD: Not at all.

AH: I didn't think so.

S: No, it goes back to the quote--

AD (simultaneously): Well, he's just saying the idea is the thing. [students assent, faint] And that's what the scientist is examining, [S simultaneously: Mind is directly with objects.] the idea. [students assent, faint] And it's an inference to say it's a thing. That's all you ever deal with is ideas. [short pause] Don't worry, we'll go back to that quote on you, I'll just keep it as-- in reserve for now.

RC: There's a few more that [one word inaudible] pile up when we're going to get into--

[10½ second pause]

PB [V13, 21:4.232, RC reading]: "William Blake, in his published Letters, reveals mentalist truth on the [RC reads: a] basis of personal firsthand experience. Blending the clairvoyant seer, the religious mystic, and the gifted artist, as he did, this is only to be expected."I know," he writes, "that this world of imagination and vision is all one continued vision.""

[11½ second pause]

RC: It's an interesting anecdote, um--

PB [V13, 21:2.84, RC reading]: "'Thou art only thought,' said the philosophic yogi whom Alexander the Great interviewed. He then proceeded to prove his statement by mesmerizing the king into believing himself to be a poor man struggling against destitution. I do not know if this anecdote exists amongst the Greek records of Alexander's adventures, but I found it amongst the Indian traditions about him."

[20¼ second pause]

THE INITIAL ERROR OF MATERIALISM

PB [V13, 21:2.48, RC reading]: "It is the starting point of all error to assume that at some point in time if not in space the mind suddenly made its appearance in the universe. This is the initial error of all materialism--whether it be scientific or theological or metaphysical. Mind is supposed by all these views to start functioning after matter has had a long inning [RC reads: has had long innings] on the cricket-field of the cosmos." (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): [few words inaudible]

S (amidst laughter): That's a new one.

VM: Take that Carl Sagan. (laughter, student words)

PB [V13, 21:2.48, RC reading]: "Insoluble problems flow naturally out of this error."

S (possibly part of background): I thought he used the images, no?

S: Hm.

DB: Ra-- Randy? He said that that was the initial error of materialism?

PB [V13, 21:2.48, RC reading]: "It is the starting point of all error to assume that at some point in time if not in space the mind suddenly made its appearance in the universe."

RC: You believe in the board.

S: Uh-hm.

DB: Well-- let's see. (bit of laughter) No, the reason--

AS(?): Silly mistake to make David, you believe in the board! (some laughter)

DB: I know, I know. But, on the other hand-- But, the question I'm asking and I'm asking-- I can see that on a-- if that's the foundation of-- of materialism, alright--

RC: The initial error of all materialism, right.

DB: Right, I mean so-- I mean, if that's the first mistake, I mean that's actually-- materialism is asserted on the basis of an independent existence of an individual mind, I mean is that the kind of--

S (simultaneously): No, no, no, no, no, no.

DB (simultaneously): No. Ok.

RC: The existence of something other than mind prior to mind is--

DB: Yes, right, but-- you see I-- what I'm trying to get at is that, in order for that mistake to be made, ok, you gotta have a mind first, alright. (bit of laughter)

VM: Sure, it's made by a human, it's a human mistake.

DB: Ok. Assuming that-- alright. So you got a human mind. Its first mistake is that it assumes that first in the past there was materialism, along came mind later. Ok. Now I'm-- see, what I'm trying to get at is, is that the bottom line in terms of the doctrine of materialism, not the doctrine but the assumption of materialism, which is why I asked the question.

RC: He calls it the initial error of all [RG or another student assents] materialism.

RG: [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): If you put anything before mind you're in error.

AS: Right.

AD: That's it, and then all the rest follows.

RG: And the neurological view today is that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain.

DB: Oh yeah, I'm aware of that.

RG: It's the same kind of an argu-- understanding.

AD (simultaneously): By unconscious surgeons. (bit of laughter)

DB: Right, by unconscious--

RG: By-- right. But the same argument can be made histor-- about history itself in a cosmological view, and in one is now reduced to a biological view but on the cosmological scale the-- the error is to assume matter prior to mind. So in either-- any level, that assumption is what is the basis of any level of materialism or whatever level you're at.

DB: Ok. Now that's-- see, that is the-- like an assertion of a materialist doctrine [S: Yeah.] is based on that assumption, ok.

RG: It is the assertion of the materialistic doctrine or it is their assumption, they're not two things; they go hand in hand.

[short pause]

AH: Any notion of there being some stuff that the mind acts upon is materialism.

DB: See (um/and)-- I-- it just seems to me that there's some presupposition of an unconscious one that-- that forms the basis for that assertion.

AH/S(?): You want to state it clearly?

DB: Well, I mean, if you-- if you-- it can be spoken of as there-- before the appearance of mind there was this matter. Now that-- that's the fundamental error of materialism. But, doesn't it seem as if that's predicated on the distinction between-- or the in-- the assertion of an individual existence of mind to be able to make that assumption, or that--

BS (simultaneously): Well, that would be correcting the--

S: No.

DB: I'm sorry?

VM: I think David is saying like, if you limit the notion of mind to individual, then it's I guess understandable how one could fall into this trap of positing matter prior to mind. Is that-- is that what you're saying?

DB (simultaneously): Yeah, something like that.

RG: But in fact if you only posit an individual mind you'd end up with solipsism, not materialism.

VM: Well, there's a lot of errors that would flow from that [one word inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): Yeah, right, that isn't a-- I don't see that the positing of an individual mind is a feature of materialism.

DB: Well be-- it would seem to me that one speaks of the doctrine-- you know, one speaks of materialism on the basis that there is some kind of inner distinction felt between the sense objects and one's own felt continuity of existence. Now would that-- is that so or not?

AH: I think-- I think David's point is valid in a sense that from the point of view of individual experience or individual mind, it's almost inevitable to become a naïve materialist.

RG: No, I disagree with that, it's not the point of view of the individual mind, it's only as related to a body that that takes place. The individual mind by itself doesn't need-- have to have that kind of division. It's only as inserted in body.

DB: Well I don't know anything about individual mind as opposed to-- as not being associated with body, that's the one--

RG (simultaneously): Sure you do. It's the mind that thinks your world into existence for you.

DB: No I'm talking about the point of view of a-- of materialism and our ordinary experience and its [one/two words inaudible] I know of what you're speaking but I don't know it directly.

RG: The only reason I said that was it's not the point of view of the individual mind then, it's the one as in material that posits it.

DB: Obviously. I mean we're talking about-- we're talking about an incarnated individual who is asserting materialism.

RG/S(?): Drop the questions.

THINKING IS OTHER THAN BODILY FUNCTIONING, BUT IT CAN BE BASED ON IT

LR: It was about the quote of the violin.

RC: Uh-hm.

LR: The violin quote?

RC: Yeah.

LR: That's interesting to me because my understanding it at the present time is that in fact the body does secrete thoughts in some way.

RC: (May/Can) I see your violin? (RG laughs)

S (amidst laughter): Right.

S (very faint): Right.

RG (very faint): Body secretes thoughts.

LR: Yeah.

RC: Thought he says the bone-- I think he says bone, [LR assents] flesh and blood?

S: (Randy/Andy)?

LR: I mean I think-- I think we have to define what we mean by thoughts there. But I-- I-- I wouldn't claim that the body is responsible for consciousness or anything like that, in that the mind would have to be-- the mind and consciousness would have to be prior to the body-thought. But I think many of the thoughts with which I occupy myself are actually bodily produced. In fact, a good number of them are produced by the actual functioning of the bodily organism.

WY: Yeah but you think of that within the context of your believing or knowing that your body is a thought also, whereas the person who thinks that their-- the brain is responsible for the thoughts thinks that it's other than mind, where you don't(--/.)

LR: They think the body produces mind.

WY: Yeah.

LR: But I-- right. So-- but I think that requires some clarification, the terms 'mind', 'thinking'. You see what I'm saying?

WY: Uh-hm.

AS: There's no more--

LR (simultaneously): And that the body doesn't produce mind but the body does seem to produce thoughts.

RG: I don't understand that.

S: Uh-hm.

LR: You don't?

S (simultaneously): Well try-- try to produce a new [one word inaudible] on a violin without strings.

RG: You show me the thought in the brain that's secreted by it and I'll believe you.

LR/S(?): Change something of the body chemistry and your thoughts change.

RG: Doesn't mean the body secretes the thought [one word inaudible]

LR: What do you mean "secrete"?

RC: Yeah, actually the quote doesn't have thoughts, it's [LR simultaneously: Oh.] singular, "thought".

LR: So it would be a mar-- it would be more like mind. That mind is the result of the bodily-- Is that what he's saying? To say that mind is the [RC simultaneously: That thought--] effect of bodily functioning [RC simultaneously: Yeah that--] would be like saying music is the effect of wood and string?

RC: Yeah.

PC: Well then even in the case of those kinds of thoughts you're talking about, couldn't you say the psyche secretes those thoughts and the idea of the material body that's associated with them?

LR: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you Peter.

PC: Couldn't you say in terms of even the kinds of thoughts that you're talking about, that the psyche secretes those thoughts and the idea of the physical body that they're associated with.

LR: Psyche and body together.

PC: But isn't the idea of a physical body a part of that psyche?

LR: I don't know. Is it? [PC simultaneously: Well, it seem--] The body's within the psyche?

AH: Would you say that the body and thoughts are two different things, [S simultaneously, faint: Is it?] [S, faint: Yeah.] you know, principially?

S: Good.

AH: Like two different modes of-- of existence?

VM (simultaneously): Well I-- I thought there was several quotes which tried to establish that there are no experiences [AH simultaneously: Yeah that--] outside of thought.

AH: That's why I was asking the question, you can't-- you can't hold the body and thought to be different. So how could-- how could two things that are not different, one be responsible for the secretion of the other?

S (faint, possibly part of background): That's from (the attic).

DB: Well if-- if the--

LR: Again, I have to-- I think there's a lot of distinctions to be made with that word 'thought'. And I don't think we can just use the word 'thought' and assume that everyone has the same--

RG: Right, well [VM simultaneously: Same thought.] what's your definition?

LR: --idea. I think there's-- there's the way he uses mind as productive of the entire world and that kind of thought which produces it, and then there's the kind of thinking which the bodily-based ego does.

AD (simultaneously): That wouldn't be thinking, that would be bodily functioning. Thinking--

LR (simultaneously): That's my point. That would be bodily function.

AD (simultaneously): Thinking would be in-- yeah, but bodily functioning isn't thinking. The activity of the body, even if you want to posit that the body is the result of the Solar Logos, the production of the body of the Solar Logos, alright, you will have, let's say, (the) function or activity of the body, this is not thinking. Thinking's other than that bodily function. [LR assents] It can be based on it but it isn't that.

LR: That's good. What-- what would you call that incessant image production that's-- that goes along with bodily functioning, what would you call that?

AD: The transmission of the image that goes along with it is coming from the mind, is not coming from the body.

[Audio File 1983 0126a (formerly 1983 0127a) Ends]

[Audio File 1983 0126b (formerly 1983 0209b, 1983 0420b) Begins]

DB: --aware of [couple inaudible LR words simultaneous with DB] this-- of the sound.

LR: Pardon?

DB: It's not even the primary cause of the sound, is--

AS: No, it's the instrumental cause.

S: [couple/three words inaudible] (bit of laughter)

AH: No I think-- I think the issue about music-- music and not-- and the noise that the violin makes, there's a distinction. As a matter of fact once I read that Beethoven composed something and, you know, everyone was upset, they said no one will be able to play it. And he said he didn't care about piddling little fiddles when he was inspired, you know. (some laughter)

BS: Not quite that way. (laughter, student words)

VM: He said it in German or what was the difference?

JB: Yeah it didn't rhyme in German, it wasn't piddling fiddling. (some laughter)

AH: But I think that's a-- I think that's probably one of the points of this quote, that the distinction between music and noise, or music and the vehicle by which it might be expressed--

S (simultaneously, very faint): Uh-hm.

S (faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): That makes sense.

[short pause]

RC: Let's see.

THE WORLD-IDEA GETS PROJECTED THROUGH THE SOUL, WHICH FABRICATES THE PRIMAL IMAGE, WITHIN WHICH YOU ARE SITUATED

PB [V13, 21:1.4, RC reading]: "We accept the first and chief suggestion of our senses without inquiry, the suggestion that we are dealing with a world totally outside us. It is an error which arises because we do not possess a deep enough understanding of ourselves. But this ignorance arises in its own turn because we do not penetrate deeply enough into our understanding of the world. Hence, the way out of it involves a twofold inquiry: into both self and not-self."

[11¾ second pause]

RC: So two (layers/players). First accept the suggestion from the senses that we're dealing with a world outside of them. That error arises because we don't possess a deep enough understanding of ourselves. But, the error of not possessing a deep enough understanding of ourselves arises because we do not penetrate deeply enough into our understanding of the world.

[student assents or chuckles]

[short pause]

JB: Is that two things?

RC: I think it's two levels of one-- one misunder-- one problem arising out of another.

[short pause]

DB: So, does it come down to that the senses don't really make the suggestion, but it's our lack of penetration into our understanding of the world that makes the suggestion that--

RC: No ourselves, that part.

DB: Yeah, but-- right, then you go from there to a lack of understanding of the world.

RC: Right.

DB: A lack of understanding themselves is dependent upon our lack of understanding of the world. They're interrelated, [RC assents] ok. But all I was getting to was that the senses don't make any assertions as to what status their objects have. Our lack of understanding is doing that.

[students assent, very faint]

RC: Ok, that error arises-- right.

DB: Ok I'm asking if I (think--)

RC: That's what he says, yeah. Seems that you did it backwards. To get a better understanding of the world will give you a deeper understanding of yourself and would show you that the world is not outside you.

BS: What was the last words? The world is not--

RC (simultaneously): Just-- just running the thing backwards. If A comes out of B comes out of C, in doing it backwards, if you had-- if you penetrated deeply enough into an understanding of the world, you would acquire a deep enough understanding of yourself to realize that the world is not outside you.

[short pause]

LR: Again. Please.

RC: If you penetrate deeply enough into an understanding of the world, then that would put us in possession with a deep enough understanding of ourselves to realize that the world is not outside.

LR: What was the part about the senses though? Was that the same quote?

S: Uh-hm.

LR: Can I (have/hear) that part once more, Randy?

RC: Go forward again, ok.

LR: Oh, I'm sorry I-- I've lost track.

PB [V13, 21:1.4, RC reading]: "We accept the first and chief suggestion of our senses without inquiry, the suggestion that we are dealing with a world totally outside us."

AD: Ok?

PB [V13, 21:1.4, RC reading]: "It [RC reads: This] is an error which arises because we do not possess a deep enough understanding of ourselves. But [RC adds: then] this ignorance arises in its own turn [RC: This ignorance about ourselves,"arises in its own turn] because we do not penetrate deeply enough into our understanding of the world. Hence, the way out of it involves a twofold inquiry: into both self and not-self."

DB: Randy? This-- I don't know if this is just the way it's written but there's-- the manner in which he discusses the-- our own understanding of ourselves and our understanding of the world is completely different in that because he speaks of-- on the-- in reference to ourself as not possessing an understanding of ourselves and when he's talking about the world he's talking about not penetrating enough into our understanding, [AS/S(?), faint: No.] presuming, it seems to me, that in some respects that understanding is ours already. But, our understanding of ourselves is not. But-- but in either case, I mean, we're unaware of it, but I mean is that so?

S: Right.

RC: Well it seems like exactly what-- what Vic has been talking about so many times with his giving classes in terms of how the research into how do I understand this physical world tells me more about how I can [couple words inaudible]

DB: I'm not sure if I phrased my question correctly.

AD: Well let's-- let's try this way, you've got two things to deal with, you have the soul and you have the World-Idea. The World-Idea gets projected through the soul, alright, and fabricates the primal image, situating you within that. So you have in the perception, in the mind's perception, you have these two things, you-- you are in there, alright, and at the same time there's something, so to speak, that surrounds you or envelopes you or is external to you. You have, so to speak, the body and you have the world which is external to the body. These two things together comprise or constitute the World-Idea. Now, you have to distinguish out one thing and the other and keep them separate in your-- in your thinking. And that is that, on the one hand, it is (the/a) soul which is the self, and on the other hand it is the World-Idea which becomes the non-self in that projection. And these two are mixed together, alright. So when there's the projection going on you look out and you say here's the "I" and there's the not-I out there. Well if you investigate into the nature of the World-Idea you'll find out something about the self that projection-- projects it. And if you investigate something about yourself you'll understand something about the World-Idea which you project. So these two are locked together. And it's always-- it's always that problem that you have.

DB: Yeah. So that--

AD (simultaneously): So if you investigate-- if the scientist for instance is primarily interested in investigating the so-called not-self or the objective world, alright, he's really more or less preoccupied with the World-Idea. The individual, so to speak, is more or less preoccupied with the nature of his own subjectivity. And these two are always mixed together and you have to be able to separate them out. When you understand the World-Idea then you can reabsorb it, take it back into yourself, and in that way you can perform the kind of exercises in yoga that PB would recommend. A failure to understand that the World-Idea gets projected through the soul is to condemn it or to push it out or to suppress it and make out it doesn't exist. So these two things are always-- it's always called that you understand the "what" and the "who".

DB (very faint): Ok.

LR: Is it the World-Soul in conjunction with the individual mind which produces the body?

AD (faint): Uh-hm.

LR: Both of them?

AD: Uh-hm.

[short pause]

IF YOU RECOGNIZE YOU ARE IN A LIVING MIND EVERY MOMENT, YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE WORLD WILL BE DIFFERENT

LG: You know, when we say that matter is mind, I-- it does nothing to help me understand what matter is. It just-- the-- the fact of calling it mind is fine.

LR: Just changes the words.

LG (simultaneously): But it's-- it just changes the words. And, [RC simultaneously: It's an important change though.] is there anything-- Excuse me?

RC: It's a very important change though.

LG: Well, yes it is.

RC (simultaneously): That whatever this agency is that I go about doing my knowing with, for that to be a-- a fundamentally alien substance from the things that it's supposed to know would mean that I could never know them, I could never contact them. But if it's fundamentally the same substance that operates in my knowing and in the constitution of the objects of my knowledge, then there is mutual interpenetration, possibility of knowing, relationship of knowing and being. But if they are two entirely utterly different substances, well it's, I mean-- you're split in half forever.

[student assents, faint]

LG: Yes but-- Because we call it mind, I think-- I mean I think, if it's of the substance of my soul in some-- at some [student assents] point [RC assents] in my soul's experience, then we think it would be kno-- understandable or knowable. [RC simultaneously: No (one/two words inaudible)] But then on the other hand we say that matter is not knowable because it's unintelligible or because it's divisible in-- infinitely, then how can you call it a part of the soul's substance? [RG simultaneously: You call it--] Do you know what I'm saying, you see my confusion?

RG (simultaneously): Yeah I-- but I think the word here is being used very differently than it is when we say matter is unknowable. M-- I-- I don't think it's the word 'matter' in the Greek sense here. He really means it I think as the material world. And in that sense if you understand it to be nothing other than your thought, then you have no need to understand that particular concept.

LG: I don't?

RG: Doesn't exist.

RC: Like in the Buddhist system where you wouldn't redefine inherent exis-- you wouldn't redef-- you wouldn't be setting out to redefine inherent existence. You'd be saying there is no such thing.

RG: When he says-- he means there is no independent material outside of your thinking. I don't think he's talking about the underlie of this-- the underlie that we refer to when we speak about matter as what gets illuminated by reason-principles.

LG: It's the-- it's the sensations activated and-- [RG: Yeah.] to produce an image [AS simultaneously, faint: Sure.] of the physical world.

JA/S(?) (faint): (Right/Yeah).

RG: I think it's modern understanding of the term 'matter', not a-- [LG: Ok what--] the ancient.

AH (very faint): Yeah.

LG (faint): Even-- even there I find it-- especially there (if I/I-I) found that-- I'll have to formulate that as well.

RC: Well it-- that remark that Anthony referred to earlier about Santayana having a head start. I had spoken with PB about how Santayana had made the-- this-- precisely this statement in one place where he said, "I can understand that certain people want to call what I'm calling matter Mind with a capital M." And he said, "I could accept that, provided that they're willing to recognize that the difference between that kind of Mind and what they ordinarily call mind and what most people call mind is as great as the difference between the dog-star and the barking animal."

LG: What's the difference?

RC: Power, intensity, but not essentiality.

[student assents, faint]

LG: Power and intensity.

RC: Concentration.

LG (faint): Concentration.

S (faint): [couple words inaudible]

RC: And PB's remark was, "Yes, he was much more careful on that point than I was. And in that sense he made a better beginning than I did. But then, he could never get them back together and he botched it completely."

[student assents, very faint]

JL: He got that from Spi-- Spinoza.

RC: Well Spinoza didn't do it that badly I don't think, I think Spinoza's--

JL (simultaneously): No, that quote comes from Spinoza.

RC: That particular quote does?

JL: Yeah.

RC: I don't think Spinoza's problem was as hard to deal with as Santayana's problem.

JL: No.

RC: 'Cause Spinoza talked in terms of it being exactly the same substance that appeared in thinking and in extension.

LG (faint): Is it the intensity where [few words inaudible]

RC: Yeah.

[short pause]

LG: Is it localized thought?

RC: But when you're actually dreaming, for example, what's the difference in the intensity of the experience while you're dreaming than it is when you wake up? I mean the dream bear is as frightening as anything. It inspires your belief with as much intensity.

[short pause]

AD: Do you mean you can't see the difference or the consequences in believing that the universe is made of mind or made of matter, what-- [LG simultaneously: I--] what the consequences are of such a belief?

LG: No, that's not my problem.

AD: That's not your question?

LG: No. I can accept if you call it mind, that's alright.

AD: Your question, your question was, what's the difference, instead of calling it matter call it mind. And I'm suggesting if you understand the consequences in bel-- in understanding what they mean by matter and what they mean by mind, you wouldn't ask a question.

LG: What I want to know is though what-- what's meant by matter in that kind of framework. What's the difference in the mind given a mentalistic framework?

RG (simultaneously): But-- but Lauren, the answer is, is that when you [LG simultaneously: (I'm sorry.)] understand that there isn't a second thing to have to understand anymore as matter, it doesn't-- it's a mea-- it becomes a meaningless question if you understand [S simultaneously: Alright.] the first part of it. [9 second pause] 'Cause as soon as you start to posit it you reveal the non-under-- the non-mental understanding.

LG: As being a distinct--

RG: As being distinct.

LG: But you're going to be able to make distinctions in mental functioning. Do you make any distinctions in mental functioning?

RG: Many.

LG: Yeah, then why don't-- matter is just a word.

RG (simultaneously): You want to call one side of it matter? Because of all the connotations that the word has had throughout the years [couple words inaudible]

LG (simultaneously): That's right, but we're trying to understand mentalism, we're trying to follow through, understand what the world-thought is, which happens to have been called matter for all these thousands of years.

RG (simultaneously): Well speaking of it as the world-thought or speaking of it as matter is extremely different.

LG: Yes. I agree, [RG: Right.] I agree.

RG: But that part is so less difficult than the first part, which is realizing that(--) the fact that it isn't different. And that becomes a m-- a more mechanical kind of understanding rather than the insight that matter is not anything but mind.

JA: But why don't you address the-- (this/his) real question that she's asking: but what is the idea of matter then?

LG: I mean he started (it/in), you know I'm saying in-- (as in) our-- that-- along those lines, which gives me some-- you know, it's [JA simultaneously: No.] along those li--

JA: Yeah, [RG assents, faint] yeah, being [one word inaudible]

RC: Though not as iden-- as trying to identify matter though but to distinguish the levels between Mind with a capital M, with a small 'm' the way we usually use it. I really think from-- in-- within PB's framework, I really do think that he pretty much cancels matter. [few inaudible student words] It's an absolute fiction.

S: Yeah.

S: Ok.

RC: And that what you mean when you-- in this particular time period mean when you say the word 'matter' at a conventional level, isn't.

RG/S(?): Right.

LG: Ok, c-- then I should phrase it, what causes things and what-- [LR simultaneously: Right.] what's causes the existence of--

LR: If I can just add to that. He-- [one/two inaudible student words simultaneous with LR] if he cancels the matter--

BS: But she said [one/two words inaudible] gonna do it. (bit of laughter)

LR: No, no what-- what--

S (faint): What?

RG: She didn't finish so you could add to it yet, Linda.

[couple seconds of faint background student talking, bit of laughter]

LR: That by canceling the ma-- the thing of matter, he does take up the question which I think you're asking which is, he does begin to-- he-- what the question does address is the distinction between cosmic mind and the contribution of individual mind. And in distinguishing those two, [S: Yes.] you can-- you can begin to see why the notion of matter as something much more powerful and outside arises.

AH: Is that to say--

LG (simultaneously): Well by saying that though there just can't-- then I just have no-- I have no, I mean-- [RG: That's the point.] that stops my--

RG (simultaneously): That's the point.

[student assents, very faint]

RC: Well it's [LG simultaneously: --mind.] another section that-- that talks about the relation between the individual mind and the World-Mind, where those quotes are-- I don't have those quotes right with me now.

LG: But that doesn't have anything to do with mentalism?

S: Well--

RC: Well the basic point of mentalism is affirming-- I mean affirming that your experience is mental, that you do not contact anything which is not within your mind, which is not something that is a perception that you generate, that that's all there is.

LG: Ok, does that seem ab-- does that seem really--

S (very faint): I don't get it.

AD: Bless you. [student sneezes] What'd you say?

RG/S(?): Don't know.

LG: It seems that when you follow through with the analysis of perception or sensations, that's what you come to. Now, getting the full impact of that is something else, getting the full realization of what that implies is something else but coming to that belief, it-- that's the level that you can-- that you reach it at, doesn't seem that extraordinary.

RC: Well this quote that we just read, he said that both of these later errors arise because we don't penetrate deeply enough into our understanding of the world. Now if you were to say, ok, everybody knows what I mean when I say world and somebody really pushes you and says, "What do you mean when you say world?"

LG: Right.

RC: "You put it together for me, show me something that isn't a sensation or perception. Show me anything apart from those activities that are going on in you all the time. Show me any-- anything that is-- that you know of or that you can even hope to possibly know of that could be outside of that framework."

LG: Jeanne(--/.)

RC: So in inquiring into what do I mean when I say world, all of a sudden I got a whole different image of what I mean when I say "I".

LG (very faint): What do you mean? I don't know if I followed you.

AH (simultaneously): Lauren, are-- are you nonetheless asking how to posit matter? I mean e-- given-- given this discussion, you still would like to find a way of positing matter?

LG: But let's not say matter, because that's obviously not going to go over now.

RG (simultaneously): Good, what do you want?

AH (simultaneously): Ok let's say posit the experience of something [LG simultaneously: The experi--] other than mind.

LG: The experience that creates this distinction of me and another, you know, this subject-object relationship, there's something that's creating this, you know--

AH: You would agree that that-- that that appearance occurs within individual personal [LG simultaneously: Of course.] mind. And it's [LG simultaneously: Of course.] the nature of that experience that, by-- by way-- that is the means by which you can posit a notion of matter.

LG: Yes.

AH: But that experience is sublated by this discussion, that that appearance of something other than mind is an appearance.

RG: No but the-- but Lauren's question now [RC simultaneously: Within mind.] is, what c-- what causes the belief in it. Right?

AH (simultaneously): The duality of perception within individual experience.

RG: Well--

VM: (Well), no.

LG: That (doesn't/does it) [couple words inaudible]

AH: There's a [DB simultaneously: Memory.] subject and there's an object. [couple students at once, few words inaudible simultaneous with AH] And that object always must appear as some thing other than that [LG simultaneously: Does that (one word inaudible)] conscious subject.

LG: Is that-- do you understand, does that make-- does that allow you to understand?

AH: I don't know how else to understand it.

RC: You know, I [couple inaudible LG words simultaneous with RC] get more out of going the other way. Like instead of saying-- you know, I (did/do) the same thing you're saying for quite a few years, and-- then what kind of really spun my brain around inside my head was I realized that--

S: Whew. (laughter, student words)

S: Very interesting [couple words inaudible]

RC (simultaneously): --that this discussion--

MB: Care to rephrase that?

RC: This discussion depends on the presupposition that you know what you mean when you say mind.

LG: Exactly. That's my point. (bit of laughter)

RC: No I mean, when you deny-- no wait a minute. By denying that that-- by denying that there's anything-- that there-- wait a minute, (you asked/yes). By denying that mind is not all-inclusive, that implicit in that denial you're saying "I already know what mind is, you don't have to tell me."

LG: Wait a minute, by denying-- say that again?

RC: By denying that mind is all-inclusive, implicit in that denial you're saying--

LG (simultaneously): Who's saying-- who's denying mind's all-inclusive?

RC: Well, anyone who does.

LG: Alright.

RC: Like if you do.

LG: I don't.

RC (simultaneously): If you say--

LG: I don't.

VM: It was a rhetorical "you".

LG: I don't, so now what? (laughter)

RC: Well, you do.

JA (simultaneously): She's saying that by-- you know, like by as-- [VM/S(?) simultaneously: Oh yeah, right.] as-- asserting that mind is all-inclusive then pretend to have answered the question, you know, and that-- and that-- that you've given a definition of what it is.

RC/S(?): That'll work.

TS (simultaneously): Well, you pretend to answer [LG/S(?) simultaneously: Just--] the question that there's something outside of mind(./?)

S (very faint): But--

JA: No, no, no, [LG simultaneously: No.] no, forget that. (bit of laughter)

BS: Well Tim is-- [couple words inaudible] is why you want the liberty or a reason for the belief in something outside of mind. If you recognize the error why do you want--

LG: Because I live in this world in that error and I'd certainly like to understand it so the only way I know to pursue it is by trying to figure out my wrong thinking. And I can--

BS (simultaneously): Well--

AS: [three/few words inaudible]

AH (simultaneously): The very first-- one of the first quotes we read spoke to that clearly, said that within [couple inaudible LG words simultaneous with AH] logical thinking you can talk about the reality of mind. But the actual practical personal verification of that truth is to be arrived at by intuition.

LG: Right, so you don't-- yeah.

AH: So we go on [LG simultaneously: Well we go on in philosophy(--/.)] experiencing matter whether or not we believe in it or not until you have that intuition.

LG: Ok Andrew, fine, once again then you just pulled it up from under and all I need to do is sit and meditate and have an experience of it, which is certainly a hope. But, [student assents, very faint] before that we pursue these ideas, I mean I-- [AH assents] Your answer just now just once again, you know, pulls it out and says-- [AH: Well--] doesn't allow me to continue because that [few words inaudible]

AH (simultaneously): No I don't think we can ever talk ourselves out of the belief in matter logically.

AD: If you talk hard enough. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): What-- what are you doing here?

AD (amidst laughter): [few words inaudible]

S (amidst laughter): My-- (my/by) God!

AD (amidst laughter): Otherwise I'll--

AH (simultaneously): But the getting out-- but the getting out of the belief--

AD (simultaneously): If you study and rea-- if you really study it intently, you know, like you got the book and you're burning the midnight oil, and you're doing this for weeks and months, you may get a flash while you're studying of the mentalness of everything.

AH: Yes.

AD: Yeah.

AH: Yes.

AD: And you could (be) wide-awake, right there, all of you present.

[student assents, very faint]

S (faint, possibly part of background): All of [couple words inaudible]

AH: Yes.

LDS: But Anthony, to speak of a flash like-- can you speak of just following the reasoning, let's say, in a book like the Hidden Teaching, like [AD simultaneously: Well sure, the--] the reasoning is right there. If you follow the dilemmas he presents you with, if you take [AD simultaneously: The--] materialism to be (he--)

AD (simultaneously): The point I didn't want to argue to the-- I didn't want-- I didn't wish to pursue it was because the point wasn't picked up. The consequences of belief in matter, alright, [student assents] and the consequences(--) are all you have to do to investigate to see what the difference is. If you impose upon your mind the notion that there is such a ma-- such a thing as matter, you impose certain limitations which are catastrophic. Period.

[TS assents, faint]

LDS: If you appreciate the dilemmas--

AD: Now, now you go ahead and say, well alright then, everything is mind: this pole, this tree. Yes, now, let's say now you're investigating mentalism. So what a scientist is investigating is the nature of mind, not the nature of matter. It would [RC simultaneously: That's--] be a different kind of science we have.

RC (simultaneously): That's really helpful.

S (faint): (But what was the best departure?)

AD: You'd certainly have a whole different attitude towards the world you live in. As a matter of fact, to recognize that [AD speaks the following slowly and with emphasis] you are in living mind every moment and to contrast that with the feeling or the experience that you're living in an alien world, I mean I d-- I don't think these things have to be pointed out. It would be absurd, what the hell have (you/we) been doing for ten years? Eating popcorn?

S (faint): Yeah.

AH/S(?): Here's some more.

RC (simultaneously): Andrew, immediately on this recognition of mentalism one of the very first things that hits you is that the universe is quite friendly.

AD: Yeah.

LG (faint): Friendly?

RC: Yeah. It's a living-- living within a-- a genuine recognition of the mentalness of your experience and living with the presupposition of its materiality is like the difference between being home and being in a foreign country that they don't want you to be in. (bit of laughter)

LG: Yep.

RC: And you'd be [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): (Shoot) the enemy's (on a--)

AD: Well that's [student assents] what I mean by living mind. It's-- you actually have the presence, the experience of the presence of a friendly power. And living in a material world, you won't have that. And you can get to it by just a few ideas, couple of good ideas. Just go over them in your mind. Let's go on.

"WE CANNOT POSSIBLY SEPARATE THE WORLD FROM THE MIND THAT KNOWS IT"

PB [V13, 21:2.174, RC reading]: "Experience is a unity and cannot be broken into mind and matter. We cannot possibly separate the world from the mind that knows it. The two are always related. To object [RC reads: The objection]…"

RC: Now this is a very good--

PB [V13, 21:2.174, RC reading]: "To object [RC reads: The objection] that such a relation need not exist outside the act of knowing the world, even though it must exist inside it, is to utter words which dissolve away as soon as their meaning is analyzed. For the only world which human beings can ever discuss is the one which they can think about and which is therefore an idea in their minds."

[12 second pause]

AH: Is that to say that--

AD (simultaneously): Takes you right back to Hume's quotation, doesn't it.

RC: Yeah.

AS (simultaneously): Huh. You don't like that Richard.

AD: Hm?

S: But what--

AD: Takes you right back to Hume's quotation.

RG: Yeah.

S (very faint): (Who's Hume?)

VM: Hume.

AD: You're [couple inaudible RG words simultaneous with AD] always living in the mind, the living mind, your mind.

RC: And even when you think the non-mental world into being, you're thinking that non-mental world into being. I mean when you think of a world that exists outside the known, it only exists for you as long as you're thinking about it.

AD: Here's a nice way to look at it, if you think of yourself as a mentalist and a materialist, think of yourself as a schizoid.

PB [V13, 21:4.215, RC reading]: "Kant as an idealist brought out two sides of idealism: that the world of experience is built up through certain processes, that is, it is a construction; and that the synthetic activity of the mind enables it to see the world as a finished thing. He was correct when he declared the known world to be mentally constructed, but not when he declared that there was an unknown world of things-in-themselves beyond it--unless we give that name to the karmic forces which became transferred into the known world."

[student assents, faint]

AD: Well, I wouldn't attribute that to Kant.

S (faint): How come?

PB [unpublished, 25a.0 (10v/45/11), RC reading]: "If human thinking were the only creative factor making human environments, then it would be possible to avert the retribution of its own evil courses, or to abolish the consequences of its mistakes, its ignorances, and its perversities."

PB [V13, 21:5.132 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #45, RC reading]: "[RC adds: The] Mind is governed by its own laws and conjures up its own creations. The universe, at any particular moment of its history, is formed by the action and reaction of these creations."

[21 second pause]

BS: Well, I wouldn't mind hearing that one again.

[simultaneously] [student assents, faint]

RC: I jammed three of them together just because I wanted to get them all out. (bit of laughter)

PB ON KANT'S IDEALISM

PB [V13, 21:4.215, RC reading]: "Kant as an idealist brought out two sides of idealism: that the world of experience is built up through certain processes, that is, it is a construction; and that the synthetic activity of the mind enables it to see the world as a finished thing. [short pause] He was correct when he declared the known world to be mentally constructed, but not when he declared that there was an unknown world of things-in-themselves beyond it--unless we give that name to the karmic forces which became transferred into the known world."

AH: I would like to ask about that part of the quote.

RC: Uh-hm.

AH: He said, Kant was incorrect in positing an unknown world prior to thought.

RC: Beyond, yeah.

AH (simultaneously): Beyond thought.

RC: Yeah, beyond the--

S: Beyond the known.

AH (simultaneously): But then he's willing--

RC: --the known world.

[student assents, faint]

AH: But he's willing to agree that these karmic forces could be that reference. Not for Kant but in our discussion.

RC: Yeah.

AH: So those karmic forces would be forces in no way associated with thought?

RG: No.

AH: They'd reside in pure potential in some sense?

RC: Yeah, they'd be prior to and formative of certainly the vast majority of any thought.

LR: You'd have to again distinguish [AH simultaneously: But--] what kind of thought you're talking about.

BS: That's why we're going to have to get to the rest of that quote to get the whole context, you left out part of the--

RC: That was when actually where that one stopped. And, I [BS simultaneously: Oh.] stuck two more together with it because [BS simultaneously: Well that's why--] I thought it was interesting to put them--

BS (simultaneously): You thought-- did you think they were connected, is that why you [one word inaudible]

RC: I thought they were related, not connected.

S: Well--

BS (simultaneously): Well yeah.

RC: Just it--

AH (simultaneously): I'd just like to-- I'd like to understand what he means specifically in this quote by karmic forces.

RC: That's why I put the other two quotes there.

BS: Yeah, that's really what I want to hear.

RC (simultaneously): Yeah. (RG laughing)

S (amidst laughter, faint): [couple/three words inaudible]

BS: Get it? (RG laughing)

AH: If he's not going to associate that with thought--

RG: Well, what-- but the ans-- the claim of course is that-- the claim of Kant there is that it al-- those ideas always remain unknown. And that's what PB is arguing against here, that by thinking of them now as karmic forces we can place them in a mind that happens to have them as a content.

AH: You still leave them-- their status as somehow outside of thought.

RG: Outside [S simultaneously: No.] of our thought.

S (faint): No.

S: Yeah.

AH: So there you got an ideal world upon which this one is suspended.

RG: Right, but that ideal world is not an unknown one, it's known to a mind. Not our individual one but to the World-Mind.

S: Right.

VM: Yeah, so that also opens the possibility for an individual participating somehow more directly, [RG: Right.] not-- not in the normal discursive way, with those karmic forces. [student assents, very faint] Whereas that [one/two inaudible student words simultaneous with VM] was never allowed with Kant.

AH: I got a different feeling from these quotes but-- You-- you know, go ahead, read the rest of them. I thought he was-- I thought he was [BS simultaneously: Well read the rest of them.] pretty clearly denying any ideal world or any unknown world. I thought that was a pretty clear denial in these quotes.

RG: In whose quote?

AH: The ones we're reading now, last three.

RG: Yes, there is-- no I said, there is no unknown world. That's why these-- by stating them as karmic forces you have to posit them to a knower.

AH: Ok, there is no unknown world but you will posit an ideal world.

RG: That-- yeah, they're-- [student assents] it's like the very word(,) it means ideal, it is kno-- to a knower, to a mind.

AH: So you'll posit another world besides the one known in thought.

RG: No, we'll just po-- posit a knower that knows those thoughts to the-- to its own mind.

AH: Well how can you do that apart from doing it within thought?

RG: We didn't deny it was in thought, or that that was a thought to a mind.

AH: Well didn't he say that the meaning of that is washed away upon analysis?

S: Better read it.

AH: The meaning of positing that ideal world outside of thought, when you analyze what that means, it doesn't have any meaning.

SD: Outside of knowledge I think, there's a difference.

S (possibly part of background): [couple words inaudible]

RC: That-- [AH simultaneously: I don't know--] that goes back to the previous quote.

[11 second pause]

LR: What about the rest of that one?

S (faint): Yeah, (I agree with you).

LR: Or the-- [couple students at once, few words inaudible] What about the unconnected but related [S simultaneously, faint: Previous, uh-hm.] other two of them? (bit of laughter)

RG: Which you read because [S simultaneously: Which--] they weren't connected.

S: But now you're having doubts (that you knew).

BS (simultaneously): Yeah [one/two words inaudible] (laughter) You should've never mentioned that they were disconnected, we'll never get to hear it. (some laughter)

S (simultaneously): Reread them. Read them, Randy.

S: Poor Randy.

RC (simultaneously): I mean, he seems to say-- this one gets as far as to mention karmic forces getting transferred into a known world. So the first one I brought up here was--

RC: I thought, ok. [student assents, faint] Seems that's part of what these karmic forces are up to is they're making sure I don't-- I'm not entitled to avert the retribution in things I screw up. And then, this other one is-- and he says--

PB [V13, 21:5.132 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #45, RC reading]: "Mind is governed by its own laws and conjures up its own creations. The universe, at any particular moment of its history, is formed by the action and reaction of these creations."

RC: So it seems that we do have like a-- an-- an interaction of structured mental beings.

AH: I think my question was to the quote of, what is-- what is-- what constitutes meaning. That was a earlier quote. I would like to ask about that unless you want to pursue this one right now. I think it's connected to this discussion.

S: But not related.

RC: You ru-- I don't-- I'll do anything now. (some laughter)

AH: It's the one about being washed-- the meaning-- the meaning of-- of positing another world is washed away.

RC: Yeah, outside the known world.

AH: Yeah, would you do that one again?

RC (simultaneously): Yeah, that's the one before.

PB [V13, 21:2.174, RC reading]: "We cannot [RC reads: can't] possibly separate the world from the mind that knows it. The two are always related. To object [RC reads: The objection] that such a relation need not exist outside the act of knowing the world, even though it must exist inside it, is to utter words which [RC reads: that] dissolve away as soon as their meaning is analysed."

AH: But could you read that sentence again please, I missed it.

PB [V13, 21:2.174, RC reading]: "To object [RC reads: The objection] that such a relation…"

AH: Which relation?

RC: Between the world and the mind that knows it.

AD: And the world known outside of that, the inferred world. When you analyze that-- when you analyze a statement that there's an inferred world beyond the world that you know, it gets dissolved, it's utterly meaningless. That's all he's saying.

AH: (No/Well) that's the point I was--

AD (simultaneously): Try to deal with an unknown world, alright, and you talk nonsense. You can only deal with a known world. If I say this tree, this pole, alright, everything that I know about the pole, its weight, its height, physical properties, all these, everything that I know about the pole is an idea. To infer that there exists something above and beyond this is meaningless, is simply washed away, it gets dissolved when you analyze the statement.

S (faint): Let's not fight.

AD: That's all.

AH: That was the point I was trying to make.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, that's all.

RG: No, but I don't think that is-- but, you wouldn't also say-- the point of that kind of analysis is to emphasize that there has to be a knower for everything known, right? That everything is known.

AD: Yeah.

RG: But it's not to say that there isn't a world of idealities that isn't known to a knower that we're not [VM simultaneously: Individual knower.] normally acquainted with.

S (faint): Right.

LR: In fact--

AD: I don't know what you're referring to.

RG (simultaneously): In fact I thought that was the--

AD: I don't know what you're talking about.

LR: The point-- it seemed like the--

RG (simultaneously): In other-- the point of view that, let's say, essences can be known--

AD: No, no, no, no, use his language.

RG: Ok. That by replace it-- in Kant's language-- [TS: Karmic forces.] in Kant's language there is an unknown world.

AD: No, there's a thing unknown-in-itself.

RG: Right. Therefore it's unknown. And there-- but it can never be known.

AD: Yeah, and the remark he made here was this is false.

RG: Right.

AD: Unless by this he means the--

VM (simultaneously): Karmic forces.

RG: Karmic forces.

AD (simultaneously): --int-- the relativity, universal relativity which governs the production of such entities. And Kant meant nothing like that.

RG: Right. But implicit in that-- in PB's description also is that there is a knower of those levels of relativity along with them, right? Or that they are themselves knowers.

AD (simultaneously): No, no.

RG: No?

AD: Not that I know.

RG: Then how could you speak of it?

AD: For Kant the [student assents] object was the com-- was the result of the conjunction of the productive imagination and the categories of thought.

RG: Right.

AD (simultaneously): This was the-- this was what brought the object into being.

RG: Yes.

AD: Alright? And then, and then he hesitated and said there may be a thing-in-itself [RG and another student assent] beyond this.

RG: Right.

AD: Alright. Now, PB is making the remark: that's nonsense. Unless he means that the-- the categories of thought and the productive imagination, alright, are through karmic influences brought to operate in a certain way to produce a certain object, if this is what he means by the thing-in-itself, then that's acceptable. But, he certainly never meant anything like that.

RG: Right, I agree with you. Is the thing-in-it-- is the karmic forces thought of in this way known or unknown?

AD: I don't see what you're getting at.

LR: Well--

RG (simultaneously): I'm just getting at that we've already established that anything, any principle, any factor except mind-in-itself has to have a-- has to be known. Otherwise we're not being mentalists. In other words, for any object there must be a knower. Right?

LR/S(?) (simultaneously): PB says in this quote--

RG: Wait. Could I just finish my piece?

LR/S(?): Fine, just [one word inaudible]

RG: And I just want to say, Anthony is that true or not? Maybe I'm misunderstanding (you).

AD: I don't understand you yet.

RG: You don't understand the simple phrase that for every object known-- for every object there has to be a knower of it?

AD: Yeah.

RG: Yeah-- is that alright?

AD: Yeah.

RG: Ok. So in that sense to posit the karmic seed-- the karmic forces as the object-in-itself requires a corollary subjective knower of those karmic forces. Otherwise we have another thing-in-itself called karmic forces that are never known.

AD: Well what would be the karmic forces he's referring to?

RG: The Ideas in the World-Mind.

AD: Yeah.

[student assents, very faint]

RG: Right.

AD: Go on, yeah.

RG: Is that-- I mean I'm just-- that's all, I mean--

LR: And they're known by the World-Mind.

RG (simultaneously): They're known by the World-Mind.

AD: Yeah but what's this got to do with Kant's remark?

LR: No, he's asking you if--

S (faint): (No.)

TS (simultaneously): PB talks about him, where's--

LR (faint): That's ok, Anthony. (some laughter)

AD: Well that's all I'm thinking about is the quote.

RG: So was I.

AD: But what does this got to do with Kant? Kant-- Kant denied all metaphysics to begin with, why-- why you bringing in--

RG: I didn't bring [RC simultaneously: Well, PB says--] up Kant, PB did.

AD: No, I mean the remark there.

RG: Ok.

PB [V13, 21:4.215, TS reading]: "…when he declared that there was an unknown world of things-in-themselves beyond it--unless we give that [TS reads: the] name to the karmic forces which became transferred into the known world."

TS: It's-- it's that passage in the quote that Richard is referring to. I'll read the whole quote.

[student assents, very faint]

AD: No, no, there's no need.

LR: He doesn't want to hear it again.

TS: Ok.

S: (Uh-uh.)

S (very faint): Ok.

AH: Is the issue this, that because-- because there can be no other world besides a known one, when we posit something outside of the world, that-- like karmic forces, it seems to be contradicting the original premise. Because if we're going to posit them, we're going to have to posit a knower for them. And I don't think it's necessary to posit a knower.

RG: Why not?

AH: (Where/When) you talk about universal relativity, the whole notion of a knower dissolve--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 0126b (formerly 1983 0209b, 1983 0420b) Ends; Side 2 begins)

THE WORLD AS MENTAL

PB [V13, 21:2.108 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #48, RC reading]: "[It is absurd even to suggest that there is an external world wholly outside of one's consciousness and wholly independent of it. One knows only certain changes of mental awareness, never of externals. The mind can only know its changes of individual consciousness. All its observations, each of its inferences, everything it knows--these lie enclosed within that consciousness and are] never beyond it.

"One's knowledge of anything whatsoever is simply one's thought of it. [RC adds: But] This is not to be confused with one's right thought of it. It is a conscious mental state, and even other persons are but appearances within this state, creatures in the cosmic dream. To follow this line of reflection to its inevitable end demands courage and candour of the highest kind, for it demands as ultimate conclusion the principle that knowledge being but ideas in the mind, the whole universe is nothing but an immense idea within one's [own] mind. For the very nature of knowledge is thus internal, and hence the individual mind cannot know any reality external to itself. It believes that it observes a world without when it only [RC reads: only when it] observes its own mental pictures of that world."

RC: Well the thing that I thought was important here was that he does bring in one's knowledge of a thing is not to be confused-- one's knowledge of anything is simply one's thought of it. But that's not to be confused with one's right thought of it.

[students assent, very faint]

PC: Would you please reread just the last few sentences?

AH: That would be-- that would be the distinction between right thought and fanciful thought that we talked about earlier tonight.

RC (simultaneously): Yeah. Yeah we experience two different kinds of ideas, both mentally.

AH: But in the second case it's a individual thought, fanciful thought. It's thought of individual mind. And in the first case right thought would be the World-Mind's thought.

S (faint): Right.

RC: I would think-- I would think that distinction is here, yes. That it isn't external, it is internal. But [AH assents] just because it's internal doesn't mean that the thought that you have about it is actually adequate to what stimulates that thought.

AH: Well then I would ask the question again, from the point of view of individual mind or individual thought, fanciful thought, incorrect thought, how are we to posit the existence of a world or an idea apart from the one that we're stuck with? I don't-- I just don't understand that.

VM: Yeah but look, we're struggling or-- with this notion of individual versus cosmic mentalism. And I think PB has made a few references in there that if you don't allow for some principle which is let's say inclusive of and larger than, just in some sense of the word, the individual mind, then for example one possibility is you can not be held to your own karmic retribution. And, I don't remember exact quotes tonight but, you know, certainly we've studied in the past, if you stick just in individual mentalism then you'd have a difficult time understanding the reality of the other person, why it is we share a similar world and so on. So then this forces you to some kind of effort at coming to grips with a principle which provides the content for the individual mind to unfold.

AH: Yes. And I-- I guess I'm really stuck with the notion that we started with tonight, that all of this takes place within the logical facility of individual mind.

VM: All of which takes places, the discussion?

RC (simultaneously): Discussion.

AH: The whole discussion.

VM: Ok, yes. Yes.

RG (simultaneously): Doesn't mean that reason cannot know things that are not individual.

AH: It-- yes it does mean that, sure.

RG (simultaneously): No it doesn't. If you mean that then you don't-- then you mean we're all-- you're-- we're-- there is no reason. You've de-- you've denied the definition of reason if you mean that.

AH: No I would equate reason, as you're-- I think you're using it Dickie, as intuition in the way we've talked about it tonight. I certainly wouldn't equate reason with logical thought.

RG (simultaneously): Philosophy is not possible according to your view now because all you can know are the constructs of your own imagination.

AH: Well I guess that's a pretty accurate expression of my view [one/two words inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): Ok.

AS: But I have a good quote on that. I mean, [AH/S(?) simultaneously: Yeah.] maybe it's in a way that-- [AD simultaneously, faint: (Go ahead.)] I mean that-- maybe it's not relevant [AD simultaneously: Go ahead (one word inaudible) try.] either but, it's a nice quote anyhow, (some laughter) since-- since you mentioned that point.

S (faint): That's right.

VM(?) (simultaneously): Let's--

THE VALUE OF INTENSE THINKING ABOUT THE ABSOLUTE

AS: He says--

PB [V16, 28:2.99 and Perspectives, Chapter 28: The Alone, #2, AS reading]: "The topic with which all such metaphysical thinking should end after it has pondered on mentalism is that out of which the thinking principle itself arises--Mind--and [it] should be considered under its aspect as the one reality. When this intellectual understanding is brought within one's own experience as fact, when it is made as much one's own as [a] bodily pain, then it becomes [AS reads: it could become] direct insight. Such thinking is the most profitable [AS adds: and useful] and resultful in which he can engage, for it brings the student to the very portal of Mind where it stops activity by itself and where the differentiation of ideas disappears. As the mental muscles strain after this concept of the Absolute, the Ineffable and Infinite, they lose their materialist [AS reads: materialistic] rigidity and become more sensitive to [AS adds: the] intimations from the Overself. When thinking is able to reach such [a] profound depth that it attains utter impersonality and calm universality, it is able to approach the fundamental principle of its own being. When hard thinking reaches a culminating point, it then voluntarily destroys itself. Such an attainment of course can take place deep within the innermost recesses of the individual's consciousness alone."

AD (very quietly): He uses the word 'destroys'? Really?

AS: I might have copied it wrong. He says--

PB [V16, 28:2.99 and Perspectives, Chapter 28: The Alone, #2, AS reading]: "When hard thinking reaches a culminating point, it then voluntarily destroys itself."

S: (Hm/Yeah).

S: Self-destruct?

AS: I have the qu-- I have the reference quotes here.

AD: [couple/three words inaudible] think it's destroys or surrenders. Surrenders itself [couple words inaudible] [students assent] It's-- that's a good note to ed on-- end on. We'll begin the fun next week, ok? We'll re-- reread these two quotes and that last one and this one.

[students getting up to leave, shuffling about, background student and AD talking, laughter]

[Audio File 1983 0126b (formerly 1983 0209b, 1983 0420b) Ends]

Anthony Damiani Archive

Class

Wednesday, January 26th, 1983